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Today's links were captured, subdued, and eventually stuffed and mounted while I pondered the futility of it all ...

• Is Chad Qualls (of all people) an elite closer? Perhaps not. But as Eric Seidman writes, most of the leading indicators are positive.

• Why have the Rangers placed Vicente Padilla on waivers? Randy Galloway's got the skinny. (And for what it's worth, Padilla seems to be taking the news well and wants to stay.)

• What a week for the Braves. They trade for Nate McLouth, they release Tom Glavine, and tomorrow Tommy Hanson debuts with the big club. Baseball Intellect previews Hanson (with a little video assist).

• Example No. 937, Why the Web is Awesome: Beyond the Box Score's graphs of DL data. I don't know what it all means, but it sure is cool.

• Which reminds me, Gear Up for Sports is right: As much as it might hurt, the Braves had to release Tom Glavine. Granted, one wonders why they signed him in the first place. Also granted, they probably could have handled this affair better (which might of course be said about everything we humans do). But if the Braves had kept him, where would he have fit?

The Braves have three good starters, plus Kenshin Kawakami (who's not bad, and was signed last winter for $23 million). That leaves one slot in the rotation ... and can you blame the Braves for believing that Hanson deserves that slot more than Glavine? With the exception of 11 Class-A starts two years ago, Hanson's been lights-out from Day 1 as a pro. Glavine might be good enough to pitch for some teams. Just not this one. Not right now.

• More on Jorge Posada's Hall of Fame qualifications -- as opposed to chances, which (as I think some of my friends are forgetting) is a completely different thing -- this time from Jay Jaffe (and I'm sorry, Jay, but I don't believe that Ray Schalk and Rick Ferrell are remotely germane to the discussion).

• And finally, I can't believe nobody showed me this until yesterday. As funny as baseball gets.