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Today's links are presented purely for the purposes of entertainment; please, no wagering ...

• Why did the Royals send Alex Gordon to Triple-A? No, he hasn't played well since coming off the DL. But Rany Jazayerli wonders if the timing isn't a bit odd; if perhaps Gordon was sent down in order to delay his free agency by one year.

That seems to me way too smart for the Royals, particularly in light of this unbelievable thing that Rany noticed: the Royals, the very worst team in the American League, have not had a single player on the roster this season who's made his major league debut. Because, you know, the veterans are doing such a bang-up job.

• Forget the draft. The Twins have opened up the talent pipeline from Germany.

• With John Smoltz (by most accounts) about to sign with yet another club, Beyond the Box Score kicks the tires and finds that Smoltz's fastball is a little flat.

• Pat Venditte just keeps getting people out. I know he's not a real prospect or anything, but I sure hope the Yankees move him quickly if he does this well in Double-A next spring.

• As someone else observed, this is really scary. When you think about it, it's sort of amazing that nobody's been killed on the diamond since 1920.

• Did you see this? At the conclusion of Tuesday night's game, every Angel in the lineup was batting .300 or better. All nine of them. And not a scrub among 'em. With 241 plate appearances, Vladimir Guerrero was the least-worked in the lineup.

Meanwhile, the Angels lead the American League in batting average (by a lot) and (more importantly) scoring. It's been mentioned in this space before, but what the Angels are doing this season is truly and stupendously shocking.

• Are you tired of reading about Brian Bannister yet? I'm not, and Tim Marchman explains why Bannister should be your favorite player.

• MGL gives us a little lesson -- as only he can -- in the measurement error of fielding metrics over the course of just a few months. And it's a lesson that I seem to forget too often.

• Speaking of lessons, here's another one worth revisiting ... As Joe Posnanski reminds us, today's hitters get plunked a lot more often than in the old days when everybody was so tough.

• Dayne Perry writes a devastating critique of the Mark Teixeira-for-MVP arguments ... and that was before Joe Mauer hit two more home runs Tuesday night.

• Every so often, we get to read another story about baseball mud.