On Saturday night, the Florida Marlins decided that Logan Morrison needed to spend a little more time in the minors, so they optioned their starting left fielder back to Triple-A. According to Morrison, he was so angry with the decision he left the room before the explanation got further than “you’re hitting .249,” which is understandable given that Morrison has been the Marlins second or third best hitter by any decent metric you want to use. Clearly, a low batting average wasn’t the only reason the Marlins decided to ship “LoMo” back to the minors.

It doesn’t take a lot of reading between the lines to piece together a decent idea of what happened here. GM Larry Beinfest told MLB.com that Morrison needed to “work on all aspects of being a Major Leaguer,” but that’s just vague enough to be a catch-all for production on the field and all the off field stuff that comes with life in the big leagues. As Joe Capozzi notes, Morrison skipped out on a photo session with season ticket holders on Saturday after reportedly being told by Wes Helms – the team’s union representative – that he didn’t have to participate. A few hours later, Morrison is optioned out and Helms is released. You do the math.

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I probably won’t make this a regular thing, but so many of you have been so remarkably supportive since I was diagnosed with leukemia that I didn’t want to keep you all out of the loop as we moved down the path. I’ve now been in the hospital a little over two weeks, and have completed my first round of chemotherapy.

To determine how effective the chemo was, they performed a bone marrow biopsy on me earlier in the week. The results of that test are in – I officially have no more leukemia in my body. The doctors won’t say I’m in remission until they discharge me from the hospital in a week or two, but given that I’m currently cancer-free, I’m happy to use that term, even if it is technically a little premature.

This doesn’t end my journey, as I’m still going to be in for three more rounds of “consolidation chemo” over the next few months, and will be in and out of the hospital for most of the rest of 2011. Remission isn’t the same thing as cured – the goal is to keep this thing from ever coming back. However, it’s a great first step.

And, because we’re FanGraphs (and with a huge hat tip to Mr. Cistulli), here’s the WPA chart.

Yesterday on Twitter, Buster Olney had some thoughts on WAR, and specifically, the way it values middle-of-the-diamond players compared to first basemen. A few selections from his comments:

#1: “Love advanced metrics,but anybody find something a little skewed to 2B/SS/CF? Ben Zobrist No. 6 overall, ahead of all first basemen, McCann?”

#2: “Zobrist, Victorino, Howie Kendrick and Yunel Escobar all ahead of Prince Fielder in WAR. You do wonder if positional adjustments too steep.”

#3: “If you asked 30 GMs who they would pay the most among these players–Victorino, Yunel, Kendrick, Fielder–off ’11 stats,30 would say Fielder.”

There were a few others sprinkled in there as well, but you get the general point. The common wisdom in baseball has been that run producers are the most valuable players in the game, and since WAR does not line up with that assessment, Buster is questioning whether WAR is wrong.

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With the trade deadline in the rear view mirror and a million baseball journalists needing something to talk about, the AL MVP discussion has been pushed front and center this week. It doesn’t hurt that there are about 14 Red Sox players in consideration for the award, either – the Boston media is notoriously loud, and interesting news stories about their team often tend to filter down to the national level.

In some ways, the current field of candidates is crowded; there are legitimately a lot of guys having seasons that can justify MVP votes in a normal season. In other ways, though, the various candidates are segregated into bins of candidate types that are not all that alike, and make it fairly easy for most people to pick a favorite based on their own perspective of what the MVP is.

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Two years ago, the top two picks in the June draft were pretty obvious – Stephen Strasburg was going to go #1 and Dustin Ackley was going to go #2. Strasburg was the best pitching prospect in the draft’s history, while Ackley had comfortably settled in as the low-risk college position player option. Because of the enormous difference in perceived potential, there was no real question that the Nationals would take Strasburg #1, even with the greater chance of risk associated with drafting a pitcher. I made the case for Ackley at the time, but even I admitted that, given the #1 pick, I’d take Strasburg too.

Now, though, a lot has changed. Strasburg had a remarkable ascent and debut in the big leagues, but then also had to go under the knife and has spent the last year rehabbing from Tommy John surgery. Ackley, meanwhile, had some pedestrian numbers in the minor leagues, took longer to get to the show, but has made a pretty nifty little splash since he got there.

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Here on FanGraphs, we talk a lot about probability and likely outcomes. When making a decision, we think it’s generally wise to understand historical precedent, and to learn from history rather than repeat it.

But, there are times in life that you’re not making a decision, and knowledge of the probability of outcomes just doesn’t help at all. You are just rooting for one specific result, even if you don’t have any control over whether it occurs or not.

I’m now in one of those situations. Last week, I was informed that I have Acute Myeloid Leukemia, a particularly nasty member of the cancer family. History has given my doctors all kinds of data about cure rates and life expectancy, and statistical analysis is helping them decide just what kind of chemotherapy I’ll be taking in a few hours, which I’m really thankful for.

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