The Times reports on the number of baseball players who seem to have mysteriously lost weight over the winter.

This minitrend has been labeled the Pedroia Effect by Greg Lalas, retired soccer player and writer for Goal.com. He was referring to the 5-foot-9-inch, 180-pound second baseman with the Red Sox who hit .326 with 17 home runs last year and was named most valuable player in his league.

I for one wouldn’t mind seeing a deemphasis on the home run in baseball—to me, it’s massively overrated. I much prefer to see men leading off first and second, the pitcher checking the bases warily, all the strategy implicit in the situation, than some musclehead providing three seconds of excitement with a home run.