First Halolinks o' the New Year:

• Baseball Prospectus has a pretty cool salary tool and apparently it's powered by Cot's Contracts. Most of BP's stuff is behind a pay-wall, but this: Compensation - Baseball Prospectus is free...and worth checking out.
• Another free article from BP looks at some recent Pujols and Reyes contracts: Bizball: Behavioral Spending: Inside the Back-Loaded Pujols and Reyes Contracts. "The Pujols deal, in my mind, actually makes more sense. Before you bash me summarily about the head and shoulders, it makes sense from a long-term dollars perspective. Adding arguably the best player in the game today, Arte Moreno may be able to garner hundreds of millions more out of the television deal. Even if Pujols is a shell of his former self in say, five years, having Pujols as a chip to bargain with as part of the TV deal absorbs that loss." It's somewhat easy to calculate the value Pujols will bring the Angels on the field, but there's so much more to having the best hitter of this generation on your team. This "extra value" is often overlooked when some are only looking at the impact to the batting order.
• Oh, and look who's writing for Baseball Prospectus (this one you have to pay for): Pebble Hunting: The Three We Missed - Baseball Prospectus.
• If you need some extra cash to pay for your subscription, there's this: Bugs & Cranks " Write for Bugs&Cranks; make millions*. "You gotta commit to at least a couple posts a week. It’s not as hard as it sounds." Yeah it is. Okay, maybe not, but they are looking for someone to cover the Angels.

• Angels prospect Hank Conger aiming for Major League job - angels.com. "Asked about that during the Winter Meetings in early December, manager Mike Scioscia said, "Hank's future is going to be based on Hank's performance." He doesn't mention if that performance is on-field or the Mathis off-field variety.
  
• This post may be a bit premature considering the off-season still has a couple months left: The 6 Most Surprising Trades Of The Offseason - MLBTradeRumors.com. "6. Angels acquire Chris Iannetta from Rockies for Tyler Chatwood." WOW!
  
• Next week’s Cooperstown election results today - The Hardball Times. "In four years that amounts to 63 predictions. 50 of them have been within five percentage points of the actual vote, including 22 within one percentage point of the BBWAA result. The average margin of error has been 3.4 percentage points." Pretty impressive prognostication posting.
  
• Yes please maybe: AL East offers early intrigue - BostonHerald.com. "Provided Morales is healthy, either he or Trumbo could fill a massive hole for the Rays at first base, where Casey Kotchman played well last year, but provided almost no power. With young right-handers Wade Davis and Jeff Niemann to dangle, the Rays have the players to get a deal done." Trumbo-yes, Morales-not so much.
  
• Ryan Braun's 50-game suspension unlikely to be overturned - Sporting News. "An MLB official told the newspaper Braun can win the appeal only two ways: Prove there was a lab error or establish the Brewers approved of the treatment in advance. The first is a non-starter, the official said, because the system is designed to catch lab errors. Urine samples are divided into two samples. Once a sample tests positive, the second sample is subjected to a more rigourous testing regimen to assure the first result was valid. And the official told the Journal Sentinel the Brewers did not sign off on whatever substance Braun tested positive for." Oops.
  
• Change in Individual Hitter Metrics: An Interactive Tool - Beyond the Box Score. "Sometimes you just want a quick way to identify players that took big steps forward or backwards from year to year." I often wake up in the middle of the night with my mind racing with thoughts of, "I wonder who took the biggest step back last season?" Thank you BtB! Thank you.
  
• Making Sense of the Quentin Acquisition - FanGraphs Baseball. "The Padres acquired Carlos Quentin over the weekend by sending prospects Simon Castro and Pedro Hernandez to the can-anyone-tell-if-they-are-actually-rebuilding White Sox." Matt Thornton. Go get him.
• Yep, It Looks Like A Wisconsin Assistant Coach Ate A Booger At The Rose Bowl
  Wisconsin!