Ok, so you guys are getting pretty good at pulling up the important stories all by yourself, and almost in real time. On the downside this makes Links aggregation pretty stale. But on the upside, that talent of yours is going to come in handy over the next couple of weeks as I take time off for holidays.
I keep suggesting that the dozens of moves that Billy Eppler has been making are slowing raising the carcass of the LAA farm system off the ocean floor, up from the abyss (hmmm...I just inspired myself to watch that movie again). At some point things finally break away from the muck and begin the drift towards fresh air. Could the decision of Torii Hunter Jr. be that tipping point, once he gets into our system and proves himself to be a real talent? I have to think he was drafted down in round 23 more because of his football interests and personal troubles than it had to do with his athleticism. We shall see.
Until then, Holiday Links:
A Little Bit of Angels News
A sure sign that Notre Dame football has a crapy outlook for 2017 is when one of their key players knows enough to walk away from his college gig for a job that pays $4.26 per inning. And that is precisely what Torii Hunter, Jr. is doing,choosing to forego his final season of getting knocked batshit crazy by cheapshot artists and join the Halos' farm system. For the record, this was a case of Ric Wilson taking a flyer on a kid who had some baggage........... So much for being a Notre Dame Insider............
A couple of seasons ago, when Jerry Dipoto's "plan a" fell through and he had to switch strategies with what was left on the market, his goal was to try and win games by the score of 9-8. He knew he didn't have the pitching, so he loaded up on obscenely Big Names. This year, watching Billy Eppler work it, the strategies look to be more like creating a defensive bulwark. FanGraphs notices all the defensive upgrades up the middle...........
Have some Trout porn. A 2016 highlight video.............
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Everywhere In Baseball
Jeffrey Loria has a very high opinion of himself, He wants to sell (yeah!), and his asking price is $1.7 BILLION. With a "B". Too bad the only kind of people who can afford to buy a baseball team are the same kind of people who know how to read a balance sheet and know how to do financial investment research. It's pretty easy to open up Forbes and see a valuation of only $675 million...........
Jeff Passan posts his HoF ballot. Pretty damned good, if you ask me. But the real fun comes in reading the comments. It's sad that we still have so much fan passion in defense of "Saves". Folks, we really have a lot of work yet to do. (That said, I did vote for Trevor Hoffman. Forget Saves. His career even without that was pretty damned strong and pretty damned long, and I recall how fearful it was to opponents when he came into a game.).........
It's just my opinion, but most of the bitching over player contracts, and how they are bad one way or the other, is because they are almost never put together to reward current value. The Pujols contract is considered an albatross because there is no way that he will produce on the field at some rate that creates value close to that payout. Conversely, the Jose Altuve contract looks like an albatross because it comes nowhere near the value that Altuve is producing on the field. Well, complainers need to get a job working for the players' union and convince everybody to accept a new CBA which allows for rate pay. Until then, just accept the natural fact that there will be contract outliers that are grossly misaligned between payout and production............
I dunno. Betting on Andrew McCutcheon because his final two months of 2016 was a .284 BA, is kind of like hunting for buried treasure because grandma found a map in an old mayonnaise jar............
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Trade Winds
It feels like that Holiday shopping moment when all the big purchases are made, and you have to scramble around Walgreens finding those somethings to solve the forgotten gift ideas, or make sure you don't show up to the party empty-handed. So look at all these inexpensive cash register transactions: the Brewers sign Tommy Milone to a one-year deal. Ka-ching! .....The Orioles snagged Welington Castillo (just dumped by the DBacks in favor of Jeff Mathis) to a one-year deal with a one-year team option. Ka-ching!...........The Phillies re-sign Andres Blanco to a one-year deal. Ka-ching!...........Back to the Orioles? Minor League deals for 4 guys. Ka-ching! Ka-ching! Ka-ching! Ka-ching!............Marlins sign Junichi Tazawa to two-year deal. Ka-ching!............And then one team finds that odd bottle of tequila left on the top shelf behind some cheap brandy, but it has a faintly familiar name and logo and the price is $19 million. So it must be good. Buy that bottle of Mike Dunn, Colorado, and pay that $19 million over three years............
The Duffle Bag
Vladdy chillin' in retirement..........Probably the only job that comes close to being as impossible to get as being a pro sports athlete, is being a pro sports employee. Talk about over-supply and under-demand...........And, to the point, as with any employer who has but a few job openings against thousands of candidates across a wide range of qualifications, the jobs ain't gonna pay shit. And that has nothing to do with diversity...........I have scoured everywhere, and cannot find an update on Rod Carew getting a new heart AND new kidneys yesterday. Prayers, though............Some guys with names that will definitely ring a bell are still out there somewhere trying to hang on to their careers. But, hey, maybe it's called just getting paid to do what you love? How can you complain about that?...........Little kids are fanatics, too! They just have their own set of advanced metrics............I wonder if Joe Buck expects some kind of farewell tour?.................
Halo-Oppo-ly
My 2016-2017 Winter Project: Monopoly for the Rest of Us. You, too, get to try your hand as Arte Moreno-bags. We begin with the properties.
This week we finish off the gold properties and do the railroads. We convert the railroads into "stadium grounds crew" (ground screw?). If you want a winning strategy, you want to own all for of the crew services. Because, after all, what would a game experience be without 'em?