Let’s see. What is the most intriguing story from yesterday?
Is it Houston destroying Cleveland? Nah, the Astros didn’t even break a sweat. Sure the Indians are gone and their window is closing fast. That’s important......Also closing fast, would be the use in Cleveland of Chief Wahoo. But that doesn’t mean that on the way out the franchise wouldn’t muck it up anyway. That’s important, too.
Maybe it’s the Dodgers rolling the Braves, not because the Dodgers won, but because we learned that Atlanta is rising and the Dodgers will have a new threat going forward. That’s important.
Or maybe it’s Aaron Boone boneheading his managerial duties in a pressure-packed playoff game against the Red Sox? That’s bad stuff, and it cost the Yankees dearly. But that’s not as intriguing as THE MOTHER FRIKKIN’ YANKEES GETTING SMOKED 16 TO 1 IN A PLAYOFF GAME!. I’d certainly think THAT is the one we should go with. It’s better than Brock Holt becoming the first player in history to hit for a cycle in the post-season. It’s even better than asshat Angel Hernandez getting embarrassed on word-wide TV by having three of his mistakes pointed out and overturned in one single game. (The same Hernandez who is still suing MLB for discrimination for not using him in the post-season.) Yeah. I should go with the historic 15 run beat down in front of everyone. It would be perfect, if only the team scoring those 16 runs and handing out that beat down were not the Red Sox.
Oh, well, you can’t have everything. Just ask MSM Yankee fan-boys who are were drooling for the MFY in the World Series.
Enjoy some Can-We-Punch-The-Yankees-Ticket-Today-HaloLinks:
A Little Bit Of Mike Trout News
Subscription required, but old-school MSM writer Tracy Ringolsby is shocked that MLB isn’t making old-school hero Mike Trout the Face Of Baseball...........
A Little Bit Of Angels News
Jeff Fletcher digging through the archives of HH for ideas..........And so is Tim Brown..........
But I can’t fault them too much, since Anaheim has gone dark right now...........
Everywhere In Baseball
Every year there is one guy who go hog wild and plays out of his mind. And his team rides that guy to glory. Right now, it’s Marvin Who-The-Hell-Is-This-Guy Gonzales of the Astros. Seriously, the guy’s slash line right now is .538/.571/.692 with an OPS of 1.264. The two guys doing better, Aaron Judge and Aex Bregman, we have heard of.........
Fan polling as for how the playoffs would end up seem to over-rate the Indians, and under-rate the Dodgers. Since the Dodgers get far more pub than the Indians, we can’t blame the media bias...........
Yikes! I already linked to the SportsIllustrated story that dived into the Federal Grand Jury investigation of MLB international shenanigans. Sheryl Ring at FanGraphs, a lawyer, goes deeper. And there is a special emphasis on probable smack-downs of the Dodgers. But way down there at the last paragraph is the bone-chiller: “...it also means that MLB was probably not approached about cooperating, which may also indicate that MLB’s own front office is under investigation.” Wouldn’t that be something? The MLB Front Office itself gets spanked!..........
Yeah. Watch for cause and effect here. The StatCast co-broadcast was considered successful, and well-received. Sure, it included a lot of stats not normally seen on the regular broadcasts. And that was a great thing for stat-fans. But maybe the greater reason for the positive reception is not the stats, but this: “As much as I enjoy advanced stats, I would have seen the Statcast broadcast as a success even if it did not include any of them, simply because of what the broadcast chose not to do. It did not succeed just because it was smart and the broadcasters were clearly having fun, but because it chose not to be dumb and cranky.” Author Luis Torres is looking at you, Tim McCarver..........
Josh Donaldson got a base hit yesterday. In his last at-bat, in the last inning, of the last Cleveland game of the season. His team already down 11-2 and minutes from packing it up for winter. Not so much an X-Factor, after all...........
More MLB coaching vacancies to be field, and more MLB coaches on the market...........
Jay Jaffe, saber wizard, knows that we are in short series baseball, where crapshoots outweigh analysis. But he can’t help but joust at them windmills anyway..........
This is why we suffer so much Yankees - Red Sox in prime time. Because we are outnumbered by the pink hat brigade..........
The Hardball Times photo essay of historical beisbol in Mexico keeps giving us great gifts............
The Duffle Bag
The Braves may be gone, but the spirit of their organist lives on...........The Brewers get religion. Or is it religion finally getting the Brewers?..........Pay me money to chat with me on my app because I am a celebrity journalist, unless my favorite team loses. Because journalists are not supposed to play favorites..........We have an animal free Word Series, insured............Does this count as using a player using a cellphone during a game?............