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Eppler wraps up his first week in command at the GM meetings pretty much as expected. Lots of swapping of business cards and lots of "call me" winks at other GM's. But little else. Eppler has quite a task at hand to build up the roster to support Mike Trout. It's not gonna be easy and it's not gonna be quick.
So here, have some not-much-going-on-links:
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Angels Baseball
Aybar: Yeah, Erick Aybar is a free agent after next season. But what with Roberto Boldoquin with his existing major financial commitment hopefully coming up just behind in the pipeline, and huge holes of major need that require immediate attention before 2016 starts, any chat about Erick Aybar can wait. It's only November............
Weaver: Jered Weaver is at a crossroads. We know it. The experts know it. Certainly Weaver knows it. The question for 2016 is, what is he going to do about it?...........
Futures: The Sports Quotient looks into the LAA farm system to seek top prospects, and skips right by Sean Newcomb to tag Chris Ellis as the guy to keep an eye on..........
Gimme Gimme: Oh sure. The Halos are relatively rich in pitching. The Red Sox are not. So the Boston perspective is that the Angels have little choice but to trade some of that pitching to the Red Sox. Because Boston..........
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Elsewhere in Baseball
Still Joshin': The Ham-bone is still disconnected from the knee-bone. Josh just underwnet yet ANOTHER surgery. He keeps hurting himself by doing dumb things on the field. This time, one of his crashing into walls episodes...........
Money Talk: Yeah, you know all those lucrative TV deals that owners have been cashing in? Well, the next CBA is coming up, and Scott Boras is going to want the player to have a bigger bite of those for themselves...............
Lou Brock: Brock, a man born of speed in his time, is now recovering from an amputation of his lower left leg. With modern prosthetic technology, I doubt this will even end up having slowed him down.............
Easy Come, Easy Go: Well, this could be fast. The New York State Attorney General has declared that FanDuel and Draftkings are gambling, and those two companies are not allowed to take entries from residents of New York State. That's a huge population hit and not many of them will go through the hoops of obscuring their true points of origin. Nobody cared when it was the population of Nevada. But New York? And the precedent that a New York may be setting for other States?...........
Americana: Cola Wars are fun (to me, at least, and I am the one staying up late typing these things so you are forced to follow where I drive this jalopy). As Pepsi pulls out of Citi Field right when the Mets get good, I have one question. What the hell is gonna happen to that humongous Pepsi Cola sign???............
Point-Counterpoint: On the point side, Will Leitch is out there warning owners not to sign big-assed free agent contracts. Among his evidence of bad contracts are (duh) Albert Pujols, (?) C.J. Wilson and (?!?) Jered Weaver. On the counterpoint side, Dave Cameron tells us to think a little more deeply, and a little more clearly, about this. And Cameron uses Weaver to explain the point about AAV. As you can tell, I'm with Cameron on this..........
Tommy Hanson: We knew this was coming, didn't we? Hanson's death is being investigated, with a possible cause of death being an overdose (I am assuming cocaine here, based on other reporting). That's really the most likely profile for a young man with an otherwise athletic body to suddenly succumb to massive internal organ failure. We ain't talking bee stings here. But there is an important lesson to be considered here. #thecesspooltoldyouso...........
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And now, being the full-service weekend linkage institution that we are, here is the obligatory moment we take out of each Thursday...for beer...
Friday: San Diego Beer Week runs through this entire weekend. Lots of activities. See full schedule here..........Sour Beer Tasting event at Pacific Park Market in Aliso Viejo..........
Saturday: San Diego Beer Week runs through this entire weekend. Lots of activities. See full schedule here..........Bakersfield Bacon & Craft Beer Festival at Stramler Park in Bakersfield..........Bacon & Beer Classic at Municipal Stadium in San Jose..........Balboa Craft Beer Festival at Balboa Village in Newport Beach..........Rock & Brews Festival at Rock & Brews, El Segundo..........
Sunday: San Diego Beer Week concludes. Lots of activities. See full schedule here..........
Stay safe, everyone!
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