MondoLinks: Rookie of the Year Day

Award Week. Only a slight head-turner ala 2012(!), or 2013(!!), could bring one of the awards to Anaheim. But there IS a special award from the guy who keeps coming in 2nd place for MVP to random other guys who have their career year and go away later. It caled the Hall of Fame.

Have some Award Weiner Links:

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Angels Baseball

Erick Aybar: On the other side of that coin that brings us a phenomenal Andrelton Simmons, there is the departure of long-time home-grown product Erick Aybar. Face up to it: we had a lot of fun with the Admiral and we will miss him. For his part, Aybar says goodbye...........

Roberto Baldoquin: The clock has been turned off on Baldo, most likely to the delight of every decision-maker in Anaheim. Since his fared so poorly in his initial season outside of his native Cuba, the notion that he would be ready to inherit shortstop in 2017 after Aybar would have departed (refer to the link above, where we are reminded that Aybar was never going to give Arte another hometown discount as he did on his current contract). ...........

Aftershocks: With the Angels winning Week 1 of the offseason, and no other Big Splash to take over the hot stove hash house (Kimbrel happened, but not as loudly), we are still getting a lot of post-mortem on The Trade. Here is a recent such collection..........Sports Illustrated dives in deep...........And compare those reviews to the mixed bag coming out of the Kimbrel trade...........

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Elsewhere in Baseball

Zoning In: More fun with that three-dimensional thingy known as the actual baseball strike zone, and how the construciton of that area impacts balls and strikes. So, you are a robot advocate. What version of the zone are you programming into your bots??............

Rare: Every now and then we will see some slow-poke batter (usually a pitcher) get thrown out at first base after accidentally hitting a ball very hard and directly at the right fielder. It happens. What doesn't happen is a runner on third getting forced out at home on a base hit. I haven't even seen this in Little League...........

Padres in Passing: After that every odd and extreme buildup in San Diego last offseason, something that didn't work out so well, the Pads are doing a 180 and apparently doing a talent dump just one year later............

Toe Dipping: Ex- LAA front office exec Matt Klentak, now GM with the Phillies, pulled the trigger on his first deal over the weekend and it's a cute one. Remember Jeremy Hellickson, the kid who outpointed Mark Trumbo for RoY in 2011? Trumbo has been a serviceable outfielder with decent power and settling in for a good baseball career. Hellickson continues to evaporate before our very eyes. Klentak has decided that an under-achieving Hellickson is just the perfect thing to put up on a pitcher's mound, all by himself, in front of Philly fans............

Greatness: Most of you are in the sweet spot of your MLB fandom and involvement, and a lot of the players begin debated for HoF inclusion today had their prime when you were just learning to be a fan. At that time in yoru fan career it can far more fun to experience the results than where you are today, deeply engrossed in how the results are gotten. So here is an exciting mind game for you. Now is the time to cast about and think of the top 10 or so players on the field today who will end up in the Hall of Fame. As you see with the voting lready, getting in is extremely difficult. It's almost never as obvious as you thought when they were on the field. So, are you in agreement with this list? (I have a couple of objections [Cano, Ortiz].)..........

WAR versus WAR: We all fall back on some form of WAR for a quick looksee about some player. And we all have learned to not fixate on BBR or FG, but scan both. Part of that is that both have differnt tools for WAR research and each has their relative merits. Along the way we have all noticed that they differ. What is interesting is that they don't necessarily differ in the same way for all players. It matters...........

Cord Cutting: The news is in. The NFL broadcast from London that was lived streamed by NFL/Yahoo pulled in more than 15 million viewers...........This shows that choice is a good thing. Which is fortunate, since it's not necessarily about saving money. But it's something to think about when Arte's TV deal runs out. At this rate, it's not going to last all the way to 2031............

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Award Season

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Hot Stove Season

Barves: We must have run out of gas in the asset department, since we obviously had the undivided attention of the Atlanta braintrust during the Simmons negotiations, and yet could not find a way to inject ourselved into their ongoing fire sale for other players. Sure, we don't need a Freddie Freeman. We have an Albert Pujols and Freeman is not a backup (where we have Cron). But somebody needs a Freddie Freeman and maybe that somebody has a LF, 3B or even 2B we could use as an upgrade. I love multi-team trades for this very reason...........

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