TuesdoLinks: Countdown to Turkey-Fest 33

Missus Stirrups and I just celebrated our 33rd anniversary together and I don't know how it is at your house, but at mine these are the days of massive food production. Family is in from out of town, stressing the capacity of the house. Friends are dropping in, all scheduled but all at random times. East coasters are up at 5am and hungry for a breakfast that the missus and I have long since abandoned. West coasters want to catch up on life until well after midnight, snacking as they go. Something happens for lunch, but whatever it is I am not involved since I do have to be at work (which is, of course, an unacceptably inconvenient thing to be responsible for before any actual work time off).

Every dinner is for 6 to 8 people and somehow we have to intertwine preparations for The Big Meal on Thursday. Spousal logic being what it is, I am informed that the best way to avoid the huge distraction of kitchen prep that comes on Thursdays is to perform all that kitchen prep on a Wednesday. Somehow this makes sense to her, so much sense that she agrees to receive last-minute drop-ins Wednesday evening to add to whatever dinner plans we were to pull off amidst the effort to prepare all that dinner for Thursday at the same time. She will understand the mistake, probably mid-day Saturday after everybody has gone home. By Sunday I will find that I am late for Christmas preparations.

My escape route? Of course, nothing but Links:

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Angels Baseball

Rod Carew: I didn't know that Rod Carew suffered a heart attack back in September. I do know that he is now rehabbing, and plans to be at camp this Spring. More critically, he is working on getting healthy enough to go through heart transplant surgery. I hope his new heart is at least as big as the one he was born with..........

Trout Porn: I dunno. As great as Mike Trout has been, in this day and age I have always defaulted to the notion that not even a Mike Trout can average ~8WAR from here on out to overcome the legendary career of Babe Ruth. But Fangraphs gives it a try..........

More Trout: This Thanksgiving, your table setting centerpiece can take on a truly festive baseball/Thanksgiving/Mike trout mash-up with your very own bobblehead out of the Team Store..........

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In Baseball

More Data: Baseball Prospectus has added Peak Velocity to their pitching leaderboards, allowing for some fun lookups. Garrett Richards, playing for some team known as "ANA", hit the absolute team peak of 97.8mph. That was good for 15th fastest.  At the other end of the spectrum, in 138th place and ahead of only a knuckleball pitcher (R.A. Dickey) and a guy who might be retiring any day now (Mark Buehrle) was Jered Weaver, who peaked at only 87.2mph all season..........

Odd Ducks: this is out of the blue. Alex Anthopoulos, the former Toronto G.M who resigned recently when it was clear that his role would be diminishing as a consequence of other personalities within the Blue Jay front office, was recently contacted about another "senior position or consulting position" with a different franchise. No news there, right? Wrong! The "different franchise" was the Phoenix Coyotes of the National Hockey League..........

Canoeing for New York?: Robinson Cano is unhappy in Seattle? Really?? That money didn't buy all that happiness after all and he wants to go back to New York? And, now, he is even less happy with the incoming Dipoto and crew? Isn't the whole reason that Cano is in Seattle because he couldn't get the Yankees to pay him that fortune, right? So now he wants his fortune AND his pinstripes? I would think that the Yankees might still be of a mind that Cano isn't worth the fortune that the Mariners dumped in his lap. If Cano isn't happy with his outcome, he might want to take it up with his agent, Jay Z, no?..........For his part, Cano is now busy doing damage control............

Sidd Finch: The Giants have a pitching prospect who throws 104mph. His name is Ray Black, and he just finished up in the Arizona Fall League. And since it ain't April 1st, this story might actually be real..........

K-Rod: Frankie Rodriguez is hanging in there with a baseball career, mostly because he is learning how to adapt to his own version of the Jered Weaver syndrome..........

Barves: (h/t to Talking Chop) The Atlanta Braves might be up for sale. Not just Andrelton Simmons and Freddie Freeman, but the whole shebang. The buyer might be some Internet billionaire tightly connected to the same Cobb County that is building the Braves their new shiny stadium...........

Old Tropes: Apparently, Main Stream Media gathered together some kind of symposium to crank away at how the world of sports "journalism" is all going to hell. The usual and customary whining ensued. Conflating multiple speakers for the sake of brevity: "There’s a lot of people who sit around and they wait for somebody else to report something.....The only reason to read this stuff is to tell people why something happened, and if you’re not there, and you can’t tell me why it happened, I don’t care about all your advanced analytics and all the other things you concoct.....the authors of the critical content don’t face the consequences a beat writer might after writing something negative about the team they cover. The "fly by night" authors don’t have to worry about athletes freezing them out in the future because they don’t need to maintain contact with them in order to write stories about them.....[that] style of reporting cannot last, and that it will be the hardworking journalist who will eventually win out in the long run." The linked piece does a fantastic job of eviscerating the whiners. But I would like to challenge the fools right up front: hey dickwads, stop freezing out bloggers from having direct access to sources so they can generate their own sourced content and let's see what happens. You live behind the hegemony of a brutal monopoly on access. You ARE the rich and powerful bad guy here..........

Dirty Business: Like a lover carrying a locket of their adored one's hair, St. Louis fans can now carry their fondnes for The Cardinal Way close to their own pulse, keeping Cardinal Time with a watch face of Busch Stadium dirt. Yes, dirt.............

Odd Loss: ex-MLB pitcher Ken Johnson died yesterday at the age of 82. Johnson pitched for 7 different teams over 13 seasons. Most notably, he pitched a no-hitter for the Colt .45's (now the Astros) back in 1964. What makes Johnson so notable is that his was the only game in history where the pitcher throws a 9-inning no-hitter and ends up a loss........

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Award Season

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Hot Stove Season

Jason Heyward: We'd like to think that Eppler thinks about Heyward, wouldn't we? And we'd like to think that Heyward is open to thinking about Anaheim. All that would be good stuff this early in the off-season. Like, duh. Well, it's good to know that we have not already said no..........

QO Punishment: How the Qualifying Offer degrades a Free Agent's contract terms in the open market, and what that means to the current crop of pitching prospects..........

Chris Iannetta: Just in case you were wondering since it has long been rumored. Chris Iannetta has officially signed back up with Jerry Dipoto and is now an actual Mariner, joining Mark Trumbo as ex-Angels now stuck in Seattle............ Something to think about: Iannetta signed for $4.25 million.  He hit .188 last year. That works out to $22,606.38 per batting average point. He was worth 0.7 bWAR, which works out to $607,142.86 per bWAR tenth of a point. He got himself 51 hits, worth $83,333.33 each. 20 of those were extra-base hits (home runs and doubles) at  $212,500 per, and $70,833.33 per base reached by his own lumber. Nice gig, and his contract comes with incentives.  I guess I wish that Dipoto was the dude approving MY salary..........

David Price: Price has a nice sense of humor about the hash house that is the free agent rumor mill, especially on slow days..........

Son Setting: Ah-Seop Son ain't going anywhere soon..........

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