MondoLinks: Fire up the Hot Stove

Wow.

When I left you all back in October the World of Baseball was a much different place. What the hell happened?? You empowered the KC Royals fans as the new entitled asshat experts of all baseball?  You went out and got yourselves a new pitching coach? Some guy named Gnagy? That guy still out there painting corners? No. Wait. Wrong guy. That Gnagy doesn't paint anything. He draws. Walks, I suppose...........And you brought in somebody - anybody - to work with catchers? On a team that uses Mike Scioscia as the head teacher/coacher/decision-maker????? Are you crazy? What are you gonna do next, hide behind the chainsaws?..........And you added Paul Sorrento to replace Dave Hansen as assistant hitting coach, since Dave Hansen is no longer our assistant hitting coach? Isn't that the same Paul Sorrento who never hit over .290 in his own career?

And what the hell is with that failure to extend a QO to David Freese? Don't you guys know how that whole thing works? No? Lemme help you. You see that you have a bird in the hand, and the bush nearby is pretty empty anyway. You DO extend the QO since the player never accepts it anyway. Never. Ever. No player locks himself down to only one year of security and income, especially in a market where his skills are one of the few to be in demand. And you do NOT want to gift the rest of MLB a free shot to upgrade a position without compensating you in their deal. The worse that can happen to you by issuing a QO is that you keep that bird in your hand at a reasonable cost for his production while you wait for your farm talent to mature. The alternative is to gain a draft choice AND get a chance to upgrade now that you have mitigated (somewhat) the potential impact on your farm pipeline. But the worse that can happen to you by NOT issuing a QO is that you get bupkis AND you have a hole AND you are at risk of depleting your already impoverished cupboard trying to fill that hole. Write that shit down. It ain't a state secret.

That's a butt load (126 gallons, I looked it up) of mischief going on there, folks. At least you guys got the David Dejesus decision right. Except, though, he probably had more credentials to be assistant hitting coach than what we got now. At least you guys didn't extend a QO to Chris Iannetta or Matt Joyce. And I am assuming that you have a better option for a utility outfielder for only $7 million than David Murphy. I'll just be over here in the corner waiting to read about it. Just know that none of this was my fault. Blame me for the tequila shortage in central Mexico, but not for all this..........

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Angels Baseball

Sourpuss Surplus: Baseball people are so much smarter than I am. They must be. Because here I would be sitting in Anaheim thinking that pitching is the one place where we have so much depth as to have some sacrificing to do next season when it comes to listing the rotation. Shoemaker to the bullpen, anyone? I would be thinking that pitching would be the first team resource, maybe the only team resource, that might be used to trade to fill any position player holes. Billy Eppler thinks the exact opposite. That's why he is the guy sitting in Anaheim, and not me..........

Having cake. AND eating it: You know how you keep all your critics happy in this age of transition to modern information gathering? You say that you are fully attentive to both sides: knowing AND guessing. Billy Eppler has mastered this ability to respond to contemporary reporters. (Much the same way we have heard this kind of claim from both Mike Scioscia and Jerry Dipoto, two guys who claimed the same thing but somehow managed to be on different pages.) Here's a tip from an old geezer who has seen more in life than merely 4,000 baseball games: any person who claims that they believe in the power of guessing is not somebody who you can count on as truly having a stake in knowing.

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Elsewhere in Baseball

Coffee Klatch: This week, running from the 9th through the 12th, are the MLB GM Meetings.  This pretty much amounts to the time when all the new and old GM's get together, congratulate one another on various things, make sure they have their contact info correct, and drop a few hints about what random future text messages might be worth responding to in a few weeks.............

GG: Sorry. Still not buying it. Here is a take on the American League Gold Glovers based exclusively on advanced defensive metrics. Albert Pujols gets a 'win', as does Kole Calhoun. I have no issue with Kevin Kiermaier getting the recognition, but Mike Trout gets snubbed altogether. Advanced defensive metrics hate his glove work, and I say that is more a sign that the defensive metric slide rules are out of whack than Trout is out of his league. Remember, Trout has 428 putouts out of 435 chances across 1362 innings in 156 games – all without a single error. Those numbers all crush Cain’s. He even has 7 assists to Cain’s 6. So you got a guy who led the AL in games and innings, showing real value for reliability. And he was further away from "average" in terms of total chances AND total putouts AND fewest errors committed, and yet, somehow those don't keep him from being considered average...........

Mystery Meat: One team has won the bidding for negotiating rights to sign Korean power bat Byung Ho Park, and no official word has come from any team identifying themselves as a winner Or a loser. That means that, although rumors don't support the Angels, and history shows that the Angels don't support the international market, there is still a chance............

Bear Market: David Price wants to be a Cub. All they have to do is be able to afford him..........

Black Market: After the Nats tried to go low-ball with Bud Black and have gotten stuck chosen Dusty Baker, we might just see Black guiding all that payroll up in Chavez Ravine..........

Part 4: More baseball card comedy gold...........