WeekEnd HaloLinks: Eppler finds Salas in a sparse winter

Yesterday must have been a pretty funny day for Fernando Salas and his agents from Paragon Sports. After doing their research on his 2015 ...er..."productivity", they probably went into the arbitration process with a pie-in-the-sky proposal of $1.37 for a 2016 contract written on their own offer sheet. And Paragon was probably pretty amped to hold out for that 37 cents too, dammit.

Then they saw the Angels taking a hard line of their own, demanding to not spend a farthing more than $2.4 million for 2016 for one of the very worst pitchers on the entire staff. Or else.

I am sure that Salas and team were across the conference table and signing the docs even before the words "We'll take it!" crossed that same space. The thunderclap of them breaking the sound barrier in their rush to ink Eppler to that money must have been earsplitting. Yep, the Angels "avoided" an arbitration hearing. They can breath a sigh of relief.

So just like that we find ourselves committing 13% of what Yeonis Cespedes is currently contemplating, to hold on to the 81 ERA+, 4.81 FIP, 4.64 ERA Fernando Salas. And now we rubes can all forget that this same crew let the 137 ERA+, 3.02 FIP, 2.75 ERA, lefty, Cesar Ramos meander over to the rival Texas Rangers, where he might even end up as a back of rotation starter.

Clearly this is why the guys in red polos make the big bucks. Enjoy the Links of Ignorance:

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Everywhere In Baseball

Catching Up: Carlos Perez arrived with a bang last season, then slowed down a good deal, before settling in and finishing the season strong at the plate. This makes the decision to let Chris Iannetta sail up to Seattle all the easier. And the Angels are now pinning a lot of hopes on the kid's shoulders..........

CarNoGo: If Carlos Gonzalez is going to be leaving Colorado for anywhere, even if it is for Anaheim over Arte's dead wallet, he has been told that it won't be during the offseason...........

TrumBoom: Mark Trumbo got his $9.15 million dollar contract, as the Orioles avoided arbitration and penciled him at the first base currently left vacant by Chris Davis. It's only for a year, when Trumbo is set to hit Free Agency after the 2016 season. I was about to say that it feels like he is hanging on to an MLB career by his fingernails, but then I go and read how Brennan Boesch got signed by the Red Sox. Brennan Boesch! The dude who hit .187 for us and then a brutal .146 for the Reds. And he still has a $1 million job..............

Balti-MORE: The Orioles are THE soap opera of the off-season. It started when they made a large $150 million offer to Chris Davis, who didn't take it and left them dangling. Since then, it has been a game of conjecture as to whether or not they pull the offer, and what the hell Davis thinks he is doing as the market dries up. Now it's a case of the Orioles playing the Cespedes card, reportedly making an offer that is shockingly low. 5 years for $75-$90 million. That's an AAV of between $15-$18 million AND saves a first round draft pick. That smells like about 1/2 of what a Cespedes should be worth, but nobody is paying right now (although Atlanta may jump in here and create the market push that Cespedes needs). I would think that Cespedes' camp is insulted, Davis' camp is miffed, and the Orioles are getting pissy at everyone. of course, if the Orioles snag Cespedes for that money there will be fans of multiple clubs that will be more than a little angry with their own front offices, Anaheim being foremost among them............

Fizzics (Part 1): There are times, rare times, when a batter breaks his bat on a pitch and the ball still clears the fence for a home run. Here is the math behind those times. If you remember nothing else from this great article, remember that it requires 5,800 pounds of force to hit a clean home run...........

Fizzics (Part 2): On the other end of the battle, if a batter wants to apply those 5800 pounds on a Garrett Richards curveball, he is going to have to deal with a ball that is spinning at the rate of 3,086 revolutions per minute - the fastest in the Major Leagues............

JurisImpudence: Ain't America great, or what? Anthony Bosch, the dude who illegally pretended to be a trained and licensed doctor of human medicine and care, illegally administered and distributed drugs, cratered the careers and reputation of dozens - including 14 MLB players, then turned on his those he dragged into his mess and ratted them out, actually got the prosecution to argue in his favor and get his sentence reduced! It was only 48 months to begin with, but has been cut to just 32.With time already served, Bosch could be sitting next to you at your local Starbucks as soon as April. Probably chatting on his smartphone with his agent over a pending book deal. This sounds like something only Lex Luthor would get away with...............

Numerology (Part 1): 4000 games watched and Lyle has yet to notice that baseball has managed to gut sac bunts, pitchouts and intentional walks. This is all thanks to modern information systems unclogging the foggy brains of dugout decision-makers. What used to be hard-nosed tactical is now mathematically impractical. The revolution truly is on............

Numerology (Part 2): And, as with any revolution, there shall be casualties. Right now, there may be an unfortunate excess of loss on the battlefield of scouting. Information systems are only as effective as applied wisdom can make them. And it appears that we are in a deep cycle of losing that applied wisdom as franchises embrace the cost-effective nature of analytics. If folks are not careful, by the time they learn that the human factor of performance analysis and projections is a necessary balance for raw data, those with the experience to deliver that human factor will have been purged from the pipeline...........

Media Biz: Somebody named Rich Greenfield, a real pollster, went out and really asked a bunch of us how we feel about getting tagged for a few bucks every month to pay for the Skip Bayless horse manure that is ESPN. Because, you know, pretty much only bars and pizza joints play that shit. And, yep, more than half of us want them gone already. Even more dramatic, only 6% would pay the $20 to have ESPN if it were left to fend for itself...........

Community Biz(1): We all know that Arte is in the market for a new playground. He is willing to pay for it himself, provided somebody gives him all the land, all the revenue, all the everything else. So these other stories are both topical, AND relevant to the Angels. Take a look at Tampa Bay. The Rays are locked in a lease for another 12 seasons but they cannot draw to the current stadium. With the hope that it is not the people, but the ballpark, local officials have agreed to allow the Rays to look around the area for something else. That's a way to keep the hope alive, at the risk of doubling down on the public coffers - once for the Tropicana Field that the public paid for on spec (built before anybody even had a sport to occupy any stadium) and once more for their share of any new place. Tropicana is considered "old" and less than optimally profitable by MLB standards. After all, it's only 25 years younger than Angels Stadium............

Community Biz(2): The city officials of Tampa must feel pity for the billionaire owners of the Rays. Because, you know, when things don't go the way that billionaire owners want and they cannot rob entice other people to pay for their business overhead, billionaire owners tend to think of themselves as "victims". (Stan Kroenke, owner of the future Los Angeles Rams: "I never dreamed I'd be put in this position. But at the same time, you're not going to sit there and be a victim."...........

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This Date In Baseball History: 1942 - After MLB Commissioner Landis queried President Franklin D. Roosevelt about the potential for cancelling games with the initiation of World War II, Roosevelt responds that it would be good for the American people to continue games, and especially to add more nights games so that workers can attend..........1957 - Walter O'Malley secures another 2 years on his Ebbets Field lease, as things in Los Angeles get dicey as LA city officials struggling to steal the land necessary for a stadium..........1958 - The Yankees announce that they have signed the first TV megadeal, to broadcast 140 games during the upcoming season. The contract nets the Yankees an amazing $1 million...........1964 - Willie Mays becomes the highest paid player in baseball with a $105,000 contract.............1964 - MLB selects the city of New York as the site for baseball's very first free agent draft, a new talent selection method initiated in no small part due to Gene Autry outbidding everybody for Rick Reichardt..............

HISTORY BONUS: How a few teams got their names. The Yankees totally surprised me............

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