WeekEnd HaloLinks: Mike Trout Reigns Supreme

And here I had this wonderfully excellent essay all composed to call to task the BBWAA voters, and salve the angst of you, my fellow Halo fans. I am delighted to have the opportunity to discard all that and join you in congratulating Michael Nelson Trout on being recognized for his ongoing excellence as the premier Major League Baseball Player.

I feel as though this is all a happy accident. It is inconceivable to me that the voting bloc within the BBWAA has achieved such levels of enlightenment so quickly. To be sure, there are still many voters anchored firmly in Throwback Bay. Identifying them would not be easy just because they choose a quality player such as Mookie Betts. It's not against the rules of baseball or logic to up-vote a good player. And one may wonder how the articles stridently promoting Trout's accomplishments right at voting time worked in lobbying just enough voters into more clarity of thought. But, in the end, the improbable happened and justice and logic were served. Mike Trout is American League Most Valuable Player. Huzzah! Huzzah! Huzzah!

But, hey, if you still want to read the lamentations of another failed chance to recognize Mike, FanGraphs is your place to be. And here, too.

Now let's have some fun with the voters and their ballots. Sean McAdam, Comcast Sportsnet New England dick, parked Trout all the way down in fifth. But, hey, at least that was above his slot for David Ortiz.

Not to be outdone, John Hickey of the Oakland Tribune voted Trout SEVENTH. S-E-V-E-N-T-H. It's asshats like that which make unanimous outcomes so rare in anything the BBWAA votes on. (So congrats on that, Corey Seager.).........And, for those with active long-term memory functions, this John Hickey has a history of shitty-assed award ballots...........

Mike Feinsand voted David Ortiz first. And Feinsand is representing the Yankees, so I can only assume that this is one of those "we Yankees and Red Sox are brothers in lording over baseball and I shall salute my brethren". That would be my same thinking for George A. King III (really???), also from NY, who was the one other guy who failed to see Trout as at least #2, putting him third (behind Betts AND Ortiz). (What's with all this New York Trout envy???)

So the two NY voters combined to have it Ortiz, Betts, then Trout. It looks like the two Boston writers had it Betts, Donaldson, Altuve, Trout and Machado.

Nobody voted Betts lower than third. Nobody voted Altuve first. Donaldson also did not receive a first, but his huge tail off in the second half makes that sensible. And every single ballot included Trout, Betts, Altuve, Donaldson, Machado and Ortiz slotted somewhere.

Spend your weekend basking in The Best Baseball Player in the World Links:

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Mike Trout wins AL MVP, And Still On Track For The G.O.A.T...........

Mike Trout may be the LAA Greatest Of All Time? May???...........

And, most fun of all, ESPN is in shock. In publicizing the NL MVP outcome, they have an article titled "Kris Bryant is just getting started as he takes home MVP honors". But for the other MVP outcome, their articles are "Mookie Betts had an age-23 season for the, um, ages"...and..."How Mike Trout earned AL MVP on a sub-.500 team"...and..."Does Mike Trout's MVP win answer who's most valuable?"...and only in a sidebar is a link to Mike Trout wins AL MVP..........We do get a 2 minute video of Tim Kurkjian telling us that "...he is Mickey Mantle come back to life and he is breathtaking to watch on a daily basis..."

National League Most Valuable Player Award winner is Kris Bryant....Amazingly, 27 different players received some level of vote. 5 of those are pitchers. The amazing thing for me is that Bryant is practically used as a utility player. Lots of 3B, a bunch of LF, some RF, a few games at 1B, a game at CF and a game at SS. It must be pretty difficult to keep your offense together while getting to the park not knowing what kind of game you will be playing.............

One thing being discussed within the new CBA is increasing the Active Roster beyond 25 players. Anything that creates more roster flexibility is a good thing. But this would absolutely require that the luxury tax threshold has to go up, something Arte once insisted might not happen............

John Hickey, that guy up there who I call out for slotting Trout SEVENTH best? He gives us the news that the Oakland A's are about to lose Lew Wolff as managing partner. Entwined in Hickey's piece is the thread that the new CBA might just put an end to the A's getting subsidized by the other MLB ballclubs so that Wolff can decide to not spend that money on players. Or stadium plumbing. Which means that Wolff is getting out while there is still time to not get caught out............

The Rangers have a mess on their hands concerning their Academy in the Dominican Republic............

Moving on, it's Rule 5 Draft Protection time..........

Oh? We have a some snags in the CBA negotiations? The sticking points might be raising the Luxury Tax threshold, and creating an International Draft. So, like, duh. The owners buy for themselves the International Draft (and controlling their costs on incoming prospects), by handing over the increased payroll capacity to the established players...........

Well this explains a lot. Regular readers will note that I bitch about an obvious lack of diversity when it comes to dugout and Front Office hiring throughout the annual MLB shuffle. A few years ago MLB had hired the firm Korn Ferry to help teams focus on finding and slotting qualified candidates. Well, MLB has canned Korn Ferry. It was discovered that they were working with some serious conflicts of interest. "There were so many conflicts of interest with Korn Ferry as baseball's search firm that it resulted in nothing more than friends hiring friends."..........

The Duffle Bag