WeekEnd HaloLinks: Black Friday Edition

Oh, hey! Imagine that!! You wake up in the morning and check Halos Heaven and discover that Stirrups did NOT forget to post a daily Links page. New stuff. Cool.

Yeah. RubixsQube is home and we spent the entire day out and about and exhausted all parties by the evening. And I crashed, totally forgetting my daily duty. No offense people, but it is a true statement that although I DID forgot to post a Links update I DID NOT forget to feed and water the dogs. So now you know where all of you stand in the grand pecking order of the Stirrups universe. Sorry about that. Hopefully, it doesn't happen too often in the future. I'm pretty old, though, and my brain cells are not rejuvenating at a rate to keep pace with their rate of deterioration so it should probably happen with increasing frequency over the upcoming seasons. At least until they can me.

Nothing going on, anyway. It's a holiday weekend dammit. None of you should be here reading this anyway. But for those that are, our overlords thank you for the advert eyeball traffic and here are some Holiday Links:

Good on you, young Mr. Andrew Heaney. And it's an annual thing, not a one-time junket to help out some orphans of Honduras..........

Today's Trade Mike Trout Stoopidity. Because it's the offseason and we have no real news and this guy ran out of smart things to say so he decided to try and make himself look smart anyway.........I should point out that this particular guy was Scott Boras before Scott Boras............(By the way, Trout porn time, did you realize that in every full season of Trout's career to date, he has led the entire league in at least 2 of the major offensive categories? In 4 out of 5 seasons he has led in 3!)..........That would be Mike Trout, master of consistency..........

The mother ship asked readers what they are LEAST thankful for. This particular reader was upset that nobody is listening to Leigh Steinberg above............

Shane Robinson, still hanging on by his fingernails..........And, you guys too, Jose Valdez and Abel De Los Santos. Not gone after all. But I have to wonder. Is this incredibly prodigious practice of DFA'ing guys and then signing them back to minor league deals something that has gone on at a current rate all along? Am I just noticing this habit out of Anaheim because I have to track down the news every day now? Is there some sneaky advantage to the team for handling players this way? I dunno. Just wondering out loud..........

Mike Trout might not be such a prototype for baseball fielders after all. It appears that franchises are more probable to pursue the smaller dudes. Smaller dudes are speedier. And I suppose it's easier to find another Billy Hamilton than it is to find another Mike Trout. The path of least resistance, and all that........

It seems to me that if you are not particularly enamored with the way that a vote comes out, you might consider looking at how the vote tallies are weighted, and ponder some alternate weighting ratio. There are an infinite number ways to deviate from the actual method, Tom Tango gives us one. Take it for what it's worth..........

Ralph Branca died a couple of days ago. It's worthy to remember Branca, not for a home run he gave up to Bobby Thomson, but for the very fine young man that he was at a time when the sporting world was short of fine young men............

The Red Sox are on the hook for at least another $59 million towards Pablo Sandoval. His 2016 was a humiliating failure saved only by a need for surgery to get him out of the dugout and out of the way. But $59 million is 59 million reasons why Panda can expect to get repeated chances to be a Major League Baseball Player again...........

A very reasoned look at this year's HoF ballot chances, and why a Vlad will probably have to wait it out before he gets any shot............

CBA negotiations might not result in any lockout, after all..........That is, perhaps, if they can keep Marc Normandin up at the mothership away from the bargaining table..........

A lot of guys formally retired this season. For we Halo fans, let us say a fond farewell to Chone Figgins...........

This is a fascinating, yet long slog through a lot of math. but the TL:DR version is that teams are more often spending more money out of their draft pool moneys, even more often overspending. And it is returning positive results............

The Duffle Bag