HumpLinks: Spring is a walk in the park

______________________________

Everywhere In Baseball

Simmerin' Simmons: No more slap-slappy, punch-and-judy, cheap-assed singles through tthe right side from Oakland batters THIS season. Cause we got Andrelton Simmons on patrol.

That would be the same Andrelton Simmons capable of doing this:

Sniffles: Don't panic. Nick Tropeano misses a start and adds to the rotation drama, but it's not an actual injury. The kid just has the flu...........

Odd Math: It's just an observation on my part, but Hector Santiago pitched 6 innings yesterday and gave up just 3 runs. For that, most observers are seeing his performance as sharp. I noticed that his ERA went back up, from 3.00 to 3.50. Small numbers will do that..........

Snow Plowed: Imagine leaving the perfect weather of Tempe Arizona and going through all the hassle of air travel just to get to your destination in order to be canceled due to snow storms. And that's just what happened to a couple dozen Halos yesterday...........

Preview Review: Sports Illustrated does a take on the 2016, and comes to the conclusion that Trout can't carry the Angel's flawed roster. Of course, if the LAA roster was perfect, we wouldn't need a trout at all. But where would be the fun in that? Anyway, this article could have been written months ago. In fact, it pretty much has: all over these pages here on HH. But I suppose that SI does reach more people than we do, so there might be a few people left in Nairobi for whom this will be fresh news...........

Preview Review (part 2): The BETTER review comes from MLB Trade Rumors. Quite comprehensive, as one would expect. And laughably, at the time of this composition, there were 22 people from Facebook who managed to find the article and vote..........

Owner Love: Meanwhile, Arte Moreno is a Top Ten Owner because he lowered beer prices and is willing to spend money on quality players. And the article was written in 2016...........

Cubanos: For those interested, the Rays defeated the Cuban National Team in their highly promoted exhibition game yesterday. Rays players find out that giving swag to a President is not quite the same as with any normal fan..........

Stomach This: Switching from Castro to Gastro, the Braves have unleashed The Punisher on the arteries of Atlanta area baseball fans. That beast is just one of seven chronically ill-advised menu mash-ups the Braves are featuring this year..........

Selfie Absorbed: I wonder what the percentage of rear-end collisions would be that are caused by the driver using his/her cell phone? It only seems logical that any driver who turns their own act of rear-ending a guy into a chance to take a selfie with that victim would be the type of person who got into that accident in the first place by fiddling with that same damned phone. It doesn't hurt, I suppose, that the victim was none other than Clayton Kershaw..........

Riding Off: Our brief friend David Murphy appears to be nearing the end of his career. After platooning here and having some level of credible output, over the Winter he latched on with the Red Sox. However, his Spring is not going well enough to secure a roster spot and Murphy doesn't see playing in the minor leagues as his future..........

ARod: Gold Digger...........

Cheesy: Minor League Baseball needs interleague play. Immediately. As in: this season. Blow up the schedule and make the change now, dudes. Because we need a weekend series that hooks up the Fresno Tacos with these guys...........

______________________________