MondoLinks: Oh that's right. We suck.

Hey, winning was fun while we had it. Maybe we get to do that again, yeah? But, next time, don't let us all get carried away and forget the spanking we took this weekend. Our bats can be shut down when necessary, and our starting rotation is in shambles. We will have our issue all the rest of the way out, but we still got baseball!

Some people might think of Mike Scioscia as a fossilized strategist locked into primitive, shallow, thinking that holds no hope of calculating a way forward for the franchise with the tools available. Other people might think of Mike Scioscia as the calm, cool head of consistency in the face of raging headwinds. Choose your side as Sosh announces that the team: "will turn the page".

You know, Tim, it just might be that you have found who you now are, at this point in your life. Maybe it's just that you are struggling to accept that which you have become. I cannot blame you for that. It's better to rage against the inevitable and cling that last hurrah, forcing somebody else to rip the baseball from your feeble hands. Yes, better that than drop the ball and walk away wondering. And while it may piss off we fans, there are few places in baseball where you could have learned this hard truth without damage to your hosts.

Maybe we should now move on to Jerome Williams or something. The last time he took the mound he was throwing 90mph..........

Links:

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Everywhere In Baseball

Bandying it About: I confess that I am delighted that Jett Bandy is starting to show real promise. I like how he is growing into handling the attempts at opponents to run on the Angels. And I like the signs of offense. I especially like how Bandy might someday erase the memory of Jeff Mathis and allow us to leapfrog our lineage back to the Molinas. That allows us to let Taylor Ward to work things out for himself as he rises through the farm at his own pace...........

Simba Juice: Oh, yeah, people. We may have snagged more than just a huge diamond in the likes of Andrelton Simmons. We knew he him to be a defensive wizard, but we also knew to expect not too very much offense. Sure, he is hotter than pistols over the last couple of weeks (.458 /  .500 / .583 over the past 7 starts). But those are small numbers. Look more at the last 108 at-bats, over his last 30 games. .352 / .379 / .463. Let's be fair, here. This has to have a least a little to do with LAA coaching, so good for them, too. But wouldn't it be amazing to have a defensive wizard that also can hit over .300? Maybe we have just that!............

Trade Winds: The Angels won a few games there after the All-Star Break, somehow tricking GM Billy Eppler into thinking that the roots of this particular tree are actually sound. "A lot of things have come together at the exact same time,” General Manager Billy Eppler said. “We felt that this club had a lot of positive elements to it. It wasn’t all clicking like it is right now, but the character and the fight within those guys has never faded."...........But just because our execs might be in a fog doesn't mean that such is the case of execs everywhere. The Mets, for instance, are looking hard at Joe Smith. Because that 5.63 ERA over his last 9 outings is so tasty........... Giving Eppler credit for mastering the obvious, losing a cost-controlled pitcher who might have just turned himself into a front-or-the-rotation linchpin is not something to rush into, especially when your own rotation just imploded for at least another season. So no, let the other GMs keep calling ans inquiring about Matt Shoemaker. There is an entire week left to allow their desperation to rise............Over in Arizona, the DBacks have mastered the concept of buy high and sell low, choosing exactly now to put the disastrous Shelby Miller on the block............

A Real Cut Up: The more I read about Chris Sale, the more he comes across as a real asshat. In this latest episode, Sale decided that the throwback uniforms selected for his outing were not dignified enough for his liking. Seeing that he was unable to whine enough to change the minds of the franchise, and that he was destined to ear the uniform in question despite his sense of fashion, he chose to cut a bunch of the uniforms to ribbons. For this he was sent home, and has now been suspended 5 games by his own team for "insubordination". As manager Robin Ventura explains, this wasn't the first incident with Sale.........

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The Duffle Bag

Minor League Baseball teams throw parties for their promo nights, while Major League Baseball teams jump sharks.........."I hate you, Dad. I love you, Dad."...........Hey, reporters, you want to get into the sports clubhouse and chase your stories? Expect a little piss with that vinegar...........Johnny Cueto, who chose not to stick around and continue playing for the Kansas City Royals, is a little miffed that the Kansas City Royals chose not to stick around and play ball with him, leaving him behind when they visited the White House...........Add a new chapter to how one writer's list of fantasy changes end up causing such a ruckus with real baseball people (see Friday's Links). Scott Boras wraps his knuckles against the forehead of Commissioner Manfred AND the silent Union head Tony Clark, finding the idea of gutting MLB rosters of relief pitchers to be a bad thing for player employment. Like duh...........What am I missing? Don't they have wind in Massachusetts?...........Since I mentioned Jose Altuve above, Rob Dribble comes in with the accusations............

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(Here is the answer I gave to the Thursday/Friday challenge: "This is the fWAR for the third base position of all 30 MLB teams, as of Wednesday afternoon. Red is LAA. The point of putting this chart out there now is that with the trade deadline bearing down on us Yunel Escobar is the hottest name being bandied about for sucking off of the LAA roster. Now Escobar is only a fraction of that overall fWAR, but his 1.0 fWAR ranks near the bottom of all MLB 3B’s. His value is OBP only, and that comes with a 25 cent head. When you look at it that way, shouldn’t be expecting much in way of return even from one of our rare chips of value. Kudos to Radwen77!  But you people are getting kind of cocky these days. I am not making these hard enough...........Yet.)

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