WeekEnd HaloLinks: Naps still reigns on Sosh's parade

It rained water on the Angels, then it rained runs, then it reigned Mike Napoli Supreme. Don't act so surprised. We knew this was coming.

At 2-8 over our last 10 we are the coldest team in Baseball and it ain't even close. That don't change on any given day. And that don't change opportunities for individual greatness. And it doesn't mean we have gotten any worse. Without a pitching staff and with a couple of holes in our lineup we haven't been much good for a long time. When we don't play beyond our means, this happens. This month, it should happen some more. Saddle up, cowpokes. We still got some ridin' to do.

Just remember, it may be raining in Cleveland this weekend, but from where we stand here in Anaheim the sun is shining all over the place.

Have some tarp-soaked Links:

______________________________

Everywhere In Baseball

Steady Stadia: LAT is reporting that Arte's Tustin gambit isn't going to pay off after all, bringing him back to thesquare one that is Anaheim. The clue as to why might be in this passage: "The developer of the proposed Tustin site said his firm worked extensively in recent months on a ballpark project, but could not structure a deal that made economic sense for the development company, for Tustin and for the Angels." Yep. Sounds about right. MLB can't play the economic benefit card this time, since MLB has already saturated the region with any such chimera. So unless Arte wants to carry all the costs, he needs to con talk some city (and some developer) into absorbing something...........

Trout Time: Let's start with some Trout Porn. On the tired and obvious side, tired and obvious writer does a long, tired and obvious piece about why Mike Trout probably won't get an MVP Award again.Any one of you could have written it. We who reside here in the heavenly clouds of Anaheim are well familiar with all the tropes........... Next, not quite as obvious writer gives us more supporting evidence that Mike Trout is the Greatest Player of Our Time..........Moving on to content far more fresh, Mike Trout is slumping and the LAA offense is slumping along with him...........Ok, so why do I line these up all in a set? Because they make a point. Trout IS the Greatest Of Our Time. People are already overwhelmed by the landslide of statistical evidence to not care very much any more. A lot of chatter concerns just how bad the Angels are and how Trout is wasted, or Trout cannot be so valuable if his team is so full of fail. Well, the fresh counterpoint to these are that latter link. The Angels ARE bad, but they are bad because of pitching. They are not bad because of hitting or fielding. Trout already doesn't pitch, so we cannot remove him from the pitching equation. But when Trout doesn't hit, well, what happens then? Since July 20 Mike Trout is batting .274. In that time he has only 2 doubles, 1 triple and 3 home runs. basically, a handful of singles. Prior to that he was batting .320. Since July 20th the Angels are 6 wins against 13 losses. Without Trout these Angels are a 51-win team, about to get relegated to the PCL. With Trout they are 4 major pitching injuries away from the playoffs. Name me any other player today for which you could make that argument..........Meanwhile, this year's darling is Altuve.............

Woulda Shoulda: Tomorrow night the Angels have to deal with one of their more recent stupid moves. Jerry Dipoto saw Vinnie Pestano's name come across the waiver wire and claimed him, handing over to the Indians Mike Clevinger. Saturday night Clevinger will be eating innings for Terry Francona. Vinnie Pestano is out of baseball............

Call The Robots!: Look at how the Cubs-Cards game ended last night. Tie game, extra innings, bases loaded, 2 outs, 3 balls and 1 strike on the batter. I was watching this in real time, via GameDay. That's how I caught this, after picking my jaw up off the floor. Look at pitch #5. (And as I check the news I find that my observation is shared. And here is the video. And here is the PITCHf/x. Meanwhile, Cards fans are accusing MLB of playing favorites. Kinda rich, oh unpunished Hackers of Houston.)

Taking a Flyer: Carlos Gomez is the kind of project that cannot get much worse, but cannot sink the Halos no matter how bad it doesn't work out. Just ask Tim Lincecum. Yeah, he sucks.  But his body is still the one that contains greatness. We took the flyer on a pitcher, and that didn't work out. Why not take a flyer on a left fielder? Even if it doesn't work out we are no worse for the effort.............

Playing the Fielder: Aha! This clears up the details for me. Prince Fielder is not officially retiring after all, which would forfeit the remaining $100 million of his contract. He has been declared medically unfit to play. The Rangers have insurance coverage limiting their outflow to only $9 million per year, but to qualify for that they will have to keep Fielder on their 40-man roster, parked on rotating DL's, for the next 4 years. Should be fun...........

PEDs: The premise here is that the authors are showing that the current power surge in MLB is not because of PEDs. But if I am reading this right, they are basing that on the idea that the previous PEDs-induced power surge was largely driven by outliers. A very few number of players carried a vast majority of the surge. But what if this year there is a broad infusion of advanced, non-detectable, PEDs that are spread across a large enough player population as to be the rising tide that floats all boats?............

______________________________

The Duffle Bag

Hey, look, ARod actually got to play during his farewell mini-tour! But only as a DH. He doesn't get to wear a glove.................But grab your popcorn, as the Marlins are chattering internally about bringing ARod on board after rosters expand. Because Florida............Finally. Tal's Hill is finally coming down. Mike Trout will soon be able to patrol safely...............Everything is coming up roses for the Cubs these days. As if luck was something that they need............Mark Trumbo still having fun...........Pay no attention to CF and RF.  Pay attention to the fan in the outfield seats, running twice as fast as CF and LF.............I love the headline. Ortiz's career is down to just 50 games..............Some managers have a difficult time with team failure. Some managers clearly need training in how to handle the pages................Alert! We have a new unwritten rule. Ryan Vogelsong just wrote it down...............I would suggest that MLB has a new contender for worst contract in baseball.............Why don't more MLB teams use Personal Seat Licenses? (5 do.) And why are there not Personal Rights Licenses that are sold to fans so that they can reserve the right to purchase Personal Seat Licenses?...........

______________________________

(Come on, folks. Yesterday was not hard at all. I have a very pretty graph all ready and waiting that I wanted to share for the weekend and we didn't get enough effort on the current one. So let's try again, with a clue: after Wednesday's graph, this graph should be the natural next step.)

______________________________