WeekEnd HaloLinks: Eee-liminate the positive...

Woo hoo! 2 whole runs in the same game! Hell, 2 runs in the same INNING!!! Thank heavens for the awesome and mighty power of Andrelton Simmons. Let's call this an improvement. Because, after all, we are back to doing that lose-a-shitload-of-games thing again. 8 out of the last 9, to be exact. And outscored 16 to 44 in that span.

Life is chill. So are the Halos. The 2016 season is officially on ice. As promised last Friday, this was the week that the Halos would be mathematically eliminated from the playoffs. Yesterday, September 15th, was "E" Day. With 16 games still to play. And they don't appear to be too serious about playing any spoiler role.

Mike Trout joined the recent spate of MVP candidates doing their own mini-tanking, batting .154 over his last 8 games. Recently tanking Josh Donaldson was sitting over in the other dugout, having not garnered a single base hit since September 3rd. He had only 2 hits all month. the media buzz was that he had taken himself completely out of the MVP dialog. Donaldson used last night as a fine occasion to show up our center fielder, going 3 for 3 AND earning a pair of walks. Donaldson, for the record, adores hitting in Anaheim. It would not be unfair to state that only Minute Maid Park in Houston and Fenway Park in Boston make for more happy hitting grounds as far as Donaldson is concerned. So this could be a major turning weekend for Trout vs. Donaldson. It's a sub-plot to watch. Which is good, because there ain't much more than that form here on out.

Have some The -Glass-Is-Now-Officially-Completely-Empty Links:

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Everywhere In Baseball

Almost the World Series: The Orem Owlz just took game 1 of the Pioneer League Championship 3-0 as Sam Pastrone went 6 perfect innings. Game 2 is Saturday night.........

Ouch report: Ok, let's just get all this out of the way. Matt Shoemaker moves to the 60 day DL and is expected to return to normal health.....Tyler Skaggs, who dodged another UCL injury, hopes to make one last start before the season ends.....Albert Pujols is seeing his plantar faciitis improve and wants to get in a little baseball before hte season runs out..........

Persistence of Vision: There is a lot here to digest, most of it unwritten. Long time readers of my malarkey will know that I am fascinated by human vision and am occasionally dropping tidbits about the limits of human vision and the game of baseball. I find interesting things sometimes and translate them to baseball and come to some counter-intuitive realizations. I've learned that human vision cannot discern motion that occurs faster than 15th of a second (which is how moving pictures work). And I have taken that and figured out that a 90mph fastball will travel 105.5 inches in that 15th of a second (about 8.8 feet). A lot can happen in those 8.8 feet that the eyeball doesn't actually see. The brain, being a magical thing, makes up the difference. And it does that magic using known imagery and outcomes from previous experiences. So, with that in mind (see what I did there?), now go read that link. And read between the lines. It explains why players don't really know what they think they are seeing, but why they can an explanation for it anyway..........

Busted: Alright. San Diego Padres General Manager A,J, Preller has been suspended 30 days, without pay. Preller was caught - after weeks and weeks of investigation, mind you - of having held back some amount of important medical information known about players they were trading away to other teams. In an "honor between thieves" kind of thing, when owners move human property to other owners, the receiving owner insists on being told everything known about the player coming over, and that info is to be told accurately. Nothing, it seems, pisses off a billionaire businessman that finding out he failed to do enough of the caveat before emptoring. Due diligence, in baseball terms, means trusting the other guy because your own medical staff cannot be expected to be perfect. So, yeah, alright, Preller held back important shit and got the upper hand. And MLB has crushed him. But, hey, did you notice something? The Padres aren't doing anything to punish their own employee. In fact, they are standing behind him and call the whole program to keep separate files and only give the false files to other teams as something that was "unintentional". That is a pretty rich interpretation of the word "unintentional". It surely "is"..........By the way, this ain't the first time that MLB has busted Preller. Is there a 3-strikes liability for front office executive bullshit?...........

Radicals: Wow. Those daring, renegade, out of control, totally off-the-hook MLB managers! After years and years and years and years of exterior observation, theorizing, measuring, debating, and communicating, it appears as though Major League Baseball managers are taking the hint and altering how they use their bullpens. To wit, they are trending towards using the best relievers in the higher-leverage situations. Like, whoa. Dooooodes. Well done! Now, we have another problem. Baseball, as a whole, is already fretting about how the growing effectiveness of bullpens is extending the length of game times and reducing offense - both things that make for bad television. This means that MLB managers are finally catching up to strategic thinking, but at the wrong time............

Take a Walk: A few weeks ago I was in attendance at a conference and the speaker was giving a talk on the history and backstory of a landmark restaurant. Out of curiosity (something I am powerless to disable) I whipped out my phone and went to Google Maps to track down that restaurant and enhance the presentation with my own imagery. I was stunned to learn that Street View went right up to the portico, and then right through the front door. I was able to walk around and see the entirety of the interior. For the last three years or so Google has created and been extending/enhancing Indoor Street View. Well, guess what? The Baseball Hall of Fame is available via Indoor Street View as well......(h/t reddit)............The bookstore could use some, um, books............

Sports Biz: Keep in mind as I relay this series of links that the underlying technology behind live pro sports streaming in this country is MLBAM. So the provider network that is already contracting with other sports to distribute pro football is the same that will have established various points of precedence as they evolve service away from current cable companies and over to cord-cutting consumers. In other words, what we observe happening with the NFL are things we might experience when MLB navigates its way through their draconian blackout legacy and into expanded revenue opportunities.  First, we have Sling TV climbing into bed with ESPN (owned by Disney, remember, which recently bought up a large chuck of BAMTech) and their approach has the advantage of not requiring a separate app..........Second, we have Twitter partnering with Sports Illustrated to help them carry and stream Thursday Night Football. This is, of a sorts, Twitter building a larger distribution network for connecting with sports-minded consumers. The Internet, it appears, is not big enough for Twitter alone...........But, wait! This shit storm is only half baked. Last night was the first Thursday Night NFL game and Twitter subscribers had their popcorn at the ready. But this particular broadcast was not an NFL Network one, it was a CBS Broadcast. And Twitter doesn't have streaming rights with CBS. So it all fell apart. And everybody learned a new lesson. Too late............

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The Duffle Bag

Fenway Park delayed a game yesterday, when somebody left the barn door locked open. Haven't seen that one before.........Best World Series Winner of All Time (as long as time only goes back to the year 1947)? Sounds like a perfectly reasonable waste of brain cycles. So, 1966 Baltimore Orioles or 2002 Anaheim Angels?..........Alright. It's time. MLB needs to put Arthur Fonzarelli on some water skis and have him toss out a first pitch, because we have finally reached the nadir and need to retire this silly shit forever............The Royals aren't going anywhere this season, either, and their fans have decided to move on..........I got it. I got it. I got it. I got it. I got it. I got it. YOU GOT IT!

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