TuesdoLinks: Weaver shows Oakland the door

Jered Weaver is probably seeing his LAA career as a starting pitcher come to a close. And he looks to go out in style. Facing the Oakland A's last night he was perfect through 4 2/3 innings. He gave up a single, then a walk, then closed it out, then sat it out with back stiffness. Old Guys Rule. That might be the final time that Jered Weaver starts a game against the A's in his career. What a way to shut them down.

Mike Trout had himself a WAR bonanza. A single, then a solo home run, then two walks - one a pitch around and the other outright intentional. 4 Plate Appearances, 4 times on base. 2 At bats, 2 hits. 1 run scored, 1 RBI. No strikeouts, and no LOBsters. That should see a bump in his WAR tallies once those get added. maybe by the time you read this. Look for his to have recorded 154 total games this year and you will know they are up to date.

What was interesting, to me, was that only Trout's 4th inning lead off home run was the time that he was not boxed in. In all three of the other Plate Appearances he ended up seeing himself on first base, with Kole Calhoun in front of him on second base, and Albert Pujols to bat. In those three times Pujols failed to get ball out of the infield, and he stranded 6 base runners. Oakland benefited by boxing Trout in with other Halo players. Sometimes it was intentional, sometimes not.

By the way, the Oakland fan base is celebrating A's pitcher Sean Manaea as having a great start, gone wasted. I would submit that once Manaea was gifted a zone far off the plate, it forced Halo hitters into a lot of swings outside the zone. That surely helps.

Have Some Lords of California Links:

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Everywhere In Baseball

Trout Porn: Mike Trout is now without comps. And it is blowing up his comps.............

Papi Porn: Oh, sweet and delicious! I suspect that the mug shot of one Anthony L. Fisher is going up in bars all over Massachusetts even as you read this. Fisher puts out for all to read "The fraudulent myth of Big Papi", and it's joyous. "The man behind the myth is less appealing. David Ortiz is a thin-skinned, self-promoting narcissist, prone to violent tantrums and playing fast and loose with the truth, possessing a persecution complex that would make Richard Nixon blush."..........

By the way, I am doing a lot of PITCHf/x shit today. Here is why. A first look at the HBO dive into pitch tracking software and how technology is marching hard in the general direction of plate umpires..........I will be interested to see the whole thing, because I would like to hear what the batters and catchers and pitchers had to say about the quality of the zone. AND I still want to get more info on how those cameras are tracking or projecting the ball flight through any three dimensional strike zone. And I still insist that having video techs be the ones who make the human judgement of the upper and lower zone for each batter, based on a few swings in batting practice, is bullshit. That's the official MLB rule book and MLB umpires need to own that, and that data should come from larger samples culled from real games..........The full episode airs tonight on HBO..........

Oh, Canada. Yankees pitcher Luis Severino goes inside in the first inning, and Josh Donaldson uses his elbow armor to draw a HBP. So Blue Jays pitcher J.A. Happ needs 2 pitches to retaliate against Yankees 3B Chase Headley. Benches clear. Josh Donaldson is the hottest of hot heads, needing to be restrained by Justin Smoak. But now we have to retaliate for retaliation, and the very next frame we have Justin Smoak getting plunked. (Yeah, the same Justin Smoak who was just playing peace keeper). The Yankees see their starting pitcher tossed, their manager tossed, their bench coach tossed. and their pitching coach tossed. Oh, and yeah, Josh Donaldson was the hottest of all hot heads. See it all here, here, here, and here............

Just a note. Terry Francona's team just won the AL Central. Not only that, but Ned Yost's team, the defending WS Champs, did not...............But the Indians are not lining up well for the playoffs...........

Speaking of playoffs, here is the full MLB schedule...........

Slow down, folks. Jose Fernandez' death is a real tragedy. If people want to create a new award and name it after him that would be pretty cool. But if people want to think about naming him the best pitcher in the National League this year, well, maybe we should all sit down and take a few breaths. He had a year good enough to talk about it, but not good enough to overwhelm the nominees...........

On the sorrowful side, Jose Fernandez signed baseballs have started washing up on the beaches of Miami..........

Yeah, Vin, we will miss you as well. Except that your great moments are immortalized for us all to relive, forever. You won't have any audio tapes of my reactions, though.........Nice way to go out, Boss.............

And as the Dodgers clinched, and went to their clubhouse to douse themselves in alcohol, they were quick to remind the very young Julio Urias that he needed to stick to soda pop..........

Shit. Walter Johnson was a beast............

Looking to fetch a Walter Johnson in this offseason to repair an injured rotation is going to be rather harmful to one farm system...............

The other night the Red Sox set a new record with 11 consecutive strikeouts. Normally, when something that unusual happens, there is an umpire somewhere with his finger on the scales. In this case the umpire was Sam Holbrook.  Look at the inside zone Holbrook gave to Sox pitchers Eduardo Rodriguez, then Heath Hembree. And it didn't stop there. Matt Barnes was blessed...as was Joe Kelly. All told, I count 12 pitches stretching the zone for the Red Sox. I count 3 for the Rays (all Odorizzi)..........

Sports Biz: Here is a trio of streaming updates. Disney (which already has a large stake in MLBAM's BAM Tech and looks to buy it all eventually, and also is into Hulu) is considering buying Twitter.......This is important, as it means the evil empire that is the driving force behind why people are cutting cords in the first place is buying up the future that cord-cutters are trying to run off to.........Twitter has had their start of streaming feeds over in NFL land, and advertisers are not yet happy. Of course, that whole screw up in the first week of failing to get much content out might be a cause they should stop worrying about...........Carrying on, ESPN is lining up a new tiered pricing/consumption model that aligns with their intention to own all streaming options. IMHO, that merely means that they have all their accountants real busy calculating how to ensure you keep paying lots and lots of money.............

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Draft Tracker

Updated tracker. We are now doing this daily for the final week. The Angels are still in 8th, but the percentage point differential between 8th, 9th and 10th is nearly gone.

The 2016 slot and pool monies were found here.

The Michael Jimenez Study is found here.

The HBT 2014 Study is found here.

The HBT 2012 Study is found here.

The Sky Andrecheck 2009 Study is found here.

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