MondoLinks: Angels rolling into Oakland

Ok, being rather ignorant concerning modern medicine I am not the kind of guy who you can look to for meaningful information concerning Matt Shoemaker.  I know what you know: that the 105-mph line drive off the bat of Kyle Seager in the 2nd inning yesterday hit Matt Shoemaker clean on the head and ricocheted nearly 90 feet away. Shoemaker was able to walk off the field under his own power, and has been alert and communicative throughout. He has been diagnosed with a fractured skull and a hematoma. Neither one of those things sound good. Not to me. Shoemaker is hospitalized, and remaining there to be observed. Whatever is left of this season isn't worth worrying whether or not Shoey gets back into the rotation any time soon. Let's let him stay right where he is, get his family to him, and allow the experts to take as much time as they need to nurse him back to full health. Baseball can wait.

While baseball waits for the Shoemaker family, the Angels are off to Oakland after winning their 4th series in a row.  Albert Pujols is hot, and Mike Trout is even hotter. (Trout leads all of baseball in OBP and is just slightly behind David Ortiz in OPS. He is 5th in SLG and 5th in BA. He is 14th on SB. There is still a chance he could keep this up and reach 10 fWAR before the season ends.))

Have some Links of Hopeful Healing:

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Everywhere In Baseball

Bailey's Cream: Andrew Bailey picked up a Save yesterday to close out the Mariners, which had to feel good. It's been 3 seasons since Bailey pulled that off...........

Meyer Moment: The Alex Meyer, the REAL reason that Billy Eppler sent Hector Santiago to the Twins will make his debut on Wednesday (sorry, Ricky Nolasco, you throw-in, you). Oakland sends out Jharel Cotton for his debut, making this a nice little minor league development game.............

The Wright Stuff: The Angels claimed Daniel Wright, a young arm off the Reds minor league system. Wright was considered a possible September call-up. He had been bumped down from AAA to AA level to help the REds' AA affiliate in their playoffs. But Wright didn't do very well when he had been at the AAA level, and he was DFA'd instead of called up. So the Angels claimed him..............

Trout Time: It occurs to me that while everybody wants to keep talking about all the options for the AL MVP this season, Trout is going to be playing almost all of his remaining games far from the proper eyeball time zones of the mass media voters. The Angels have 7 games in Texas left, but everything else is played in California. And once we are out of Oakland on Wednesday, those 7 games in Texas are the only games not played in Anaheim. The other 17 games are all at home, and unless Trout has at least 4 spectacular games to draw headlines, he is going to be overlooked down the wire..........

Bad Timing: Nate Smith picked an unfortunate moment to come across some arm soreness. Everybody was expecting Smith to get a call up over the weekend, and join the rotation. Smith has been stellar at Salt Lake. But Smith now has a sore elbow and we won't be seeing him any time soon...........

Athleticism: One of the things that seemed notable to me when I was watching the video clips of Tim Tebow's workout, it would be the apparent weakness of Tebow' s arm after his morbid routes and clumsy catches. The obviously soft throws made those clips ripe for Tebow quarterback jokes. Well, this week I found another twist. Matt Ryan, a semi successful NFL quarterback for the Atlanta Falcons, has found solace in being trained on throwing skills by baseball experts Tom House and Rod Dedeaux. And the improvements for Ryan's arm strength are noticeable already. And, apparently, Ryan is following other clients such as Tom Brady, Drew Brees and Carson Palmer. Those are all elite names in the NFL. I find it very fascinating that professional football quarterbacks get all the way to the pinnacle of their profession, without ever having had proper instruction at any level to execute on what might be considered their most important competitive weapon. Now, by comparison, Tim Tebow has always been considered to have a relatively weak football arm. And if the typical football arm is weaker than the typical baseball arm, it only speaks to reason that even I would see something odd about Tebow's showcase...........

Baseball Biz: Deadspin somehow got hold of documents that are purported to be the true inside accounting info for a bunch of MLB teams. Now, for starters, I am somewhat mystified that secret financial documents for more than one team would be in the same place at the same time. The Angels' "secret" financial statement is included. There is a link to a PDF download of Arte's money inventory, but that link is 404'ing for me at the moment. The docs are for 2008/2009, so we are pre-Pujols. We had GMJ. Jr. but all the giant contracts were still in our future. So, by the way, would be the television mega-contract and the MLBAM revenues. So i am not so sure why we care. I suppose we could go back and see if we could find any references to what was being claimed in public and compare those against this doc, but that might be some hard diggin'. Arte has always kept tight company on his financial standing. As for the major hope of the discovery, that billionaire owners use baseball to add to their billions,,,well, duh..............

Harping: Bryce Harper is having a decent season. He started off like gangbusters but cooled off as soon as he started facing respectable pitching. The problem is that the difference between that initial high, and the remainder of  Harper's season, is huge. That, and the difference between what Harper has been and what his potential actually is. last year he finished with 9.9 bWAR. This is what everybody had been expecting all along. But this year he is at 2.3 bWAR to date. That is C.J. Cron and Kole Calhoun territory. Very good, but not All Star material. That is not what Bryce Harper is supposed to be all about. Because he is signed only through 2016 and is eligible for arbitration after this season (not a FA until 2019), Harper is costing himself a bucket load of money............But, even still, Harper knows how to put shit on opposing fans...just because it's fun............(By the way, this is Harper's 23-year old season and he sits at 22 bWAR. Trout concluded his 22-year old season at 38.1 bWAR.)...........

Carlos Gomez Update: After starting slow, Gomez is taking off for the Rangers. He is now batting .412 over the past 5 games..............

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The Duffle Bag

KRod just tied John Franco for the 4th spot on the MLB record list for career Saves. He is still 50 away from Lee Smith for 3rd place. I can't help but think that with the way that Sosh used him, had he stayed in Anaheim he would be in trevor Hoffman range and looking down the barrel at Mariano Rivera..........Clayton Kershaw returns to baseball on Friday. And it looks like he is more than ready to pick up right where he left off.............Seeing a game for the first time. No. Literally. Being close enough in the stadium to actually see the players..............Maybe baseballs used in Philadelphia are worth a lot more money than I thought. Why else would grown men risk their well-being like this, and like this? I mean, around here they can be had for just 13 bucks. And these are clean.............Ian Kinsler: old school, sandlot style.................In case you were wondering, THIS is the definition of a "wild pitch".............What would the current MLB standings look like if teams stuck with the players they drafted? Notice how well the the Blue Jays have done by trading away their draftees...........

The game of football is back upon us, distracting sports fans from all that is important. The game of football needs to die. Seriously, it needs to die right now............

Finally...RIP Freddie Mercury. A star is born............

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