WeekEnd HaloLinks: A lot of range for spoilers

It's the month of playing spoiler. Next up: the Texas Rangers. The Rangers are a couple of game up on the Cleveland Indians for home field advantage in the AL playoffs. Wouldn't it be a great weekend if Mike Trout single-handedly knocked them out of that lead?

Have some September Miracle Links:

______________________________

Everywhere In Baseball

Bailey Wire: I find this backstory on Andrew Bailey rather interesting. I had no idea how close to walking away from it all he really was. It's good to see him doing well (so far) on our roster. It's not so good to think that this might just be his proving ground to move on to some other team next season and bash our 9th-inning brains out..........

Trout: The dialog from MSM writers is already moving off of Trout's potential MVP qualifications and over into resignation that although he is far and away the best player of our time, year over year over year, he not as valuable as Flavor of the Year. This can be blamed on MSM attention spans, and an overall laziness in their failing to actually watch Trout play It's why I think Trout needs to do some one thing extraordinary every other game, just to keep his name in the highlight reels where voters can be reminded that Trout is actually playing in real games and not just having random people ink in odd results in score sheets. The sad thing here is that we are watching a dialog among MSM baseball writers. This is the same community who votes in the first place. One suspects that these people don't care to read or listen to themselves. So why should we?..........

Moar Trout: By the way, Trout has been roaring of late. His bWAR is now tracking for the potential to be the best result of his career. If he plays all the rest of the games this season and merely holds to his season average to date - something I just told you he is doing better than - he would end up at 10.9 bWAR. His best was 10.8 bWAR in 2012. Actually, that would be the best anybody has posted since Barry Bonds' 11.8 bWAR in 2002. It would be the highest non-artificial result for a position player since Cal Ripken's 11.5 bWAR in 1991...Over at FanGraphs, he is tracking towards 9.8 fWAR, and his tops was 10.5 fWAR in 2013.  But, again, Trout is doing so well at the current time that these projections are highly volatile............

Replay: This is awesome! A pitch bounced to the plate but as it crosses the plate and comes within fractions of an inch from a real baseball bat, the ball mysteriously takes a 90 degree turn in mid air and zooms off high and away towards the dugout area in foul territory. Or, so it was claimed by the umpires. Runners race around the bases scoring runs while the umpires just stand there. Fortunately, the video clearly shows that what really happened was that the knuckleheaded batter offered at the pitch and fouled it off. All is well, right? Wrong. Because, unfortunately, Major League Baseball doesn't have a provision for reviewing Exceptionally Stupid Moments. Foul balls and wild pitches are not on the approved list. So the call stood. Even better, the umpires doubled down on their stupidity by ejecting the rational manager. They did, however, figure that maybe it would be best if one of the baserunners was forced to go back one whole base...........But that's Ok. It's not like Cleveland and Houston, the two teams involved, are in playoff races or any such thing..........(By the way, I LOVE the official MLB-site caption for the photo on this review, where they call the play "A wild pitch on an apparent foul ball...". No. It was a foul ball plain and simple. To only 4 humans on Planet Earth, it was an apparent wild pitch.)..........

Braves Barf Biz: Far more fun than instant replay follies is keeping track of the pillaging being done on the taxpayers of the greater Atlanta region by the owners of the Atlanta Braves. HardballTalk pulls out the tidbit that the very first stadium game, THE inaugural event, will not be available to the very public citizens who paid for the stadium unless they spend a shitload more money and become "A-Listers". Top cost for being an "A-Lister" is $41,500.  Now, I just spitballing here, but I am guessing that the vast majority of those $41,500 per year seats (already sold out) are being paid out of corporate coffers, or something close enough to, so as to be written off as entertainment or "business development" expenses. Meaning, of course, that you and I are buying them on behalf of somebody else. It's all just so sweet. But the less financially blessed? Well, they can spend their time at local public parks instead.............

Tebone: Tim Tebow has a home. The Mets. I am guessing that's because that whole Jets thing worked out so well. By the way, it's already started. Tebow's commitment towards become a real pro baseball player needs to remain a part-time thing, because he already has a more important day job...........Oh, but he has a night job, too.........Meanwhile, the very best Tebow twitter take of the day (you really need to be aware of Tebow's football career to understand)...........Final Tebow take: that it took only 15 minutes for barstool Sports to whip out this merchandising idea, and because it usurps more than one marketing angle related to our favored franchise, just the very fact that this merchandise exists is the nail in the coffin of Arte's grand plan for national awareness............No, this is the final take. Too hilarious to pass over...........

______________________________

The Duffle Bag

Carlos Beltran takes the "H" out of "Hits"..........Andrew Cashner, soon to be a Free Agent, will only sign with a team that supports the liberation of oppressed lumberjacks everywhere. Godspeed on your quest, Mr. Cashner.........Phillies' 1B Ryan Howard doesn't like the shift. It makes him look bad. He seems to think that fielders should not be allowed to play where he wants to hit baseballs...........h/t reddit: somebody very important to the history of baseball is forgetful, and apparently the name of this party is not enough to locate them and return their property...........A girl can't even go out for a ham sandwich without getting hit on by Mike Napoli............

______________________________