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Ok, peeps. Christmas, Chanukkah and New Year's are all over. This is the weekend you take down your lights, move your trees to the curb, box up your decoration and stuff it all back into the attic. Seriously. We have rules.
We have less than 40 days left before camps open. (Well, maybe not for the Angels, who keep their camp dates locked up in that NSA facility in Utah.) In this time we have just a few dates left where we can use football to get our beer-drinking arms in shape. Get out your calendars, set your plans, use the dates wisely.
And along the way lap up some Links:
A Little Bit of Angels News
Mike Trout snags another honorarium, being named Sportsman of the Year by the LA Sports Council. Nice. Not the Nobel Peace Prize, but still nice hardware. The Sports Council will host a dinner and hand over the award on the evening of Monday, February 27th. This sounds like private jet time for Trouty. The Angels host the Padres in a noon game on the 27th, and then face the Cubs over in another noon game the next day over in Mesa..........
Trout Porn. MLB Baseball Savant offers up some defensive stats, and when you filter on Trout, you find some gems...........Also, Trout is our current exclusive member of the "Don't-Need-Their-30's Future Hall of Famers" club............Which would be handy, since it would mean we would not have to wait until the year 2038 to get a player in the Hall under the Halo cap..........
Trout Anti-Porn. Mike stole a decent number of bases in 2016. 30, in case you forgot. One home run shy of repeating in the 30/30 club (as he did in 2012). Stealing a bunch of bases might not be what Trout will want to emphasize again in 2017, so he should be projected to see a major decline there. Bookmark this projection. Projectionistas have a history of underestimating Mike Trout. They simply refuse to believe...........
Hey. There you sit at a computer. On the Internet. Staring at LA Angels shit. You come here. Often. That makes you motivated, interested, and qualified. The Angels are one of several MLB teams in hot pursuit of a new social media maven. That means that YOU could be the twitter voice of the Halos. And then you get to dive into shit like this and make a name for your favorite team. Who knows? You'd be working for Arte so you might even get paid.............
Jefry Marte sneaks into a rather odd club. Guys who had a drop in ideally hit balls (those that should be home runs) and yet still managed to hit at least 15 home runs. Does this mean that Marte is tailing off? Does it mean that Marte could revert to previous distance and exit velocities and see his home run count rise? My guess is that with the additions of Maybin and Revere, we will never get to know................
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Everywhere In Baseball
Some very wicked pitches were thrown in 2016. None of the Top 25 were thrown by LAA pitchers, but since LAA didn't really have much in the way of pitchers in 2016, that was to be expected...........
Does this mean that the Red Sox have drained their farm? Are we no longer alone down here in the basement of Futures? It might be interesting to revisit this thought three years from now...........
Yahoo! spent yesterday discussing whether or not Vlad Guerrero might be a HoF member. Maybe they got up too late to read yesterday's Links, which includes a forecast that Vlad has probably already been voted in...........
And if Vlad gets voted in, he could be a part of the largest first-ballot inductees since the year that that other guy who was famous as an Angel but went in wearing another team's cap...........
I agree with this premise: "When you’re asked to perform a job, and you do it better than anybody, shouldn’t you be recognized for that?" And when that premise follows this statement of fact: "Relief aces are now a legitimate category of player", it just follows that bullpen greats are deserving of HoF consideration, "Saves" be damned...........
That warm and satisfying cheer that you heard going up across the nation yesterday was the reaction of the sporting world to the news that Chris Berman will no longer be announcing the Home Run Derby...........
Former MLB player Jeff Kent equates "baseball the right way" with something contrary to knowing what that right way is. Because information is bad. Knowledge is bad. Feelings are good. Sheesh...........
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Trade Winds
Brandon Phillips really loves his hometown situation. The latest is his rejection of a trade to the Braves.............
The Duffle Bag
Wrigley Field wants to host a college bowl game. Just what we need. Yet another meaningless football bowl event, at a place that gets colder than Mars..........Sticking with stadium stories, Dodger Stadium is not one of the many built out of scaffolding.............ARod will not be playing in 2017. Kind of like he was not playing after August 12th of 2016. And probably like he will not be playing in 2018. Or 2019, etc...........Nice look for the Eagles. The guy they kicked out of the media booth this past weekend turns out to be the same guy who just won the city's highest award for sports journalism............Remember when KC Royals GM Dayton Moore was considered a bust, then a genius, and now maybe a bust again?............
OT: But fascinating. According to MIT, more famous people are dying now not just because they are reaching the natural end of their average expected life spans, but because more of them were made famous in the first place by the rise of the modern communications technology of television...........
OT: But vindicating. Yeah. Skip Bayless is a blow hole. So enjoy watching him get taken to the woodshed...........
Halo-Oppo-ly
My 2016-2017 Winter Project: Monopoly for the Rest of Us. You, too, get to try your hand as Arte Moreno-bags. We begin with the properties.
Right. Yeah. The other "utility". This is the one that gave the world the Rally Monkey. We are still waiting desperately for Idea #2.
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