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The BBWAA announced the first major awards of the week, Rookies of the Year. Zero surprise, with Aaron Judge (AL) and Cody Bellinger (NL) being so honored. Like, duh. (Seriously, I wrote that sentence at about noon yesterday.)
Out here as Outsiders of the Future, the Internet Baseball Writers Association announced yesterday the same finding, that Judge and Bellinger were the Rookies of the Year, both in a landslide.
Oh, and also, the overall IBWAA results also agreed with me on Relievers of the Year, something the BBWAA does not vote on. Kenley Jansen and Craig Kimbrel were the winners, also by landslides.
All of these voting bloc results were in line with how I voted, which I published on these pages weeks ago. So nobody is making the mistake of disagreeing with me here.
Have some Master-Of-The-Obvious Offseason-Links:
A Little Bit of Angels News
Mike Trout rookie season: 10.8 bWAR, 10.3 fWAR. Aaron Judge rookie season: 8.1 bWAR, 8.2 fWAR. So, no, ESPN, Aaron Judge’s was NOT the best rookie season ever..............
So here is some Trout Porn to make you smile..........And Mike is hooked up with MLB9innings...........
Tim Mead, still digging space stuff. Mike Trout in orbit............
Billy Eppler is trying to “keep an open mind” on CJ Cron. He certainly wants a left-handed power bat. He “likes left-handed bats”, he tells us. As I wrote yesterday, the GM meetings are more about making connections and laying groundwork than executing. So don’t get frustrated if everything is not solved by Saturday. But Billy, if you are bored this morning and checking in here for novel ideas, think “Colin Moran”.............
Dino “windmill” Ebel is moving back from bench coach to third base coach. So that opens up a spot for a new person to take up the all-important bench coach behind Mike Scioscia. Any suggestions?..........
Here is something to bookmark. (h/t UniWatch.) You can show all your Doyer fans one of THEIR OWN ACTUAL EARLY team logos. This was taken while they were still playing in the LA Coliseum. Obviously, before they settled into their flying baseball and LA Angels rip-off..............
Everywhere In Baseball
It looks like our sweet pipeline of stealing talent out of the Atlanta Braves organization has come to an end. The Braves are installing Alex Anthopoulos as their new GM. No more Andrelton Simmons for Erick Aybar and middle-rotation future hopeful. Anthopoulos was the guy who schooled Arte Moreno and Tony Reagins on the Vernon Wells for Mike Napoli to our divisional rival Rangers deal..............Speaking of Reagins, the Braves interviewed him first...........
Matt Snyder of CBSSports applies the Harry Doyle Theory to every team in baseball. That would be “a lotta people say you can tell how the season's gonna go by the first hitter of the year.“ Snyder says that Yunel Escobar’s single grades out higher than the LAA season. I disagree. The Halos didn’t win the World Series just like 29 other teams. But they were way more successful than they should have been, all things considered. If anything, Escobar should have tripled...........
Carlos Beltran retires. He was a winning ballplayer and a winning guy, and he exits a champion. But the cooler part is that he is thinking about becoming a manager. Eppler should give him a call.............
In the Department of Managerial-Merry-Go-Round, the Yankees are reaching out, or at least trying to reach out, to just about every warm body to fill their managerial role. Add to the cattle call Aaron Boone, Hensley Meulens, but not Brad Ausmus. For the record, Cashman, my cell number is 1-800-no frikkin’-way..........So, hey, why not? Carlos Beltran, too?!..........
Jim Bouton, one of the games’ great personalities, is on the serious decline..........
Baseball kicking ass in OOT, which should scare the shit out of NFL/NBA types...........
Established meag-monster Mike Trout gets BodyArmor. Newbie Aaron Judge gets Pepsi, and is rolling. And THAT, my friends, is the difference that CAA and Shohei Ohtani will notice when it comes to choosing the Yankees............
Yeehaw! I get to keep harping on that Jon Heyman knucklehead!! You have seen me link to him pimping the stupid Dinosaur Era HoF Ballot, and quintupling down over the weekend. Yesterday I linked to one of the push-backs that has Heyman so petulant. Today I give you Jay “JAWS” Jaffe. he reviews a few of the candidacies. The first one, Steve Garvey, gives you a flavor of how things are going to go. He starts off by whipping out all the usual and customary eyeball props, the kinds of things that Heyman and Lyle Spencer and Murray Chass all love and believe in. And then he crushes it all, with a final summation of “That's not even close to good enough to justify a vote“...........
Here is a tech-biased look back at how the Astros won the title using data-driven analytics versus store-bought talent. I keep meaning to link to it but other news filled the page. I do it now just so that it doesn’t go too stale..........
Hot Stove
1B? The first rumor of the day is that we are looking for 1B? (Yesterday’s rumor, as linked, was Cesar Hernandez at 2B from the Phillies. So this is NOT the first rumor of the week, just of the day.) And it’s not just any 1B. It’s Logan Morrison out of Tampa Bay..........The Angels would need the Red Sox to pick up Carlos Santana first, taking them out of the market for Morrison as a 1B..........
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The Duffle Bag
Mookie Betts should switch careers...........The Dodgers and Padres are going to play a series in Monterry, Mexico next season. It’s not an exhibition, and the padres would lose one home series in Petco.........It’s often best to just leave your hero worship of baseball players between the white lines. because nothing about what they do on the field of play requires that they do anything sane anywhere else..........Long overdue, we get a documentary series about Minor League ballparks in America. Thank the Maker that it’s Bill Murray hosting and not Ken Burns..........Ned Yost did not just fall out of a tree and go boom. He almost died..........Graduate from college, try and repay your student loans by running deli trays to luxury suites..........
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