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It's Groundhog Day. Our strangest holiday. Really weird when you think about it. We all pause to celebrate the mythological behavior of a random rodent in one tiny hole in one backwater village. And this will continue until that rodent some day when that rodent finds a way to chime in on global warming. Then it will become a $5 roasted meat slab under the warming lamps of the nearest grocery deli.
Question: how much longer will it be that people consider Groundhog Day an indication of how much more winter is in store, before a younger generation is convinced that it means we all get stuck in a time loop?
Anyway, not a lot going on as we approach Sunday, so have yourself these few lumped together Links:
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Everywhere In Baseball
Keith Law looks into the Angels Top Prospects, you can pay ESPN...or...you can give Josh some clicks...........
How is it that a mainstream list of the worst teams in baseball and their struggles to regain a window of opportunity, would include a Colorado Rockies team that some are forecasting to be a contender in a pretty damned strong NL West?..........
Yeah, I am in agreement with Craig Calceterra here. I am on record as having severe problems with the way that MLB chooses to go into the business of private investigations. They act like an entitled arm of the Federal Justice Department, and find ways to coerce other businesses to hand over what should should private and secure information so that they can pursue their investigative agendas. And they are not above breaking the law themselves, or even obstructing the work of actual police investigative efforts. So here they are trying to investigate the Jeurys Familia domestic violence incident. Even though that is a noble cause, it should still remain a private matter and our legal standard is still innocent until proven guilty. So when MLB, acting as the authority, finds itself stuck and without any fresh ideas, it's really shitty sauce for them to turn to the media and spread leaks in an attempt to shame their target into self-incrimination...............
The Oakland A's are no longer anything near the princes of baseball amazement. And I, for one, am thrilled to see it.............
Hey, look! Johnny G. got himself a new gig. He's joining Mark Trumbo on the Baltimore O-I-used-to-be-a-Halios............
This is great. Mark Reynolds was re-signed back into the Rockies organization, getting a minor league deal witha an Spring invite. That's hanging on to one's career by their fingernails. I mean, really, a guy like Wily Mo Pena - who hasn't played MLB ball for half a decade - just got that sort of deal. And then along comes Jon Heyman, giving Reynolds the "big slugger" treatment. Oh my gosh, guys, we need to hurry up and go get us one of these big slugger dudes before they are all gone!!...........
Bookmark this data point, folks. Carlos Martinez, 24-years old and a tad better version of our 28-year old Garrett Richards, just got himself a 5-year extension worth $51 million. Martiniez was FA eligible in 2020. Richards is FA eligible in 2019............
This kind of stuff will need to be annual primers for all of us as the StatCast data takes over: fielding metrics...........That Cardinals' hack scandal? Hell, that ain't even the first time the Cards were caught in a major fraud. Scandals abound..........There is another Cespedes. We don't know much about his head, but his D is sterling............
OT: This is super cool. Or super hot, more accurately. Kilauea is literally pouring into the Pacific at the moment. Usually, as when I saw it, it will just sputter............
Halo-Oppo-ly
(On a 2-week hiatus while I deal with a teensy bit of travel time)
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