WeekEnd HaloLinks: Game time!

We still are getting fun IBB articles to stir the brain pans. Grant Brisbee gives us a list of things we will miss.......Kelsey McKinney (also SBN) goes all melancholy and old-school........And ballplayers want Rob Manfred to get the hell off their lawn.........And, best of all, the rule change focuses attention on pace of play, and that leads to all kinds of fun............

I have a really hard time keeping up with Rougned Odor over in Arlington. Is he their uber prospect? Is he a bust? Is he blocked out of playing time? Is he trade bait? I dunno. All I know as of today is that he is a contract extension consideration that is not getting very far..........

Interesting what can happen when a sports franchise owner is forced to pay their own way. The Giants have paid off their loan for AT&T Park. They now own it outright. Doesn't seem to have hurt them all that much...........

Oops. Imagine if the Angels went out and renamed Autry Way to Domino's Pizza Drive? And imagine that they did that without so much as a by your leave to Jackie Autry? And then, when they got caught out, the story was that they couldn't track down any Autry relatives? Well, I concede that it has to be far easier to locate Jackie Autry than us mere mortals, but with a wife that is a pretty damned good geneologist (seriously, like 13th century shit) I am certain that finding the descendants of the Spring Training field namesake should not have been extremely difficult for the Pirates...........I wonder if I can talk her into taking that challenge tonight, just as an experiment?..........

Josh Hamilton has quickly returned to camp. The saga continues. I keep track because he still represents more than 10% of our payroll, and is a possible competitive threat. It's kind of like watching your home fall into a sink hole. It's gut crushing but, at the same time, you cannot take your eyes off it. Seems weird that the one thing that causes Hambone discomfort, out of all the activities in which he has participated, would be swinging a bat..........

Looks like the Red Sox have Yasiel Puig 2.0 on their hands. Rusney Castillo failed to run out a ground ball in their Opening Day ST game, and the guy is already barely hanging on to his MLB career hopes. yet one more reason that MLB owners would rather there be an international draft and less guaranteed signing money.........

Length of games has increased by 27 minutes, but it has taken 36 years to do so. Hmmm. Looking around, the average game time was only 2 hours and 20 minutes in 1950 (same link), but the average runs scored per game was 4.85. Average runs scored per game in 2016 (where we are still in the 3 hour range, not counting playoffs) was only 4.48. It ain't the fault of running the bases, that's for sure..........

Just like with Billy Eppler and Mike Trout above, getting a chance to move up as a player can often times depend on who you know. Maybe prospects need to crate LinkedIn accounts..........

Baseball is back, so let's start warming up our MVP voting discussion chops. One thing to be wary of: a "good" or "bad" MVP outcome is really only based on what measure one uses as a baseline. And that choice is subjective, even if what was chosen is objective data............

Yeah, this will end well. Joe Girardi wants earpieces in helmets. How many seconds before somebody comes to the realization that all this does is open the door to accusations of sign stealing??????????

Hmmm. The entire concept of marrying a global super model suddenly got a lot less interesting. If you cannot have sex before games, and you cannot have sex after games, and you obviously cannot have during games, and games last 7 months out of the year, what's the point?..........

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The Duffle Bag

Curious. Why don't we hear about MLB players getting called for jury duty more often?..........Yesterday I posted that BBR has given themselves a face lift. UniWatch tips us off that they have started to use vintage team logos from Sportslogos.net. Here's proof..........Salt Lake Bees are ready for baseball snowball!..........Yep, Cubs, if you got it, flaunt it!..........Spring Training Public Service Announcement for all baserunners: headfirst slides are stupid..........David Ross is gonna be playing with The Globetrotters? And to think the Globetrotters used to be something completely unique. Now it's nearly every night in the NBA, including the questionable outcomes. Everything but the bucket of confetti..........It's a lot of work to stand in a shady dugout and yell at umpires while chewing tobacco. Serious energy. Just ask Terry Francona, who is running out of gas..........If this reddit user is enchanted by Ian Kinsler being $170 surplus value over 8 years, he is gonna faint at the reality that Mike Trout is at 150% of that surplus value in only half the number of years..........

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Halo-Oppo-ly

Week 3 of our Chance/Community Chest cards!

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