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C.J. Cron was on fire with his bat AND his legs (!?), tagging two doubles and a triple yesterday. Since when did Cron become a speedster? He has 4 triples in his life. And that is across 1,027 at-bats. This spring he has his first in less than 40 at-bats.
So now, looking at the 2017 ST LA offense, we now have Cron leading all hitters (those with any meaningful number of at-bats) in nearly every category. He is hitting .457/.486/.886, with an OPS of 1.372 & 3 HRs. In all of baseball, among qualifiers, that is #1 in BA, #5 in OBP, #3 in SLG and #3 in OPS. He has only struck out twice. He is tied for the lead in hits, tied for 11th in doubles.
Is this our preview of C.J. Cron finally claiming the birthright of being drafted 17th overall back in 2011 (Tony Reagins' final draft)?
Just an another observation on my part. I already pointed out how the Angels led all of MLB in Spring Training stolen bases (although they have tailed off, getting caught a lot, and others are about to pass them by). Now I notice fielding percentage, where the Angels are tied for 7th. Not too shabby. They rank tied at 20th for total errors committed, and Danny Espinosa and Matt Williams account for 5 of those, 38% of all errors committed by the Halos thus far.
On the other end of he spectrum are the Yankees who have committed twice as many errors as the Angels, 26, and have the worst Fielding Percentage in all of baseball. Sure, 5 of those are Miguel Andujar, a prospect, but Starlin Castro and Ronald Torreyes have 3 each.Things look shaky for the Yankees both now, and in their pipeline.I weep for them.
Anyway. let's get on with it. Do these Links:
A Little Bit of Angels News
Matt Shoemaker was killer yesterday, mowing down the first 11 batters to step up to bat. But the Royals took the practice game 8-4 when all was said and done...........
Once again, an annual reminder that Scott Radinsky, the LAA bullpen coach, is also a musician..........
Guys are getting their paperwork to catch a flight to Salt Lake. It's going to start getting busy. You can keep up here.............
Nobody manages long when the talent on the field stinks. Conversely, who doesn't last long when the talent on the field is top-caliber? Well, Ok, some guys can still find a way to fail at that. But of a manager has top-caliber on the field talent AND the longest contract in baseball? Yeah. That guy sticks around............
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Everywhere In Baseball
WBC stuff here...........
Man. Wasn't it just two years ago when the Royals were considered THE model franchise to be emulated? And now, less than two years after winning a World Series, they are on the verge of blowing it all up? What the hell? Is this going to be the new thing? Win it all or have a short fuse of only 24 months before pulling the chute and doing the Houston Astros Dump Dance?...........
Let's have some Rougned Odor news. The guy who took the famous photo of the infamous Odor punch to the jaw of Jose Bautista is suing Field of Dreams for selling prints of his photo without permission (or compensation). For some reason, Field of Dreams seems to feel some resentment because, after all, lots of other people are selling it, too. Solid argument there, dude............And then there is Odor being a dickwad in his WBC game yesterday. preening after a hard shot to center field without first being sure of the outcome, and instead of ending up with a double, he limited himself to a single...........
Sorry, Sports Quotient, but lance McCullers returnign from injury takes a back seat in importance to that of Garrett Richards. Certainly as the Most Important Return to Watch in the AL West..........
Yesterday was Pi Day, and the Rockies had some fun with it. The Internet went crazy, not realizing that it was not real...........What IS real, though, for Pi Day celebrants, is this list of players whose names (all nick names) start with "Pi"..........
Here is something I learned yesterday. Some of the players in MLB that are listed as being from the DR are, in fact, Haitian. But within the DR, there is a very strong level of discrimination against Haitians, so Haitian baseball prospects do things such as change their name and forge their documents to get air treatment in their homeland in order to retain a chance to make it to MLB. For some MLB vets, the truth is kept hush hush to this day...........
Wait a second. When I saw this Noah Syndergaard bobblehead mock up artwork the other day I chose not to link to it because it looked like a hoax. Here it is in the news again, this time coming from Marvel itself?..........
I know that at least a few of you have backgrounds in physics. And this is a baseball site. So when I find a sweet little physics article that deals with baseball, I gotta link to it...........
StatCast is bringing forth defensive data in droves. And it is now proven that Mark Trumbo has a leather foreign object stuck onto the end of his left arm, for which we cannot define any meaningful purpose...........On a more serious side, how are the "5 Star Plays" and "4 Star Plays" defined, and how are they assigned to each play? I worry about human subjectiveness still............
Speaking of data, Craig Breslow is most definitely a believer in analytical data. Of course, as we find out int he link, Breslow "has a Yale degree in molecular biophysics and biochemistry"...........
If you find yourself having difficulty getting to sleep tonight, and you wish to delve into the metaphysics of Spring Training, have I got a link for you............
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The Duffle Bag
MLB merch fans have a new consumption offer. Kind of like a book-of-the-month club............The Bobby Bonilla All-Star team makes for a pretty impressive set of names..........Yet more fuel to add to the cord-cutting fire..........So the Dodgers, like a lot of teams, have an interpreter to help non-English speaking players. This one, though, is quite different...........We found the #1 highlight so far from the entire WBC!..........Incoming. A multi-media art exhibit celebrating a few of the baseball stadiums that have been torn down in our past. Better hurry though. And be in Chicago...........Yesterday I noted that SBN's twitter account had been suspended (it was granted freedom already). So here is another sports guy taking a look at twitter jail...........We are used to this with Mike Trout: every team thinking they are entitled to ShoHei Otani. There is a valid reason for the lust..........
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Halo-Oppo-ly
Week 6 of our Chance/Community Chest cards!
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