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Counting today, we are now down to our last 7 days of the off-season. One final week. Looks like we made it.
There are a few things left to sort out, and some final travel plans to make. And it's time to start thinking bold. Every fan base gets to go slightly nuts right now. We are all tied and anything can happen. It's baseball, and anything usually does.
Enjoy some Final-Week-Of-Undeserved-Hope-Links:
A Little Bit of Angels News
Ok, let's get this out of the way immediately. Mike Trout the super-chill superman of baseball stormed the Internet news cycles and Twitter-sphere yesterday as a result of this Sports Illustrated love piece that we hope is only the first chapter. Everybody has their favorite anecdote. Mine: "[Dino] Ebel: In [June] 2014 he hit a game-tying grand slam off Chris Sale in the eighth. I asked him, 'What were you thinking when you walked up to the plate?' He said, 'I hit the home run on deck.' In the on-deck circle he was visualizing what he was going to do. Then he did it." That would be THIS home run. Delicious!..........
Moar Trout. The Face of Baseball as MLB kicks off their 2017 ad campaign..........
Jesse Chavez crushed it yesterday. Which is awesome. More awesome is to think that last year we had almost our entire rotation implode just weeks into a season that was then easily forfeited. And just one year later Billy Eppler has created a replacement that sits in the top half of FanGraphs projections..........And, by the way, Albert Pujols looked pretty good as the Halos won. 2 for 4 with 2 RBI and 2 runs scored, and legged it from 1st to 3rd on a single to left field.........
More guys getting moved to AAA. They will stick around through the Freeway Series before heading to Salt Lake. No real surprises...........
Curious. I would have thought that Andrelton Simmons would have gotten his body stretched out by now, having trained and warmed up and competed in competitive games in the WBC. And yet, he has some nagging back stiffness as we rush towards Opening Day. Supposedly it's no big deal, but back stiffness is the kind of thing that can bug...........
Martin "cannon" Maldonado. Few things on the baseball field are as awe inspiring as when a catcher erases a base runner with a laser throw. Such a thing appears to defy space and time. There should be no way that a person encumbered by armor and starting from an awkward position should be able to take out another player hurtling away from him with just a couple of steps left to get to safety and already so far, far away. Read what the players say about Maldonado after seeing him in person, knowing what is common in Major League Baseball. Certainly, we will all go to games to watch Mike Trout do Mike Trout baseball things, but keep a watchful eye out for Maldonado taking laser shots at opposing base runners...............
Something is afoot between Arte and The City of Anaheim. I don't know what it is, because it was a closed session. But things are a goin' on..............
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Everywhere In Baseball
Time heals all wounds? Yeah, 13 years later it's more fun to dwell on the raw stats of Barry "Needlebeef" Bonds than it is to spend time rehashing how it is that he got there. More importantly, I did not know that you could break Pac Man by scoring higher than 3,333,360.........
Predicting the Rockies to make the 2017 playoffs really IS bold. They have to face the Dodgers and Gianst something like 17 times each (although the Giants look far less formidable this year than recently), and win more games than a bunch of other top MLB talent in the likes of the Cubs, Nats, Mets, Cards, Bucs and Giants. And the Marlins might end up better than half those teams...........
Fan gets smacked in head by foul ball. Fan loses sight in one eye. Fan sues Indians. Fans sitting in jury box rule against fan...........
Yeonis Cespedes is clearing up some interview confusion that had him tagged as a selfish. Now saying all the right things, he wants a ring more than an MVP trophy..........
I dunno. I suppose that I am linking to these not because I am interested in the subject, nor because I think the subject is of any great meaning to we LAA fans, but because I am interested in sharing the message behind the dichotomy. It's not a perfect contrast, but here is Ken Rosenthal making the declaration that the AL East is about to be dominated by the Yankees and Red Sox again. And, on the same day, over here we see the far more analytically-minded FiveThirtyEight telling us that the AL East won't be about the Yankees and Red Sox (at least not yet). The message that I wish to point out is that just because you see something declarative issued by some source far more experienced or influential or capable than you, since it's baseball, don't fold on your own opinion. These guys are just making more experienced or influential or capable guesses than you or me............
4K Baseball. The reason I am so damnable frustrated about my home entertainment system. To get 4K operational, the technology cascade ends up overhauling almost my entire entertainment system, including content. Dammitalltohell...........
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The Duffle Bag
This might make for some fun lip slips. Jose Canseco doing the Oakland A's pre- and post-game broadcasts this summer..........Tim Tebw, wondering "what the hell am I doing out here?"..........Anthony Reyes, former Cards' pitcher, out of the frying pan and - literally - into the fire..........Matt Foley, my kinda dude..........I hope that Arlington has improved their restroom capacities. This new food beast is gonna cause issues.............Granderson is, apparently, Aquaman!............(H/T reddit: The Oakland A's have a very Oakland way to celebrate their fans.)
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