TuesdoLinks: Norris Judged for mistake

The Angels sure hate Mondays. Clearly out of gas, they managed to resurrect the season of Masahiro Tanaka, who had surrendered 34 earned runs over his last 7 outings. The Angels, with a little help, managed only 1 earned run off of him.

After Danny Espinos and Cameron Maybin rallied the Angels to a 3-3 tie entering the 8th inning, Bud Norris failed to pitch around Aaron Judge with first base open, and Judge punished him. Angels lose, 5-3.

More of the Lost Weeks Links:

A Little Bit of Angels News

It's Jordon Adell, and you all are thrilled..........You have solid reason to be..........In the 2nd round, Billy Eppler took RHP Griffin Canning...........But the draft is far from over. Keep tracking. There is more gold to be mined this week...........I'm not blessed with the time to spend studying prospects so I am far from any kind of expert. I tend to not get too wrapped up in the promise of guys not having yet stuck at the MLB level. Adell may be an amazement far too good to pass up, but I would have taken Jake Burger. I want a solid power bat at 3B soooo bad...........

Cameron Maybin, fantasy stud choice of the moment............

I promised you that when Shane Robinson was DFA'd he would not go far, and that we would see him in Salt Lake soon (and probably back in Anaheim in a pinch). Well, there you go...........

We might have Mike Trout in uniform, but we still got Mike Trout stuff............

For Yunel Escobar, size matters...........

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Josh Mayhood's Library of Mike Trout Hagiography

This section placed on hold indefinitely, in memory of Mike Trout's 2017 season. In the meantime, we provide The Jessica DeLine Trout Recovery Watch tracker. When will Mike be back?

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Speaking of the Draft, the Moneyball impact didn't last long. I love this passage: "As Beane was chewing out his scouts for their excessive love of high school prospects, high school prospects were slowly becoming undervalued." Especially as Eppler drafts high schoolers (albeit just like a lot of folks are)...........

Nick Pratto, from Little League hero as Huntington Beach, CA won the LLWS to the 14th overall pick (Kansas City Royals). For non-locals, Huntington Beach is just a few miles away from Anaheim here in OC.........

Seth Romero, recently kicked off his own University of Houston college team for disciplinary reasons, went 25th to the Nationals. Leave your Harper-Papelbon jokes below in the comments section..........

Why do scouts rate prospects on a scale that only maxes out at 80, instead of something such as 100? Tradition. Going all the way back to Branch Rickey...........

Now, let's be clear. Aaron Judge is a legitimately good player, and might even sustain his run and be a great one. I don't want anybody to misunderstand my dissent. It's not about Judge, but about how willing people are to overlook context. Yankee fans and Yankee media are having fun. Good for them. But that should not mean that everybody else throws away their normal skepticism. As I write this, Judge has 21 home runs. High Heat Stats is all agog. In fact, High Heat uses that factoid as a reason to start pimping Judge for AL MVP. But I wonder. Mike Trout was on the same trajectory for 21 HR's in 60 games, and Trout has 3 other legitimate tools he puts to work every day. It took Judge 2 weeks to overtake Trout in fWAR. Had Trout not gotten hurt, would High Heat be using 21 HR's in 60 games as the justification for pimping Judge over Trout for MVP? Of course not. Judge is on track for an MVP consideration, but but not because of Babe Ruth name dropping..........By the way, back to context. As I type this Judge has 21 HR's and 14 of those are at home. Only 7 on the road. So his success so far is a product of the building he is playing in. But also, of those 14 at home, 8 have come off the worst pitching staffs in baseball (Orioles, A's and White Sox). Odds are that he will thrive in Anaheim, since the LAA pitching staff is giving up more gopher balls than any team not named the Cincinnati Reds. But those of us who are NOT Yankees fans or Yankee media would do well to wait until August before jumping on the bandwagon...........Meanwhile, we can enjoy the Yankee faithful already setting aside their sense of entitlement for a Bryce Harper Free Agent..........And after 85 games, Judge is already enshrined as a multi-MVP and Hall of Famer...........But, thankfully, I am not the only one who see the runaway hype train...........

Remember last year? Kyle Schwarber was the 2016 Aaron Judge. At one point, while injured, the Cubs and Yankees discussed a trade that would have sent Schwarber to New York for Aroldis Chapman. The Cubs sent Gleybar Torres instead. And just one year later, with Schwarber having fallen mightily, the Cubs might choose differently.............

Jeff Sullivan over at FanGraphs is also falling for the Yankee homer prowess. But if I look at the MLB stats, the Yankees have hot more HR's than anyone because they play at Yankee Stadium, where they have hit more HR's at home (69) than anyone. On the road, though, they are merely 14th (39). Meanwhile, their pitching staff has held opponents to 40 HR's in Yankee Stadium, good for 14th place. But, even more importantly, that same staff has limited teams to just 29 HR's on the road. That's tied for 3rd best. So the Yankees have an anti-HR pitching staff, AND play half their games in a a stadium HR friendly to their batters. Add it up, and you have Sullivan's observation............(By the way, this includes Tanaka, who has struggled this year but given up only 7 HR's on the road. One of the better in Baseball. See example: last night.)

Astros Shortstop Carlos Correa, once the #1 overall draft pick, is determined to become the Best Player in Baseball. Good for him. Aim high. But be happy when you find out that you cannot achieve beyond possibly being the best SS in Baseball. Because Baseball will most likely have Mike Trout for the duration of Correa's career...........

Ice Cube is going to make a movie out of Doc Ellis' LSD-induced no-hitter? Sounds like fun............

This is fantastic. It's about the time a fly ball was hit in a real baseball game, but nobody saw it come back  down. Nobody. Not the players, not the umpires, not the fans. To this day nobody knows where it went...........

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