TuesdoLinks: Blinging in the New Year

Welcome to the New Year! It’s a great way to launch a calendar, being a fan of the Los Angeles Angels. GM Billy Eppler has ruled the offseason and put the franchise back on the road towards title aspirations. It might not happen as quick as 2018, but things already look like we might have one of the coolest teams to watch NOW, even if a real World Series potential is still a little bit still out ahead of us.

I resolve to watch ALL of it. Possibly through more than a little bit of second-hand smoke. How about you?

Launch the shiny New Year with some cool Offseason-Links:

A Little Bit of Angels News

Billy Eppler kicks off the 2018 Effectively Wild podcast campaign at FanGraphs.........

Rod Carew still kickin’ it, which is amazing all by itself...........

Ji-Man Choi? Didn’t we already try this once? Yes. Yes we did...........

Everywhere In Baseball

How about some forecasting? The Angels are TWO of the TOP FIVE “exciting MLB story lines to watch in 2018”..........And Ohtani is one of the top reasons to look forward to the 2018 season...........And in some bold predictions, the Angels make the playoffs, Ohtani is more of a hitter than a pitcher, and then Bryce Harper sings a mega-deal with the Phillies and we can stop reading all that silliness out of Philadelphia about them steal away Mike Trout...........

This is fun. As half the baseball world is posting articles or video segments whining about the slow off-season for what should be the Big-Time Free Agents, focusing heavily on ‘Why has Eric Hosmer not been signed?’ and ‘Where will Eric Hosmer sign?’, we get a list of the All Over-Rated Players in MLB (where Albert Pujols plays a formidable role), and there he is, Eric Hosmer. (And the 3B on that list is pretty interesting.)...........

News to make my January. This past weekend the Buffalo Bills slipped into the upcoming NFL playoffs, ending a very long playoff streak. IN so doing, that leaves the Seattle Mariners as the pro team among the top US sports leagues with the longest playoff drought. In fact, the Seattle Supersonics, a franchise that doesn’t even exist anymore, were in the playoffs more recently that the Mariners..........

Woman making strides into the MLB Front Offices, and doing it the hard way. Haley Alvarez becomes a Scouting Coordinator with the Oakland A’s, via internships..........

Playing in the playoffs, especially for a baseball player, is a berry berry good thing.............

Have some fun with a long form on baseball equipment manufacturers. It’s a sweet read for cold January nights..........

Hot Stove

Oh look! A clever new way to look at how slow our more intelligent Front Offices are pursuing the crappy 2017-2018 FA class, much to the dismay of MSM scribes in need of things to write about..........

Instead, at least one such scribe looks at one of the obvious trends impacting what has more commonly been an off-season circus, teams locking up their young talent. Teams like the Angels, with Mike Trout...........

If Peter Angelos doesn’t want to see Manny Machado flipped to his divisional rival Yankees after trading him away, trading Machado to his divisional rival Red Sox seems to make weird sense. The Red Sox would never hand over Machado to their bitter enemy MFY, but the Red Sox are ALSO a bitter divisional rival of the Orioles. So go figure............

The Marlins, who initially said no way, appear now to be entertaining offers to trade away their final two quality MLB players - Christian Yelich and J.T. Realmuto............

The Duffle Bag

I recall not being able to attend this game, because I was playing left field for the AA Pirates of the North Sunrise Little League that afternoon..........Curt Schilling still picking the worst possible time to be the worst possible human being...........Mr. Met (Ed Kranepool) is looking to dump the memorabilia he gathered up throughout his career playing for a team that he is pissed at...........Vintage sports art, including that of Major League Baseball, done by important sports artist Ted Watts was found in an abandoned storage unit, and coming up for auction...........Joey Votto, kind of a cool guy.............