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Poor Northeasterners, getting “bombed” by Mother Nature. The only person smiling out there is Mike Trout, weather geek.
But while all the other scribes sit in front of their blank white screens with insufficient imagination to come up with something to say, guys like me are having a great time rounding up the stuff said by everybody else. Contrary to common complaint, there actually IS a lot of stuff going on.
So while The Big Apple ices over, kick up your feet with these Roll-Into-The-Weekend-Offseason-Links:
A Little Bit of Angels News
Rob Picciolo, ex-player, ex-coach and ex-Front Office member who was well known as a great guy and who coached within the Angels organization, died of a heart attack yesterday. Only 3 years older than me. I need to start doing an extra lap..........
Welcome back, Eric Young, Jr......I, for one, am completely stoked at the news. And that is sincere...........(Eppler also picked up Jose Miguel Fernandez.)..........
Read deep into this review of the Kevin Maitan/Livan Soto pickup and you will learn that we got a huge helping hand from Maicer Izturis, who “...gave us a vote of confidence and spoke very glowingly about this organization in general”..........Thanks, MiceTits!..........
While just doing my normal thing of wandering around the Internet and beating the bushes for Links, I tripped over a curiosity. It all has to do with roster turnover. Using the team pages for the Angels on BBR, the 2010 and 2011 seasons have 0 of the Top 12 players from those campaigns still showing in LAA caps. That was just 7 years ago. .....Interesting also to note how BBR seems to love the Expos. Vladdie’s personal BBR page has him in an LAA cap, but his image on the team pages - and that of Orlando Cabrera - are Expos!..........
Trout Porn!..........And again..........(But, away from Trout, High Heat Stats remains rather ignorant about the Angels.)..........
Mr. Jessica Cox needs to remember that he is still quite the newlywed..........
Zack Cozart is looking to get his 3B game on. A SS almost his entire career, I doubt he has much trouble with the move. Lots of guy make that move, especially as they age and grow into larger bodies. Troy Glaus should come to mind..........
Cozart is also bringing Donald, The Rally Donkey, with him to Anaheim!..........
Ohtani Porn! Which is probably going to be a thing in this section for years to come..........
Eppler has kicked ass this Winter. ESPN has the win projection up to 88.7! All they think we need is a Yu Darvish to catch Boston, and some bad luck in Houston to catch the Astors..........I agree on both those counts (mostly because of the drop off in Baltimore, Tampa bay and Toronto gifting the Red Sox some easier win probabilities), but our target need not be either to make the playoffs. The second Wild Card is the bar, and 89 wins looks pretty good there. Since we went to the 2 WC system in 2012, 89 wins gets into the playoffs 4 out of 6 seasons..........
Everywhere In Baseball
As Baseball Front Offices get more and more infused with younger, information-driven executives the primary method of communicating deals is flipping towards social media tools. Twitter is a big deal now. Which begs the question: what is taking MLB Advanced Media so long in creating an app for that?..........
More meetings next week between MLB and the Player’s Union to tinker with the game so that less time is spent on the action, granting more time for television commercials..........
After submitting my IBBWAA HoF ballot, where I intentionally left Scott Rolen on the sideline, I read this and felt like shit. But then I read this and feel just fine again. Because, well, it’s just, like, my opinion, man.........
Daniel Bard is calling it quits, seeing his once-promising career flame out all too early. But, hey, it’s a hell of a lot farther than we ever got so chin up, Daniel!..........(Nice to see that the Big Guys in media read SBN, too!)..........(By the way, this is DANIEL Bard, not to be confused with the LUKE Bard that Billy Eppler recently picked up in the Rule 5 draft out of the Twins’ organization.)..........
With HoF balloting being semi-public, and people witnessing the trending for various candidates, here is a pumping up of the candidacy of Omar Visquel. It’s Joe Posnanski, a pretty damned good baseball guy. And then some silly facts come crashing into the party..........
Everybody deals with injuries. Even teams that are not the Angels. The trick is to survive them.........
Hot Stove
A gentle reminder that a major reason that this off-season is not a frenetic as MSM writers would like, is because FO’s are smarter than MSM writers and figured some important things out years ago..........
The Marlins are rumored to ahve named their asking price fro Christian Yelich and J.T. Realmuto, and the Nationals (who have the prospects) are looking to pay up...........
The Twins, who have yet to actually talk to the guy, are still claiming to be interested in snagging Yu Darvish..........
We now know that Eric Hosmer has a pair of rather large deals in front of him, and we (OK, mostly me) laugh at the numbers. But are they really that far off? According to Jay Jaffe, who is better at this shit than I will ever have time to be, based on his offense no way in hell. But when you then add in his defense, maybe yes. Maybe Hosmer IS worth all that. You know that Scott Boras is pushing every angle.............
The Giants, having already snagged Evan Longoria, continue to poach the East Coast or their aging superstars in decline. The new target is Andrew McCutchen of the Pirates.........The Mets are interested in McCutchen, too...........
The Duffle Bag
The correct takeaway here is that we still love our live sports content..........Angels fans are the most creative. And, no, it’s NOT true, which is why it is so fantastic...........Carlos Correa has a better Field Goal Percentage than the Lakers..........You go, Johnny Damon. Don’t ever lose that blazing confidence..........