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College pigskin is now over. The NFL is winding down. So soon we will have all forms of pro football swept out of the way and we can get back to more important things, such as Spring Training and LIVE BASEBALL again!
But we have a weird trend coming out of Georgia. First the Falcons, then the Bulldogs. so what’s next? The Braves blow a 3 games to none World Series lead after being up 7-0 going into the 9th inning of Game 4?? If the Angels are the AL rep, I’ll take it.
Yeah. My brain is mush. I’ve got such an itch to watch live games again. It’s a sign of old age, perhaps. Tough shit. I want my Baseball back, baby. It’s more important than my frikkin’ lawn (which is easy for me to say because I no longer have one of those).
It’s probably the little bit of rain we are having. I am cooped inside at nights with these silly dogs who fear a wet outdoors. I come home from work to be greeted by canine cabin fever. And that makes me dream of sunshine, fresh cut grass, and the sounds of Mike Trout taking batting practice while Andrelton Simmons shags ground balls.
Oh well. Billy Eppler still has work to do before camp anyway. We might as well occupy ourselves with a dose of Still-Waiting-For-Tempe-Offseason-Links:
A Little Bit of Angels News
Dave Winfield, a one-time two-way player himself, thinks little of Shohei Ohtani’s chances to pull it off at the MLB level. The demands of that level of play are just too much..........
Billy Eppler and crew are hard at work in Japan making sure that they pick up on Ohtani’s training regimen right where the Nippon Ham Fighters are leaving off...........
Jaime Barria, still up...and coming..........
Everywhere In Baseball
Interesting thought I had yesterday: if BoSux fans are so committed to the purity of their World Series trophies, shouldn’t they be at the forefront in arguing on behalf of Manny Ramirez’s HoF candidacy?. If not for his PEDs controversy, his on the field results sure would bear some serious consideration. So why the silence? Hmmmm........
The case for Tommy John in the Hall of Fame, beyond the trailblazing surgery which bears his name. It’s interesting to read and think about, until you remember the names of Lou Whitaker and Bobby Grich.........
Speaking of Tommy John, UCL replacement procedures look to be dropping, but it’s way to early to say that for certain..........
This could be bad. The Rangers might be planning to lay down artificial turf on their new ballpark, where all the rest of us in the AL West have to play, a lot. The official word is “The building is being designed with the capability to go with a grass field.“, which is business-speak for “As long as it’s possible to use real grass, we can go forth with whatever we please and not be wrong about it.”..........
Just when I think that the world cannot get any more insane, comes a story such as this. The U.S. Supreme Court is on the verge of lifting the Federal ban on State-sponsored Sports betting (you can read about that here). In anticipation that the floodgates will open, the State of Indiana is already working on legislation to enable & control such betting. Here is where it gets fun. Major League Baseball (along with the NBA) are petitioning the Indiana legislature to include language that would take 1% of all the money wagered between the individual and the State, and hand it over to the billionaire franchise owners of the NBA and MLB. So, in theory, Arte Moreno could start receiving quarterly checks because some dude bet $2 on a Pacers-Sixers game. And the very best part of all this is that everybody (well, let’s be honest, NBA/MLB lobbyists) are calling this the “integrity fee”. “Integrity”, as in “moral uprightness”. LMFAO. They go further than that, actually, but that’s a big enough pair of brass balls for one day..........
Isn’t one of the reasons that players ditch the cold climes of their MLB home town and run off to Winter ball in the Dominican Republic so that they can party all night if they want to?..........
If Carlos Correa and Francisco Lindor are Buster Olney’s Magic vs. Bird, does that make Andrelton Simmons his Michael Jordan?.........
Ken Rosenthal is all worried that Andruw Jones might be a Hall of Fame ballot “one and done”. It’s the turn of events that wakes Rosenthal up to the notion that the HoF voting is flawed. Oh, the humanity! To which I say “Hey Ken, WTF you been with Bobby Grich, who HAD A BETTER CAREER?!?” (Just compare the JAWS numbers of Jones versus those of Grich, for starters.)
When baseball players are great people, you get guys like Hunter Greene..........
Hot Stove
The Astros, who picked up Justin Verlander late last season, are in the market for an ace. Gerrit Cole, to be exact..........
Jayson Werth is a Free Agent. He’s also 39. And if Rafael Palmiero thinks he can play at the age of 53, Werth is sure that he has few good years left, too...........
This taking down of the new CBA as The Big Deal for slow FA signings is getting old. We are a long way from knowing if it is actually “destroying the game”. For instance, the examples used of the Dodgers and Yankees have more to do with timing, that both teams want to reset their tax burden in advance of next off-season, than it does for those two franchises worrying about the threshold being HIGHER than it used to be. The new CBA did not prevent the Rockies from blowing it out on Wade Davis. The new CBA has not prevented Eric Hosmer from getting not one, BUT TWO, mega contract offers that others find laughably exhorbitant. The new CBA may be having an impact, but there are a lot more reasons behind this Winter than just that. And there are still fresh examples of signing old-style FA’s to old-style contracts that are obvious mistakes for all Front Offices to learn from (I’m talking Kendrys Morales and not Albert Pujols here). Let’s see what happens next year with a better FA class, one that does not include the Jason Werth above among the ‘gems’, or a Scott Boras demanding more than a 5-year deal for J.D. Martinez and holding out on any signing until he can get it, and then we can talk..........
The Duffle Bag
Damn. Bat-fetch dog has died. We need more bat-fetch dogs in our lives.........Life gets a little worse when Hardball Times/FanGraphs picks up yet another Mariners fan as a Big Deal editor/writer..........Meg Rowley is, apparently, replacing Paul Swydan, who is a Rockies guy..........Ex-MLB’er John DAcquisto is really going to miss ex-MLB’er Rob Picciolo..........A KC Royals fan is making the huge commitment to try and duplicate what it was that we kids in the 60’s, without video games or cell phones or the Internet, all did as a matter of course..........You are a sports fan. Therefore, this is why you are...........