MondoLinks: Season over. We are all tied again.

I am probably in the minority here, but what a load of crap this World Series turned out to be. While everyone was slobbering over the Friday night/Saturday morning marathon, and glorifying all the pitching performances, all I could think of was the lack of basic offense. If the emphasis throughout the game is the gravitational pull towards Three True Outcome baseball, well, this was the poster child of why our future sucks eggs.

Here is One True Fact. Between the JD Martinez Plate Appearance in the bottom of the 5th inning of Game 2, when Martinez singled to score Mookie Betts and Andrew Benintendi, and the Rafael Devers Plate Appearance in the 9th inning of Game 4 when Devers singled to score Brock Holt, by my count both teams combined for 223 Plate Appearances where the only runs scored were by home runs or fielding errors. So that you know that is not one of my many typos, that is TWO HUNDRED AND TWENTY THREE PLATE APPEARANCES. (I may be off by 1 or 2.)

And, by the way, during that time only 13 runs were scored at all. All 13 by home runs or infield errors. Two 3-run home runs, four solo home runs, and three 1-run scoring infield errors. 58 of those 223 PA’s ended up as strikeouts, regardless of what kind of pitcher was on the mound. That’s a 26% K rate, which would rank as the 13th worst K-rate in all of MLB among qualified players in 2018. Even Hank Aaron is embarrassed by it. (Then again, Hammerin’ Hank doesn’t think he could have hit today’s pitchers at all, so maybe he’s not a good supporting argument.) During those 223 PA’s there were 18 walks. That’s an 8% BB rate, good for 86th-best in all of MLB this year.

Thus, Game 5 was a fitting end to this shit-show. 2-run home run in the top of the 1st. Solo home run in the bottom of the 1st. Solo home run, solo home run, solo home run. End of game, end of series, end of season, good night.

Oh, sure, David Price/Nathan Eovaldi/Walker Buehler/Joe Kelly/Craig Kimbrel/Rich Hill. Blah blah blah. What about the other 15 some odd guys who were on the mound in that span? They feasted, too. So pffft. That was good pitching just owning shitty offense, and mediocre pitching owning that same shitty offense, with everybody swinging for moonshots. It’s how a guy like Steve Pearce becomes WS MVP.

Please. Somebody lock this one up in a weather-beaten old chest, chain it to concrete blocks. and drop it into the deepest part of the ocean. Oh, and if anybody finds that chest, all they will discover is that Kowloon defeated Tiki Ti 5-1, winning the Word Series 4 games to 1. And nobody outside of Boston cared.

Now let’s turn all the pages, and get it on with KICK(the)OFF-season-HaloLinks:

A Little Bit Of Angels News

Welcome to the franchise family, Rocket City Trash Pandas.............

Shohei Ohtani is still in SoCal, and working out hard already...........,

Angels coach Scott Radinsky has been around a long time. And over that time, his relationship with denser statistical analysis evolved to the point where he is all in now, and his charges under the halo are getting it. And to hear Radinsky tell it, it has a lot to do with out those stats are communicated and explained - something LAA seems to be good at............

Everywhere In Baseball

We have a slew of important dates to keep track of.......The first such date is today. Officially, all players with expired contracts are Free Agents immediately...........So we can let the rumor mill fly!............For the next 5 days, only their old team can negotiate with them............Qualifying Offers have to be made 5 days after the WS, with today being Day 1. So, Friday. And then players have 10 days to accept or decline.............But is Bryce Harper already off the market?. This would make sense if the Nats are re-signing him, since this is that initial period.............Then, we have November 4th, when Gold Glove winners are announced............

Was Sunday morning bad enough to cause Rob Manfred to intervene and change the rules to prevent 2-day baseball during the playoffs? (And we ain’t talking morning start times.) Manfred is spinning that debacle as a Clash Of Titans, but he is open to not forcing that drudgery upon us ever again............

Dave Roberts will have a lot of attention this winter. Pulling Rich Hill was a huge mistake at a pivotal moment. Hill had warned Roberts before he went back out in the 7th that his tank was nearing empty. Some people feel that is all the justification that Roberts needs. But Hill was not yet in trouble, and had just enjoyed Eduardo Nunez K’ing himself on a 91mph fastball. So with a 4-run lead, why was that the trouble sign for Roberts? On the other side, Hill clarified that he was not asking to be taken out of the game. And Roberts and Hill got totally lost when Roberts went to the mound. So, communications failure here? Yeah, I would say so. If the pitching coach goes to the mound, 99.999% of the time that means the pitcher is staying out there. If the manager goes to the mound, 99.999% of the time the pitcher is coming out. Dodger fans are not failing to communicate..........

The Mets are going to do it after all. They are going to hire a Players agent as their next GM......Scott Boras and his fellow agents are not happy at all with this turn of events. And it’s not like they can just boycott the Mets, because that artificially restricts the market for their own clients. Agents get fired and sued for that can of stuff..........

Here is the thing about lawyers. They are paid ungodly amounts of money to sit around and think up ways to argue anything and everything. All that money grants them a huge amount of time to think up anything. Such as, for example, how it is that Major League Baseball can claim for tax purposes that they are not in the business of athletics............

The last place in America that still makes gloves for America’s National Pastime...........

The Duffle Bag

Need a job? Toronto Blue Jays are looking for an Operations intern...............Better yet, MLB is looking to expand their hiring. Here is a form to get you started. Ladies, I am looking at you............Not everybody understands the concepts behind modern stats. Some of them are players and decision makers............LA was Sports Central yesterday. And that’s not counting any of the 1,000 other things that millions of SoCal citizens got to do that had nothing to do with any of the major pro sports. (I was pouring concrete.)............The bane of Dodger Stadium is access. It’s why fans show up late and leave early. It’s all true. Except for celebrities. Celebrities know how to take faster travel options than cars parked in traffic...........