HumpLinks: All Quiet on the (AL) West(ern) Front

Just to remind, as the FA winter shifts into gear, that just because it looks like the Angels are idle does not mean a damned thing. Not in Arte’s world of business affairs.

Two things to keep at top of mind:

1. Arte Moreno keeps his business processes and activities out of the public eye until it’s too late for his competitors to trump his moves. And,
2. Billy Eppler likes to work early on the major moves, rather than wait until January.

So don’t sit there thinking that we are getting left behind. We are probably just not falling into stupid deals that are already being worked hard.

Have some Faith-In-Eppler-HaloLinks:

A Little Bit Of Angels News

That which Halos in DE revealed to us on Monday, which came from an exchange with Jeff Fletcher of the OCR, turned into a national report from MLB on Tuesday. Speculation about Yusei Kikichi..........

Trout Porn..........and, also, fond memories..........

Everywhere In Baseball

The Josh Donaldson deal is sure making a big splash. It is sold as a low-risk deal for the Braves, one that gives them Donaldson at a discount so that he can prove to the market he is still an MVP player. It’s being sold as his old buddy Alex Anthopoulos being far more shrewd than any other GM. It’s also being sold as the Braves just won the NLCS (and here). Just keep in mind that Donaldson has not played a full season since 2016. His presumably healed body only has 16 games under regular season fire, and took the first 10 of those to shake off rust. And the REAL way to think about Donaldson in Atlanta is that the Braves just added $23 million in payroll, to replace a guy who already had a 3.7 bWAR season at 3B.........

The Mets (!) are getting modern, finally upgrading their Front Office. BVW, the Mets’ GM who came from representing players, just hired an analytics heavy hitter to be his assistant, and evaluate players. So maybe players should be thinking hard about analytics, too?..........For his part, though, BVW doesn’t seem clued in to the full extent of the conflict of interest problems he created..........

I linked to that MLB campaign contribution on Monday because it is a huge news item in baseball even during this Free Agent window. I can’t just ignore it. My angle was for you to remain aware that MLB is a business that works Congress for favors just like every other business, it ain’t a community service. Jeff Passan over at yahoo! explains that point further.....So does SportsIllustrated.....Exposed, MLB is announcing new donation protocols to push this back into the background..........

Thank you Jay Jaffe, for being the guy who used metrics to back up my eyeball test! Edgar Martinez was a hitter to whom I always knew to surrender. That’s HoF stuff..........

A vicious slider is so hard to hit, probably because not even the pitcher knows where it will end up once the break starts near the plate...........

Joe Buck was bored by the World Series. To his credit, Bill Baer of NBC Sports pretty much shreds Buck - and his partner John Smoltz on all of Buck’s and Smoltz’ reasoning. One of the responses being that Joe Buck is boring.............

Well here we go. The sporting league of the Black Sox scandal now has an official gambling sponsor in MGM Resorts...........

Hot Stove

The Mets are pimping hard for a deal that could return Robinson Cano to New York...........

Jesse Chavez, a guy who did much better before he was under the Halo, and much better since he left Anaheim, is back in the AL West. Just to bug us personally, I suppose..........

Here is something that I hope Eppler is way ahead of. Perhaps the new market inefficiency will be to cherry pick among the middle-class ballplayers. After all, we already have the several superstars.........The are also looking to bolster their FO staff with analytics-capable researchers and developers..........

Patrick Corbin has started his world tour looking for a fit for his multi-million dollar glass slipper..........

The Duffle Bag

Chicks still love the long ball, but long balls don’t always score the W..........Another job posting (from above), this one closer to Anaheim. How about working and living in San Diego??..........So is “449” some kind of Hall of Fame Magic Number?..........Eric Thames is trying to find the new, perfect, weapon with which to battle Noah Syndergaard..........Happy Birthday, Sosh. I can’t believe that I am older than you............Yadi at Petra. To confess, I am much more impressed by Petra. But hats off to Yadier, because not all baseball players are as productive with their down time..........Previously un-identified film footage of Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig, discovered at the Japanese-American museum in downtown LA (Little Tokyo)...........Sam Miller, first world problems..........