MondoLinks: Simba Shines

Lots of important things going on right now. Serious FA and trade rumor-mongering is revving up. Coaching positions are getting filled. Awards are being handed out. And McDonalds has McRib sandwiches back on the menu.

It’s gonna be a short week for me. The missus and I will be traveling to RubixQube’s wedding and there shall be DIY Links as we start the busy off-season. I trust all of you to behave and, in the spirit of the season, share your newsworthy finds.

But while you are still stuck with me, It’s Loading-Coal-Into-The-Stove-HaloLinks:

I am going to keep this up here until the event, as a reminder. JeffJoiner directs us all to the annual opportunity for we fans to join the Halos in giving back to our community. The Groundskeepers are hosting their 12th Annual Canned Food Drive Friday, November 16th thru Sunday, November 18th at Angel Stadium.

A Little Bit Of Angels News

Gold Gloves were announced last night. And MLB, Rawlings and everybody put on their finest marketing caps and picked the ideal date and time to get the sporting world’s attention. Not......Congratulations to Andrelton Simmons for AL Shortstop. And, I supposed, to Mike Trout for achieving 1st runner-up to Jackie Bradley, Jr. of the Red Sox. Bradley is not a bad choice so it’s not like Trout was robbed or anything. He did play a lot more. He also gets a lot more credit for range, which is something I wonder about when it comes to managerial positioning...........

Brett Hanewich made an appearance in the AFL All-Star game. He came in K’s the side in the 8th inning. Scroll down here for the video. It’s my first look at Hanewich personally. Yeah, I can see a resemblance to John Lackey, but with the Jordan Walden hop-step delivery..........

Billy Eppler moved a handful of guys through waivers, all clearing, and off to Salt Lake. Quite interesting is that the list included Francisco Arcia. But most interesting is that these reports don’t include Jabari Blash..........

Yeah, no. This ain’t going to happen. Eppler signs J.A. Happ AND Joe Kelly AND Daniel Murphy AND CC Sabathia? That’s $103 million net-new just for 2018............

Jim Johnson has chosen Free Agency. You win some, you lose some............

Keith Grieshaber, one-time LAA prospect suspended 100 games by MLB for failed drug test, comes clean in his private life. The very best to you, Keith.............

Everywhere In Baseball

Driving in the Dominican Republic must be a horror show. Tragically, the Cincinnati Reds lost a top pitching prospect, and two others were injured, in an auto wreck over the weekend. The number of MLB players and prospects who are driving or riding in cars in the DR, versus the entirety of all such, must be small. And yet we hear this year over year. I cannot imagine what the total numbers must look like..........

The big FA news over the weekend was Clayton Kershaw agreeing to a new deal with the Dodgers. It replaces what’s left on his 2-year deal with a new 3-year deal, giving him 1 more year. Listening to Kershaw’s comments, there is a lot of Jered Weaver there. And he hopes to use this as a means to prove that he is not declining. And that is something into which there is a lot of insight...........

Also on Friday, 7 players received Qualifying Offers. That’s a smaller number than what was once a probability............

A major force that permeates all the living things of the baseball universe would be the financial pressures and opportunities on all franchises. It speaks not only to what any team might be able to do to improve their competitiveness, but also to which teams might not be able, or might not be willing, to do. And that impacts player offers and player movement. Every SBN team blog will have at least one such study looking at the public numbers for the home-town franchise, but FanGraphs did the work for all of us and packaged it all up so that we can see everybody side-by-side. Yeah, there is a very cinco reason we are so far to the left on too many of those charts............

FanGraphs also puts up Steamer projections. Why they do that before all the moving and shuffling is complete remains a mystery to me. But they do make the easy prediction that Mike Trout will lead all players. They suggest 9.3 fWAR. No NL player - position or pitcher - is projected to even reach 6..........

Pitching. We need pitching. Lots of good, healthy pitching. Bullpen pitching, too. Which is why this is one of the lists that needs to be kept in your pocket..........

Bryce Harper could be joining Manny Machado in Philadelphia?.....Unless Bryce Harper is a lock for the Giants.....Which is good because the Yankees don’t want him.....And the Cubs don’t want him.....And the Braves don’t want him.....And I am sure to trip across many more fairy tales before I get to New Year’s...........

This is NOT a rumor. It’s just some spitballing. But it’s fun sometimes to go apeshit crazy on possibilities. How about a trade between the Cubs and Dodgers, one that includes, uh, Joe Maddon?.............

The Rangers took Dodgers 3B coach Chris Woodward as their new manager...........The Blue Jays said Happy Holidays to hitting coach Brook Jacoby and 1B coach Tim Lieper, firing both. That’s put out there just to remind that changes are coming our way, too...........

Cameras, cameras, cameras everywhere. Is the excuse ‘security’? Whatever it is, the rise within MLB stadiums is creating a massive amount of opportunity for abuse and the teams are fully aware. Probably because it has occurred to them. Some have probably exploited the opportunity, but ALL are fearful of team spying. In other words, ‘insecurity’.........

Here is a minor factoid tidbit that came to me on my web tubing yesterday. It started with this Javy Baez data point, remaking on his fantastic offensive showing in 2018. 34 HRs + 9 3Bs + 40 2Bs is a rare accomplishment. Great for him. So I wondered if that made his SLG off the charts? .5545 is fantastic, but it ended up only 7th in MLB. Yeah, even Mike Trout did better. Sometimes stat finds are merely interesting curiosities..........

ESPN dropped out of the daily MLB news biz last year. yeah. Mistake. Look for that to come back next year, and maybe even ESPN saving us from at least a little bit of Joe Buck...........That new round of funding for The Athletic...is to dive into video and audio? So maybe I get some more baseball on SiriusXM...........

The Duffle Bag

Good one. Job posting for Trackman Baseball Product Manager. Good one mostly because it’s a pretty senior gig. Much higher than what we usually see opened up to the wide world.............Sign stealing..........