TuesdoLinks: The Cowartly Lion

25% of the way through the Big Week of Winter, and the Big News of the day is all about Kaleb Cowart. He’s going to spin a cocoon and emerge as a rotation ace. All up in Seattle. It’s below. You’ll get to it.

These be the Winter-Meet-Day-2-HaloLinks:

A Little Bit Of Angels News

Yet another long overdue duh! moment, Kaleb Cowart (out of options) was put through the waiver wire on his way to be parked back in Salt Lake City. We were wondering what was taking so long? Now we know. Jerry Dipoto was lurking on that wire just waiting to step in and Dipoto all over himself again, claiming Cowart. Why? Because Jer-Jer knows that the Angels had given up on Kaleb The Position Player, and were pivoting to Kaleb The Miracle Pitcher. SLC was to be his career rehab assignment. Dipoto now gets to conduct that experiment for chump change. Except...this gambit does have to cost the Mariners something. It’s unlikely that any trade will be worked out and Cowart will have his contract picked up by the M’s, Dipoto will pay some nominal waiver fee, and then Cowart gets to take up one of Dipoto’s slots on his 40-man. All year long!..........

So the plan is for Cowart to convert to a two-way player. That was to be the plan for Cowart in Anaheim, too, but it was so exciting of an option that the LA coaching staff and Front Office couldn’t wait until possibly losing Cowart altogether before trying the experiment themselves. But this does mean that Jerry got his two-way after all. Just 367 days after he lost one. Seattle fans must be thrilled........

By the way, I keep seeing words such as “versatile” being used for Kaleb, and reviews pimping his defense. Even “better than average third baseman”. At what point did Cowart become such a prize? Can somebody point me to some defensive metric which shows him to be other than less than average? At any of the positions he tried to play? And if none exists, how versatile is a guy who can’t hit for beans, either? He had 380 Plate Appearances across 4 seasons. He makes Jeff Mathis look practically David Ecksteinian. Is this now supposed to be a loss for the franchise?........Perhaps the best summary: “Mariners aren’t going to be good, but Kaleb Cowart might be fun.”..........

We are not total losers. We have Mike Trout. We have Andrelton Simmons. We have Shohei Ohtani. We have Justin Upton. We have some other guys, but we also have some studs rising through the farm system and about to arrive. But, just as important, we now have the most handsome manager in all of baseball. No more lasagna jokes for THIS staff!..........

Andrelton Simmons porn..........

Everywhere In Baseball

Pretty funny how the world of baseball finally woke up on Monday and learned about what happened over the weekend with Harold Baines and the Hall of Fame. Where were all these people on Sunday?? The degree of rancor is pretty decent. Maybe they all needed to sleep on their first drafts before clicking Submit, just to make sure they were not being overly harsh. Nope, still harsh. Out of the wood work they came!....How the heck did that happen?........The slide rule says, really?? Harold Baines???.....A stunning embarrassment.........The system is broken!........I retire from caring about the HoF..........Harold Baines and not Edgar Martinez??...........And some pretty cool snark..........So who the hell is Harold Baines and how the hell did this just happen?..........And then, God bless, we always have the Jon Heyman’s of the world, who come along with the world’s most wrongest stat takes. Because Baines is more deserving than Mark McGwire. (It’s not really that hard, Jon, as BBR is there to look up how wrong you are.)..............

This ain’t a bad idea. Tampa Bay is sticking with their Opener plan for now. Hey, until such day as that when opposing teams figure out how to counter, or the Rays employ actual starters of quality, why switch at all?..........

Contrary to the history of Brandon Wood, there is data that suggests a prospect will outperform his traded self if he is retained by the club that drafted him. This means that trading for top prospects is less of a win than MLB teams seem to think. So don’t do it, Billy. Don’t go trading Jo Adell and ruin his career.........

Hot Stove

Billy Hamilton is taking a one-year deal to roam centerfield for the Royals. There are some people who think this makes the Royals one of MLB’s most formidable defensive outfields. I suspect that this really means that the Royals will have the roster of outfielders who shall be the fastest back to the warning track to watch home runs surrendered by their pitching staff. They were tied with the Halos for 6th in all of MLB............

I’d be really worried about your MLB reliever signing counts, Buster, if this were March of 2019. That would be because we had just gotten through January and February, which is the new hunting season for clubs to fill out their bullpen cattle calls. But it’s not March. It’s December. Early December, at that..........

Nathan Eovaldi wanted to go home to Houston, and/or to play for a winner. Left unsaid is that he would also take the overpay. Billy Eppler gets the Participation Trophy for not qualifying for any of the above..........

Brian Cashman re-re-re-interated that the Yankees are out on Bryce Harper..........The joy here is watching the MFY fans fume at missing out on yet another entitlement..........The previous miss? Yeah, that one..........

Yeah, we are already tired of the New York fan bases trying to own the Winter Meetings...........

The Duffle Bag

Because he Dodgers and Red Sox were such a great viewer draw in the World Series, ESPN makes their brilliant move to double down on those two teams for Sunday Night Game of the Week next year. In their first wave of announcements, it’s 8 out of 11...........Oooh. Job opening. MSM job opening. About an enticing as being a mechanical draftsman in the age of CAD/CAM systems..........Paul Konerko is a Big Hall kinda guy. Either that, or he is very fond of tenure..........