:format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/62691757/149726364.jpg.0.jpg)
It’s officially Winter now, Fall is gone. But from here on out, every day gets a little bit longer and we get a little bit closer to warmth, to sunshine, and to Opening Day.
Hey, we got pitching. Maybe not a murderer’s row, but it’s something. Be happy. Or, happier.
Have thyselves a Merry pre-Christmas weekend, everyone!
And while you do, dig these Winter-Solstice-HaloLinks:
A Little Bit Of Angels News
You probably don’t know this, but Trevor Cahill eats Halo bats for breakfast. Check out his career splits (sort the ‘Opponent - Game Level’ table by ERA, and sort the ‘Opponent’ table by BA). Well, he can’t be doing that in 2019, because now he pitches FOR the Halos. And, while on that splits page, look at how well he does in Angel Stadium. One of his better. So there you have it, 2 new pitchers in one winter cycle. If Billy Eppler manages to snag Yusei Kikuchi, too, it will be a huge attack on our starting rotation. No Cy Youngs, there, but still huge. But, fair warning, with these two new pitchers the squad is back to 40 players on the 40-man, so adding Kikuchu means DFA’ing somebody. Your guess...........
Jeff Fletcher is trying to keep pace with payroll. Doing this only makes sense for you to do if Arte has called you up and told you that he has a spending limit, and that spending limit is $190 million...........
Sometimes the stars just line themselves up for me in ways I cannot ignore. I saw this tweet by Jeff Passan. “The Angels have taken the $20M+ they were prepared to give to Patrick Corbin this season and spent it on Matt Harvey and now Trevor Cahill...” and thought, “Oh, no, it cannot be!” Yeah, any Halo fan older than 55 knows where this is going. Well, “Oh, hell yeah, it really really is!” In 2018 Matt Harvey went 7 wins, 9 losses overall. And Trevor Cahill went 7 win and 4 losses. That’s 14 wins, 13 losses. Well, guess what Patrick Corbin experienced in 2017?? Youbetchurass - 14 wins and 13 losses. So, yeah, Billy Eppler pulled a Buzzie Bavasi.............By the way, FanGraphs is a lukewarm fan...........
Mike Axisa of CBS Sports remains extremely frustrated that Mike Trout does not play on the east coast.............
Quick MLB quiz: Who’s the last skipper NOT named Mike Scioscia to manage a game for the Angels? (answer below)............
Everywhere In Baseball
Oh, geez. Reasoned minds understanding that outlawing The Shift is a bad thing are in the minority within the hallowed halls of MLB decision makers............
This new agreement between MLB, MLBPA and Cuba needs explaining. So...explained...........
This is tough. I mean, not for the Astros. The Astros are deeper than the Mariana Trench, and they won’t skip a beat. But I always liked Joe Smith. So ripping a tendon while keeping himself in pro shape and missing an entire season is a real bummer. Maybe The Angels Way is infectious............
Woah. I missed this. The Cubs news about building their own Regional Sports Network includes the possibility that they are linking up with Sinclair Broadcasting. Also, Sinclair is a bidder for the Fox RSN’s that Disney has to spin off. It’s bad enough that MLB has blackout terms, but Sinclair is a bad agent all by themselves. Their business model is to lock away content - another form of blackout - from carriers so that they hold the content hostage in order to drive up rights fees. This could be very bad..............
Hot Stove
Who is whining about a backlog of unsigned Free Agents today?............We got Matt Harvey BY OUTBIDDING SOME OTHER TEAM!.......We got Trevor Cahill..........
The Cardinals got Andrew Miller.............
The Rockies got Daniel Murphy.............
The Nationals got Anibal Sanchez...........
Oakland got Joakim Soria............
And the Brewers got Cory Spangenberg..........
All of which probably pisses off Travis Sawchik over at FiveThirtyEigtht, who just saw his FA signing % article get blown out of the water...........
But Bill Baer of NBC Sports is still pissed off that every team is not doing Albert Pujols contracts any more. He really misses the good old days of stupid ideas.........
Well, Baer and SawChik may be about to get their wish. The Phillies may do stupid idea (like they promised a while back) and actually out-duel the Yankees for Manny Machado. Now, I’m all for this. In fact, I want the Yankeees to take the Phillies to the moon. To. The. Moon. Then Philly fans can settle in for 10 years of Mr. Un-Hustle and forgot those dreams of a lifetime of our Mr. Uber-Hustle............
The Duffle Bag
Season’s Greetings from the Angels............Jer-Jer’s new Mobile home Park is gonna be...pink.............Winter baseball in Venezuela is like WWE meets The Hangover.............
MLB Quiz answer. Did you guess it without looking it up?