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Down to the wire we are, people. Our long winter of silence ends. Close your eyes and imagine the smell off fresh cut grass. It’s almost here. But a lot of news stands in our way. Let’s clear it out.
(Fair warning: my laptop is not registering all the keystrokes correctly, and not all of those misses are showing up easily as typos. I could reboot to clear it up, but that would mean losing the 50 or so browser tabs I have open to the stories I am about to link. So things might get dicey below.)
Slog through these Final-Offseason-Links:
A Little Bit of Angels News
I don’t know how much I wish to get serious about this, but the Angels are rumored to be in the mix for Tampa’s Jake Odorizzi. Of course, with Darvish off the market there are now half the teams in MLB similarly interested, if not more so...........
Mike Trout porn...........And more Trout porn............
The Ohtani hype train is just getting started. But it’s not starting out merely in 1st gear....Fox Sports is on board....The OC Register, of course, with twice the coverage (this one with predictions of his success from those most familiar)...And the LA Daily News....And the LA Times, worrying about when Ohtani will get to become the ace of the franchise. Which, when you already have a Mike Trout, would be a fantastic thing to have to solve............
Now that we have a real infield, isn’t it cool that we can now celebrate having a Kaleb Cowart as a super utility player?.............
This year’s PECOTA projections showing the Rays outpacing the Angels is not passing the smell test..........
Everywhere In Baseball
Puerto Rico wins the Caribbean Series..........
The Brisbane Bandits complete a three-peat of the Australian Baseball League Championship..........
The Braves and Mike Foltynewicz got into an arb battle over a difference of only $100K. Jeez. Officially, Foltynewicz is registered as the loser, but this level of pettiness wouldn’t have a winner no matter how the results came out.............
A simple and clean overview of the stat WAR. One fun part there is a rehash of Bill James as a crotchety old man.............
This is a pretty rotten premise. The Cubs sign Yu Darvish and suddenly that means that a gap widens between the NL elite and the NL middle class teams? How the hell can that be possible when the NL team that just lost Darvish is the NL Champion and perennial favorite Dodgers? Going from elite to elite means that anything changed with the non-elite? Uh...no.............
Or how about this one. The Yankees ‘lose out’ on Darvish and now need to pivot. That would be the same Yankees who lost out on a pitcher to whom they never even made an offer.............
Farm systems rise and fall in cycles. We all can understand that. What is less understood is the impact of a rise that is sustained over a long period versus one that happens suddenly. When reading the article, keep in mind that the LAA farm system is still rising..........
The Rays did announce that they were moving to a new stadium. The location is Ybor City, near downtown Tampa. That’s Ybor as in “Eeyore”. The bigger problem will be all those subsequent announcements concerning how the owners will be happily accepting hundreds off millions of dollars from the public coffers............
Elias Diaz’ mother has been rescued and is safe, and the list of her kidnappers is rather disturbing..........But in more sobering news, Williams Perez, ex-MLB pitcher, is under arrest or having killed Cesar Quintero, former baseball coach, in a gun accident..........
Hot Stove
The big news, of course, was the Cubs signing Yu Darvish. It’s 6 years, $126 million guaranteed, capable of going up to $150 million with incentives. $21 million a year AAV is not a bad gig, but Sports Illustrated sees it as a market discount, mostly because they are still stuck on comps from other market windows...........The Dodgers were a team in on Darvish, right up to the end. But the Dodgers’ offer was loaded with contingencies whereas the Cubs offer was not...........This is probably not the time to be making a big deal out of whatever his no-trade clause looks like..........
So where are you going now, Twins?..........
Credit the guy for tenacity, and consistency. Scott Boras is still working to circumvent the Front Office team of informed buyers - you know, the ones smarter than he is - as he takes his J.D. Martinez pitch directly to Diamondbacks owner Ken Kendrick.............
And to drive home that point off Scott Boras not being the smartest guy in the room anymore, this guy sees the same thing I do. That, is the real collusion...........George Will, a much smarter dude than I, schools the Facebook crowd and the Lyle Spencer generation off scribes with the point of informed and intelligent minds running baseball from here on out..............
Tim Lincecum back to the Giants? Or over to the Mets (you have to scroll down a ways) ? Doesn’t the guy have to pitch in his showcase still? Yes, he does, and the Mets aren’t even bothering to attend. Thanks for another miss, there, Heyman............
The Astros might not be done loading up while their window is wide open. J.T. Realmuto is on their radar, and they have the pieces to pay the Marlins’ price...........
Without getting a market fawning over them this winter, would it have been wise or some of these Free Agents to have taken their $17.4 million QO? My personal opinion is that these guys would still be tier 2 guys next year, and then too old to command tier 1 money the year after that. This is their time. They just need to be realistic about the level of their production...........
And now we turn to Jake Arrieta. If he was willing to forego long-term security, he would have a sizable list of suitors. The guy is still a formidable pitcher, but his numbers are trending the wrong way. At 32, unless he turns those around, it’s a fair supposition that 3 years is the safer bet for a buyer.........
The Duffle Bag
Steve Geltz. a kid we signed in 2008 and then traded away to the Rays in 2013, and who is now in the Phillies farm system, was busted a third time for PEDs and is suspended for 100 games.............Wait! I missed this. The Yard Goats, who I pointed to for their Steamed Cheeseburgers promo, are also doing something called a “Cowboy Monkey Rodeo”. Yep. It’s exactly as insane as it sounds............Jeter ducking New York City? I would have thought NYC would be the last place in America to think he was still some sort of hero. I would now think New Yorkers aren’t going to forget this............Kevin Kiermaier showing mad skills at billiards...........