TuesdoLinks: All aboard!

Just some random Eric Hosmer thought-streaming here. I was following up on the fallout of the Hosmer deal. Sure enough, at least a few of those writers who were whining about collusion and evil corporate empires were quick to jump in and defend the deal. These are names to remember, when we can use Hosmer’s bad contract to tape their mouths shut in future offseasons.

In the comments there, we then saw a dust up over Hosmer’s defense. Gold Gloves were brought up and shot down and brought back up, which was fun to watch happen but sad to see it still happening in 2018.

One might want, instead, to just look at some numbers. Assuming that defensive metrics are improving through the use of StatCast and just fixating on the last two seasons (it’s not a better story if you go back further, but I am trying to be fair), among all qualified 1B in baseball Hosmer is the overall worst. He is at, or near, the bottom over and over and over and over gain. Defenders must, therefore, bash the evidence.

Down there in the comments is one person “spudchukar” who (while defending GG results) wants us to believe that defensive metrics may never “catch up to qualified eye tests”. Of course, “spud” readily ignores that the only people who get to see all of one player’s defense are those few souls who get to watch every one of that player’s games, and the workload of doing that prevents them from seeing much of anybody else. Eye tests are, therefore, gargantuanly biased and loaded with ignorance........

Finally, “gloccamora” goes off on defensive stats entirely, which is a common low hanging fruit left to swing at by the dinosaurs. And he brings up Bill James. I am starting to see James’ name pop up more often these past couple off years, mostly objecting to the current state of mass-market metrics. I wonder if James is our Galileo, the one who opened up the window to the universe but whose great contributions quickly became overshadowed by the likes of Newton.

Anyway, have some TrOhtani-Spring-Training-Links:

A Little Bit of Angels News

Cam Bedrosian as Comeback Player Of The Year? Ok, that’s a bit much..........

Trout has a sweet swing, and so does tuorT..........And Mike is on the same page as Arte when it comes to a new contract. Both kicking the can down the road to that time when it will be more appropriate..........

Meet Zack Cozart, who photographs too eerily as a super-slim Hambone.............

The Arizona-To-Anaheim pipeline is alive and well. Except this time we didn’t use the direct route to I40..........

Let’s see. The TL;DR trip around the AL West. Things to do. Mariners and A’s = fix CF, fix pitching. Rangers = fix all your prospects. Houston = play some solitaire. Angels = you already did it. Let it ride.........

Pujols to Ohtani for the out..........Mike Trout overwhelmed by the hype..........Trout enjoying his first look-see of Ohtani...........Life is good..........

Everywhere In Baseball

Pace off Play rules for 2018 have been announced. No pitch clock. But it might make for some weird confrontations. For example, a team is limited to 6 mound visits per every 9 innings. If somebody wants to go out for a 7th visit, though, there is nothing for umpires to do but try and body block him. Nothing actually is at risk on the field. Fines later, maybe, but I can imagine some stare downs in our future..........And possibly Manfred realized that putting balls and strikes at risk with the Pace of Play changes might have been the thing to piss the players off...........

Jon Lester sees these Pace of Play changes and whips out a riff on the “fans don’t play so they don’t know shit and should just sit there and take it” excuse. He blames TV cameras, because cameras can see the catcher signs. Which means that people at home can see the signaling. (Who would that be? Anthony Rizzo’s cousin?) Which means the apocalypse is upon us or something...........

Kevin Kiermaier needs to take some night classes on the current art o baseball tanking. He seems utterly confused by the whole thing...........Well, at least part of his confusion might be forgivable. While everybody is already trying to figure out how the Angels will manage a not-5-man-rotation, the Rays are going to do a not-5-man-rotation themselves, but the other direction..........

Are the Red Sox embracing the reputation as an Evil Empire?............

Dan “The Replacement” Straily is glad that all the good players are no longer around with the Marlins to make him look so mediocre.........

Grant Brisbee forgives the Padres. Because what else were they going to do with all that money?..........The Ringer forgives the Padres. Because at least they ain’t Florida..........High Heat Stats ain’t forgiving the Padres. Because math is a cold, cruel bitch..........At the end of the day, the Padres still suck. But it IS San Diego, where the best thing about going to Petco remains Petco itself and that is enough for plenty.........

Hot Stove

Josh Donaldson already see that his days in Toronto may be numbered.........

And Bryce Harper is already teeing himself up to sign nothing until next February. Because that is what Scott Boras clients do..........

Tim Lincecum appears to have a mystery offer from multiple teams. None off which are the Giants...........

The Red Sox were playing the waiting game with J.D. Martinez. What they are waiting for is the Diamondbacks to run out of gas and Martinez to come limping back. And it looks like that wait may now be over. Now we merely have to wait for the MSM to proclaim the Red Sox as having won the offseason..........

If you are going to tank, you gotta stick to your cheapest rubber band guns. And thinking that you can wait out Scott Boras is a bad, bad idea. As the Tigers just figured out. Because Hosmer demonstrated that if you choose to get sucked into the market, you can get sucked in for hundreds off millions. So adding the message off this story to the Grant Brisbee article above, the question now becomes what are the Tigers going to do with all that saved money??...........

The Duffle Bag

Oddly enough, my money is on Tebow..........Phase 224 of the Wrigley Field renovation is nearly complete, with 196 more phases let to go..........It’s funny how focused athletes can get on their jobs when they take a crap on their real world existence..............I need to get my hands on a fir jetty shan of Anaheim jersey!............The Marlins ownership is all on the same page as Derek Jeter. Too bad the book is a My First Little Reader..........Tampa Bay admits to owning their brand...........