TuesdoLinks: Ohtani a hit!

This could be fun. The same guy who struck out the side on Saturday took 3 turns at the plate yesterday and reached base all 3 times. Spring is already great and we still have Mike Trout, Albert Pujols, Justin Upton, Zack Cozart, Andrelton Simmons, Ian Kinsler and Kole Calhoun in our future. I’m not going to dwell on pitching. It’s just the start of ST and pitching doesn’t count. Or, as Shohei Ohtani puts it: “I think this goes for almost every player, but my hitting is always ahead of my pitching at this point in the year. It’s just like any other year.“

Have some Spring-Training-Links:

A Little Bit of Angels News

Zack Cozart has a profile up on The Athletic. I have been too GA to subscribe but there is a funny excerpt over at NBC Sports. Cozart’s wife sounds like a person with whom I could hang out..........

Ohtani’s first MLB hit-that-doesn’t-count. It comes with his first MLB-RBI-that-doesn’t count.........And his next pitching start shall be Friday..........

Andrew Bailey has called it a day. The one-time Rookie-of-the-Year for Oakland, who was sidetracked by injuries and then granted a reclamation chance by Billy Eppler in 2016. He retires from competition but out of all the teams he knew, he has chosen LAA for his post-competitive career. Which is kind, considering that his career splits how that he dominated the Halos with a slash line against of the measly .136/.186/.210 and an ERA against of 1.16.........

Everywhere In Baseball

Every pitcher’s nightmare. Felix Hernandez got smacked in the arm by a comeback line drive to kick off his 2018 ST. The Mariners are starting to think they are cursed. We used to think that way, too, come to think off it. The curse appears to have moved north to Seattle. Maybe it’s nothing to do with ancient burials grounds after all..........In other ST injury news, add Jake Burger of the White Sox..........And Clint “bonehead” Frazier..........(I don’t know what instinct is compelling me to track these ST injuries. Either it’s foreshadowing some level of doom for the Halos or it’s me anticipating delight in us having a comparatively healthy year.)..........

Lawyers remain the most fun to talk to at cocktail parties. Case in point #48: the legal standing of Chief Wahoo..........

Yep, when you have so many teams tanking at the same time, as in now, it makes more sense to try and win now. Winning becomes the new market efficiency to exploit............

Hats off to Chicago White Sox prospect Mikey Duarte, who recounts losing a sister in the Las Vegas shooting..........

Just so you know, media deals for broadcast rights have little in common with the yearning of fans and baseball writers for player salary justice. Cane in point: the Tampa Bay Rays are about to ink their own new deal with ox that will quadruple TV revenues. For my part, I am more surprised that broadcasters are still looking to hand out big TV deals. I would have expected these to start tapering off by now as we start to see some light at the end of the OTT tunnel..........Speaking off which, here comes CBS OTT..........And ESPN OTT hits in the next 60 days, with Bob Iger promising us all that he won’t pollute our baseball existence any more if we choose not to give him his starting out price o $4.99 a month (to go up from there)..........

Also in the media news, we see some sports reporters doing their own startup where The Athletic has not yet reached. This is something I was suggesting last year when everybody wanted to whine that people like me were doing so much for our communities merely through the kindness off our hearts, taking food off the table of professional sports journalists. My comment back then was that if any such journalist thought a guy like me was cheating them, there was nothing stopping such a journalist from launching their own online service, creating content, and keeping all the money for themselves...........

Hot Stove

Ok, then. Maybe some perspective is finally being granted to reviewing the Free Agency class of 2017-2018. FanGraphs takes advantage of the later signings, and chooses not to ignore the larger contracts, and sees that one meme about GM’s all deciding at the same time to wait out the FA’s in order to drive down prices is, well, less than correct. I still say that the true measure of Free Agency and Front Office trends won’t be accurately gauged until at least this time next year..........

You probably forgot that this happened, but Ben Revere played some games for LAA last season. He didn’t make it back. Instead, he made it to Cincinnati..........

The Duffle Bag

I knew that I liked Andrelton Simmons for something more than his defense...........Aaron Judge is still in recovery mode. Just putting that out there to give you something to use to temper the enthusiasm of your MFY friends.........How not to worry about J.D. Martinez in the BoSux lineup..........All the ways that guys get ejected in Baseball. Because every single one of them is fun to watch..........Orlando Cepeda improving..........