TuesdoLinks: Rolling through camp

We are in a nice rhythm for ST. Let’s just go with it. The weather is great and there are constant moments of startling baseball positives. Accentuate them. You know the rest.

Have some Smell-The-Flowers-Spring-Training-Links:

A Little Bit of Angels News

Let’s have it, John Lamb. We could use a successful lefty coming out of the bullpen..........

Mike Trout equals....Ian Happ??..........

Albert Pujols: learn something from Jered Weaver............But at least Albert got his first hit off Spring. Drove in a run, lost his bat.........

Ohtani would have doubled against almost any other outfield..........

Everywhere In Baseball

Here is where we are: asking a player to conform to uniform standards is now a racial issue in need of social justice warriors such as Carron Phillips. And all of Baseball shall perish because it will fail to heed Phillips’ warnings. To which I say lighten up, Phillips. As soon as MLB figures out how to make a buck out off New Era logos under cap bills, everybody will be wearing their caps crooked............

Pro sports leagues are losing the debate concerning the “Taxpayer Pillaging Thievery Fees” that they want to have State governments steal in their names from the pockets of their citizens. And Rob Manfred, for one, is being a whiny little bitch about it..............

Maybe I like Nick Markakis and never knew it...........

Travis Sawchik has a fantastic conversation with Billy Hamilton in the locker room. Hamilton is having none of it, but I love the way that the other players in that room started to open their minds to the possibilities of using Hamilton as a super-sub............

General Managers now drive their business via text. So after reading that, I see a future market inefficiency that will be solved by teenaged girls...........

Seattle Mariners and injuries? This is shocking. Shocking, I say...........

Some day this will come to Major League Baseball. Or, more accurately, come back to Baseball. But the cost savings are enormous, and the technology in place is very real..........

Hot Stove............

The Cards just hammered home the exclamation point on this offseason. They didn’t get a Giancarlo Stanton or Shohei Ohtani or J.D. Martinez or even an Eric Hosmer. Not sure they really tried all that hard. But they did make a Big Splash. They gave money to youth, signing their Rookie of the Year candidate Paul DeJong to a 6-year bump worth $26 million..........

Eric Hosmer is pretty bitter that the baseball world failed to beat a path to his doorstep laden with large chests of gold and precious jewels and reward his lifetime average 2 bWAR, 111 OPS+, .284/.342/.439...........

Ichiro may end his career staring back at the future of Japanese Baseball here in the AL West..........

Neil Walker is finally getting some interest, currently from the Royals. Of course, this development cannot go without some implied finger-pointing about illegal behavior Much like what we can see with the Hosmer comments). But Walker just picked a tough time to be a 2B Free Agent, coming off, as he is, a 0.5 fWAR season..........

The Rays signed CarGo. He actually hasn’t been that bad the past two seasons. At least not after he was released by the Astros and signed by the Rangers...........

The Duffle Bag

Jon Lester is taking the “if you can’t be trusted to throw a baseball all the way to first base safely, don’t even try” approach. But it’s still slow enough that we can enjoy the physics breakdown off this strategy...........Derek Jeter sees himself as a new version of The Boss...........John Axford still has the Midas touch when it comes to Oscar trophy forecasting and who wins the little gold statue..........Another prospect pulls a bonehead, gets sent home..........