TuesdoLinks: We Now Return To TrOhtani Baseball

As ice and rain lock down large portions of Major League Baseball, the Angels are kind of lucky to have been bit only once by it all. it’s not a great time to break up a hot streak of winning baseball, but there is no better place to rekindle such a streak than the warm climes of SoCal.

Tonight it’s Shohei Ohtani versus the Red Sox. My guess is that the media frenzy over this will be epic. It sure would be cool for Shohei to shine.

Dig these Thawing-Out-From-Carbonite-Links:

A Little Bit of Angels News

Some off day Ohtani love coming from The Athletic..........Which is far better than any credit I could give to the LA Times. Really, Randy Harvey? Only NOW are the Halos relevant?..........In this millennium the Angels have 1583 wins, and the Dodgers just barely more at 1588. Both are 54% winning percentages. The Angels have 7 playoff appearances to the Dodgers 9, and both have 1 World Series appearance. Notably, though, the Angels won theirs. And overall, the Angels have a 54-40 head-to-head advantage in regular season competition from 2000 to now. No, Randy, you are the one stuck with a team up there trying to figure out how to get relevant again............

Everybody updated their Power Rankings Sunday. Angels are 3rd......Unless they are 10th.....Unless they are 3rd again.......

With so much Ohtani love, we forgot that we are supposed to be debating Mike Trout versus Bryce Harper...........

So let’s do Trout Porn. Secretly, Mike has jumped to the top of the WAR leaderboard. Well, Ok, only on BBR. Not so on FanGraphs where Matt Chapman reigns for a little bit longer........And, how about these career comps??..........(That bWAR value has, by the way, vaulted Trout over the likes of Joey Votto, Ian Kinsler, Enos Slaughter, David Ortiz and Jeff Kent in career tally. And there are some incredible names just out ahead in his headlights.)..........

Everywhere In Baseball

This is unavoidable. What with the horror scheduling of so many early spring games in cold-weather prone cities, PLUS so much tanking going on, attendance is abysmal and it cannot possibly catch up to the recent norm of year-over-year increases .............

But I don’t think that dropping 20 games off the season is the most clever way to deal with the weather risk. Maybe start with more scheduled double-headers? You know, the ones put there on purpose rather than having rain/wind/cold impose them on us all?.........

top prospect Ronald Acuna took the Braves of the hook for service time manipulation, by totally sucking at the AAA level to start this year. Now the Braves can legitimately say that they won’t be bringing him up until he shows that he is capable of competing. And expect to hear Acuna’s name mentioned in every future case of a GM being interviewed about holding back some prospect for a few convenient weeks.........

These things never last long enough, but while they do they are extremely enjoyable. Kind of like when ARod was stinking up his MFY playoff appearances. Nowadays, at least for the moment, it’s Giancarlo Stanton stinking up his pinstripes. Throw in their bullpen injuries, along with the Red Sox hot start, and they are already 5.5 games out while nobody is chest thumping about their new ‘Mount Crushmore’...........

Hmmm. Francisco Mejia is in the wrong sport. Baseball does not come with mulligans. Mejia sold 10% of his MLB earnings for an upfront payment of $360,000, and now wants that whole deal cancelled, PLUS penalties............

In the department of injury updates. Kevin Kiermaier is out for three months with thumb surgery........Josh Harrison will be missing 6 weeks with a fractured hand.....and Anthony Rizzo is coming back soon..........

The Duffle Bag

Never forget to thank Jerry Dipoto.............Yasiel Puig found some guys willing to be his agents. I half expected them to have been working out of an ice cream truck or something..........Vengeance is mine, sayeth San Diego weather! Blue Jays end up eating yellow snow...........Under Armour is under the gun, and will miss Rob Manfred’s goal of 2019 to take over MLB apparel..........MLB responds to everybody in the universe noticing their major league screw-up in Cleveland with Jackie Robinson profiteering, simply cannot understand how such a thing could have happened..........I want Bartolo Colon to play forever..........KC Royals reliever Blaine Boyer, Action Hero..........

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