MondoLinks: All Hallow’ed Fame Eve

The Manny Machado and Bryce Harper Free Agency trains keep right on rolling, with no concern about slowing down for any whistle stop any time soon. I’m not sure if I am to care anymore. Not a good PR cycle, Commish.

But THIS week we do get one major distraction to argue about! Tomorrow we will have the Hall Of Fame ammouncements. We get to argue about which player(s) got in, which did not, which voters voted stupidly, which wisely, and PEDs(!). We got to talk about PEDs again.

Welcome back to Monday when, this week, we have Can’t Wait-For-Wednesday-HaloLinks:

A Little Bit Of Angels News

With the official agreement between the Halos and Cody Allen, somebody had to depart the 40-man to make room. That somebody is Miguel Almonte...........

The Cody Allen trending is less than heartwarming...but it sure looks like a familiar song to us, what with our recent experiences concerning outcomes with our pitching staff...........

Shohei Ohtani expected to be in town for the Anaheim Ducks annual Angels Night............

Oh, do I not enjoy all the happy talk that surrounds the potential of some new sports/entertainment complex. Like, say, in Anaheim. It’s all so magical, so majestic. Not a care in the world.........

Matt Thaiss makes the MLB Pipeline lineup as a Top 10 1B prospect..........

Everywhere In Baseball

Hall of Fame announcements tomorrow. Here are the details.....Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens are closing in..........FiveThirtyEight uses their modeling tools to forecast the results. They think they have a new model. We have 48 hours before we know if they are right...........

A great discovery popped up in the HaloLinks radar over the weekend. It’s going to be added to my regular hunt circuit. The site, JBAllen.com, tracks pro baseball in Japan. Allen’s blog is the most fascinating part. Well, this came to my attention because of an NBCSports link about the saga of Tuffy Rhodes, and his Hall of Fame voting history. When you finish reading that, go and read this one, about the application of the American strike zone in a Japanese game leading to totally bonkers behavior............

Sheryl Ring/FanGraphs take on the arbitration system...Part 3, looking at those who play the role of arbitrators themselves. TL;DR = more transparency in the information coming from both sides, better use of more advanced information, and arbitrators better trained on those more advanced metrics.............

Kris Bryant has managed to get under the apparently thin skin of Yadier Molina. Bryant called out the city of St. Louis for being boring. Molina jumped in, calling Bryant a loser. Yadi should have just sent Bryant a more dangerous drone............

I blame Twitter for a lot of ills. But protecting the authority of BBWAA Hall Of Fame voters is NOT going to be one of them...........

Julian Merryweather, I like your attitude!..........

The Cubs are striking out on their own, creating their own network.....Chicago is a major market, one with a lot of other sports products against which they will have to compete. And that is true both for public eyeballs AND for carrier access. I am still wondering why a sports franchise is not launching their own OTT system? Is there something in the bylaws that leave that territory to the league office?...........

Hot Stove

Another week, another 7 days that the Manny Machado/Bryce Harper Chicken Game (either with buyers, or with each other, or both) goes incomplete..........

Sonny Gray is nearing a trade from the Yankees over to the Reds, with the sluggishness of the deal completion being some attempt of the Reds to sign Gray to an extension............

The Dodgers are active, but not with Bryce Harper of Manny Machado (that we know of...well...Manny Machado’s dad might be in the know).....They are working with A.J. Pollock on what would most likely be a 1-year deal............So that they don’t have a roster clogged up with outfielders, the Dodgers are also looking to trade way Joc Pederson, possibly to the White Sox..........

Are we really “in” on Josh Harrison?............

The Red Sox, up there at the top end of all MLB franchise payrolls, and with rising youngsters on the road to getting paid (see Betts, Mookie: $9.5 million raise), are showing cracks. They have a World Series title to show for it, but now they can’t afford to keep that team intact. They have no intention of paying Craig Kimbrel money to keep their closer, or any closer for that fact............

The Cubs have allowed the thought of trading Ben Zobrist. Hey, the guy may be 37-years old, but he still gets it done. Not much power anymore, but hits for decent average, gets on base at a good clip and doesn’t strike out much. He has value...........

Evan Longoria seems upset that owners are not unloaded wheelbarrows of money onto older players anymore. In other words, not everyone has gotten the memo that teams are trying harder to spend on money on what a player WILL do, rather than what a player HAS DONE...........Lonoria needs to hang out with this guy up at The Mothership, who thinks that the owners are plotting all this because they think you are stupid. It’s an old maneuver, trying to rally support by spinning the tale in such a way that your audience sees themselves as a victim. But my favorite part was this: “This is about the owners, plain and simple. They were the ones that colluded in the 1980s (three times), locked out the league and tried to hire scabs to enforce a salary cap in 1994-95...”. Uh, 25 years ago we had different owners. George Steinbrenner, Peter O’Malley, Gene Autry, Marge Schott. Today’s owners have zero responsibility for the behavior of other people way back then...........

The Duffle Bag

I don’t know this “Masked Singer” thing, but that might make me the last such person on earth. Eric Thames, he of the Brewers, certainly knows...............C.C. Sabathia and Friends: rodeo kings..........I see Bozo the Clown. What do you see?..........The Red Sox, as World Series Champs, may have to skip their Happy Meal reception..........Who says umpires are not allowed to have fun?...........Josh Riddick needs a life coach. Somebody who knows how to say no..........Ski jumping at Wrigley Field. Why is this not a national pastime?...........