Thor’sLinks: The Calm Before The Swarm

News was slow yesterday. Eerily quiet. Part of that is because the news cycles are cycling off to Florida and Arizona to prepare for Spring Training. And part of it is that suspenseful concentration that comes from focusing on that potential moment of a great event. That great event of this winter would be HarpChado. The first serious deadline would be the openings of camp. Could they remain unsigned even then? The media is hoping that the answer is NO. But beyond that, the second deadline, the REAL deadline, would be Opening Day.

Very little real news is going on right now. Mostly, it feels like the quiet, nervous, chatter among an impatiently waiting crowd.

Let review what did happen with these Couuntdown-HaloLinks:

A Little Bit Of Angels News

How’s this for insight? A major key for the Halo season is that the pitching staff has to stay healthy.............

Eppler keeps modeling his MiLB coaching staff, bringing over a Driveline consultant to be pitching coach for Orem............This is indicative of his approach to upgraded the entire farm system, applying analytical research and modern training and development systems as a unified process starting from the top..............

Justin Upton is a big Shohei Ohtani fan. American League All-Star Game starting right fielder?............

You know that part where Billy Eppler says that he is happy with his current roster? Yeah, well, no. We have Jon Heyman to correct Eppler, telling him that he is really still looking for relievers. Notice that a team has to win the World Series if they want Heyman to properly capitalize their franchise name..........

Once upon a time we made a trade. Looking back, we did not win that trade. The surprising part, though, is that we did not lose it, either............

Mark your calendars. Mike Trout has a magic number.............

Hey Angels social media maven! I see that you are reading my promo series and have decided to fight back?...........

Everywhere In Baseball

Dale Murphy is no longer working within the system. He is now a fan. One with a superior perspective, but a fan without special insider knowledge anymore. So when he gives us his Big Ideas for fixing baseball, he makes the same guess that many of us do: he assumes that the reason HarpChado have not been signed is only because of MLB owners. Yeah, it’s very easy to forget that it was Scott Boras who long ago, and first among all, learned that waiting until January can have positive impacts on the resulting contract. Lately his success has not been 100%, but history remains on his side. Who thinks Boras would be happy to see a singular off-season week in order to play all the teams against each other? Murphy needs to use whatever ex-ballplayer access and cred he has and call up Harper and Machado and get the scoop directly.....But Murphy does give us one pretty damned good idea. One that we have poked at here on HH. Change the draft order. His idea is that the #1 pick should go to the highest-finishing team that missed the playoffs. Intriguing.....His other idea, having a floor, is an obvious one. It does the most to create a platform against which players can fight back against all the uniform modeling that Front Offices rely upon............

Jackie Robinson. Centennial year..............

Marlins coach goes back to school. I suppose it’s not like he is going to have much to do for his day job...........

Why do I get the feeling that Yasiel Puig, not warmly accepted in the wild culture of Southern California, will be adored by the fans of the far more stodgy mid-western city of Cincinnati?............

Starting catches are disappearing as catchers are doing more platooning. This requires at least TWO catchers, though. Right, Eppler?............

Hot Stove

Martin Perez. $3.5 million for a 1-year deal. Courtesy of the Twins............

Greg Holland. $3.5 million for a 1-year deal. Courtesy of the DBacks...........

Mark Reynolds. $1 million for a 1-year Minor League deal. Courtesy of the Rockies...........

J.B. Shuck is clinging to his career............

SportsIllustrated is astounded to see how it is that so many lesser Free Agents refused to hold out for bigger contracts as long as Bryce Harper and Manny Machado.....Oops. No. That’s not their interpretation after all. Sorry...........So that explains why they are mystified that the Dodgers signed one guy who wasn’t holding out, for less money, when they cold have not signed the guy who is still holding out, and is doing so for huge money............

Because, you see, when we read about how a Manny Machado signing is not imminent, we find that it’s because it’s Machado’s decision that is not imminent. It’s Manny that we are waiting on, not the Phillies or the Mets or the White Sox...........

And the reason I bring this up a lot, is because the media are projecting their meme a lot. I linked yesterday about this, and today I can link to another article that wants to analyze the owners into collusion because Manny Machado has not decided yet, and they use the same link to the same silly article from the day before that I called out yesterday. The media is chasing their own tail............

The Duffle Bag

BVW of the Mets wants a General Manager Home Run Derby. He thinks he would win. Let me help him out here. He played ball for Stanford. But there are 10 other GMs who also played college ball, and 4 more who played Minor League Baseball. My money would be on BVW to not win...........MLB hair oddly lines up with Pokemon characters and you and I failed to notice.............This, everyone, is the very best MLB+StarWars give away that has, or ever shall be, given away. How the tech geek of Seattle missed out on this opportunity is beyond me, and my guess is that this promo mashup opportunity is the real reason that the Mets traded for Robinson Cano...........I love these pitching GIFs. Even though they frighten me. And Make me feel inadequate.............We have a beach nearby. How come we don’t have a home run derby into the Pacific??..............A chip off the old Clemens block...........