TuesdoLinks: The Final Off Day

PLAYOFFS

Two more games. No more than two more slogs. No more off days. No more travel days. No more a lot of things. Maybe in the next 24 hours the rest of us can move on, no more than the next 48. One set of these guys is gonna be very happy and the other set of guys is gonna feel just like the rest of us: un-winners, forgotten all too soon. Honestly, if it had not involved the Dodgers, who are parked right in my own rhetorical back yard, I wouldn’t even be able to tell you who lost the WS last year without stopping to concentrate. Even as I type this sentence I can’t name the first loser from just 4 years ago.

All or nothing, baby. One team gets it all, and the other gets just as much nothing as the Skipper Brad Halos. Good luck to that.

ANGELS - THE HAPPY STUFF (mostly)

It’s finally time to cut bait. Kaleb Cowart, Nick Tropeano, Miguel Del Pozo and Luis Garcia was all outrighted but chose Free Agency, instead. So those guys have probably lost their halos forever, assuming they hang on to their MLB careers at all. Oh, and there was a 5th guy, too. The guy that had one good span of 8 games in the month of June, but was a train wreck the rest of 2019. The guy that Skipper Brad had “protecting” Mike Trout in the lineup at the start of the season: Justin Bour. He gone, too. They are almost assuredly all good guys. If they don’t make it back to MLB as a player somewhere maybe we will see them again as a pitching coach, or maybe an assistant hitting coach, or maybe even battling Jabari Bash for a home run title. It happens..............

($$) Some Brandon Marsh life story here. Mostly about Marsh’s support of his father as his father fights off cancer.............

50 years of the final, winning, out of he World Series. You want the 1:48 mark........

MANAGERIAL MUSICAL CHAIRS

The Pirates have to park their new manager expectations, because the GM they would be using to perform that search and hire that guy, Neal Huntington, has been fired............This opening gives Buck Showalter new hope for a baseball gig............

David Ross was introduced............

Joe Girardi was introduced...........

The Padres officially announced the hiring (promoting?) of Jayce Tingler..........

The Giants are locked into a choice between Joe Espada.....and...Gabe Kapler???..........

Just wondering out loud: with all the activity we have witnessing, one has to wonder what the Royals are doing?..........

BASEBALL

As happens every year, we have our “RoboUmp!” moment of the 2019 World Series. A baseball series can appear to hinge on a single game, and a single game can appear to hinge upon a single moment. And if that moment involves a ball/strike call that is arguable, we land here. This year, it’s Lance Barksdale.....Maybe the cool thing (or maybe it’s not so cool) is that fans now have the ability to do more than just listen to boos happening inside the stadium. Now everybody has a louder, more distinct voice, and from anywhere.....It also gives writers something to latch onto.....And latching onto a platform that gives them a cause to champion.....And again.....Blaming the catcher, though? Weak sauce..........

Longtime Yankee pitching coach Larry Rothschild is taking the fall for Brian Cashman’s inability to land Justin Verlander or Gerrit Cole or Zack Greinke or Chris Archer..........

One good thing that Houston has going for them is Joe Smith. I always liked Joe. He still remembers Tyler Skaggs......Did you realize that Joe Smith kinda has this interesting streak going, the one where he has never had a sub-par season??..........

($$) - Words to ponder: After another brilliant game, Gerrit Cole has made the case to be the highest-paid pitcher in history...........

The latest rumor is that the Dodgers are thinking about making a run at trading for Francisco Lindor. One the one hand I would love seeing more Lindor highlights so having him in LA would be cool. On the other hand he tends to kill LAA pitching so that would suck..........

Gerrit Cole is the #1 Free Agent and the Yankees are gonna pay up. So we go get #3 Stephen Strasburg. Thus sayeth SportsIllustrated. Of course, it might behoove one and all to wait a few more days and find out if Strasburg wants to walk away from $100 million guaranteed over the next 3 years. How much money does a guy really need?..........

Hmmm. MLB franchise has large numbers of tickets funneling through secondary market, with the funneling initiated from the within the franchise itself, and the packaging involves a lot of premium seats to premium games. The FBI is investigating, but this is happening in the south side of Chicago. What? Where did you think I was going with that??............

If there is one thing I am becoming ever more sure of, it is that MLB franchise owners are too stupid to spend a high enough payroll to employ top-level public relations experts. It seems like every time one of them opens their trap to talk about baseball finances, they dig themselves a new hole full of shit to fall into. Here is Pirates owner Bob Nutting: “However, we have to be realistic and communicate more clearly and more directly what those economic challenges that we face are. The idea that we are hoarding cash as a team is simply not accurate.” First of all Bob, you dumbass, if there are any fans out there dumb enough to think that any hoarding is going on, they don’t think that it’s the team that is doing the hoarding. They think that it’s you. And you know that. And they know that you know that. So stop trying to be clever. But we don’t actually think that what is going on is hoarding. We just think that you are using groovy accounting tricks to pay you and your wife and your children and your first cousins and all the other special consultants to whom you are related a rather handsome annual stipend. And we think that the path of least resistance is to keep your expenses down to a comfortable level below all your guaranteed revenue streams so that making those stipend payments is pretty easy. At least this is what this fan is thinking about you..............

STUFF

Flashing on national TV to raise awareness for breast cancer. To each, their own I suppose. It comes with consequences and if those consequences grant even more publicity, mission accomplished. I’m left wondering who it is that remains unaware of breast cancer?............A ¹⁄₄ page ad in a major newspaper ain’t cheap. But it’s still probably cheaper than World Series tickets. Maybe even cheaper than a DC hotel room for the weekend. Nats fans are still babies at this, though. They probably won’t be so charming once a little desperation sets in from missing out on such a rare opportunity.........I’ve never been to a watch party. Are the concession stands open? I wonder if it would be smarter for Houston fans to fly to DC and watch inside the Nats stadium rather than fight to drop thousands of dollars to try and squeeze into Minute Maid Park?..........Job Posting: Atlanta Braves scouting trainee and MiLB video gamer..........Ancient baseball textbook doodling..........Green Bay Packers tight end Jimmy Graham just won Halloween.............