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THE HOT CORNER
It’s hard to plow through the bad news of MLB these days and be thankful for all that baseball gives us, but let’s try. You and I can start by being thankful for Mike Trout and Shohei Ohtani and Victor Rojas. You take it from there. What, beyond those, are you thankful for?
I know it’s odd, but I am thankful for Angel Stadium. I know it’s old and I know it’s a lot of lipstick and I know it needs to be rebuilt, certainly for modern economic of leveraging real estate opportunities beyond the sport of baseball, but also for the infrastructure itself. Things get old and worn down. Time eats at everything. But I am thankful because the thing is still beautiful.
The summertime evening views of the San Bernardino Mountains as the sun sets behind my back and lights up the clouds overhead in brilliant oranges, fuchsias and lavenders. The contemporary throwback-style scaffolding fails to conform to the 60’s modernist architecture, but if you look past that you can still see the sweet and classic lines of what is an enormous public forum.
I admit that my feelings are tainted by decades of memories and I am unapologetic for that. Someday that building will be gone and I will probably be thankful for the new thing. But I will still remember being thankful for moments such as the warm smell of orange plastic seating and fresh cut grass on an early Sunday afternoon as the sounds of batting practice echo off the seating facades and the outfield scoreboards keep me up to date on out-of-town scoring while I fill out my scorecard for the impending game. Can’t ever take that away from me. And for that I give thanks.
ANGELS
All-Star this, MVP that, Player of the Year over there. Now MLB has introduced the All MLB Team and you get to vote again. Go vote Mike Trout.............
The Angels and Anaheim met and the official public announcement on how things went was that...they met...............
If we all agree that Gerrit Cole needs to be an LA Angels more than anything else, is that not just begging Scott Boras to put Billy Eppler on a spit and roast him slowly over the hot coals? We can’t afford to put all eggs into one basket anyway so
HOT STOVE ACTION AND OTHER RUMORS
Cole is off the market, signing with the Blue Jays!!...Oh, not Gerrit Cole? A.J. Cole?? OK..........
The Yankees picked up some International Pool money from Jerry Dipoto in exchange for catcher Nestor Cortes, Jr. I didn’t know that Trader Jerry still had all that Intl money left over from his Shohei Ohtani days..........
This gives Trader Jerry a catcher to dangle on the market, and “Omar Narvaez has been an early subject of trade talks, with the M’s apparently willing to move him”. If only Narvaez could hit, or even catch.........
Mike Zunino re-upped for another year with the Rays, $4.5 million..........
The Phillies still want to spend their ‘stupid money’. Current targets include Didi Gregorious and Madison Bumgarner. But don’t leave them out of any discussion............
The Free Agent catcher inventory is not as robust as the long list of names might suggest. “There’s only one Yasmani Grandal however, and he’s no longer available. Any other team looking to upgrade the catcher position will have to act fast before the next group of backstops gets snatched up as well.”..........
ASSTROS NUTZ
People having fun at the Asstros expense, and life is sweet..............
Asstros Trash Can MVP Bobblehead?? This needs to be an actual thing, that I can actually buy. And, like, NOW.............
BASEBALL THINGS IN GENERAL
Shutting down the 42 MiLB teams currently targeted is a huge deal when overlayed by demographics. For example, about 10 million people could be affected. And huge areas would be shut out of baseball altogether. This article is really telling and worth a full read. I also think it kind of funny to learn that these 42 teams reported an overall 2019 attendance of 3.986,996 fans. That is more than Pittsburgh AND Baltimore AND Tampa Bay, combined (3,977,971)...........
I thought this didn’t pass the smell test. The doctor at the center of the Jacoby Ellsbury/Yankees residual contract payment issue has been spoken to by Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic and, like I wrote yesterday, the guy is nothing more than a family doctor. The ($$) link to the source story is here, but you can get a free review over here.....basically, the Yankees knew about the guy and requested info from him and got that info back quickly and there is nothing there, but the Yankees forgot to take out insurance on Ellsbury and are looking to bury somebody else (in this case, Ellsbury) for their mistake..........
Bernie Sanders is taking his fight for MiLB directly to Rob Manfred. Good luck with that.............
Here is the world according to an actual MLB player agent. Being an agent and getting paid, worrying about labor relations, working in a male-dominated business..........This stuff means something when we take the time to note when even a Luis Rengifo moves to a new agency. He does that for a reason..........
It looks like Craig Calcaterra has finally decided that listening to Jon Heyman is a waste of time. Odd that he didn’t figure that out when Heyman was carrying the water for Scott Boras. No, I take that back. It’s not odd at all. Calcaterra is so bent on adhering to his religion that all MLB franchises are guilty of everything that he doesn’t want to know about Heyman helping Boras use the same information channels to get owners to bid against vapor............Heyman tweeting things out can have a big impact on the rumor mill, and I am sure that teams read his stuff, too, which is part of that feedback loop. It’s why Boras uses him...........
About every 3rd or 4th off season we get again the story of how one time, long ago, Babe Ruth was struck out by a woman pitcher. It’s that 3rd or 4th off season again..........
STUFF
Upcoming is the 60th year celebration for the Twins, so back come the Baby Blues............Jobs! The Diamondbacks are looking at a hitting coordinator for their Dominican Academy.....And the Dodgers are looking for a scout to work out of Arizona or LA...........The Editor-In-Chief of Baseball Prospectus offers himself up for an AMA and everybody wants to talk pies and mattresses. Sheesh............