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THE HOT CORNER
I know what you are thinking, and it needs to stop.
You are thinking that we need 3 strong starting pitchers, the kind that will stay healthy enough to chew up 200 innings each across a complete season. This is why a Hyun-Jin Ryu at 3 years and 45 Million is still too risky, since he cannot be counted on to stay healthy and give those innings.
Well, we may need 3 starting pitchers but we don’t need 3 innings eaters. Why not? Because you have forgotten that Shohei Ohtani is back and has a need for a 6-man rotation, and Ohtani will be getting 6 days rest between starts. So we are actually looking for something like an average of 160 or so innings per starter again. It’s what we worked out going into 2018.
I’m not advocating for Ryu, just helping you reset expectations on workloads. 2020 gets to be exciting again, because Ohtani will bel back as a full-time two-way player of amazement.
Somebody needs to ask Joe Maddon about that 6-man rotation thing We should be highly curious.
ANGELS
Congratulations, Simba, MLB Wilson Defensive Player of the Year at the shortstop position, his 6th. Before any of you get all snarky about Simmons winning Defensive Shortstop of the Year but NOT the Gold Glove (won by Francisco Lindor), you probably want to go take a look at that Willy Adames fella there in Tampa Bay..........
We have our 2020 coaching staff filled out. I, for one, am going to miss Shawn Wooten...........
($$) - The first dividend to be paid by Joe Maddon will be using his expertise in recruiting Free Agents to Anaheim...........
If we want to keep buffing up our Front Office, there is one particularly credible guy with some LAA history who remains available..........
Did I say “Anaheim”? Why, yes I did. Time for Arte Moreno and City officials to get busy on stadium negotiations..........
Jeff Fletcher tends to have a pretty good handle on the LAA player payroll situation..........
New York Yankee fan redditer schools reddit on the Original Wrigley Field and the original LA Angels. And Dodgers fans there are surprisingly passive.........
HOT STOVE ACTION AND OTHER RUMORS
Here is what I have learned to pay attention to over the last couple of decades. The pecking order among Free Agents tends to drive franchise behavior. The worst possible outcome is for a team to focus on one target so fiercely that they get dragged out while the remainder of the most serviceable options are signed away elsewhere. And the worst gets even worse when that effort fails, and all there is left to do is to hand all your money to the last guy standing. And nothing, absolutely nothing, is worse than that last guy standing being a Josh Hamilton. Maybe this is why Arte once had his take-it-or-leave-it deadlines. Maybe it’s another reason why Arte seems reluctant to do business with Scott Boras. I pay attention to this because I firmly believe that too many observers fail to give proper weight to this behavior when passing judgement on FA market outcomes. And this year we have a well-defined list of just those players who might drive all kinds of unusual behavior and results...........
We are almost done with the MLB manager merry-go-round..........
Relax, Mothership, we Halo fans have had an eye on Yasmani Grandal for a couple of years already. And we talk about it here. And the LAA Front Office reads these pages. So the LAA brain trust is fully aware of Grandal.............
Howie Kendrick has made himself into a pretty popular commodity............
The top foci for conjecture right now are Mookie Betts and Gerrit Cole......For Cole, writers are still pimping the Yankees.....And ex-Yankees are pimping the Yankees to Cole......But the Yankees of now ain’t the Yankees of the 70’s......Mookie Betts isn’t even getting the chance to chat with the Red Sox about his status. Well, yet. I remember this same kind of angst concerning Mike Trout and his long-term contract...........
More “stupid money” for the Phillies?.............
The Braves really want Madison Bumgarner. My guess is that Atlanta is gonna have to pony up to pull Madbum away from re-signing with the Giants...........
MLB’s most problematic contracts: AL East edition..........
BASEBALL THINGS IN GENERAL
Well this is a very bad look. Dumbass Atlanta Braves General Manager Alex Anthopoulos actually spoke out loud to be quoted admitting that he has spoken to every other MLB franchise except the Nats and Astros still in the World Series, to figure out what their plans are for the offseason - including what they plan to do about Free Agents. We have to assume some level of truth to this, meaning that Anthopoulos is as big of a dumbass as his counterpart in every other MLB Front Office, and Anthopoulos is a particularly huge dumbass for teeing up MLB for such a huge legal mess. The Players Union is, rightfully, all over this. Hell, it might be the very thing they need to regain any kind of leverage over the owners.............
The crisis in Venezuela cycles back around again and impacts another season of Venezuelan winter ball................
Once Upon a Curious Time it was 1989. That year there was this one particular guy, Lonnie Smith, who threw out an amazing outlier season of 8.8 WAR. That story got me wondering...what did the MVP voting look like that year where an 8.8 bWAR gets a player only an 11th place result? Well, it’s clear that BBWAA voters loved the long ball, since Kevin Mitchell was the winner based on clubbing 47 home runs. Pedro Guerrero jumps out to me. 3rd place overall, 1.9 bWAR, leading the National League in the crucial categories of doubles and sac flies............
I feel that it’s safe to say that Bill James single-handedly destroyed the Hall Of Fame destiny of Steve Garvey...............
How can we use StatCast data to project the first female position player in MLB?............
Because it shall eventually happen, we continue to get foreshadowing of the inevitable arrival of RoboUmps..............
The Nationals had a happy World Series ending, and that World Series ending made the execs at FOX Sports happy to avoid the worst rating WS in history..............
Deadspin has hit total vapor lock............
STUFF
Oddities of the 2019 season.............This is a pretty interesting look at the current status of the team that just won the 2019 MLB World Series..........Hmmm. The MLB team that in 2019 had the best combo of good hitting and good pitching won the World Series. Imagine that...........