MondoLinks: Matt Thaiss Bats Nice

Across 27 AB’s Matt Thaiss has a slash line of .370/.393/.778 and an OPS of 1.171. That OPS is 7th in MLB this Spring. Of the 6 MLB guys ahead of him, only 2 have a higher SLG and none of those are AL players. His OBP ranks 14th. His BA is tied for 7th.

Again, this is over 27 At-Bats., which is right up there with the most active players in Spring, so these are the least smallest of the small numbers in the comps.

Somebody get this kid a beer. And a roster spot.

And go have yourself a great morning with these Rolling-Through-Spring-Training-HaloLinks:

A Little Bit Of Angels News

Stop me if you have heard this before: an Angels pitcher - Tyler ‘Boz’ Skaggs - is dealing with arm problems...............

This one hurts us less than it does him. Jo Adell, who wasn’t going to be playing out of Anaheim any time soon anyway, sprained his ankle AND pulled his hamstring...........

Don’t stop me, even if you have seen this before: a guy named Torii Hunter is flying around the outfield making gorgeous catches...........

Ground-breaking news. Shohei Ohtani throws a baseball!..........But Shohei will not have his bat back into the lineup until at least May...........Thankfully, reddit continues to help me scour the Internet for all things Ohtani...........

This reads like Skipper Brad took advantage of hiring on as a Special Assistant, by using that time as one long interview opportunity..........

Back to the farm go Griffin Canning and company.............

Everywhere In Baseball

The last of Babe Ruth’s grandchildren children has died................

This is not baseball-specific, but it does have relevance. Something that is rarely written about when a new sports stadium comes into existence, is that those who were living in the area of new construction tend to be ‘disinvited’ from their neighborhoods.............

Adam Jones has a job again! Well, with unemployment rates at 3.8% and theoretical full employment is when those hit 5%, we need all the able-bodied workers we can get..............

Here is Bryce Harper’s 2018 spray chart. Tell me why the Toronto Blue Jays may be opening up a tactic of shifting that puts three outfielders in RF.............

It’s much easier for the Blue Jays to keep Baby Vlad from accruing service time if Little Vladdie is on the IR. So Toronto brass must be pleased. If only they could have had him wait until the end of Spring Training before he got hurt..........

The Cincinnati Reds are whipping out their own two-way player today..........

Sorry King Felix. It’s Father Time. Undefeated, as always............Troy Tulowitzki is proving that he is also having cocktails with Father Time...........

Blake Snell is pissed off at the Rays for how Tampa Bay gave him such a small contract while he is still pre-arb in his career arc. I would love to chat with Blake. It is his own brothers in the union, and those brothers who came before him, that created a financial system that locks his ass up in a financial wad before he gets to some arbitrary point where a 3rd party can step in and start forcing pay raises. And it’s union brotherhood that empowers a system that incents ownership to keep player pay as low as practical prior to having that 3rd-party start using those rates as baselines for the next pay level. And it’s his own brothers who chose to build a system that keeps youngsters such as him with less of the money being paid out. Snell himself as a part of the brotherhood that takes money without worrying about the players coming up behind himself..........

Everybody gets to bet on baseball except the players. The only thing that has changed is that now everyone except the players can bet on baseball where they are without worrying about the police knocking on their door. Oh, and everybody but the players can now get to make a lot of money off of all that betting. Including MLB itself...........

SportsIllustrated is going all in, to embarrasing levels, on their Bryce Harper love.............

We will see robo-umps in my lifetime, unless we change Commissioners first..........

Interesting thought: last year the Nationals won 82 games, and the Phillies 80. The Nats lost Bryce Harper, but their outfield is still damned strong. Will the Harper-less Nats 2019 final season record differential be greater than the Harper-boosted Phillies?...........

The tentacles of Sinclair keep growing into the world of MLB. Someday you are going to wonder why it is that deep in the dark recesses of your brain you always knew that Sinclair would be a problem. You won’t remember my warnings, but you will feel certain that you were right to be worried all along. If only people had listened to you.........

The Duffle Bag

MLB’s Ballpark app going backwards?..............A co-worker recently returned from a 3-week vacation in India, where she spent her time handing out pencils and notebooks to desperate schoolchildren. So color me unimpressed over this..........Yeegads! Phillies Phans sure are unimaginative..............Not all bozos are us old white guys..........