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Ok, which one of us forgot to give Matt Harvey the memo? Walking Jeff Mathis on 4 straight pitches to lead off an inning??? Going into yesterday’s game Mathis had 5 singles, 1 double, and 3 walks in ST 2019. Those give him tasty numbers because the Rangers have not been using him so much yet this Spring. That walk was the opening error in Harvey’s short-lived second outing. We could have warned him. We should have warned him. Instead, Harvey is now carrying an ERA of 10.38.
At the back end of yesterday’s game we get The Department Of Deceiving Statistics report. Forrest Snow threw 32 pitches, and 28 of those he threw for strikes. That is textbook “pounding the zone” stuff. Just what you want to see in your pitcher. Except for the results. Snow had to work through 15 batters, giving up 5 earned runs on 6 hits against 4 K’s in 3 innings of work. There are better ways to make an impression in Springtime.
In between those two the LAA staff has some solid pitching. Rob Manfred would be pissed. he wants more of that Harvey/Snow stuff. Football scores. As if that is in any way enjoyable to baseball fans. But we carry on. Nothing matters for a couple more weeks.
The Angels continue to score far more runs than anybody in ST, and they continue to surrender far more runs than anybody in ST. Something has gotta give.
Pitch yourself a cup of coffee and love on these Wearing-Out-Home-Plate-HaloLinks:
A Little Bit Of Angels News
New LAA pitching coach Doug White is having an immediate impact on the resurgence of Trevor Cahill...............
Good. The LAT picked up on my prompting from last week and is featuring Peter Bourjos and the great Spring he is having.........
Jo Adell is done for 3 months. If he were an old dude such as myself y’all should be worried. But at his age, with what he was going to be doing in 2019 anyway, this is a non-issue for us. Unless you still have a trip to Tempe in mind and were hoping to see Adell in action.........
Lots of guys got their 2019 contracts yesterday. Chief among them would be Shohei Ohtani, who was bumped up to $650K. Ohtani is huge for marketing purposes, so this is a bargain. But keep in mind that Ohtani, as a 2nd year player, will be limited to DH duty and not even that for a full season..........
Roster trimming has already begun. But there are limits. Just because a guy doesn’t look strong in Tempe doesn’t mean you can just move him over to Salt Lake and let him work his way back. There are rules as to how often a team can pocket a player into their farm system. And for the Angels, those rules apply to some familiar names..........
Oh, goodie. Zack Cozart is sure that he will be ready for Opening Day. Wishful thinking. He has 7 total live At Bats and the season is just over 2 weeks away..........
An LAA catcher making it all the way from home plate to third without having to stop for oxygen. Times are changing!..........
Did you see your Jared Walsh two-way player moment?? If someday we have 3 guys on the 25-man who are effective two-way players, will MLB penalize us for roster shenanigans?..........
Look to me as if Mike is texting while walking. Somebody needs to have a chat with him about that..........
Everywhere In Baseball
Here we go! The new National Ballpark Menu of Death, 2019 edition, has its first entry. The Texas Rangers Fowl Pole. I’ll be honest. When I first read the name of that thing I was hoping for churrasco........
Yep. Rob Manfred is aggressively active in rules changes NOT because the game itself needs repair. It’s because of what the MLB brain-trust see as their revenue streams going forward. We are being dragged through all this because ownership is worried about making money.............
Matt Boyd, MLB Superhero...........
Martin Maldonado found a gig..........
The Brewers are using Mike Moustakas at 2B this year. Considering Moose have never played there, this defensive production should be an interesting data point to track, especially against whatever offensive production he generates..........
I linked to a parallel observation yesterday. The Nationals might actually be BETTER this year in spite of Bryce Harper moving to Philadelphia..........Look at these ELO ratings from FiveThirtyEight, looking at the NL Eat from the Mets’ POV. The Phillies fans, even those streaming Phillies fans, won’t be happy coming in next-to-last in that division..........And the shine on Bryce Harper will have rubbed off well before the season ends..........Because it IS baseball, which is a game of fail. This is going to be happening all season long..........
Spring Training looks like it used to be so quaint..........
Pro baseball players moving their way of thinking into the modern information age feels like the ubiquitous oil tanker at sea. The wheel has be cranked all the way to starboard, but it will still take a very long time to reverse course. Surveying MFY players, the curious and insightful players are still in the minority..........
This is fascinating. Once upon a time a journalist was curious about the way that the players themselves, as people, looked at the experiences of having a career in baseball. He did a lot of prep to create a questionnaire and clear channels to get to the players. He sent them out. He started to get really great and insightful feedback He was learning things that would be of infinite value to we fans. But then Marvin Miller stepped in and pissed all over it...........
Congratulations, Major League Baseball! You gleefully rushed headlong into your alliances with gambling institutions to take advantage of legalized sports betting and make lots of money for yourselves. And you gleefully sent your lobbyists and lawyers to Washington to get Federal laws passed to legalize suppressing wages on Minor League players and keep lots of money for yourselves. And your victory there? The gargantuan inevitability of Minor League Player corruption by colluding with gambling interests. I can see the finger wagging from way back here in 2019.........
I wish we would have gotten this dueling Ernie Banks biography review back in December, well before we got to ST............
I’m not sure that Disney cares a great deal about losing money on streaming during a period of time when they are working hard to win the war against competitive streaming threats to their content delivery vehicles. If Disney loses money now but ends up owning the world of streaming options for the content we desire, they win. If Disney loses money now and kills the threat of streaming access to sports content, they win. If Disney does NOT lose money, now or into the future, they win............
The Duffle Bag
And then, on the other end of the spectrum from ‘MLB Superheroes’, we have this mud pit...............Opening Day games are not always fun. To skip to the end, the Dodgers won this one 15 to zip..........The headline says it all. Tragic. “Coach, wife electrocuted while installing new scoreboard”............Old dogs and new tricks..........Samantha Show working on her inner Jose Bautista..........King Felix, now a mere Knave. 5th man in rotation? Yikes! Might not stick with the team all season? Double yikes!!..........Josh Reddick, I have met Ronnie Lott. You, sir, are no Ronnie Lott..........Esteban Loaiza never was very good in his long career, when facing the Halos. He was even less good after his career, as a drug dealer..........