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After 14 days on the road, we have the Angels back in Anaheim for 7 games. Tuesday through Sunday before jetting off to Texas to face the mighty Astros and rather hot Rangers. It’s Christmas in June Weekend, for whatever that is worth.
The Cincinnati Reds and Oakland A’s are the ones coming to town, sporting a combined record of 17-9 over the past couple of weeks. These are not your bedraggled knuckle dragging cellar dwellers we would hope to be experiencing. Then again, when the Angels finally got meet up with the bedraggled knuckle dragging cellar dwelling Baltimore Orioles back in May, they managed to lose a game to them, anyway. So we might as well hone our knives on the harder stones.
-HaloLinks:
A Little Bit Of Angels News
Last week was so stupendous (0.9 fWAR), today is Trout Porn Tuesday. Mike Trout was named to his 2nd AL Player of the Week in 2019, and his 5th overall...........And that will get you $27 tickets to this upcoming homestand...........
All this chatter about Mike Trout “somehow getting better” just pisses me off. By my way of thinking, it’s a reflection of how little those people paid to be professional followers of baseball actually have been paying attention. Of course Trout is getting better. He didn’t peak at 21. Those people just saw his gaudy numbers as he was running up to the start of his prime years and took their sweet time coming to the conclusion that, yes, Mike was for real and that was the settled law. No, you knuckleheads, the Mike that you took so long to wrap your pea brains around was merely the Mike that signaling how incredible he will become starting...now.................
But this guy, Ted Berg, gets a pass. He has been amazed by Mike Trout every Monday for years and years now, and he is now practically speechless, mostly just directing you to BBR............
So, Mike, how’s the weather up there?..........
It’s MLB Prospect time in MLB. And with so many pre-season top dogs promoted into MLB by now, we are bound to have kids move up. Like Jo Adell moving up to #4 overall..........
Jared Walsh and Brennon Lund were named to the MLB Prospect Team of the Week...........
Alexander Ramirez, still a child, just hit a home run in the DSL..........
If the Cardinals fans still love Albert Pujols so much, and there are so many Cardinals fans, and they are The Best Fans In Baseball, why isn’t Pujols one of the Finalists for the All-Star Game?................
Personally, Tommy La Stella has been the biggest shock to my baseball system in 2019. It’s like I am witnessing a UFO or something. I see it, but I cannot process it. Therefore I cannot believe it. But do you know what might end up being an even bigger shock to my baseball system? Billy Eppler turning into a trade deadline buyer. They are only 4 games out of the Wild Card right now but there are 3 teams to vault and they would have to go on a sustained run to make a case compelling enough for Eppler to lose control of a Roberto Baldoquin. And to make a sustained run, well, that is all on the starting rotation in the second half. I just checked with my source. The response was “VERY DOUBTFUL”..........
Everywhere In Baseball
What a mets we have with the NYM. Go back to yesterday’s links to review the episode of manager Mickey Callaway losing it because he didn’t like the way a reporter was saying goodbye, and that was compounded by Jason Vargas threatening physical harm to that same reporter. It’s not an invented story, nor one with spin. The Mets Front Office issued a formal apology in public later last night, with plans to host a series of internal meetings with Callaway, Vargas and other players. This, while some in the press were considering the possibility of Callaway being fired. That didn’t happen, although Callaway and Vargas did get fined. But we did get Callaway hosting a press conference to not apologize for his outburst......Worse, he actually had the balls to excuse himself by invoking the spirit of Billy Martin, by way of how Callaway (unlike Martin) didn’t actually punch anybody......For Vargas, he was fine with saying nothing but junk.....My guess is that, again, the Front Office noticed. Callaway had to call the press back in for another conference and actually apologize, out loud and using all the right words.............
And we are not done with them mets-ups. Late yesterday we get word that NYM GM Brodie Van Wagenen might be sending text messages to coaches and staff during games, one of which resulted in the early departure of Jacob deGrom that turned a “W” into an “L”. Such things as coaches using cellphones during games are not allowed by MLB. Let’s see how sharp Rob Manfred’s investigators are with their cellphone skills...........
The Angels may have lost the series in STL, but the Cards are the team that took the beating. Young phenom Jordan Hicks took the mound in the 8th inning on Saturday while the Halos were down 4-1. He struck out Mike Trout and David Fletcher, got Kole Calhoun out on a fly ball and Albert Pujols out on a ground ball, and gave up a solo home run to Justin Upton (not in that order). When he left the mound to hand over the ball to Tyler Webb there were 2 outs in the 9th...aaaaaand...his throwing arm was in tatters. Hicks will most likely be a TJ victim and not be seen on the mound again until 2021..........
#1 overall pick Adley Rutschman has signed with the Orioles. With a record $8.1 million deal, he can afford his own tricked out bus during his Minor League years...........
Uh, yeah. It’s about time. When every single guy swinging a bat is now a home run threat, we need to re-calibrate what “average” home run power is all about...........
And it shouldn’t be too much of a surprise that the vaunted power of our modern age has shredded bullpens just the same as it has shredded starters. And with bullpens picking up more of the inning-by-inning workloads, bullpens these days are approaching epic failure rates..........
This I like. The Royals and Twins held a throwback game, and chose to wear Negro League uniforms. We should celebrate SoCal baseball history and have PCL throwbacks more often (have we done this since 2012??). The Angels could dress as, well, the Angels. The Dodgers could wear the unis of the Hollywood Stars. And with Mike Trout running around with interlocking “LA”, Dodger fans heads would explode..........
Dusty Baker played from 1968 to 1986. And he managed on and off from 1993 to 2017. In all that time he was part of one World Series winning team, the 1981 Dodgers. But he had this son, Darren, made famous during the 2002 playoffs. All the way up to the World Series that concluded in Anaheim. That was as close as Dusty ever came again to sniffing a ring. But that experience may have paid off. It might turn out that Darren is the one who brings back the next ring to the Baker family..........
Dodger Stadium is now next in line to extend netting and cage in the fans.............
FanGraphs should just wait until the season is over before creating their NL, and their AL, ZiPS projections. They are sure to be accurate then...........
Oh, dang. No in-game fan betting at Yankee Stadium by fans on their phones. At least, not for now...........
In case I did not make this clear last week, in spite of any MLB blessing the Rays have exactly zero legal window to even think about playing any home game between now and 2028 in Montreal, Canada.............
I have no idea what caused Willson Contreras to be so contrary here...........Oh, yes I do. Contreras was pissy because he was accusing the Braves of not allowing him the requisite 145 seconds between each pitch to go through a typical MLB player’s batting shenanigans..........
Oh Ho! Take THAT, Vanderbilt! Michigan opens the best-of-three CWS final series with a 7-4 win. Vanderbilt will have to sweep the last two games of the college season to fulfill their destiny..........
The Duffle Bag
Players and umpires react to lightning pretty quick, but then many stop before reacting correctly. But the scary part is to observe how many microseconds occur between the lightning and the human reaction. And to think I watched a science documentary once where a lightning bolt traveled 35 miles through blue skies to zap and kill a person who had stopped to watch a youth sports match............Teen-aged girls and their crushes. What’s a dad to do? I mean, after dad pays the bail............Yeah. Tim Tebow needs to go back to football. If he is going to suck, he can go back to sucking there..........A reminder that MLB is coming to London this weekend...And the surprising news that there are already youth ball leagues in London.........