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So there I am sitting in the Oakland A’s clubhouse a few hours before the game last night, just chillin’ and pretending that I am one of the stadium security detail, when in walks Oakland head of scouting Eric Kubota. Having the same first name, I strike up a cordial greeting and we share a smile as Kubota gathers the team around to whiteboard the LAA batting order.
He’s doing the usual Oakland shit of fancy charts with sinusoidal curves everywhere as if anybody in green and gold took anything beyond Math 012 in college and I can see the glazed look on all the faces. So I interrupt.
“Look, gentlemen, this is easy. What Eric is here trying to say can be broken down into this one simple rule: focus everything on their only two All-Stars La Stella and Trout, #’s 1 and 2 in the batting order, and make all the other guys try and beat you.”
Kubota is looking at me with his jaw on his polo, wondering how to regain control, when I order an immediate evacuation to the field. For security reasons, you know.
And so it went. La Stella and Trout went 2 for 8 with 1 run batted in and 1 run scored, while everybody else was turned loose to beat up on the Oakland pitching. Angels win 8-3. You can thank me in the comments below.
Enjoy your weekend. And spend some time with these Who-Knew-Bail-Would-Be-Twenty-Five-Hundred-Dollars-HaloLinks:
A Little Bit Of Angels News
MLB pitchers had the Angels number earlier in the season, and then Mike Trout lead the team right out of that jungle. Point this out to anybody who still thinks that the Angels are wasting Mike...........
Trout Porn from BBR..........
There is one guy in MLB who Mike Trout looks up to. That guy is Shohei Ohtani..........
Griffin Canning = real good pitcher and that should not have been a surprise to anybody..........
Andrelton Simmons coming back will not mean Luis Rengifo going anywhere. He will still find his reps............
Shohei Ohtani not only survived his first time throwing off a mound, he thrived..........
I try to avoid Fansided linkage as a rule, but this insightful explanation of the Barria + Cahill outing on Wednesday is worth paying attention to..........
Justin Bour’s Wednesday was exciting. But that just raised some seasonal numbers to what are still career lows..........Which makes it kinda funny that this is celebrated as “...the Justin Bour we signed.”..........And that 3-run homer? Actually not hit that very far out to RF, but it was hit pretty damned far straight up. 149 feet of elevation is anywhere from 50% to 100% higher than what you usually see.........And this is the guy who ended up with that ball..........
Advanced analytics at work: saber studies have determined that all the blame can be assigned to the Pechanga Casino sign..........
Somebody get Schoolboy Q his own HH account, immediately! (NSFW)...........
($$) - Save your money and don’t click. You already know which LAA players performed and which did not in the first half. Except that Zack Cozart guy. You cannot give an F to a student who has withdrawn from class.........
This is why Tommy La Stella is not starting at 2B for the 2019 AL All Stars..........
(h/t UniWatch) Angels caps are worthy of counterfeiting. Not worthy enough for good counterfeiting, but worthy enough to make Hall of Fame counterfeiting..........
Everywhere In Baseball
Finally. Here comes Craig Kimbrel, already earning his first save with the Cubs............
Giancarlo Stanton is out until August. I suppose a this point I should add “at least”. For the record, I offer zero tears for the MFY. I do feel bad for baseball, which is better with guys like Stanton playing..........
Let’s mets on the mets some more. Jason Vargas is pulling the cowardly trick of blaming the journalist for his own threats of violence upon him, by implying that the journalist himself is at fault. All due to things-you-are-not-privy-to-know-because-out-are-not-qualified. The mets organization is pretty ticked off at Vargas, but that word is coming anonymously so it falls in that same vein of cowardice..........But the mets broadcasters are neither hiding their distaste, nor hiding from identification of their distaste. And one of those broadcasters is Keith Hernandez, who knows at least as much about such things as does Vargas..........
Yeah, this is what I was saying a month or so ago. It’s an eyeball test that hit me when I was looking at the MLB home page for stories one night and saw that everything was a link to somebody hitting a home run. We are saturated. In fact, in Jay Jaffe’s eyes, we are over-saturated. Too many home runs. Sorry, Tommy La Stella........
The Pirates are in the queue for extended netting. You should smell some momentum building here. No franchise legal department is going to want their brand to be the last one on this bandwagon. It’s a bad look in the marketplace, and a really bad look from the defense table in a courtroom. Because it only takes one story like this........Or one threat from Congress..........
A fun idea that ain’t going anywhere. Tommy Pham is taking to the MLBPA the concept of selecting All-Stars based on advanced metrics. It’s fantastic that an actual player is so tuned into modern information systems, but MLB is having too much fun selling advertising for their fan-voting machine, and there are still too many old white guys with keyboards who are busy convincing the general public that such information is evil...........
This might seem like a weird link, but there really was quite the hoo-ha (<— merely one site that noticed) when the party being interviewed suggested renaming the Minor League Grand Junction Rockies to the Grand Junction Humpback Chubs..........
Let’s get extremely political about baseball. But in a fun way..........
Finally finally finally finally finally finally finally finally. FanGraphs has done western civilization a great service and put all the contract data, service time, option info directly onto the player profile pages. Your move, BBR..........
A guy has got to know his limits. Mine is sitting here typing up baseball stuff that other people do. I would be a horrible GM. I wouldn’t survive Arte’s hatchet move promoting me into Special Advisor for even 1 day. Brodie Van Wagenen (I really want to call him Van Wonderwagon for some odd reason), mets GM, is finding that out. He should have stuck to making money off of other people’s talent..........
MLB is taking the opposite approach to the old adage “when in Rome...”. Brits are not going to be served bangers and warm beer, because that is just not the way it’s done in baseball..........
The Rays have come up with a new way to try and raise money for a new stadium. Practically give away tickets..........
If the end of the season comes and Cody Bellinger bests Mike Trout for overall WAR by 0.1 point, I am coming back to this moment and calling bullshit...........
The Duffle Bag
California flag caps are an intriguing idea. One that had never occurred to me before............The Department of Really Bad Timing has a new member..........Apparently the plumbing engineers for Oakland Alameda County Coliseum were hired by the town of Melrose, Massachusetts to consult on sewage management..........Kris Bryant is the only sane dude in that Chicago dugout!............The Mets moved Citi Field. The entire stadium. To 41 Seaver Way...........Because the Boston Red Sox are the epitome of blue collar..........This is why we never needed Buttercup in the first place...........This is what happens you are sharp enough to be running the bookie ring in your elementary school............