Wins are nice. Even in Spring Training. Have some links for breakfast.
Angels News
A win for the Angels in spring happened with most of the starters starting. Rendon had his debut with two hits.
Taylor “Blake” Ward hit a home run along with a triple and a single in three PA. He didn’t get a chance to hit for a cycle.
Angels paid respect yesterday by wearing caps for the tragically deceased Orange Coast College Coach that died recently. Rest in peace John Altobelli. Also Boras will grant his daughter, Lexi Altobelli, an internship.
Joe Maddon already is showing some fun personality as he praised porn staches. Bundy is his new favorite pitcher it seems. Especially after a good outing. 4 strikeouts, no runs.
Even Pujols got in on the action while batting 6th. That is a good spot for him. May keep him motivated throughout the season.
Marsh is injured. Not too bad but could miss most of Cactus league. Angels are in mid season form already. Because there is another Angels pitching injury. “Tightness” for Julio Teheran.
Baseball News
Red Sox investigation is still ongoing. No report expected this week. Manfred lied, again. Wonder how long this drags on.
Do you have T-Mobile? Have some free baseball then with MLB.tv subscription included with your plan. Remember, this is for out of market games only. Angels market is southern California, Las Vegas, and Hawaii. For some reason.
Yankees get Angels Arm and lose Severino to TJ. Maybe if everyone else gets hurt, the Angels SP won’t look bad.
The Joker (Mark Hamill) likes Joey Gallo for some reason. That is disgusting and saddening at the same time.
Trevor Bauer thinks 70% of the pitchers use one tar to cheat. Well if the Angels are doing it, it isn’t helping.
Dodgers create all you can eat seats in the outfield for their new expansion. Come on Arte, do the same in your upgrades that are coming soon.
Expansive study in trash can banging by a redditor. Shows how much evidence even people online have that Manfred didn’t show in his report. The TLDR: Astros benefit more the longer the season went on.
Tony Clark looks to change the Arb system. Success will rest on negotiations and compromise. Teams do treat players differently than they did in years past so a change is needed. Vets do not get the big deals anymore to offset getting little as an arb player.
Clark also has stated he is willing to punish players next time the Astros cheating happens. Better not lie about this.
Need to feel better by laughing at another team? Jon Bois is making a history of the Mariners this spring in 6 parts. If you can’t wait that long you can also watch Urinatingtree make fun of the Mariners (strong language) or Rangers (strong language). Also he did a video on MLB free agency. (Again, strong language.)
That will be the day that a Union self police and punish its members. It does make sense to protect the Golden Goose, but Tony Clark could have doled out punishment this time and choose not to. The reason that the sport of Baseball has identity issues is how it reacts to cheating. Who do you trust to have a fair contest? The Commissioner?, no you say. Well how about the Teams themselves? Or maybe the Players? So as you can see there is nobody including the disinterested Owners that can be trusted to keep the game clean.
I loved Brian Kenny’s idea about arbitration in my most recent interview with him: compare players to comparable players regardless of service time. If an third year player is producing like Mookie Betts, pay him like Mookie Betts. Don’t restrict his comparable player pool to guys who played at the same level in their third year.
I’d also allow arbitration salaries to decrease. If you got paid to play like Betts but you played like the NavaPile, expect a severe decrease the following year.
This right here could help the whole tanking issue a bit. Players will be extra motivated to ball out and play to win. Right now most tanking teams field a roster of pure AAAA players and a few bright spots. If some of those AAAA players balls out they will be due for a biiiig raise.
Something has to get done regarding arbitration for players. The format as it stands is completely outdated. Teams value younger players and are willing to pay these younger players a premium even if they haven’t played a single inning in the bigs. Look at Luis Robert and Ohtani with Arte ponying up $20 million to Nippon Ham just to talk to him.
I hadn’t considered that angle, the tanking.
You are right about being outdated. A generation or two ago older players were considered more valuable due to their experience. At that time, veterans pulling down bigger dollars made sense. Now the data clearly shows that younger players generally produce at a higher level. The pay scale needs to reflect the current reality.
I think you’ve hit upon the crux of the current valuation problem. In terms of winning games, the younger players tend to provide more value, but the more established players who had high value when younger become brand names that sell tickets and bring big TV contracts. Because as we have learned, it’s all about the per-caps.
I think it’s going to take a while for the game to adapt to the emerging new reality.
I wish they’d abolish contracts the way they are now all the way. Pay players by stats. Pre-arb, every player gets the same…. say $1,000 per K for a pitcher, $20,000 for every XXX amount of WHIP below 1.4, and so on. Same for positive hitter’s stats. Have all the MLBPA, agents and FOs come up with agreed upon values. Then, when a guy is a FA, negotiate new stat/rates. So if the going rate for a OPS is 500K for every .10 over .650 and a team that wants to sign Francisco Lindor two years from now they offer him a contract that pays 2 million for every .15 over .650, or some such. Create contracts where, if a guy has a couple career years he makes big bucks, if he is an effective rookie he actually make a few million, if he is a star he is pulling in huge money, but if a player wanes he gets payed less and less (while the guy who is picking up his slack gets payed more).
With analytics, we can come up with really fair ways to pay for stats, where stars get huge money, but also a guy like Pete Alonso last year gets a load of cash, while Chris Davis, even if his contract calls for a higher pay rate per stat, isn’t a total black hole. Unless you plan to cheat or use steroids for years on end people can’t play for “contract years” as much. Tanking would also go away because, though the team’s season may be over each player is still doing his best to earn money. You’d need some sort of base salary to make sure injured players don’t starve, etc and lots of other details would need working out, but I think it could be cool.
If anyone has HBO GO or HBO Now, the trevor bauer piece on “real sports” is actually pretty eye-opening. Not only because of his pine tar comments but just the way he recovers/preps for games. he may be on to something
You scared the hell out of me. You could have put the fact that it was a hammy, not forearm tightness into the link description!
Haven’t you heard of TJS for the hammy?
No? Well here comes the first.
Hammy-John surgery
Farmer-John Surgery
Thammy*
Ah yes, Thammy John, Tommy’s aunt, had a pioneering hamstring operation. He will need Thammy John surgery.
“We were going to name you after your aunt, but SOMONE didn’t want to learn your sex before birth. So, you’re Tommy”
Looking forward to the first TAME John surgery of the season.
@Blackgoat:
We will fix some ligaments.
Instead of taking the hamstring to repair the UCL they will take his UCL to fix his hamstring.
Maddon’s comments are refreshing after two decades of nothingness from Angels managers.
Joe Maddon, on Dylan Bundy’s facial hair: “I’ve always been into porn mustaches.” 😈 😎
Joc Pederson apparently strained something and hasn’t been hitting. Not even traded and already an Angel! 😟
The more I think about it, the more I’m hoping the Astros go fullllllll heel turn and steal the Rocket City Trash Pandas moniker.
I support Trashtrosâ„¢
I’ve called them the Asstrolls to my buddy for years.
It is uncanny how well that moniker fits.
Off topic:
Does anybody have experience with purchasing authenticated signed jerseys? What companies are legit? Where did you buy from? Looking to get a signed jersey from the fat kid. Thanks!
Are you ready to spend $1000-2000? 😯
My research is showing me that that’s the range. Yikes. I guess it is tax return season
Your best bet is probably the merchandise stand inside the Big A. Outside of that, research which companies use MLB Authentication. Steiner Sports is also reputable.
Tightness, my friends, and that starts with t and that stands for trouble….and also tjs
Julio? We hardly even Knewlio. I’ll show myself out.
Incredible statistic if true….Kershaw threw 51 breaking balls in Game 7 of The 2017 WS against the cheaters and did not induce a single swing and miss. That’s a smoking gun right there.
Is there confirmation that this assertion is true? If so, it provides some of the best insight into the advantages derived by cheating. You don’t swing at out-pitches. Huge advantage for the batter both for knowing the pitched ball will be out of the strike zone and because it’s easier to work counts into favorable batting situations.
I’ll say it again – not punishing the players is really a black eye for the game.
I saw Tom Verducci say it on MLB Network. I’d like to think he fact checked it before spreading it to a national audience. Incredibly damning.
Also this:
Honestly might be the most damning piece of evidence that exists. It shows they knew what was coming. Even if their eyes were flawless, you would expect at least a 30% swing rate against a pitcher like Kershaw. A 0% rate is absolutely circumstantial evidence of cheating and is as implicating as the buzzer would have been under Altuve’s jersey had it been ripped off.
@Mia , The Athletic ( yes once again a shameless plug) did a must read interview with Alex Wood on that game back in December of 2019. He said that everyone knew something was going on with the Astros but they didn’t, of course , know how. The tipping point was when the Dodger players had noticed that the Asstros would change up their signs even when no one was on base which is a somewhat unusual practice. During the other 2 games at Minute Maid park ( Games 3 & 5) It was obvious to me that The Astros were cheating as both Darvish & Kershaw were lit up pretty bad.
My question has always been if Dodgers knew the Stros were up to no good why wouldn’t they have mixed up the signs for Games 3 & 5 ? I haven’t gone back to review the video but it sure seems that the Dodgers were ill prepared in these 2 games to deal with the growing rumors. Even Dave Roberts after the series was over acknowledged that the Dodgers had taken precautions during the series because they had felt the Asstros were up to no good but he wouldn’t elaborate on what measures were implemented.
Looking back at the game stats for that WS, Kershaw pitched twice at home to a combined 11 IP, 15 Ks, 5 H, 2 BB and 1 ER. His one start at Houston 4.2 IP, 2 Ks, 4 H, 3 BB and 6 ER.
That would seem to be even more evidence of cheating, even if it is a small sample size.
It was the Game 5 start in Houston where that happened. Game 1 Kershaw was solid. Game 5 the Astros didn’t bite on the breaking balls at all.
Keep in mind Kershaw got over half his K’s on sliders and is a HOF pitcher. There’s no way any club can avoid a swinging strike on 51 Kershaw sliders without cheating.
You’d think they’d swing at a few just to make it believable. No one gets the answers to a test and answers all of them correctly, it’s too suspicious. The cheaters didn’t know how to properly cheat.
Unless the test maker for a multiple choice test inadvertently made all the answers “C”. I’ve known a person or two who answered all “C” on a multiple choice test. Scary.
I cannot think of anything more cruel.
So, what you are saying is, that the Astros should have gone half retard?
As long as he doesnt go full retard, never go full retard
Wow. I’d like someone to make a video of that. I wonder if our stadium staff would be showing 6 of those pitchers in-between innings per inning for all 51 pitches when the asterisks come to town, knowing full well they’ll be Dodgers fans in toe.
this stuff is like beating a dead horse. They cheated, everyone knows that. “New” things like this aren’t going to change what happened or the decision by the commissioner.
@cookmeister New info will fuel more lawsuits. This isn’t over.
Totally disagree Cookmeister. The more evidence the more the players are implicated. They got off Scott-free. We need to know everything so that we, as fans, bring as much wrath as possible to these cheaters. Every details should become public so that these players feel the shame that they deserve.
Eh. Realistically, the fans could know 1/4 what we know now and they will probably go after the Astros with the same amount of gusto. It’s not like the roiling mass of anger and hate is going to get more intelligent, discriminant or nuanced because we all have new facts, etc. As soon as it was shown that they cheated via youtube they were gonna get the same mountain of shit thrown on them. I don’t think this creates more shame for a player either. Speculation will be rampant, plenty of actual facts won’t come to light, and players will be ashamed or not ashamed based on the type of guys they are. The constant stream of “new old same” facts doesn’t serve a real purpose, but it’s just what people do, no point in trying to stop it, just like you will never get people on the other side of the freeway to not slow down and look at a car wreck.
Great article regarding the Astros cheating scandal. Little Leagues are no longer allowing Astros uniforms. Communities are succeeding where the Commissioner’s office failed.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes.com/sites/donyaeger/2020/02/22/losing-more-than-a-title-houston-astros-cheating-scandal-proves-the-loss-of-reputation-is-greater-than-any-trophy/amp/
@Fansince1971 . Still not seeing the same smoking gun signals you & Verducci are . Game 7 of the 2017 World Series was at Chavez Ravine. If the Astros were cheating during this game no one can come up with an explanation of how this was accomplished. And if they were being tipped as to Kershaw’s pitches they certainly didn’t do a very good job of capitalizing on it .Here was Kershaw line from that game. : 4 IP 2 Hits 0 ER 2 BB’s 4 K’s .The box score says he only threw 43 pitches so maybe someone got their games mixed up?
He simply got the game number wrong. It was game 5. Kershaw was fine in the 2 home games but destroyed in Game 5 in Houston.
Sorry – meant Game 5. It’s in the links. That was at Houston which, to me, proves even further they were cheating. Kershaw has one of the best sliders in the game. And no swinging strikes n 51 pitches!!
PSA: TWO E’S IN JULIO’S LAST NAME WHICH IS SPELLED DIFFERENTLY THAN THE CAPITAL OF IRAN.
Teheran or even more accurately Teherán
He must be so confused as to why i’ve been sending him emails about his nuclear program.
That’s my bad.
Let’s see what this thing looks like… 😀 I guess close enough to a chuckle. But, as you know, your comment was wittier than just chuckle level.
The site generated emojis are dollar store versions of normal emojis 😉 🙂 😂 :silly:
Prediction: Tehran will be the first pitcher to have TJS for “hamstring tightness”. Halo “doctors” will make medical history on a scale that rivals that of Michael DeBakey!!
Halos Dr. Nick?
😂
Thanks Dr. Nick!