Joc's Cabinet is Starting to Fill Up - Honored with All-PCL Team and ROY

It's got to be an exciting time for Joc Pederson.

A few days ago he joined the illustrious Pacific Coast League 30/30 Club, and in just a matter of days he should be heading out west to join the Dodgers for a "cup of coffee."  In the meantime, he is being showered with some awards that only place more shine on what looks to be an already polished product.

Yesterday, it was announced that Joc Pederson has been elected to the All-PCL Team by the league's field managers and media.  Today, we find out that he beat out a strong contingent of rising prospects to win the Pacific Coast Leagues Rookie of the Year Award.

Congrats, Joc!

In celebration of Joc's newest accomplishments I made the above two fantasy cards for him.  The photos are from the Albuquerque Isotopes and I used the vintage 1971 Topps Baseball card design (template provided by Alex Markle at Chavez Ravining).

If you can't tell I'm getting all-jazzed up about Joc's impending play in a Dodger uniform.  It denotes a time of hope and excitement.  There's nothing like seeing what a homegrown highly-touted kid can do for the club.

Below are his minor league statistics, via Baseball Reference:

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Blog Kiosk: 8/26/2014 Dodger Links - Time Warner Seeking $3.84 per Subscriber

So, what do you think?  Is that a good draft card?  AJ Ellis did some early congratulating on twitter when he saw Clayton Kershaw's NFL draft card that you can see above.  See his tweet here.

• Mark Saxon at ESPNLosAngeles.com writes, "Don Mattingly is managing his finest season," and I do not disagree.  Saxon makes some good points that include Don's ability to juggle so many egos and how the team seems to respond positively when he publicly expresses frustration at them.
• Via Ryan Romano at Beyond the Boxscore, "Your guide to Clayton Kershaw's insane 2014 season."
• I guess we now know the real number.  Via Joe Lucia at Awful Announcing, "SportsNet LA may help kill a potential Comcast-Time Warner merger."

We finally have a solid answer on the rate that Time Warner is asking from its customers for SportsNet LA – $3.84 per month per subscriber, which is a simply massive amount. Only five RSNs in the country ask for more money out of subscribers – Fox Sports North, CSN Mid-Atlantic, NESN, CSN Philadelphia, and TWC SportsNet. Of course, all but one of those RSNs has the rights to multiple big four teams, and the one that doesn’t is in the same market as SportsNet LA and is also owned by Time Warner. Gee, if only they were packaged together…

BTW, if a side benefit of this entire mess is that the merger doesn't happen, then we should all be happy with that.  Could you just imagine how horrible a combined Comcast-Time Warner company would be?  

• AM570 Fox Sports shares a bunch of photos of Ron Cey's autograph appearance this past weekend in Mission Hills.
• Panini America provides more preview pics from their 2014 Immaculate Baseball set coming out in September.  Go here to check those out.  Below are previews of a Kershaw and Puig card.

• Finally, some clarity on the "blocking home plate" thing.  Via Carrie Muskat at MLB.com, "Discussion with Torre clarifies Rule 7.13 for Cubs."

"What we were told," Baker said, "was that if our left foot is in fair territory, not touching the base line, then we're offering a lane for the player to slide. If the ball is thrown and we make a read on that ball, and that ball takes us into the base line, then we won't be found at fault for trying to block the plate."

So, it's all about where the catcher positions himself before the play at home that determines things.

• My favorite King of All-Time speaks with Katie Strang at ESPN.com, "(Marcel) Dionne likes Kings' confidence, character."

“It depends how hungry they are, because their time is so short,” Dionne said of the team’s truncated summer following a long postseason run. “To get back and recharge the batteries is very, very difficult, but they’ve been there [before]. To me, the character-building in their last Stanley Cup was absolutely incredible. They are confident. They are very, very confident.”

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