Welcome to March, Angels fans. Spring Training is in full swing now.
Angels News
Canning will likely start the season not in the rotation due to injury. If you are new to the Angels Fandom, there is one thing you should know. You get used to this. Sorry.
On a lighter tone, Mike Trout is good at hitting a golf ball. Smoltz loves him now.
Oh and this Anthony Rendon guy. Seems pretty good. Hits the ball far. I’m up for 40 more of those in the regular season.
We did it! Castro changes his number to 16. Kingfish is still the last to wear 15 (in the regular season). Arte really should just retire it officially.
Oh yeah remember when Jered Weaver got hit by a water bottle and gave us a glorious gif? Mike Trout admits he threw it although we already knew. He may have admitted it before but it was brought up again due to Jered Weaver having a AMA on Twitter.
Well you can’t win them all. Especially with bad pitching as Neil Ramirez blew the game by allowing 8 runs in one inning. He had some help from Justin Upton being a Hot Pocket.
($)The Athletic has written a beautiful Trout porn piece. According to the writer, the number is completely arbitrary and isn’t a ranking list. So being number 27 is intentionally done.
Baseball News
Dodgers Red Sox mega deal was on a condition that Betts wasn’t in trouble with the MLB investigation on the 2018 Red Sox. Seeing how little Manfred punished the Astros it would be hypocritical if Betts got into more hot water than Altuve.
Manfred may have unjuiced the ball. Spring training pitchers say the ball feels different vs last year.
An issue Baseball faces in Asia is that there is a virus mucking things up. Games to qualify for the 2020 Olympics are postponed. The entire Japanese league is banning fans from stadiums for now. The 2020 Olympics, the first games in years to have baseball as a sport, may be canceled entirely. Although Japanese media is still confident.
Astros cheating investigation is thought to be a cover up by about half of baseball fans. That sounds too low honestly.
Someone went through the effort to calculate baseball if half the players were snapped by Thanos. Angels get lucky and have most of their best players survive.
Chipper Jones is now calling Wednesday night Baseball for ESPN. Maybe people will actually watch, that is if they have teams not named NY or Boston for once.
Ken Giles is willing to give up his 2017 world series ring. As the closer for the Blue Jays now, it is awkward. On the one hand it is a former Astro who is willing to make things right. On the other hand, as a closer he is the least likely to have directly help cheat and is on another team right now.
Sports Illustrated’s Tom Verducci wrote a piece on how the Astros cheating has created a crisis for Baseball’s soul. Video monitors in the clubhouse at all may be banned. Has the game gotten too much about how to win the best? Sabermetrics have gotten people more info baseball but it has also created a culture of win at all costs.
Anything I missed?
Add below for sweet upvotes.
Congrats to Mike and Jessica Trout, who are expecting!
So happy for them! I tried to post his tweet but it is “awaiting moderation”. Seems like the site is having some twitter issues.
I guess you’re not really a “trusted” member…
Aw geez, red.
Just returning all the guff you give me. 😀
Way to go Trouty!
Remember to wear pants when you visit them. You don’t want to scare the baby.
Or a kilt or whatever.
Berp, Popo Canning, this is not a fancy feast. How many Ramirez’s could rate rather risky regarding reasonably rigourous relief and starting statistics sourced scientifically? Do we stand a chance?
Welcome to CtPG!!
Mike Trout is gonna be a dad!
Yay!
I expected that sports illustrated article on the Astros cheating to feel like beating a dead horse, but it was actually a great read. I especially liked the point that Luhnow and Hinch were punished for “failing to act” but not a single person was punished for “taking action.” That includes not only the players, who were given immunity, but also the front office employees that developed and ran the system and received promotions for their work.
As mentioned in the Links, I don’t know why this can’t be simple. Tell us what the Astros did (done). Tell us what the Red Sox did (why is this so hard?) If guys on those teams or any other teams want to out some of the stuff I am sure other teams did, go for it. Everyone now knows who the assholes are and can make fun of them.
Now ban televising the current game in the clubhouses, offices, etc. No delay, no nothing, no game. Done and done. Till this July, by which time some other team or teams figures out a way to cheat using drones or ESP.
Good read, but ultimately irresponsible, I think. In the end, you play to win. Winning depends on making better use of information. You can’t curtail that in general, as Verducci seemed to be suggesting.
I think it’s far more helpful to focus on what is on hand: define clearly how much is going too far and measure how far the Astros (and Red Sox) went (past that line), and identify who were involved in the conspiracy–b/c it’s the organized conspiracy to cheat at team lvl that is the real problem, not just that there was some cheating going on.
The Score sports website/app put out their composite top-100 prospects list for this year: Link
Jo Adell ranks 3rd overall, Marsh ranks 46th overall, and Adams ranks 99th overall.
Teheran pitching today. That’s a good sign.
For gods sake Man Freddie, quit screwing with the ball, leave it be, whether you want the juiced ball or not, pick one, and leave it that way for the entire decade including the playoffs. And don’t try to shovel that crap out there by saying it is production anomalies. We don’t buy it, we are not idiots.
When pitchers start mentioning the ball “feels different” from last year, then that is a problem. What if that different feel leads to a unintentional change in mechanics to get the ball to move like it should, which leads to injuries?
Meddling ManBearFred get out of the way? Never gonna happen.
I think that dodger fan quit over at hh. Nothing new there today after he got an earful Friday. Or an eyeful.
What in the world were they thinking, putting a dodger fan in charge? Could they not find an angels fan? Were they so lazy they didn’t look for one? Did all angels fans turn them down?
There was also a fanpost or fanshot saying the Halos should sign Puig… Yeah, right.
Sign Puig? Yuck.
And it looks like there’s a new guy there, used to run True Blue LA but claims to have been a Halos fan as well. Tried to prove his bona fides with a story about a 1991 comeback win vs. Cleveland at the Big A.
There’s no way that is going to work. Just like we couldn’t run TBLA or the Giants site. Vox is missing out on the definition of “community.” These sites aren’t just a web address anymore than a neighborhood bar is just a place for a beverage.
Yep. You have to be a fan to run a site like this convincingly. Just look at the content and emotion in his first post for TBLA and his first post for Halos Heaven and you can immediately tell HH will just be an afterthought.
They didn’t look for one, but not because they are lazy. The goal was to cut costs by making a single person manage multiple team communities, so either a Dodger fan was going to run the Angels as well, or vice versa.
There were links sent out to apply for the handful of full time jobs. A young guy armed with a fresh journalism degree and already contributing to TBLA is exactly the type to apply. I didn’t have any interest.
Hey, leave me out of this
I think baseball has always been a microcosm of American society and the tribal, win at all costs attitude permeating the game reflects the same across our broader culture. The history of baseball intertwines so seamlessly with immigration waves, the Civil Rights movement, the rise of Hispanic culture, etc. that it should, sadly, also inherit and display some less savory aspects of life.
Barkley makes it to camp to see Joe and Fat Mike!
Not an Angels story, but it’s always nice to read articles like this one about Tim Anderson
Good morning.
Hola! Didn’t know we had a different Ramirez from Noe. 😳
Not for long, my friend, not for long.
It’s Monday morning. What’s good about it?
Halos baseball red, Halos baseball.
You sure have your grump on today…
Tell me more
You live in paradise.
Also, there was some kid on my lawn today.
Just another day in paradise, red floyd.