Photo credit: Rex Fregosi
The Angels promoted Jo Adell. Maria Torres reports that Shohei Ohtani will not be going on the injured list, although he will not pitch for weeks due to a grade 1-2 strain of the flexor pronator mass. He will accompany the Angels to Seattle.
MLB has canceled the “Field of Dreams Game.” The Cardinals will not be traveling to their series with Detroit. At least a couple of the Cardinals went to a casino recently and now there are 13 positives counting both players and staff. Go figure. So far, none of the 13 who tested positive require hospitalization. Five of them are asymptomatic. John Mozeliak sees no reason to believe the story about Cardinals going to a casino.
The Phillies resumed their season last night, but they are way behind schedule. It looks like there are some 7 inning double headers in their future. Lots of roster shuffling is going on in the Marlins organization. Derek Jeter insists that a couple of Marlins just went out for coffee or to pick up their clothes and there was no salacious activity leading to all the coronavirus positives. Glad we cleared that up. It was “just a false sense of security.”
Yoenis Cespedes opted out in kind of a passive aggressive manner. This article concerns “Ice cold players already in danger of getting benched.” Amazingly, there are no Angels in the list. Bregman, Altuve, and Springer still can’t seem to put it together.
Jeff Fletcher 6 pm tweets that Upton is odd man out. He will platoon with Goodwin. Hope this is correct
That’s a list of ice cold players in danger of getting benched. Being ice cold isn’t sufficient to get you the on list. That’s why there aren’t any Angels on it.
Jo Adell draws Mike Trout walking a goat https://twitter.com/Cut4/status/1290703156729524224
Would love to see Adell replace Upton to start with providing some bench (rest days) for Upton
Me too, but something tells me he won’t…
Just a horrible, horrible injury for Mike Soroka. Non-contact injuries in sports are the worst and hope he can come back strong. Braves are stretched thin, having now lost him, Folty, Felix Hernandez, and I’m probably missing another SP, too.
What’s amazing is how much pitching the Twins have lost while still delivering an 8-2 record. Granted, the AL Central is rather a thin battlefield, but Odorizzi, Bailey and now Hill. That’s three fifths of their projected starting five, after losing Perez, Pineda and Gibson in the offseason.
It’s remarkable and incredibly sad. It’ll catch up to them soon. Looking at who’s made starts for them, they’ve given two to Randy Dobnak and one to Lewis Thorpe, and one to an opener in Tyler Clippard. Incredibly deep depth, but I don’t envy them or the Braves one bit.
The last couple of years they have just crushed people offensively and that is usually how they win. They do have Berrios however, who is very, very good. After him it is meh. I think the lack of really good SP after Berrios likely will haunt them in the playoffs. It seems that offense wins in the regular season but pitching wins in the postseason.
“False sense of security?” How stupid is Derek Jeter? His franchise plays baseball in the Covid hotspot of the world
What’s crazy is despite our really poor start, we are still projected to be the 8th seed by Fangraphs. So – hopefully, let’s see a team that gradually starts to improve and play better. Promoting Adell should be an excellent first step, as will finally having Trout and Rendon in the same lineup routinely.
Losing Ohtani is a huge bummer, but encouragingly, the rest of our starting staff has actually looked fairly good.
Assuming Ohtani does not miss much time, since it sounds like that’ll be the case, I am assuming he’ll be our full-time DH moving forward. Realistically, at the start, I am assuming we see something like this:
SS Fletcher, CF Trout, 3B Rendon, DH Ohtani, LF Upton, 2B LaStella, 1B Pujols, RF Adell, C Castro
I anticipate Adell hitting rather low in the lineup at the start, but as he gets more comfortable, I’m hoping he’ll ultimately take over Upton’s spot in the lineup.
For the rotation – Heaney, Bundy, Canning, Teheran, Sandoval. Have Pena take over the closer role for now, given that both Robles and Buttrey look terrible, and maybe Andriese can become a key reliever too.
I think to begin with Joe will bat Jo 7th. I think the 7 slot is nice because there is relatively little pressure to produce there and it potentially strengthens the lower third of our order with the chance to put folks on for the top.
Of course depending upon early production he could be moved up to 6 or even 5 if J-Up continues to struggle.
Want to amend that post; IF Upton sits Jo will bat 7th. With the lineup you project I think you’re right and it will be 8th.
I don’t see Jo batting him ahead of Pujols.
Shoulda been a fanpost
If Adell primarily displaces Goodwin and not Upton, I will be incredibly frustrated–that would be actively making the team worse. As entertaining as it would be to watch a younger carbon copy of an active player in real-time.
Be prepared
My cup is about to be buttered. I can feel it.
They might go for the old “late inning replacement” strategy. If we’re going to keep getting smoked in the ninth inning a little bit of new mojo might come in handy.
Adell as closer? I can dig it.
My buddy and I were discussing this yesterday. He was very excited to see Upton sit. I’m on the other end and expect Goodwin to be the one that gets benched. I hope I’m wrong.
Are there any splits where it would clearly make sense to play Adell over Upton, or is Adell just basically a younger in his prime Upton (hopefully)?
ATM banana only
I will be too, but it seems the most likely outcome. I really wish we’d have a more progressive group that went with the best player, vs the highest salary, but I suspect we’ll see Goodwin benched more than Upton as a result.
Really, Upton should be regulated to LF vs LHP for now, with Goodwin playing vs RHP and Adell getting his shot.
LaStella should be the 1B vs RHP and Pujols vs LHP. Rengifo should be the every day 2B. At least, that is what I feel would generate the best overall outcomes moving forward…
I don’t know that Upton, based on the quality of plate appearances we’re seeing, deserves any playing time. At least if Adell struggles, you’re still investing in the future without sacrificing the present. Of course, with this team what should happen is often different than what will happen, so who knows!