Who will win Trevor Bauer’s Free Joe Kelly cleats? It looks like you needed to buy this shirt yesterday if you want a chance to own the cleats. Trevor Bauer is on notice that if he wears them to a game he can be removed and disciplined. Where’s the fun in that? Lance McCullers claims Joe Kelly was scared of Carlos Correa during their viral altercation.
Angels News
Here is a strategy for every team coming in to the trade deadline. Spoiler alert: The Angels should buy a decent pitcher and stop wasting Mike Trout’s prime. Meanwhile, Jo Adell is apparently the Angels “biggest concern.” I didn’t see that one coming. Even if I get past Upton’s batting average, I think the blowpen has to take the booby prize this season. Joe Maddon says Shaun Anderson “is not ready to be here, that’s all that is.” Joe Maddon, when talking about unwritten rules, seems to be a bit mathematically challenged here unless he was mis-quoted. Three three-run home runs are not necessary to produce six runs. I am pretty sure two will do. Reid Detmers might just have to come up if Angels pitching woes continue to build.
News From Around Baseball
Now analysis begins to come out about the Fernando Tatis, Jr. unwritten rule controversy reported yesterday by John Henry Weitzel. If it isn’t written down can it be a rule? Is there an unwritten rule about when an apology is necessary? The Rockies have placed Elias Diaz on the restricted list and sent him home after he violated unspecified COVID-19 protocols “around the team hotel in Houston.” Obviously, this is not as big as losing both Plesac and Clevinger to stupidity, but it does show a trend toward seriousness concerning the protocols. The Astros’ woes continue with Yordan Alvarez going back on the injured list, possibly for the rest of the season. It’s confirmed, he’s done for the year with a torn patella tendon.
The biggest story of the day probably concerned Thom Brennaman, who entered yesterday as a broadcaster for the Cincinnati Reds. He said some unsavory things on a hot mic. His apology was somewhat weirdly broken up by a Nick Castellanos home run, which he decided to call mid-apology.
Missed out on Trevor Bauer’s Free Joe Kelly cleats? Get your Dr. Anthony Fauci First Pitch Bobblehead!
Some players just drop off the radar after thirty yrs old for no explainable reason. It’s a gamble signing long term deals with older players. In today’s real world these 7 to 10 year deals handcuff a team’s ability to stay competitive. As one example of a player falling way off is Mickey Mantle or Eddie Mathews and the list is long. Some players are just done at 32 or 33. JUp maybe one of those folks. Being upset with him is not going to change this teams fortunes much at all, but l still would like to see NFL type contracts which are incentive laden deals as opposed to MLB contracts which are fully guaranteed whether you proform or not. Just look at the contract that the Angels signed with Wilson, Hamilton and yes even Albert, they have handcuffed this team hard through the years.
Too many folks cannot tolerate any disparaging of any minority and and they themselves are minorities because they cannot forgive. Do l believe that Brennaman is sorry, yes for 2 reasons. One is he got caught being ignorant and small, and two he has not learned to be tolerant of those he seeked to judge.Now he has learned and if he shows that he has learned by becoming involved in some positive way of helping those he judged, well then he is certainly showing that he is learning to be inclusive. All to often mistakes are made like this and everyone jumps on the band wagon to destroy when they should be forgiving and leading the way to teach that being prejudice of anyone because that person showed prejudice is just continuing the cycle. A year or two back l had two posters here attack me personally when l started posting at our last site with one mentioning that l am just an old man and therefore really am not as knowledgeable. L chuckled and those two are here and l still respond to them. Were they wrong and negative, maybe, but both will respond to my post today. We should teach the ignorant as they will learn to be acceptive and not judgemental eventually. For if we judge are we not just like them?. While the word Fag is not in my vocabulary, many years ago it was. Then l learned one of my best friends was gay and l was confused about what l said and that that was not how l really felt. We all make mistakes and we learn from those mistakes. Don’t be judgemental as you are no more special than me or the next person. Learning to accept the things that we cannot change is the first step for the Brennaman’s of the world and l forgive his ignorance if he shows that he truly is sorry in his own way. Learning to forgive is harder than trying to destroy the ignorant.Teaching acceptance is harder than being ignorant. Ignorance can be changed through forgiving and teaching. Teaching can be the way of leading to abolish prejudice.
Sorry grandpa, but are you ever going to try some kind of formatting on these long posts? You have a lot of good stuff to say, but it’s incredibly hard to read. Is it really too much to ask to hit the enter key a few more times? You’re doing yourself a disservice.
Not trying to be a dick, but I’m not the first person to say this either.
I knew upton would be a disaster. A black hole in lf for so long. Still the same in 2020, just costing the Angels 23 mil to do so.
Wait until he costs 28 million in 2022!
Fun times
I’d be willing to bet his off-season routine and workouts changed dramatically after he got his big money. His decline in 2018, followed by a drop off the precipice looks like a classic case of getting older and not working out as hard.
The deal Upton signed with the Tigers in 2016 was bigger, so this theory doesn’t hold. Upton made big money as a top draftee and he did just fine in arbitration with the counting stats he amassed. Dude made nearly 11 figures in career earnings before being traded to the Angels, and that’s before even factoring in his signing bonus.
Who ever offered him the contract only could see the thirty homeruns. Totally forgetting superballz counted for more that half of them. Felt sorry, and believed the promise that Justin would get better after the toeJAM tour 2019, totally returning to form. They never counted on his defense during the pre contract evaluations. They had some other reasons to get him signed, and rushed the whole deal, if I remember right, even catching Justin off guard on the extension.
Typical Angels goofy bad business practices for on the field baseball, but perfectly fine on the bottom line od the spreadsheet. Somehow his contract pays for itself.(3,000,000, can’t complain)
trade update:
Joc Pederson – .164/.263/.343/.606, 66 OPS+
Ross Stripling – 5.61 ERA, 6.30 FIP, 78 ERA+
Joc’s OPS+ is 68 points higher than Upton’s.
eeeek
But he wouldn’t have replaced Upton. He just would have blocked Adell from getting a chance.
The Angels are once again in no man’s land at the trade deadline. Nobody really good enough to sell and too many holes to justify further depleting the farm. Frustrating.
La Stella, Goodwin, Simba, Castro have some level of value. Maybe some relief prospects/fringe MLB starter prospects could be had for each of them.
Upton is a black hole, and with his contract teams up with Pujols for the greatest tandem of sunk cost in Angels, if not MLB history. We’re talking $60 million for those two, or Gettit Cole and Ryu at the front of the rotation AND some money to spend.
I’m all about the stats now. I want Trout to make it to 300 HRs and hit over .300. I want Rendon to stay hot. I want Ohtani to get hot, Bundy to bounce back from his recent outing. Albert might as well get a few more RBIs.
I want to see the younger pitchers, Canning and Detmers. I want Jo to stop whiffing so much. I want Heaney to be the ace he could be.
We have 35 games left. That’s all. I’m going to relax, enjoy the little moments now.
I want to see Marsh and Detmers come up as well as Adell to actually look comfortable.
Those are Albert last two achievable milestones, right? (Does anyone think he plays long enough to get to 700, even Albert?)
No way. he sits because he needs to. Them wheels have flat spots, and lack air. Tread is kindda thin too.
Some trade ideas:
Hope Eppler sees this.
Number 3 resonates with me.
DFA everyone, please.
At the end of the season. Might as well get a good draft pick out of them this year.
I say trade Goodwin, play Upton and Pujols as much as possible. Let Adell work through his issues and hope that he and Marsh can take over next year.
Well, maybe keep Goodwin and let Marsh/Adell compete for the 3rd spot next year.
Unfortunately, though, there isn’t anybody else to trade. Simba’s injury hurts his value and Rengifo’s stats hurt his. Same with Teheran. Everybody else is either essential to the team or untradeable.
Trade everyone. Simba, Goodwin, La Stella, Castro. DFA the rest not named Trout, Rendon, Fletcher or Ohtani.
Manny Machado’s grand slam walk-off, beating his chest and pointing into the dugout, gave me so much life. The Padres are fun.
No thanks on the chest beating. It’s immature preening. I don’t understand how self-aggrandizement is fun. Sure, point to your teammates in the dugout and celebrate with them. But there’s no need to call attention to the great thing you’ve done. We all saw it. It was great. Run the bases and hug your teammates when you cross the plate.
The chest pump didn’t look that bad at all. It’s no different than a pitcher fist-pumping on the final strike out and far less showy than an NFL end zone celebration.
Pitchers do the same thing after recording strikeouts, why can’t batters? Don’t like it, don’t give up the home run. And let the kids play!
Did you see Manny’s catch near the RF foul pole the other day? Siiiiiiiiiick play! They are fun to watch. Figures for San Diego … The team is good and nobody can watch them in person – a team possibly more cursed than our team. 😂
Upton should be the greatest concern. Unless the team has already decided to get rid of him (which they obviously haven’t). Upton has no business being in any major league lineup. Send him home.
Adell needs time to adjust to life in the majors. When Trout was called up his first time, he looked overmatched, too.
^This Exactly^ Give Adell a chance to get some serious reps in against MLB pitching, he will learn and adjust.
If you’re accidentally dropping slurs still in 2020, it’s not a one time thing. When people show you who they are, believe them.
He’s not sorry, he’s just sorry he got caught and that his paycheck is now threatened.
Amir Garrett gets it, and it’s players like him that make me proud to be a baseball fan.
Yeah! The “man of faith” apology goes nowhere when it’s this bad. He is toast.
That man of faith thing was such BS. “I can’t be a bad person because I’m a man of faith”. Get out of here with that crap.
First thing you do to become a “man of faith” is admit you’re a sinner and need help. I always hear the “man of faith” type excuses as “I realize I’m flawed and imperfect so there’s no way I could have done this.”
Your actions proved that was a lie. You are the weakest link, goodbye.
😂
Not enough people see the irony in a religion of “love” being used to justify hate time and again.
I was immediately reminded of that Facebook meme where Jesus says something to the effect of “Love everybody.” and next panel a guy says “Even the gay people and people who follow different religions.” Next panel Jesus says “Did I stutter?”
I see that the concept of forgiveness and turning the other cheek has completely been dropped, which is probably the most important thing.
If we were all judged by the worst things we’ve said in our lives, we’d all be cancelled permanently.
Yeah, totally. Several thoughts on this.
(1) Brennaman drops the slur and then 3 seconds later, starts announcing. Did he really not think his mic would be hot??
(2) Words have meaning that people assign to them. If society changes the word’s usage/meaning, and one keeps saying that, it’s one’s responsibility to choose a different word that accurately represents one’s intent. Otherwise, something like this ends up happening. That being said, from the way Brennaman so casually said this, I think it’s clear what his intent is.
(3) Brennaman is well beyond the age where this can be construed for immaturity.
100% agreed 🙂
Based on Brennaman’s apology, he appears to be going with the “I might say hateful things in my private circle but don’t act hateful toward the public and am therefore not truly hateful” defense.
If Brennaman believes his broadcasting partner would respond favorably to anti-gay slurs in a private conversation, what does that say about Chris Welsh and the other 40+ broadcasters Brennaman worked with in the past?
I didn’t realize Brennaman attended the John Rocker School of Broadcasting. He just alienated a large group of viewers and will probably never work for a major outlet again.
Agreed. If you think it is ok to say in private, you think it is ok to say.
Amir is also a great guy with fans. I have a picture with him and my nephew at a Spring Training game a couple of years back. He not only signs for people, especially kids, he takes time to chat and joke (lots of jokes). He definitely gets it.
That’s awesome, Jeff! Gonna be awhile before we can do those kind of meet and greets again.
“That’s not who I am”.
Yes it is. Did you say that? Then that’s who you are.
Like so many others, he is misapplying the Christian principle “Judge not, and you will not be judged.” He thinks it’s okay for him to believe gay people are going to hell and talk about that belief among friends, as long as he doesn’t mistreat gay people in public or call them sinners to their face. When he says “that’s not who I am” what he really means is “I might hate you in private, but I don’t display my anti-gay beliefs in public where it might hurt someone’s feelings.”
Like so many people, he thinks judgment refers to public actions, not private thoughts and conversations among friends. But public actions are the equivalent of executing punishment, the are prohibited by the “condemn not” phrase. The judgment occurs before. The “judge not” phrase refers to the internal thought process of attributing moral blame. It means refrain from being concerned with whether other people are morally blameless. It means don’t assign a person value based on whether they are straight, gay, black, white, a sinner or believer. Don’t just treat everyone equally, teach yourself to be open-minded and believe they are equal. If you ever ask yourself “should other people be gay or straight” the only Christian answer is “I don’t care.”
I guess you’ve never in your life said something that came out wrong or wasn’t what you meant or that you regret?
Fox just dumped him from their NFL broadcasts. Actions have consequences.