As I type this, Opening Day starter Dylan Bundy is getting his final preseason start wrapped up. It won’t take a genius to figure out how the rotation will take shape behind him. Just follow the next few days.
In 2020, Bundy gave up home runs at half his normal rate and notably below MLB average. Part of that is the ballpark, but a larger part is better utilizing his arsenal of pitches. Scroll down a bit to the Pitch Arsenal segment. Mixing speeds and locations still works, as Brent broke down last summer.
The feel good story of Spring is shaping up to be Jose Rojas. On Wednesday morning Joe Maddon gave Rojas a positive review. By Wednesday evening he was the only middle infielder on the roster besides David Fletcher and Jose Iglesias.
Iglesias is yet another feel good story. His unbelievable play Wednesday came on the heels of one great play followed by another. Going from Simba to Iglesias is simply amazing.
David Fletcher is no stranger to great defensive plays. Fangraphs is projecting him to lead the way to the 13th best WAR at second base. I say he easily beats their 1.7 WAR projection and I’m not alone. ESPN pegs him for their MLB All-Underrated team.
Looking at other Fangraphs projections, the Angels come in 12th at the ridiculously stacked shortstop position and 3rd at third base along with 11th at catcher.
Look at all those top shortstops who will hit free agency next year. Incredible.
Sadly, one of the players optioned to the minors this week was local pitcher Jake Faria who was nice enough to do an interview for us. Hopefully this is a short lived setback and he gets to fulfill his, and our, childhood dream.
And that is a new voice you are hearing during Angels games. Daron Sutton also was kind enough to spend some time with me this week.
In that interview he talks about his dad, Don Sutton, having a spat with John Candelaria. As this was a bit before my time, I did some digging. Apparently the Candy Man was hitting the bottle pretty hard and Don called the police alerting them that Candaleria was about to drive drunk. Candaleria insisted Don set him up in order to secure a spot in the rotation. Don says he was trying to help. Candaleria’s view of the incident and a whole lot of shade thrown at Gene Mauch are in this article.
Pretty incredible stuff. I’m not surprised Candaleria was having a hard time after the death of his young son. Not that that is an excuse for two DUI’s in a season. But the fact he would put aside his dispute with Don and be so nice to Daron is pretty cool.
Opening Day opponent Chicago White Sox were dealt a huge blow, losing Eloy Jimenez to a torn pectoral tendon. That just sounds painful.
Elsewhere around baseball, the Toronto Blue Jays are the new Angels. Closer Kirby Yates is headed for TJ surgery and will miss the year. It turns out both Atlanta and Toronto had serious concerns after looking at his elbow. Toronto rolled the dice and lost. To really make them feel like us, prized free agent George Springer is out with an oblique injury.
To go along with the on field setbacks, both the Blue Jays and their AAA club Buffalo are trying to figure out which team will player where and when.
Taking tanking to an entirely new level, the Baltimore Orioles announced they will send the shell of Matt Harvey into the bandboxes of the AL East. The announcement was made right as the last home run he gave up in 2019 finally landed.
The prize for this tanking is likely Jack Leiter, son of Al. The kid pitched a no hitter against a very tough South Carolina team last weekend, racking up 16 K’s along the way.
No longform reading this weekend. Please take a listen to the interviews and feel free to share them on your social media feeds as well. These players and broadcasters do us a solid favor when they join us.
Have a great weekend and let me know what I missed.
Shits happening . Ty Buttrey gets optioned today https://twitter.com/LAAngelsPR/status/1376227709404147713
I think this all but assures that CRod & Slegers will be on the opening day roster and possibly our old friend? I just think it should be a minor league deal though.
https://twitter.com/ByRobertMurray/status/1376236234910097410
No surprise here, he just could not bring it wit control any longer. Siegers might just be the next Hero.
Say it ain’t soé Noé. https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2021/03/reds-release-noe-ramirez.html
Could we bring him back on a minor league deal?
You were right about Ramos Cowboy, just signed to a minor league deal… also resigned Jon Jay to a minor league contract.
AJ signing was 3 days ago but just official.
Signing Noe would be great. Still like him for the Marisnick bean ball.
Jay signing. Besides to mentor our minor leaguers, Why?
When you’re minor league outfielders are the absolute future of the franchise, you want a good mentor.
Survey says……Yes! https://twitter.com/FabianArdaya/status/1376286145059770372
Padres goin’ down today .
And out top story tonight: Mickey “The Dick Pic Mick” Callaway is still employed.
Good Night and Have a Pleasant Tomorrow
Dick Pics!
Unbelievable how long this investigation is taking.
MLB should’ve hired The Athletic
Chillax. The legal niceties have to be observed.
Here’s a tough nut for us all to chew on this Friday….
So Shane Greene and now Tony Watson are available as BP arms. I was full of complaint the 1st week of March that we didn’t sign guys like this. Would we still prefer one of them over what we have? Or what we sent down like Faria? If we were to pick up Watson, who would you send away to give him a roster spot?
CRod ( stretch him out as a starter), Buttrey or Claudio.
I doubt the Angels would sign Greene this late in spring it would take him weeks to get ready. A J Ramos would be a better bet on a minor league deal since it would be low risk for the Angels. There are a number of available pitchers that may be bullpen ready. Tony Watson is intriguing. He’s pretty consistent and would be another LHP alternative in the pen. Jesse Biddle is another LH option while Steve Chisek would be a free agent RHP option who has FOJ ties and would probably be motivated to stick it to the Astros at this point . Tommy Hunter is an option while Carl Edwards Jr is another RH FOJ.
Relative to roster moves, The angels roster currently sits at 39 but they will need to find roster spots for Jose Rojas & Juan Lagares. the additional signing of new bullpen player X will require 2 additional moves. They could move Luke Bard’s bad hip to the 60 Day IL opening up one spot but one of the following players would have to get the old DFA: Matt Thaiss, Jack Mayfield or Jose Quijada are all prime candidates to be jettisoned off of the 40 man. Either way opportunities abound.
At least with Dexter Fowler, we can say he has been about as good as Brian Goodwin has been this spring. Plus we got ourselves a Packy Naughton.
Packy Naughton = Grade 1 UCL sprain.
Brian Goodwin = Giant hair + hat falling off – outfield defense / can’t hit anymore.
Dexter Fowler = Poop emoji + Scott Schebler having 2 WAR on some other team.
I really wish they’d ditch Fowler and keep two of Ward, Lugares and Schebler.
https://www.baseball-almanac.com/teamstats/roster.php?y=2018&t=OAK
2018 Oakland A’s starting Outfield ( OMG!!! No All Star like Mike Trout, Mookie Wilson or Aaron Judge!!!! Chad Pinder LF, Mark Canha CF, RF Stephen Piscotty RF. )
And no Man Crush Marcus for you to bromance over this year. What will you do? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HP8sofAN4xc
First thing is Perry does not know we exist here at CTPG, other wise he would have seen the logic of keeping Ward up on the ML roster. Weak decision to justify the trade. Second is the fact that Joe would of kept such a bad fielding RF to be a starter in the first place just for the sake of having a veteran presence is just flat out embarrassing. Third is the fact that Dexter can’t field or throw. So yes this is same historical shyt but different shot callers, but I bet not even Sosh would have pulled this move off without a peep of disagreement with the GM.
PTP doesn’t know about CTPG? That dude is way out of touch then.
I hear his drops in at HH from time to time
are you joking? You probably are. If he did he’d think there are no Angels fans.
Joking
Hey, where’s Perry?
Thank you!
So Eloy’s Boop Blew out? Ouch!
Glad we got rid of Jay, didn’t show much. Then again, he looked better than Fowler. Take Schebler over Fowler any day of the week, personally.
Weekend Links should be Pinned to stay at the top throughout the weekend.
Jay and Chavez now history
To be fair, Jon Jay has always been History.
GOLD!
If we had kept Jay would he himself have been troubled by the Angels willfully taking the wrong road to happiness against their better judgement?
Jon Jay…. he may be washed up as an outfielder, but he’ll always be an incredible Federalist.
I hope he doesn’t rule against us in court.
Sweeping out the barn. These were easy calls for Joe Perry.
But Dream On if you think Dexter is going to run afowl of Joe Perry
Watching Fowler in Right in going to have us Cryin’
I see Fowler muttering to himself, “I don’t want to miss a thing,” but it hasn’t seemed to help.
Which players will be the next Toys in The Attic for the Angels? Stay tuned to find out!
Ward and Schebler sent to minors
Fowler better perform. Ward was clearly better across the board this spring. Plus can play multiple positions
Aww crap, yeah, keep Fowler as a starter because he has that veteran presence in the clubhouse, but can’t hit his weight or play defense very well anymore. Such an Angels move. And this folks, is why this team has continued to turn in season after season of .500 baseball. pAthetic.
Yep this is so an Angels move. Fangraphs just posted their RF rankings with the Angels coming in 29th in RF. Here is what they said about Fowler.
Fowler was merely replacement level in part-time duty for the Cardinals last year. He set new Statcast-era lows in exit velocity (84.5 mph) and hard-hit rate (27.6%) in addition to setting career worsts in strikeout and walk rates (27.7% and 9.9%). Additionally, his right field defense was in the red for the third year in a row. The 35-year-old switch-hitter has become virtually unplayable against lefties, with a 68 wRC+ over the past three seasons, compared to a 94 against righties.
The guys isn’t cutting it on either side of the ball and is projected to be below replacement. The Angels have better options they have sent to the minors. I hope this is only a 50 ab thing, but you don’t normally put a guy in the starting lineup and only let him struggle 50 abs because that could just be a SSS. Angels being the Angels right here for sure.
plus I haven’t even come close to watching everyday this Spring but I’ve seen 3 balls get past him that he should have at least kept in front of him that he then jogs after at like 75% speed. How is that a good clubhouse presence?
“He set new Statcast-era lows”. Angels ! Setting new lows!
Agreed. Fowler has looked lost on defense. I’m hoping Ligares is the starting right fielder and Fowler is the bench piece. But then again, what use is a useless bench piece?
Ward is the better player now and he has upside remaining. Can’t say that about a 35 year old.
Upton, Trout, Ward, Ligares is how I’d start the year.
Ward can play as 3rd C too.
Perry sees substantial value in having guys hanging around who have a knack for establishing camaraderie, which in turn leads to a roster-wide dedication to being the best teammate you can be.
I can see value in that as well. To a point. And nice guy or not if you are a detriment to the team’s success, we’ve reached that point.
It’s like the Lakers and Jared Dudley. Broken down player with little talent but is a mixer amongst the various personalities within the locker room.
Yeah but Dudley doesn’t start. And by the way we already have a player on the roster like that. He goes by the name of Albert Pujols
Convince him to retire and make him some sort of coach!
I don’t think Fowler is one of Perry’s Picks at all. We traded next to nothing to get him. We are paying him next to nothing. PTP just went and got Maddon a guy to sit with on the plane.
If both Ward and Schebler stay in shape in Tempe I don’t see Dexter lasting long in the Heim.
This further illustrates the make-up of Maddon. He’s a collaborator vs strong technical manager.
Better be a damned short leash on Fowler.
At least Voldy still had a bat (sort of), and had the grace to retire when it was clear he couldn’t play.
Even Schebler is better than Fowler
I’d rather have Ichiro Suzuki out there over Fowler
Love Ichiro, insulting to put he and Fowler in the same sentence.
Good reads this morning.
thank you.