Here is something for the baseball card enthusiasts. It’s not exactly news. It’s more like a trip down memory lane.
Raisel Iglesias is mentioned here as a possible candidate for a qualifying offer. Alex Cobb is ineligible due to a previous qualifying offer.
And now for the bad news. The Eric Kay saga gets worse.
Links About Former Angels
The Orioles designated Maikel Franco for assignment and optioned Richie Martin down to AAA Norfolk. Jahmai Jones and Kelvin Gutierrez will be brought up in their place. They also picked up Conner Greene off waivers from the Dodgers.
Ji-Man Choi is probably going on the ten day injured list with left hamstring tightness.
More Injuries
The Rangers just placed three players on the COVID-19 list.
The Yankees placed Zack Britton on the ten day injured list with an elbow sprain.
Kenta Maeda is going on the ten day injured list with the dreaded right forearm tightness.
Stephen Piscotty may need surgery for his sprained left wrist.
Padres Meltdown
The Padres fired their pitching coach Larry Rothschild. They had such high hopes for this season and it is going south at an incredible clip. They are currently not even in possession of a wild card spot and their schedule is going to get worse. Ben Fritz will be their interim pitching coach.
JOB POSTING: San Diego Padres Data Engineer.
Photo credit: Rex Fregosi
Jam Jones in the lineup tonight. Bundy has been reasonably ok the last few times out, been pulled quickly, too. The O’s have a guy with a mid 5 ERA so we should score. I hope.
Don’t challenge them, this is a team that has been put up a goose egg 9 times this season so far, although mostly to the A’s.
Dylan Bundy returning to Camden is like the swallows returning to San Juan. There will be balls flying and birds shitting everywhere.
Nice job Rick!! team payroll under $150M
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_Hahn
Yes, this year the Pale Hose might even exceed 78 wins in a season for the first time in his 9 year tenure as GM.
He’s the GM of a team that’s better than ours so you’re supposed to say “Dad nab it! Arte is a fool and PTP is retarded!”. Then post a photo of chicken stuck face first in a boot. And some emojis.
Dagnabbit! Arte is a fool and PTP is stoopid.
Ha ha haaaaa. What the hell did that kid do ?????
Rick Hahn, the latest “One Hit Wonder”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xm2kEjkSqME
I haven’t been following all that closely, has Kay said that anyone else in the FO was aware of what he was doing? Or is all this speculation? Just trying to get caught up.
I don’t think Kay has said anything at all – likely on the advice of his lawyer.
No direct comments from Kay to my knowledge. His attorneys and those of the family are trying to prove the Angels knew about his drug dealing, however.
A client is never supposed to comment about his pending litigation. It just gives the prosecution more ammunition to pick holes in his story. The lawyers can basically say whatever they want to pollute the jury pool. Ethical ones don’t do that, but I’m betting Kay didn’t hire his lawyers for their ethics.
Apparently Kay has already fingered the team
https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2857774-angels-eric-kay-told-dea-team-knew-of-tyler-skaggs-drug-use-before-his-death
He has fingered Mead, and supposedly someone else. Does he have proof or someone else with direct knowledge who will testify? Maybe the Skaggs family attorney has uncovered something. In a couple of months more info should be out there.
I’m guessing its traveling secretary Tom Taylor who is responsible for the players accommodations on road trips is the other Angel Employee who has been accused. If there is one person who would be responsible for making sure the players needs are taken care of it would have to be Tom so stay tuned.
Here’s my take on Kay. It all needs to come out and get ugly and nasty before everything can get clean again and we can move on. It’s like that scene from Shawshank where Tim Robbins has to walk through the sewer with decades of sh— everywhere before he can emerge into the rain and be washed clean with his arms extended.
It’s time for the Angels Organization to walk through that sewer with its nose fully open and with full transparency that it is a sewer with crap and piss everywhere. Accept it and welcome it as it brings the opportunity for redemption at the other side.
I want to know the whole awful truth. I want it all to come to light no matter how poorly it reflects on the Angels. Salvation lies within.
If people are not satisfied with the amount of truth that comes out, there will be all sorts of speculation, leaning towards the bad. People are already liable to suspect worst about the way Angels are run b/c of the secretive and high handed manner that Arte seems to be running the team (“seems to” because we don’t really know–secretive and all that) and an appearance that the org is hiding things can only make things much worse.
And Arte needs to have the same fate (figuratively speaking) as the warden.
I’ve held a theory on this. When I worked in radio there was always a guy whose unofficial job was to provide drugs for on air talent and the bands/groups who came through town. Normally someone in the promotions department, maybe a weekend/holiday relief DJ. The president of the radio group didn’t interact with him/her, but the programming director knew what was going on and made sure it stayed pretty low key.
I’m willing to bet many if not all baseball teams work this way. These guys travel a lot and are fairly high profile. Sometimes a guy will need a little weed, maybe on Oxy to get through a start, some Ritalin. Having an in house source that the team thinks will keep things on the hush is better than players looking around in city after city. It could/should mitigate the risk of exactly what happened here with Skaggs.
Just my theory.
I think this has to all be viewed with the backdrop of other issues with the organization under Arte. Firing scouts and not paying minor leaguers during the pandemic. Current living conditions in the minors a year after they weren’t really paid much. Strong arming his ushers and stadium workers for pennies. The guy is a fighter who likes telling other people nothing is ever his problem or responsbility.
It’s his problem. Would love to see some kind of acknowledgement that he runs an ugly franchise and gets away with it because Trout is a literal golden boy.
That all sucks. I just happen to think most of the 29 other clubs don’t want to get investigated too hard about what players might be able to access in their locker rooms either.
Maybe I’m just jaded from my own experiences in the drug scene. But when you have willing and able buyers, you’ll find willing and able suppliers.
Again, just my theory.
You can literally be in a band playing in garages and living rooms around the country and if you ask people throwing the show where you can get drugs you will end up with some drugs. There is almost certainly a “go to guy” in every town and I am almost more certain that even our shiny faced saints like David Fletcher totally know they are there.
I love how it seems like 2/3 of this site, even the ones chipping in their “I have a sad drug tale to tell” stories, are coming off as shocked from their heads to the hems of their ankle length skirts that drugs were in an MLB clubhouse.
They are most likely in YOUR house people, or close to it. You are Arte folks.
The environment is too perfect in sports and entertainment. You find a guy who grew up in the area, loves the team/music, and is fairly expendable.
The go to guy gets access to the people he’s always admired. He feels cool, like he’s a buddy or at least valuable to the players/celebs.
The players/celebs have cash and remember the go to guy’s name.
If/when shit hits the fan it is just a communications guy, promo guy, weekend DJ who takes the fall. No biggie.
And yes, those who don’t party know those who do.
This is pure. Absolutely the truth. Players talk, you can be sure a lot if not all of the roster knows who are the party animals on the team and who is doing what.
Blaming a very good Pitching Coach for a staff that came unglued due to more random injuries is absurd. Injuries to their star play of course had noting to do to their record.
I largely agree that getting rid of the under-performing players should occur as part of evaluating the coaching.
The Padres went all in this season and traded highly rated prospects and took on salary. Preller is likely is likely in “self-preservation” mode given how bad they are playing.
As with most things, there’s probably more to this than what is publicly known.
Never. Trade . With the Rays.
Commandment #1: Never trade with the Rays.
The first rule of offseason is you do not trade with the Rays.
The second rule of offseason is you DO NOT trade with the Rays.
The Padres should never have traded Franmil Reyes a couple years back.
For all the praise their front office gets, that was a real bad move. It is especially so that we now know the universal DH is coming soon.
Even at the time I was scratching my head thinking “What are you doing trading that dude?”
I knew he would become a premier power hitter.
I am pretty sure Arte Moreno had something to do with the Padres underperformance.
Andrew is Geppetto. Arte is nothing more than a puppet.
It would be like blaming the Angels hitting coach for the injury to Mike Trout? I never had any idea who it is. I do remember we’ve got an interim pitching coach, but I can’t remember who it is.
Hitting coach: Jeremy Reed
Interim pitching coach: Matt Wise
Nice in depth article on MLBTR about changing things up in Anaheim. We don’t often get write ups this deep, except from our CTPG crew.
https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2021/08/the-angels-need-more-than-just-new-pitchers-to-improve-their-pitching-staff.html
Shoring up the defense is a priority for Perry I’m sure. Our defense is weak and if improved we would have a better record. As far as moving Trout to a corner makes sense as I have advocated this for a while now. Marsh is very good out in CF and he is young and can stretch out and Trouty does not need that with all the injuries he has accumulated.
Getting an expensive new SS is a crap shoot, Story not exactly tearing the NL apart currently, Seager fights injuries like Trout and Rendon. Baez bat is weak and is not that much better in the field than what we have now. Lindor was signed by the Mets and then quit hitting.
We are a starting pitcher or 2 and 3 arms in the pen away from being awesome in the pitching department with better defense.
A better bat at SS and Rendon coming back takes care of the left side and we got the right side covered now. The future OF will be Trout, Adell and Marsh with Upton and one other as back up. I can see Largares as a back up. Goose could also stick around.
The Angels are sitting pretty good going into next season if injury bug does not take out Trout, Rendon or Shohei for long periods of time.
The problem is what if this the beginning of the Mike Trout Nightmare?
Yes what if he becomes injury prone now that he just turned 30 recently? Now we’ll have two guys making over $30M a year and what if they can’t stay healthy anymore…….oh well.
What if Trout gets injured? What if Peggy Carter became Captain America? What if Chatalla was scooped up instead of Starlord?
In the immortal words of Capt. America (the boy version) “we can do this all day”
Why be mad at me?
You still hold that grudge against me since Trout got his big money deal in March of 2019 back at HH. Long term big money deals are not good business anymore, just ask the Cardinals who didn’t hold on to Albert Pujols. We still had a losing season back in 2019…….BYE!!
What about my response conveys anger towards you? You seem to be inferring anger by me when there is none.
I’ll also add that I have no idea what you’re talking about regarding a grudge from 2019. My grudges against you are born daily for the dumb things you post, no need to look in the rear view. But since something from 2019 is clearly at the forefront of your mind with me, perhaps it’s you that is holding a grudge?
You did fool……..You told me FY. becuase I didint go uhlong with the hird on Mike Trout’s deal other than to say I’m happy for him and his family. Pretty pretty awful wrath I say……….
I rec you however.
Your words are getting all weird again there 2002. Did you forget to take your Warfarin?
Please- less tension in this conversation.
Got it. Will do.
Please no name calling. I had over 10k comments at HH so I apologize if I don’t remember a single comment to you from over 2 years ago. It’s clearly stuck with you though, so I want you to know I’m truly sorry if you’ve cried yourself to sleep each night because a stranger on the internet said such a mean and hurtful thing to you several years ago. Now that you’ve confronted me my hope is that you can move on and be free from the iron grip those words held over you for so long. Perhaps your hate for Arte and all halos GMs is misplaced hatred for me? If so, expunge the hate, learn to spell and move on.
2019 is a long time ago? LOL!!
Kind of, its been 890 days since Trout inked his extension, but I guess it depends on who you ask. It seems like a lot has happened in our lives since March 19, 2019, at least for me and the rest of the world. But I guess time goes slower when you’re holding a grudge.
Since you brought it up, this could be a problem, too…
You realize your prime target Marcus Semien is the same age as Trout, right?
what?
left field is over there……….
This was in response to your “what if” now that Trout is over 30 he becomes injury prone. That’s an increasing risk for everyone over 30, including your much touted favorite Semien, who won’t be cheap either.
But still can’t catch the ball
Reading the stream of comments from this point forward in this argument was so painful I wished I was illiterate. Following this was like watching a donkey with a massive head injury try to f**k a snowman. Painful, disgusting and sad but also loud and messy.
Why did I picture that Donkey? What am I reading here? 😳
Baez would fit right in. Very inconsistent hitter with a high strikeout rate. And he’s old enough that his long term deal will look about the same as all the others we have executed.
Getting a elite top shelf level Latin American SP would be nice.
We should now have the pool money since Roberto Baldoquin’s contract expired two years ago. We don’t need another $35M a year hitter again.
Good article. The facts regarding just how bad the defense has been were eye-opening. This is not intended to give the pitching staff a pass, but good pitching relies on a good defense behind them.
Curious if the metrics are capturing if the seeming improvement in the fielding dept in the middle of the season. In the beginning, we’ve seen how bad the fielding was, not only with the bizarre OF configurations that had Ward playing CF, but also Iglesias and Fletcher being less than handy. Things seemed to have gotten better by midpoint of the season, but is this supported by numbers, insofar as they are reliable?
I also wondered about the metrics used as he had Walsh as a meh defensive 1st baseman and we all know who was on 1st before him. He also had 3 different metrics on Fletcher that was all over the board
That’s right. Who was on first.
Who was on 2nd. Wait, maybe that was during a shift…… Actually, Who is in Right Field now.
To my eyeballs, Walsh and Fletcher look like good defenders. To my eyeballs, it looks like Iglesias makes the difficult plays and screws up the easy ones.
Some of these metrics are just dumb.
That being said, it’s hard to play defense against walks and fly balls going over the outfielders heads while they’re standing at the wall looking up.
Unless you’re Nolan Ryan, in which case the defense (other than the catcher) can simply take a seat.
Man, I hope we don’t sign Baez unless it’s for nothing big. It’s a crap shoot at SS. I don’t want to spend on an expensive guy. Iglesias was a problem this year but is generally good. Which player will show up next year? Villar… Galvis? Both are meh, never been as good as Iglesias has been in past seasons.
That trade idea MLBTR had may be the way to go.
Agree. Don’t spend big on another position player.
I have been saying we should keep Churches at ss. It is the safest move.
Unless we can get Simba back for cheap (and there is zero reason to believe we can), I am happy with Iglesias staying for a year or two until one of the SS on the farm is ready. Rather that than pay 20+M in the competition (for whom? Correa? Story? Baez?)
Eh. Take a look at ol’ Simba. If we want a cheap SS who can’t hit but is still fielding pretty well he can be had.
He is still producing 1.0 WAR (Iglesias, for comparison, is at negative 1 WAR). So, while Simba is not hitting, I bet he still pulls in more than 3M next season.
Question is: do we need defense or offense from the SS position. I don’t think we can afford the few players that can offer both. Iglesias is below average with the bat, and hit or miss (unusually for him) with the glove.
Simba would give us better D, as a small price on the offensive side. I don’t know that is worth it, but it likely also costs money.
I wouldn’t cry at signing Simba. I just doubt he’s coming back here after the way he left.
Plus his Oxycodone supplier is going to the pokey.
And yet that’s exactly what Arte will do though.
Probably wondering if Aaron Judge will ever be a FA. A charismatic big good looking HR hitter is exactly what he would want, not winning like the Giants or the Rays who are both winning with faceless nameless teams.
I like Villar. He’s got speed and versatility and won’t cost very much by comparison to the others being talking about. I am just over 5-7 contracts to players over 30, or playing a major part of the contract over 30, particularly infielders.
Don’t get me wrong, I like Villar fine. I wanted him before we got Iglesias. I just don’t know if he’s sure to be a real defensive upgrade.
So yet another position that we can’t seem to scout and develop to save our own mother’s lives again. So the answer is to just keep loading up on athletic outfielders again? Maybe it’s all just bad luck yet again?
We keep paying the price for our lousy evaluation of talent.
Yeah. we simply have no middle infield prospects in the pipeline…. or do we? Have you looked?
Just Jackson and Paris, and Aloe Vera, or am I missing a few?
Hmm, it seems that 2002 has once again spouted off with no research – worse than those Lyle’in eyes, I tell ya.
Guzman, Placentia, Soto…. I mean sure, most of these guys will bust, but that’s true of most systems. We have SS in the pipe though. We just need place holders for a year or two.
JJ and Paris were OF’s in HS
Arol Vera was a Latin signee by Eppler and that means he’s a long way off from even next season. Don’t you think given the problems we’ve had with Ward, Thaiss and Rengifo that we should stick to true position players instead of plumbers trying to be doctors? Just stick to getting a new guy every 2 yrs. Not every GM can be Rick Hahn of the White Sox.
And Mike Trout was a shortstop in high school. Maybe he can move back there next year.
Do you have any evidence of that? Everything I see was that both were drafted as SS, Jackson was an All American at SS. They were committed to their colleges listed as SS/2B/IF.
Even so, neither had more ABs in high school than they have already had in the minors, so perhaps they are really SS, right?
And dear god, first you complain we have no IF in the pipeline, and now you want to dismiss the many SS in the pipeline as not good enough? Pick an argument, will ya?
Hevhens t* bedzy thiz guy iz gouda! Angelz suck! 😥 🐶 💪
I figured I’d try it… see if there’s something I’m missing.
Nope.
We’ve talked about the defense quite a bit here but not in a while. Perry’s MO was get soft contact then have an elite defense convert outs. It hasn’t worked.
We knew the outfield defense would be bad with Upton/Trout/Fowler but it got even worse with Upton/Trout/Marsh.
Meanwhile the infield got off to a horrible start between Iglesias getting hands of stone for a month and Pujols being atrocious at first.
Adell and Marsh will provide a solid boost to the outfield defense. I doubt Upton sees the field much at all next year.
Rendon, Fletcher, Marsh is a nice start to an infield defense. And there are a ton of SS available with good gloves.
I think we can see a notable improvement from the beginning of 2021 to 2022.
Jeff, Marsh didn’t come up while Trout was around. Or do you mean Upton/Marsh/Adell?
And remember, we had that one month period with the outfield being Goose/Ward/Lagares/rookie-callup.
I meant to type Upton/Trout/Walsh. That happened early in the year and was dreadful.
Ward? Also Walsh? They all sucked in RF.
The article said Walsh is bad at 1B…. -1 Rdrs. I mean, that’s not good, but if he’s our biggest defensive liability next year I will take it.
Waltz Wantz & Warren were pretty fielding bad outfielders too.
I want to see our super defense of Adell/Legares/Marsh for a few games, just because.
Yes, having the two young kids who can cover ground for an entire year should greatly improve the defensive metrics which were doomed by our first two months combos.
I would be excited if they try Trout/Marsh/Adell next year too when Upton gets hurt again.
Man, I know it’s not the logical thing, but I hope they keep both Adell/Marsh and get pitching some other way.
The current Kay news has not changed much as the trial will not start until October.
Its the lawyers throwing out trash talk in the public. Full of sound, fury, and bravado, but nothing of substance to see