We keep talking about 2022. Let’s start by taking a look at our opponents this home stand and realize we are currently chasing all 3 in the standings and will go into the offseason looking up at them. Perry and Co. don’t need to simply improve the team. They need to make the Angels better than three division rivals. Not easy.
Oakland really kicked the snot out of the Halos this year, taking the season series 15 games to 4. Our boys single handedly have kept Oakland in the Wild Card race as the A’s are only 67-66 against everybody else as I type this.
The Angels are 5-13 vs. the Asterisks this year as of this writing. Not that Houston needed help winning the division, but we gave it to them. And to the surprise of nobody, there’s now proof they cheated well beyond 2017 and into the 2019 playoffs.
We still have two series remaining against Seattle but sit a disappointing 5-8 against them heading into the weekend.
In case you are keeping score, that is a putrid 15-36 against the class of the division. Playing .500 ball against those three puts us right into the playoff chase.
Houston has a loaded free agent class and could lose some key pieces. But as a couple of guys leave payroll opens up and they’ve really hit well in the free agent market in recent years.
Oakland could fall back to the pack some as they have an enormous arbitration class and will almost certainly ship out some key pieces. However, they seem to do this all the time and keep on chugging, so we can’t count on that.
A division rivalry falls by the wayside when it comes to a scenario like Chris Bassit and it is great to see him back on the mound after taking a 100mph ball to the head last month.
Seattle is trending in the right direction with plenty of payroll flexibility and a farm system rated second in the game by Baseball America.
In short, Perry and Arte are going to have to go well beyond what we consider to be reasonable to compete next year. A division championship is truly against all odds.
If you want to really depress yourself, take a look at the 10 losses that defined the Angels season.
But onto 2022. Our current week of suck has bumped us to 12 in the 2022 draft, just ahead of the NY Angels, err Mets.
Of course 2022 will be better if we can take a failed outfielder and figure out how to make him hit 100 MPH out of the bullpen.
People sometimes ask why I pay for The Athletic. Easy. For articles like this. A truly incredible story about family, love, loss, and how baseball ties them all together. That is the longform for the weekend and I’ve read it more than once. Truly a great piece.
Conversely, Yahoo couldn’t have done much worse in their piece about 6 veterans who deserve a ring. First a cover photo of an Astro, then a confirmed roider in Nelson Cruz. I’ll root for Votto and McCutchen all day, but never the first two.
The Cardinals are scorching hot and not a moment too soon. They’ve soared into a Wild Card spot and these are the keys to that hot streak. One reason is that Jon Lester has been on fire as of late.
I might have to go back to school now that college students get MLB.TV for free. Let’s see, one free junior college class, ID, free baseball…
And while the Angels are out of it, the race in the NL West is simply amazing. Honestly I’ve been watching SF as much as the Halos lately because every game means so much and is so exciting. Hopefully Dodger killer Kole Calhoun can help relegate the boys in blue to the wild card game.
I thought it was just a given that the Astros kept cheating until they were in hot water and guys were getting fired. Was that supposed to be some kind of mystery? Are people taken aback by this? I thought the whole theme of last season was that it was their first without “help”. Maybe if we could study why people are shocked by this we could come to understand politics, or why folks pay extra money to have vents that are not vents added to their car, or fried mayo. All mysteries.
Raise your hand if you would have been happy on April 1, 2021 with an off season pitching overhaul of Jon Lester, Wade LeBlanc, Adam Wainwright and JA Happ? Sure, Wainwright’s still good, but he’s old, and if we’d signed him (which we couldn’t, yet another arm who wouldn’t have come here) you would have complained. The rest of that pile?
I like Joey Votto. I hope he wins a WS.
I really dislike the Asstros along with The Major League Baseball Commissioner Robert Manfred who’s hind tit “leadership” has embarrassed the sport. The Yankees and Red Sox got off way to easy in cheating sandal of sign stealing. All “Roid” users got off way too easy and from then on slowly the game of MLB eroded in paying fans and in TV ratings. Next on my list is the Angels owner and cronies for ruining the team to such a point even with superstars we hardly draw on the road because who really gives a darn except us the loyalist. (Sidebar; I loved Gene Autry even when we were a losing team for so long.). Last on my list is the Analytic folks who have helped take the game down a few pegs (Yes I am Aware they thought their input would help.). But when a strikeout is deemed to be better than hitting the ball when men are on base because there will be no DP. Anyway I still love the Angels and unlike most I do root for both NFL teams, and both SoCal Hockey and NBA teams, all the College teams and High School Baseball, Football and Basketball teams. But my second favorite sport after Baseball is Curling. lots of laughs but true.
WE HAVE TARPS?????
https://twitter.com/JeffFletcherOCR/status/1441531315203895302
I thought we had banned rain in the latest election.
Where is Vince Coleman?
https://twitter.com/Jared_Tims/status/1441434690867527681
I bet he’s already the first in MLB history to 45/25/5/24
Just keep taking those walks, Shohei, and then steal ‘em some bases.
Downing Dude, thanks for the tv screen grab from last night’s game. My wife says it really shows my son’s excitement and personality. She could practically hear him just looking at that photo. She was home with our daughter.
Gladly. Was multi-tasking while watching the game, turn my head and saw you guys …
Actual image of me when i saw you…
😂
I didn’t know the asstros scandal went so deep. Bunch of cheating mfs. Hinch and Cora should’ve been banned from the game for good and the players 50 game suspension a piece. What a crock of shit punishment from pathetic commissioner.
https://twitter.com/RhettBollinger/status/1441265717945397258?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1441265717945397258%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.redditmedia.com%2Fmediaembed%2Fpucwsf%3Fresponsive%3Dtrueis_nightmode%3Dfalse
Always enjoy the weekend links, thank you.
Love Calhoun’s picture, been to a few west coast parks recently and have seen some great defense. When the good defense has been in RF its made me think of the long journey it’s been in RF for Angels baseball this year.
Actually flying out to east coast tonight to check out Worchester woo sox and some other sports.
Have a good weekend everyone. Go angels!
That crap is pronounced WOO-stuh in the Chowd dialect, isn’t it? reading it in normal person speak, it’s WAR-Chester.
Have a righteous journey, A2020C.
I’ve made the pronunciation mistake (and now on purpose) to family/friends that live on the east coast for years now. You are correct on it btw.
Thanks, hope you have a good one as well!
Check this out downingdude
https://youtu.be/bXyFy3d8QeI
hahahahahahaha – nice!
Definitely NSFW but funny as hell.
Appreciate the kind words. Enjoy your trip. Hit me up when you get back. Kids at the pier should definitely happen this off season.
Enjoy your trip !!!
The one key change the Angels need to make is the owner. I’ve given Arte the benefit of a doubt for years, but I’m tired of his antics. The front office is full of yes-men who don’t give two-shits about putting a winner on the field. They only want brand names to splash on billboards and sell merchandise.
Sell the team, Arte. You’ve proven incapable by having non-baseball people run the front office for years.
MLB is a small industry, and quality people (eg, GM) won’t work for the team as long as you meddle.
Sell the team and enjoy your billions.
Killing the Stripling trade was the last straw. Did we ever find out WHY he did that?
Impatient arrogant ass…… still think signing Adrian Beltre we would have been a contender in the AL West.
https://www.dallasnews.com/sports/rangers/2018/11/28/adrian-beltre-affected-the-directions-of-two-teams-by-signing-with-the-rangers-here-s-a-look-back-at-the-ramifications/
https://theathletic.com/1789745/2020/05/08/do-over-what-the-angels-lost-by-not-going-the-extra-year-on-adrian-beltre/
“If the player wants to be an Angel, he’s going to be an Angel.”
Okay we will find out if that is true or not with Cobb. Apparently he keeps stating he wants to be an Angel. He is a good #4 or #5 pitcher at least.
Yep. For years I was hoping Arte’s passion for baseball and largely open checkbook would lead to good things. Instead it keeps leading to signing bats when we need arms. Signing free agents and skimping on development.
For years I’ve hoped Arte would one day turn the keys of the franchise over to a real baseball team.
I’ve pretty much lost that hope.
Thinking about it – who was Arte’s last big FA success?! I have to go all the way back to Vlad and Bartolo. And he was a new owner then who hit the jackpot.
Everything else was a big fat failure. Yes, I was excited when Pujols signed. I knew even then it would be bad towards the end. But I was expecting at least consistent playoff appearances throughout the first five years or so.
Uhh Torii Hunter says HELLO
DEL NINJA, FTW!
Definitely Torii. And that was over a decade ago.
Does Ohtani qualify?
I thought Rendon was going to be an easy win but yikes.
I screamed bloody murder with signing an almost 30 year old player to 7 years after a career year and was taken to the wood shed. Dumb signing. So he has a couple of big years, it’s Albert 2.0.
Have you ever actually looked at his B Ref? That red word there is called a link.
It’s not like the year he had before we signed him was some anomaly. Nor was he an injury risk unless you want to go back 4 years. Finally, how many good FAs can you find under 30 years old? Then, in 2020 he was on pace for another “career year” which was actually an average year for him.
That’s probably why you were taken to the woodshed. We needed a third baseman, the two pitchers we wanted both wanted to play on the East Coast. Signing Rendon made sense and still does. He’s just hurt this year…. like Trout.
While those 10 loses are surely bad, I bet I could find 10 others that are equally soul crushing, but I’m not a masochist.
I’m not gonna look at that article, thank you
Having lived in the Bay Area for many years has turned me into preferring the Dodgers over SF. The locals hatred of all things LA can’t be overstated and gets tiring for this SoCal native. The only thing that keeps me here is my wife’s career. I would like nothing better than to return to my place of birth in SoCal. Meantime, I wish all Bay Area teams nothing but the worst. Beat SF!
Hahahah! Nice. They are exceptionally douchey up there about their sports. I learned it day 1 in my dorms at college (halfway in-between LA and SF) when the lone TV in the building had to be showing the 49ers as opposed to the Rams – even though I had staked out the TV an hour before gametime and nobody was in the room.
These same sets of tools seriously complained that “you guys in LA steal our water” – while theoretically true, had nothing to do with TV rights on a Sunday morning.
I learned it in a similar way in college up here too. I always suspected it watching Dodger/Giant TV games growing up in LA, but never understood it until I went away to school. Damn that cute girl I met up here who stole my heart and led me away from home.
The stealing water meme is also quite boring. They steal their water from Hetch Hetchy, which is right next to Yosemite, and was equally beautiful, before they flooded if for their own rapacious water needs. BTW, Mark McGwire was tagged as one of the biggest water wasters during one of the droughts when he played for Oakland.
RE: Damn that cute girl I met up here who stole my heart and led me away from home.
I had one of those … but she broke my heart. Now I hate the Bay even more. 😛 But then I listen to Garth Brooks’ “Unanswered Prayers” and certainly it is clear now that I avoided a different life of misery.
I know that feeling. I often thank God I got dumped by the wrong girl and fired from the wrong job. Everything I thought I wanted at 20 would’ve been a disaster by 30 or 40.
Crap, sorry to hear that.
I’m guessing you went to Cal Poly?
Yes. I am a SLO individual – best 6 years of my life.
Great school.
Yeah pretty good. Great place to spend 6 years, too. 😍🎉
One last thing, it’s not as if I root for the Dodgers. They are my third least favorite team after SF And Oakland. Although I am envious over Oakland being so much smarter than Arte.
Watch one game with the dancing tree and the choice is pretty clear – USC and UCLA
I hope nobody wants to “AXE” the dancing tree a question.
Funny Stuff.
No, I get it. Ever been in a Yankee bar after the Red Sox beat them? The tears… they are like Gatorade from God.
I rather enjoyed living in Sacramento and hating all things LA sports.
But being from middle and to the side a bit – where do you stand on the water issue? It is annoying when people like me get HOA notices telling me i must waste water to make my yard look like everyone else’s. When all I’m doing is trying not to steal too much of that NorCal water.
A few years back during the last drought period, our HOA posted notices to all homeowners that we must keep the lawns green or risk fines.
At the next HOA board meeting, we protested and said the directive violated state law.
One of the idiots on the board said “his” HOA had more legal standing than the state of California.
Three of the people at the meeting were lawyers, and they had a field day with that jackass regarding the legal process.
The board member was hoping the Earth would open and swallow him whole.
Every HOA has its share of assholes.
I believe HOA is the abbreviation for House of Assholes.
To be fair, I was on my condo HOA board for one year (One year only, Vashily, pleashe).
I took the job of rewriting the pool rules, because I was sick of people using the jacuzzi as a wading pool for their kids. What happens when you put your little kid in 100+ degree water? You’re in (Urine) trouble. Also, people were letting kids play in it and not paying attention. My four year old daughter had to get Mrs. red to rescue a kid from the jacuzzi.
So I was “That Guy” when it came to writing the pool rules and enforcing them. Other than that, I didn’t give a shit what people did.
And this is why I live in a home without an HOA. Been there, done that, and had to call some people some bad names and get angry.
Yeah, I won’t touch that here. I could go off an a rant of epic proportions complete with tons of profanity talking about CA’s water usage and policies.
I will say 99.99% of the folks who say that aren’t farmers so the water would’ve just gone down the drain anyway.
Angels, Kings (hockey), 49ers & Chargers for my main sports.
Long story growing up in Dodger 805 country but had much better experiences at Angel stadium to say the least. I live in Orange County now but remember staying up late to watch them play (never switching to ducks). Grew up 9ers fan and only added Chargers since working with/for them through the years.
TL:DR… always fun discussing sports teams and why you like them.
Ex. wore Padres gear when I went down there to see them play Giants and not all Giants fans like 49ers or Sharks for whatever reasons obviously. The beat LA chant got old in the 80s with Bahstun vs Lakers
What happened?
I can’t wait to get out of this state for good.
These feelings are hardly rare and have led to my getting licensed in six western states.
Got a feeling that Seattle is going to rise up to the top of the division. Houston is getting older, Oakland is going to lose quite a few players by not wanting to pay in arbitration, and Texas will be just starting to dig out of their teardown hole. Angels? Who freaking knows? Pitching, pitching and shortstop top the list, but we need to beef up the bench some, and the bullpen is a steaming heap aside from D-Cell.
Kinda wondering the same. I get there are a lot of folks here that just enjoy watching Angels baseball win or lose, and I admire that actually. I fall more in the camp of, if we’re not winning I need it to at least be competitive to hold my deep interest throughout a long season. Otherwise I’ll just stick to following the news. That being said, I don’t think anybody LIKES losing, and losing to Jerry here would be icing on the cake of Arte karma that I’m personally tired of experiencing.
Seattle is in the best shape to take over the division IMO. The owners will spend when they need to, the club has plenty of young talent emerging, and the core is coming together.
They did the one thing we wouldn’t: take a step back. And now they are in position to benefit.
Yeah, the article was dated June! Why haven’t other publications with national reach followed up?
Whoops, wrong spot
SMFH, you mean we missed our chance in keep Jedi by keeping Sosh. lol
I’m worried we will get an expensive SS instead of pitching. I’m even more concerned that SS will not live up to expectations and end up getting hurt. Damn Indian burial ground!
I’m waiting for Arte to sign former MVP/great guy Freddie Freeman to a big deal, move Walsh to right, and really screw Perry over.
Barf.
You’re right Siemen won’t want a bump.
Seattle is definitely on the rise. But take a closer look at Houston. I am impressed with their ability to keep bringing up guys like Alvarez, Siri, Tucker, McCormick et al, not to mention their young pitching. And you know that Billy Beane will rebuild the A’s as he has so often in the past. Texas is the only AL West foe I am willing to discount for now. We have a tough road indeed.
2023 is going to be a battle between the Mariners and Angels for the divisional pennant, even with the handicap of Moreno’s leadership.
Without that handicap, there would be no contest?
That is correct.
You know, I keep thinking 2023 and your posts are only encouraging it.
The only worry I have is for the Angel fans who think the Halos are going to be contenders in 2022.
The excitement in the 2022 season will lie in the development of the club’s young players, Trout and Ohtani heroics, and (hopefully) an extended 60th anniversary celebration of one of my favorite Angel teams, the utterly amazing 1962 LA Angels.
“Jerry Dipoto vs. the Angels” is going to be one of the great story lines of the 2023 season.
The cheating article is incredible. Shane on MLB for knowing all this and doing exactly nothing about it from a player standpoint.
The 10 losses article is rough. Amazing how a 162 game season can boil down to 10 games.
The piece should be getting more mention. The similarities between the Astros and Patriots continue to grow, complete with the leagues trying to brush the offenses under the rug and minimize them to a time period far shorter than they actually were.
The whistling against the Yanks was obvious and even broadcasters played clips of it. And I’d still bet the farm every one of Altuve’s rotating excuses for hugging his jersey were lies.
Yeah, the article was dated June! Why haven’t other publications with national reach followed up?
I totally agree. In fact I don’t understand it. In a social media world that is fascinated by scandal, I am surprised this has so little traction. Maybe MLB has something to do with that?
The Astros lose key pieces like Verlander, Gerrit Cole, and Springer and just keep on winning. Maybe next year will be different.
I think their era of dominance is coming to a close. I sure as hell HOPE SO. 😀
Me too. So tired of them.
Not sure how much of a key piece Verlander was this year, but I get your point
At least Verlander brings with him an Upton who can produce.
They’re still cheating, that’s why.