Fangraphs Positional Power Rankings for the bullpen has the Angels at 6th best. The article didn’t pull any punches, though, when assessing the Angels off season in general. Compounding the positional potpourri is the following dichotomy. The Angels came in second to the Astros for the Designated Hitter position and 24th for the left field position. This latter article was written while Justin Upton was still around, but it doesn’t look like his departure will change much. Tyler Wade is pretty happy to be an Angel.
Here is Shohei Ohtani hitting a pretty sweet home run off of Walker Buehler. Now for the Two Minutes Hate: Bleacher Report ranked players in this article. Mike Trout placed only fifth, after both Bryce Harper and Mookie Betts. Shohei Ohtani placed second, after Juan Soto.
There are more former Angels on this list of people out of options than there are current Angels.
MLB is handing out drug suspensions again.
Two time National League batting champion Tommy Davis died at the age of 83.
Chris Sale is now on the 60 day IL.
Links Within Division
Highly ranked outfield prospect Julio Rodriguez made the Mariners’ opening day roster. Charlie Culberson and Matt Bush both made the opening day roster for the Texas Rangers.
Photo credit: Rex Fregosi
FYI. Notice there is no Plumber, Rojas Mayfield, Ward, Ortega, Moran, Bearclaw or Valdez on there. I suspect they aren’t finished
https://twitter.com/TaylorBlakeWard/status/1511457553976229890/photo/1
Davis Daniel and Ryan Smith are guy’s I’ve interviewed. They are getting closer. Good for them.
Angels sign CF Monte Harrison.
He goes from a Jumbo Shrimp to a Bee.
Maybe he really wants a job with Bubba Gump?
https://www.reddit.com/r/angelsbaseball/comments/twyuz8/free_mlb_tv_subsciption/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3
thanks, I’ll look into that in the next few minutes.
One of the reasons I continue to stay with Tmobile.
I pretty much have not cut the Verizon cable cord only because of having Angels games on what is it now Bally West?, used to be Fox Sports West. I pay all year just so I have Angels games.
The final lineup of spring training. Speculate wildly:
https://twitter.com/angels/status/1511453029127450627?s=21&t=JnaVGGED2Y5M1u5QLq5k1Q
Fletch is slotted as SS?! Finally!
So if the plumber was really fighting for a roster spot he would be starting tonight so that ain’t going to happen.
Fletcher at SS for the entire season (a lot of base hits between 3rd and SS because Fletch has no arm or range.) Yep, the Angels have never produced a good/great player at the following positions……..catcher, SS, a classic big armed RF or in at least in a long time. closer……K-Rod, Percival, Harvey…..SP Jered Weaver, Chuck Finley, John Lackey, Ervin Santana. Wally Joyner is still way better than Jered Walsh will ever be (plus he could probably hit lefties a lot better).
“Never” is a really long time, you realize.
Catcher? Bengie Molina
2002 doesn’t remember 2002
Molina brothers? (C)
Salmon? (RF)
Fletcher is back.
Trout is not.
😳
Hopefully they are being truthful calling it just a stomach bug
🤞🏻
But I don’t trust them
No ma’am
Tommy John stomach surgery coming up
You and the 10 people that rec’d your comment can go take a long walk off a short pier.
We don’t put those vibes out into the world like that! 😩
Remember? Dysentery.
Hopefully, he’s taking the toll road and not the raft….
I was thinking maybe he got COVID.
It could be scurvy!
Where did you read that? I could not find it. Or were you messing with me/us?
Trent Rush
@TrentRushSports
· 2h
Btw. Trout was taking BP earlier today on field at Big A. twitter.com/angels/status/…
Yes I just replied to myself, twice. Not unusual for me to walk around the house answering my own questions out loud.
It’s obvious they need to just release Rondone.
And Trout!
Obv.
https://twitter.com/JeffFletcherOCR/status/1511130831275896844?s=20&t=r85_BoAEzZpyFLujTNYnfw
Perry seems to like Herget for some reason.
Jimmy Herget reminds Joe of Ben Weber.
It appears that Maddon has nicknamed Jose Rojas “Cookie” in honor of Victor’s father whom he coached with back in the late eighties. I get the impression that Soggy Joe likes to recycle old nicknames. I’m sure he was the guy who nicknamed Ervin Santana “Magic” years ago.
Is “Cookie” a keeper for Rojas or do we just call him “Red”?
If he’s good…call him Cookie in honor Cookie Rojas and “Magic” Johnson’s wife “Cookie”..
and if he gets really good we can call him the “Cookie Monster”
Or… and hear me out… we could just call him “The Other Red”
Can either of you get us great deals on appliances?
Hmm, I dunno. My grand dog’s name is Cookie.
It’s actually Nilla Woofer, but they call her Cookie.
That’s adorable.
There’s only one Cookie Rojas in my book.
Cool for Tyler Wade and I’m glad he’s happy to be home. However his career splits against righties sits at .216/316/.319. That’s not all that inspiring.
It is tough to get into a flow without regular at bats. I’ll give him some benefit of the doubt there.
Last year his line was .241/.353/.299. Given his speed, if he can get on base 35% of the time I’d be stoked.
Tyler Wade’s success will come down to whether or not last year’s success (in a small sample size of 145 PA’s) was a fluke. Before the 2021 season, his career slash line was : (.190/.274/.301) He’ll never be a power guy but it would appear that he has good plate discipline so if he can just hit enough to get on base and wreak havoc.
https://twitter.com/Jared_Tims/status/1511393910534262788?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1511393910534262788%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.redditmedia.com%2Fmediaembed%2Ftx0m8t%3Fresponsive%3Dtrueis_nightmode%3Dfalse
So much for that fountain of youth.
He needs to sign with a team in Florida for that.
So what exactly is our positional depth situation, esp in the OF and SP?
So, for SP, we have a 6 man rotation, with Barria as the only depth option stashed in the bullpen? This seems dangerous given the durability question marks on pretty much every SP.
In the OF, we are officially down to Trout, Marsh, Adell, with Ward backing up, then? I would not be too comfortable without a solid glove first (or, at least capable of playing decent CF) depth piece on hand.
Not sure if either of these is easily addressable, since, I guess, we don’t have room on the 40 man roster for now. Still, a couple of acquisitions early in the season would be a little more reassuring.
The lack of rotation depth is frightening. Once rosters get cut to 26 I would anticipate Detmers going to AAA as our only true piece of depth. Janson Junk would be next man up. Jhonathan Diaz probably the third guy. Davis Daniel has gotten a look in big league camp and should be on the 40 man soon.
Trout, Marsh, and Adell gives us three centerfielders. Ward would play a corner in any Trout injury or day off scenario. Anything beyond one injury an Wade would likely be out there.
Agree…but aren’t we no different than 90% of MLB (pitching)?
We seem to be very thin with MLB ready OF and SS depth….
Maybe it’s not as bad as it appears….Maybe our plethora of utility infielders can hold there own defensively and hit at SS and the OF, Rojas, Mayfield, Duffy, Ward, Wade, etc
Don’t can Griff just yet.
He and a healthy Chris Rodriguez would really add some depth…..but they both have attendance issues…..not holding breath that ever will change.
He’s on the 60 day IL.
Knowing our luck, he will have a rotation spot waiting for him at the end of May
https://twitter.com/JeffFletcherOCR/status/1511419075049627649?s=20&t=r85_BoAEzZpyFLujTNYnfw
We have enough “arms,” but they come with too many questions. Not sure if this is that different from most other teams, but I still wish that we had another AAAA starter/swingman type or two on hand (and if one of our spare infielders turned out to be a solid OF, too.)
There’s definitely much more depth than in years past. And there’s still some debate about Lorenzen staying in the rotation with Barria in the bullpen.
Ohtani, Thor, Sandoval, Suarez, Lorenzen, Detmers, Barria, Junk, Diaz with possibly Davis Daniel or Ryan Smith making a developmental leap forward is the current depth chart. Hopefully Canning slots in there soon.
What exactly is with Canning anyways? There were talks that he was back to normal, then he had a “setback,” then he’s on 60 day DL. Are we even going to see him again this year?
That bleacher report is laughable. It is such a clear case of deciding where you want to rank players and then trying to justify your choice rather than trying to make an objective ranking based off past numbers and unbiased projections.
Trout was off to the hottest start of his career in 2021, but we are going to assume he won’t be good anymore because of his injury.
Betts also had a bad 2021 because of a nagging hip injury, and he hasn’t been able to repeat his great 2018 performance in three years, we are going to assume he is fully healthy and will finally be great again.
Also, if we cherry-pick the years from 2016 to 2020, we can show Betts earned .4 more rWAR than Trout and claim Betts was the best player during that time. Let’s ignore that Trout earned 9.0 more oWAR during that time, so Betts’ status as the better player depends heavily on less-reliable defensive metrics. Also, let’s ignore that Trout earned 3.4 more fWAR than Betts during that time period.
Another example:
Saying Ohtani had the best season ever is a tad hyperbolic, his combined rWAR wasn’t even in the top 300 of all time (tied for #312). This proves it is possible for a one-way player to be better than a two-way player.
Because Soto could be better than Ohtani, we feel comfortable saying he is, even though he has never shown he is actually better by our own standard of rWAR and hasn’t even made the list of the top 476 seasons of all time.
That frequently seems to be their modus operandi. Slap together a list based on personal preference and then for each list item state some conclusory BS peppered with cherry picked statistics.
I tend to regard those articles as opinion rather than fact. It’s something to read, I guess.
Let’s also ignore that Betts 2018 is a clear outlier in his career and that Boston was caught using Apple Watches to steal signs that year.
Just a couple more days and we will see who’s hot and who’s not. Lists be damned.
Looking forward to Opening Day! It’s about time 😀
Opening Day lineup is tough to predict.
Not so tough:
Ohtani DH & P
Trout CF
Rendon 3B
Walsh 1B
Stassi C
Duffy 2B
Adell LF
Marsh RF
Fletcher SS
With a lefty starting I moved Marsh down near the bottom. Since its opening Day I left Walsh in at first to bat cleanup although I can see Stassi moving to the cleanup during future games.
I think 1-4 is pretty clear.
But I am curious about a couple things here; why do you have Wade in the lineup instead of Duffy? I would think that since Duffy is tagged as the regular he would get the start on Opening Day, no? Also, why bat Marsh in front of Adell, particularly with a lefty on the mound for the Astros?
(Ah, so I see you changed it. A bit better).
I changed the line up after realizing Valdez is a lefty. But my projected regular season Soggy Joe vs tough lefty line up would be:
Ohtani DH & P
Trout CF
Rendon 3B
Ward RF
Stassi C
Adell LF
Duffy 1B
Mayfield 2B
Fletcher SS
Get the brooms out as we are going to sweep the Dodgers. Yahoo!
And then lose Thursday night, lol.
R.I.P. Tommy. You will always be remembered for your contributions here in SoCal. 1962 & 1963 Batting Titles were a first in all of Southern California. You were one of my favorites back when.