The 2022 Major League Baseball season is underway. And I’m sure the entire baseball world outside of Houston is rooting for the Angels this weekend.
Here’s a look at your 2022 Angels Opening Day roster. One thing I noticed immediately is the lack of a fourth outfielder. Taylor Ward has a groin injury (those injuries tend to linger and scare me). But Wade can play on the grass and JHW reminded me Rojas can too.
For his part, Ward says he should be good in a few days. So knowing the Angels that means he’ll be down a leg in a month.
Here’s a look at the full 162 game slate for the Angels, updated to show the double header dates to make up for the season being delayed.
Most games will be broadcast on Bally’s West but not all of them. One will be on Peacock, another on Apple+, but no word on whether we’ll make Sunday Night Baseball. Take a look at the complete steaming schedules if you have either of those services.
The CtPG staff made their Angels predictions. The crew at Fangraphs made them for all of MLB.
SI predicts we haven’t seen the best of Shohei Ohtani yet. That is your longform read for the weekend.
Shohei is crossing over from sports publications to the mainstream.
Here’s a link to the full Time story. What’s that, two longform pieces this weekend? Yes. If Shohei can pull double duty so can we.
There is so much Ohtani hype that the return of Mike Trout is almost getting overlooked.
This was definitely a crazy off season. A ton of action early. A lockout, then a scramble late. Here’s great primer of the biggest story lines of the off season and how they should shape the 2022 season.
You know it was a crazy off season when Bob Nutting spent money. Pirates fans can now enjoy Ke’Bryan Hayes for another eight years.
And the offseason carried over to Opening Day. The Padres and Twins pulled off a trade just hours before real games began.
Another interesting portion of the off season was a lack of comment from Angels owner Arte Moreno. Purely my speculation, but if my client was involved in multiple lawsuits and I was a lawyer, I’d try to keep him quiet too.
Let’s not let the lack of games played get in the way of some power rankings. I think they nailed the Angels.
Ronald Acuna says he won’t miss Freddie Freeman. I like this little Braves/Dodgers rivalry that is brewing. And I understand Acuna’s take. Hazing is immature at best. Still, tough to take a shot at a departed franchise icon so I expect blowback.
I’m off to enjoy the Opening Day festivities. Please enjoy the weekend and link what I missed below.
I suspect that Jo Adell will be optioned to AAA within the next 2 weeks. Salt Lake is on a tear up 12-0 in the 7th of the first game of a double header after outscoring Jerry’s Tacoma Kids 27-10 in the previous 3 games. The Plumber is 4 for 5 tonight now batting .600 and Brendan Davis is now hitting .467 with a 1.100 OPS. Davis is starting in CF after moving around the diamond ( including SS) in the first 4 games. Renny from Venny is now batting .367. Both the Plumber & rengifo have been around the infield so far Although the Plumber isn’t playing shortstop. So there are plenty of replacement candidates at this rate.
Plumber really needs to return.
But what’s odd is the Angels have made no attempt to play him in the outfield, while Brendan Davis, Kean Wong & Andrew Velazquez all have played in both the outfield & infield so far this AAA season. If they restrict him to the infield there will be no room at the inn.
No Fletcher in tonight’s line up.
Considering hes one of the few on the Angels roster thats had a modicum of success ( including a Home Run!) against Verlander I’m not sure it was such a great idea to give him a day off this early in the season. Probably prepping him for TJS as we speak.
https://twitter.com/JeffFletcherOCR/status/1512902334858235904/photo/1
Today marks the 13th anniversary of Nick Adenhart’s death.
As Angels fans we will always wonder what might have been. On the Diamond.
It’s when I think about all of the things I’ve done in life since 2009 that the tragedy is really felt: walking down the aisle, seeing ultrasounds of my son, holding him that first time and every time since then. Family, friends.
RIP Nick.
RIP Nick. As trivial as it may seem, Let’s hope Thor can continue to honor your legacy on the pitching rubber tonight.
https://twitter.com/Weave1036/status/1512864686949081091
Interesting tonight will be the first time Nick’s number has been worn.
Sigh. Its just a one night tease of a world with no Bally Sports and regional blackouts
Much cleaner screen for Apple TV+ (Mets game on now)
First thing I noticed is the absence of that biguglyBallyBelowBaseballBar
and Hit Probabilities?
much better screen
Apple pays attention to design? Who would have thought.
The broadcasts do look amazing
No Adell, Marsh to Left, Rojas in Right. For some reason the worse catcher catching the new kid. Make it make sense, Joe.
https://twitter.com/angels/status/1512550575069573122?s=21&t=_jnnGBJ9NbFMJmQ0mAZUyg
And for Downing Dude and Mr. Floyd- you don’t need a subscription to watch the game tonight.
You just need to figure out how to download the Apple TV+ app. Which even at your advanced age shouldn’t be hard. 😉
I actually have an Apple TV+ subscription, but there’s no app for my tablet, so I’ll just watch in browser… (I actually have AppleTV on my Roku, but Miss UCSB will be watching other stuff at the time).
Hell, I may watch on one screen of my desktop, and post on the other!
Dual monitors for the win!
By the way, if you do have an AppleTV subscription, and you haven’t checked out “For All Mankind” or “Foundation”, I highly recommend doing so.
For All Mankind is so goood! Other than that one plot line.
You know which one
I have an app on my tablet
Hey Mia and all you younger kids
You don’t need a subscription to watch the game tonight.
You just have to have a credit card and parental permission.
Bro, I am 28 years old.
So close to retirement, have you ordered your rocker for the porch yet or got your velcro tennis shoes?
Lol no one in my generation is ever gonna be able to retire.
I bought my first Apple IIc computer 38 years ago
Right hander on the hill = two left handers in the outfield.
There is no making sense of Suzuki. He’s simply aged to the point of being a negative. Did get a pretty rousing ovation from the fans when introduces last night.
That’s right Joe, make the defense worse, pinhead. Rojas defense equals Adell’s and Suzuki is no whiz.
Suzuki is going to have to start some games. You can’t play any catcher every day. You can argue it should not be tonight, but then he’d have to start tomorrow or certainly Sunday. He may start Sunday again anyways (day game after night).
Need to re-think his roster position on the team. I think it’s time to start working with Thaiss and other youngsters including Mia, to bring up the next generation.
Oh I know there’s no making sense of it, but i’m still gonna bitch about it
Joe the genius -“ I’ll play Suzuki for a month and then everyone will be happy when we cut him and sign Mathis”
Maybe Detmers requested him?
Time to be a coach.
Uggh. Rendone again hitting behind Ohtani and Trout to kill rallies.
No Adell though. Joe sent him to his room.
Don’t give up on Tony yet. He looked great defensively last night and came damn close to a game saving HR.
Not giving up, I learned my lesson, but maybe batting him behind Walsh until he heats up again.
Rendon is clearly one of the top 3 Angel hitters. Got to get him ABs..
Joe’s a slow learner.
Angel “bullpen innings” pitched after first 2 games..
Over/Under
even money
8.2
Over. With a manager like the Angels have and pitch count police, easy call.
Under – I think Detmers goes 5.
Last night they only scored 3. I think the Astros score alot tonight off Detmers and pen combined. Probably 6 or more runs.
I’ll put you down for $50 on the over.
Well, we will see. (Also, that wasn’t about innings, was it?)
Over with Joe at the helm.
Crazy thought, after watching Adell yesterday:
I was thinking that we really need a good def reserve OF since Ward isn’t it, then it occurred to me that Lorenzen is supposed to be a pretty good OF. Do you think he’s part of OF depth as far as Maddon and PTP are concerned?
https://www.ocregister.com/2022/04/04/michael-lorenzen-leaves-his-two-career-days-behind-in-new-start-with-angels/
My guess we will see a trade sooner than later…..not normal to have a problem like this….but with have trAditions to uphold.
Interesting story, he went from a guy who wanted to be an outfielder only, to a guy who was willing to pitch for the money but wanted to be a two-way player, and now that he finally has the chance, he’s content being just a starter.
I had thought about making a joke about Canning in left field but I guess it’s not funny at this point.
Carol Channing…Canning….all about the same.
Agree, need a glove. I would have though a guy like Pillar, who can play all 3 OF positions would be a benefit. Dodgers signed him late as a non-roster signee and assigned him to minor league camp. I was hoping the Angels would have considered him as a defensive replacement, and back-up. Or find someone for sure.
…not so fast my friend.
https://sports.yahoo.com/pirates-3-b-ke-bryan-hayes-agrees-to-team-record-8-year-70-million-deal-173438329.html
Oh, wow. that’s not good. Nothing is really agreed until the ink is dry and the terms are met.
Kyle Tyler is baaaack.
https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2022/04/angels-claim-kyle-tyler-off-waivers-from-padres.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_e-RQZVwxg
how does this affect (or does it affect at all) 40-man roster?
Oh, NM. I see that Criswell is headed to 60 day IL.
I think PTP kept him Criswell on the 40 man roster knowing that he was going to shift him to the 60 IL in case something else better came along while trolling for DFA trades. I guess Tyler was the best he could come up with. Although now some one will have to get the guillotine in order to add the plumber to the 40 man at a later date.
We should start a list…….and watch it grow.
Interesting how we get excited for a guy who has been DFA’d by 3 teams in 2-weeks. MLB stuff is lacking.
That kind of excitement… is what we around here like to call….. trAdition.
In order for the Angels to get him on waivers he had to be rejected by every NL team and about half the AL.
If I recall there was some surprise here when he was let go initially.
I was in good seats last night near RF and can confidently say that Adell has no clue how to be a ML outfielder. I ran better routes in my slow pitch softball league. I was embarrassed for him, and the look on his face later in the game made me think he’s seriously mind f’d out there.
100% not seeing the ball for some odd reason…. I assumed we were done with this Baseball-101 learning curve shit. Almost rooting for some sort of vision problem that can explain it and easily be fixed. I’m sure even cheap Moreno pays for high end eye exams? Right? Right?
He’s must be terrified out there, I’m terrified to watch. It’s not normal, but we do have trAditions.
I was in 109, down by the field in left field side, and my son (Little League Majors 3rd baseman) was yelling ” What is he doing?” I asked him what would happen if a fielder on his team made those plays, his answer: “The coaches would spend the next 2 practices, of 2 hours each, just working on fly balls and routes to those balls, as well as hit your cutoff man”
I mean, if you are going to be that bad, just play deeper and at least keep the ball in front of you.
Agree, take a 100 OF flys a day, you can improve. Angel management need to enforce this.
I was in 208. He simply didn’t see that ball that guy by him for the double. I don’t think he had any real chance at the HR in the 8th.
He definitely looked lost and shaken out there, though.
I was asleep on my couch, couldn’t tell a thing.
😂
https://twitter.com/JeffFletcherOCR/status/1512471805952372738?s=20&t=fSyr636y5DuVV2JgRROkVQ
Any reason why Marsh isn’t in LF…
That was brutal
Marsh is the better fielder and has a slightly better arm.
So Sandoval had his first start pushed back to next week because of arm fatigue. It’s all coming together already.
Not sure if I’m down for ohtani leading off when he starts. I know the goal is to get the most ab from him, but he looked like he needed a longer break between pitching and hitting.
I had the same thought last night. It might make sense to lead him off when on the road because then he might have more time between batting and pitching, but going straight from pitching to batting should be avoided I think. I think putting him 3rd makes the most sense to give him a chance to catch his breath.
Agreed. Home should be
Against RHP I can agree with that. Against lefties, you gotta move Walsh down (or find a lefty killer to platoon with Walsh).
Swap Walsh and Marsh. I don’t want Rendon behind Troutani.
Might have been done just to let him make another history notch on opening night. And then again he may have requested to be there.
2002 6-14
2009 6-11
2014 0-3
Maybe we should rejoice in our misery?
Good point to not putting to much on W/L records after the first couple of weeks.
I’m starting to think that Adell has the Steve Sax “yips” anytime he steps foot in a MLB ballpark. The guys a stud in minor leagues and in spring training, he’s Jose Canseco in the field anytime he’s in a MLB park.
I got to say I was disappointed aside from Ohtani pitching. I’m so tired of the Asstros winning by a point or two every time they play. I know just one game but I’m frustrated.
573 post last night for Opening Day as it was fun to see our friends from years past and exciting to read their post. We may not have won the game as Angels fans, but we won as a site by having so many of our friends return to make us a large family again. Think we can make 750 post tonight, I do. Oh we will win tonight.
574 now. My post was just approved today 🙂
574 in spite of the technical problems (kudos to the admins for quickly bringing everything back up, btw). I was a bit despondent (despite not being a regular gamethread participant) to see the site down yesterday.
JDL was awesome on the emergency.
Note: We have learned that CtPG has a “Critical Job Detector”*
*A Critical Job Detector determines when would be a really, REALLY bad time to crash, and instigates a crash when that situation occurs. I think the Opening Day gamethread qualifies as such.
bold move ripping our LF from the middle of the lineup and cutting him before the season started.
How’s that working out?
In the long run very well. After one game it’s a tough call to judge. Although using Duffy in the 4 hole is head scratching.
It is head scratching indeed. I know Joe was concerned about lefty pitcher matchups. But maybe Stassi would have been a better choice?
Would the team miss Upton in situations like this? I don’t know how he would have done on those plays that Adell bungled. That bad throw looked to me like he was getting ready to throw home, but saw Rendon at the last minute signal to throw to first instead, and so it messed him up. But this is part of the growing pains of going with younger, inexperienced players.
Still a big fan of that move as the young guys need to play. Upton is also a brutal outfielder and is too streaky to be counted upon IMO. Not sure why they have Adell in LF as he didn’t get a lot of there in spring and seems to struggle way more with his reads there. He looked awful so I’m hoping they swap him and Marsh who I really like defensively.
Marsh has the far superior arm of the two and you generally play the better arm in RF.
Superior arm? I’ll take better than most kids in High school to start with.
https://twitter.com/ConnorNielen/status/1512286572128915461?s=20&t=VpUm12q9Pzy9z-BKN6iZ8g
Yeeeesh.
I hear you, but agree with what PerdorCerrano said, that most of his reps in ST were in right field. I was surprised last night to see him in left.