Have a team on a losing streak? Maybe one with a manager on the hot seat? Just wait until the Angels roll into town and you’ll get hot again.
First, the Angels helped the Phillies get out of their Joe Girardi funk, heated up the Phils bats, and put them right back into the playoff race. Sure the media is saying Girardi’s firing changed everything, but let’s not forget the Angels role here.
Which brings us to Chavez Ravine. Fresh off a sweep by longtime rival San Francisco, the Dodgers were looking to break out of a weeks long funk. And the Angels delivered. A quick two game sweep that included leaving the bases loaded in the first game and a near no hitter in the second. 18 innings of baseball, 1 run scored.
And as I type this we’re off to Seattle who has lost 5 of 7.
The Angels have turned into MLB’s version of the Mark Grace slump buster.
So let’s focus elsewhere. The 2022 MLB Draft is quickly approaching. The draft has been moved to All Star Game time, July 17-19.
Outlets are starting to prepare their prospect lists. CBS has 30. The Athletic lists 100.
Mock drafts are also starting to appear. MLB’s Jonathan Mayo thinks Perry will select his 21st consecutive pitcher in round one.
The Angels pick at lucky number 13 this year.
Those draftees will head to the minors. The players and marketing departments with the Inland Empire 66ers are having fun.
Meanwhile the Trash Pandas held a night dedicated to the Negro Leagues. While I love the young talent out in Rocket City, the fact I linked players working with kids last week and a Negro League tribute this week is making me a huge fan of the franchise. Well done ownerships, management, and players.
Up in Salt Lake, the city council just extended the Bees lease and hopes the ballpark becomes an anchor in a revitalized neighborhood.
The College World Series kicked off last night. Whole lot of SEC and Stanford in one side of the draw. Once Texas and Oklahoma jump to the SEC, it might take over the entire field.
It should be a great tournament. I have to root for the one West Coast team in Stanford but as I’ve become friends with Tim Fletcher I’ve also rooted for Arkansas. Sucks they are in the same side of the bracket.
And while I don’t do this often, I do advise watching the Joe Smith Jr. fight on ESPN tomorrow night. The commission requires judges, but these ones won’t be needed. Big, power punching, blue collar American vs. big, power punching, Russian expat in NY.
Enjoy your weekend. Link all the stuff I missed.
Happy Father’s Day to all you dads!
Well crud. Not the Friday news I was hoping for.
I can’t believe it is mid June and my gut feeling is trending more and more towards this being another year we should sell of all movable assets at the deadline and hope for 2023…..
I thought this would be a year where we “start” contending, but being 5 games under and with utility players at 2nd, SS, 3rd, and arguably C and LF, with an average 1B, I’ve got to exit FantasyLand and realize where we are.
No Ohtani, Trout DH, Lagares CF, and Mayfield at 3rd
It’s important that Lagares gets his playing time, he has been so valuable. Sarcasm.
wow…Trout, Ward….maybe Marsh on a good night. Maybe a hit for Stassi. We have a legitimate 5 automatic outs in the lineup. We could get no-hit tonight!
When I bought my city connect jersey the only player jersey available was Rendon, so mine is generic
😂
Thought I’d check the free agent tracker: 2021-22 MLB Free Agent Tracker – MLB Trade Rumors
Looks like we could go grab a Jose Rondon to replace Rendon.
So does anyone know how close together 2 bags injury and his left handed HR were
I just figured he bucked the slobbering donkey…..
So who do we have playing 3rd at AAA?
Mayfield?
Yeah. Jose Rojas is also down there.
1B and 3B are by far, the weakest development prospects that are in the Angels farm. Rojas, no…please no. I guess Mayfield but imagine; Mayfied, Squid/Rengifo, Wade/Duffy and Walsh from left to right. If that doesn’t whistle dixie, nothing ever will.
Another wasted season of Rendon, out for season getting wrist surgery
His contract may ultimately prove to be worse than Pujols.
Arte should buy out Rendon’s contract and book the full loss
8 years of suck is better than 10
More good news. Does Stefanic play third base?
Is he off the IL
Unknown. At least Mayfield has a fractional sliver of positive WAR. We’ll unfortunately probably see Wade out there some more, though, either at third or second.
What a fucking joke this dude is. I’ve never seen such an over paid fragile player before.
Such a bummer. He better come out on stage and set himself on fire or a bunch of the assholes on this site will intimate that he’s enjoying all this fun painless surgery and rehab while just not giving a shit about missing games because he lacks fire and grit.
I heard he broke his wrist on purpose so he could just chill and collect his check
He’s faking the whole thing. He just wants to relax, count his stacks, and think back on all the times he enjoyed doing what ever he did to MarineLayer.
word has it he doesn’t want to play because nights are when he hangs with ML’s GF.
Just hoping now, Carole makes Arte sell the team as he is in the house crying and won’t come out to help with the gardening. She is going to go Heard on him for all his stupid mistakes.
Seriously. Maybe Arte will just stop kissing the snake. Even just between Trout, Pujols, Rendon, J Up and Hambone how much money has he pissed away on missed games or severe underperformance? Half a billion?
Owning a ball team has to start feeling like owning a boat at some point.
Okay, I give in, RenDone it is.
JUP has been activated for the M’s
Great.
So 3 for 4 with a HR and a diving outfield catch?
Multi-home run game
And a HR robbery of Trout
At least we miss Haniger for this series. Dude kills us.
2-Ks with RISP, 1-error scored as a hit, 1-error scored as a hard core error that led to 2 Angel runs and 1-bleeder to 3rd baseman and thrown out by 15-feet
Hey Jeff, you takin Smith or Beterbiev? I’ve only seen one of Joe Smith Jr’s fights, same with Beterbiev, and I want Joe Smith Jr to win…. but watching some chunks of his other fights, man he likes to go flat footed and blow a ton of energy beating on the high guard and taking counter punches. I’m afraid Beterbiev will have some pretty strong counters for Joe plus he will do a lot more guard probing and damage after the first couple rounds.
In my very limited video viewing the past few weeks (and my even more limited boxing wisdom) it looks like Joe pretty much HAS to go ape to knock Arty out and all of that’s gonna make him very tired…. that doesn’t bode well.
Beterviev is a legitimate favorite. I think his lateral movement is better and his punches are crisper (straighter, a bit faster).
That said, he is going to show his age at some point and Smith Jr. hits like a mule. I was there when he knocked Hopkins out of the ring at The Forum. And Beterbiev has tasted the canvas against lesser punchers than Joe.
So what I’m saying is I favor Beterbiev but will root for Smith and consider him a live dog.
Smith definitely needs to find more patience vs. the high guard, though.
It would be awesome if it’s a good fight and then Smith just lands a knockout to win it.
Who’s surprised by his return coming while the Angels are in town?
https://twitter.com/BNightengale/status/1537879758901346307?s=20&t=-ljJPqVasbtMVdSrDtwQbA
I just saw the replay of Marsh’s catch. Very nice! When I first saw it, no slo-mo, no good angle, I thought he might have trapped it, especially because he popped up and got rid of the ball…to get rid of the evidence!! But now I’ve seen it and he DID catch it! Now he’s gonna get hot at the plate and get back to .280. <—prediction!
Not sure if this Shohei news was posted…..$44 mil a year?
https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/los-angeles-angels
Yeahhhhh. I love me some Shohei, but if he needs 44M a year for 10 years or something I understand if we trade him. I don’t care if we become known as “the team that traded the man who is 33% of Babe Ruth away”.
I just deleted the text of this post which basically agreed with the above using stats and projections, got too complicated until I was stumbling over myself as I tried to wrap it up.
You know what I wish some baseball “jounalist” would do? Go in depth on how often it pays off to trade a big star/franchise player and how often it’s a disaster. What can I think of off the top of my head….
D bags trade Paul Goldscmidt for Casey Kelly, Luke Weaver and a prospect who seemed fairly good at the time and added up to bupkis.
The Pirates got Ryan Reynolds and pooh for Cutch.
The Rays got Christian Arroyo, Denard Span and a couple pitching prospects busts for Evan Longoria.
In return for Giancarlo Stanton the Yankees got Jose Devers (rehabing but an OK IF prospect) Starlin Castro and a washed pitching prospect. For some reason teams love getting raped by the Yankees in trades.
The Red Sox traded Mookie Betts but got to shed David Price and also got Alex Verdugo, Jeter Downs and Connor Wong back…. meh.
Rizzo…. Baez… Lindor….
So for those of us that hope that we will trade Ohtani for players that instantly revolutionize our team…. probably not. We basically get something plus we get to avoid paying him.
If our team is on the “competitive fence” they may even keep him and let him leave in FA since a year of him (if it leads to a play off run) may be more valuable than what we get in trade.
Your logic backed by evidence doesn’t meet my desires.
Unacceptable.
I don’t think the Sho is going to be asking for that kind of money. He came into MLB early forgoing a much bigger payday if he waited for his Japanese contract to expire.
He desire was to play at the highest level of baseball – not to maximize his short term earnings.
Sho donated all of his $150,000 Home Run Derby money to the Angels Training Staff.
He is that kind of guy.
Sho will take LESS money to be on the right kind of team with the right values and the opportunity to win and be a part of something big.
I can see Ohtani leaving the Halos because of the organizational dysfunction and in having 4 managers in his 4 years with the club. Maybe 5 if Nevin gets the axe. This would be the reason he leaves – not the money.
And, yes, Ohtani may only be 33% percent of the Babe now. But he’s only 27 years old. Babe played till he was 40. So far Ohtani has over 150 home runs from both the Japan and MLB leagues. This is ahead of where the the Babe was at 27. And Ohtani is a much better pitcher.
Did you read the article? His “camp” has started the bidding at or above Scherzer.
And for the love of gah man, just Google Ruth’s BRef page. Ohtani’s best season so far is pretty pedestrian compared to Ruth (who will be the basis of all wanking).
I want to keep Ohtani, and I know that will mean paying him, but there’s a point past which we need to accept we’re the Clippers, not the Lakers.
Peoples minds and hearts are connected with that insane home run binge last June, 13 Sho-Bombs, hitting over a .300+ clip. This is an outlier. He only hit 13 homers in the entire second half.
I too like Shohei but is not a super star and has yet to prove he is a game changer. Has the talent but it will be by his pitching skills.
What is Ruth’s best season? I think it’s not fair to compare Ohtani’s MVP season to the entirety of Ruth’s career. Of course, Ruth will have better numbers in that sense. Ohtani’s not a finished product yet, at least I don’t think so. I know eventually Ohtani will have to choose between a being a pitcher or batter, but I see him doing this two-way thing for longer than Babe Ruth did.
Jesus H Jones guys…. who the f**k is comparing one season of Ohtani to Ruths career? What am I TootyToo here?
Just look at any given season once Babe Ruth became BABE RUTH…. Ohtani, WHILE PITCHING AND HITTING had a 10WAR season…. Ruth did that on the regular just hitting. Ohtani is still very good, but he doesn’t look like he’s gonna have 10 WAR regularly…. much less as just a hitter the way Ruth did.
Point being, he isn’t Babe Ruth at all, so if we trade him, we aren’t really trading Babe Ruth.
$80,000 per year. Arte missed out big.
I have trouble which side of the fence to be on there. Paying $45MM may cripple our roster in other ways. But his “unicorn” value is so high. I remember my dad taking me to an Angels game when I was young just because Ryan was pitching, because he said he wanted to make sure I saw Ryan pitch. Ohtani will have that pull. Tough call.
Yah. I dream of him taking a little less money, and our owner expanding payroll because, like Trout, Ohtani is a money maker but I really fear what a single 45M salary hit will do… especially if he becomes a DH.
Maybe he stated his starting point was so high because he feels he would need that much to consider coming back to this team. In other words, he wants out.
I think he thinks (rightly so) that someone out there who wants an international superstar will pay him that.
Man, I want him. But the teams I want to be like, the teams with Top 10 revenue who stay out of the to 5 in salary, The Astros, Braves, Blue Jays and Giants… honestly they’d probably let Ohtani walk rather than pay him 45M a year.
I read this a couple of days ago and to me it’s BS. Shohei will stay here making one dollar a year less than Trout. He is on the West Coast and is a top Dog in his sport and plays alongside Trout and that is cool with him. There is a huge number of Japanese tourists that come to see him play, Seattle and San Francisco do not offer as many tourists as the LA area does. The weather suits him just fine. I say he tells his advisors what he wants and that is to stay. imho of course. 😄
That’s what I hope.
I have a hard time time thinking Ohtani will care at all about the number of tourists the city he plays in attracts. He wants to win, and will make his decision to stay or go somewhere else based off of that. Lets not create scenarios trying to talk ourselves into why he would never fathom leaving.
If he leaves as a free agent I’d bet he goes to SF or LAD.
His mom. She knows. She knows about all of it. And Japanese boys always do what their mom says.
https://twitter.com/MLB/status/1537581011705466880?s=20&t=sV5rvka9KkO96oLGBWS-oA
That is great.
And those are real friends. Happy for the kid rather than upset they didn’t get the ball.
All the people around them cheering as well. What a beautiful baseball moment.
Replacement for Largares
We see he can field. Can he hit?
Ummm, errr, no Fungo. It’s obvious that that kid takes bad routs to the ball, doesn’t align his lead shoulder to south/south east while making the catch and his hit tool is ENEMIC! His wrists look slow and his hips look congested. He does NOT belong on an MLB roster and we need to demand better.
All good points, but I really think Adell will figure his defense out, don’t give up on him yet. Whats that you say? You weren’t talking about Adell but rather some rando 10 year old in that stands? My bad
Good point. That 10 year old is rando, has no pedigree, and he has no stubble, thus no grit.
In my opinion, being a minor league manager requires more skills than managing at the MLB level. The minor league manager needs to teach and develop players, play “ship’s counselor” to kids, and deal with all the difficulties associated with being underfunded and unappreciated.
The best major league managers are largely the guys who don’t do stupid things. Bob Melvin and Bruce Bochy are two good examples. They are steady, don’t take stupid risks, and don’t experiment from game to game. They adapt ahead of their peers in a way that aligns to the talent the GM gives them.
Soth was largely this way for the first 10 years or so of his tenure, then he stopped adapting. Maddon was too much of a made scientist – always feeling the need to tinker with things. The jury is still out on Nevin, but if he’s PTPs guy – then he has a benefit Soth and Maddon did not.
Scioscia’s teams in the early part of his managerial stint had a blueprint, contact hitters and ran bases agressively. His team would agitate the Yankees, Angels had a tough to beat reputation. Had a big bat or two in the line-up, never loaded with boppers. The Puljos thing pushed by Arte, just fucked all that up, double-downed by Hamilton. I liked Mike. I was ready for a change, but he ran the show and had a vision.
No piling on you. I’d just like to remind everyone who keeps bring up “what worked in 2002” that that same team took a total shit in 2003 and, while some of it’s players remained in 2004-09, the team was largely revamped .
I love me some 2002. But what “worked” for that team was luck…. and probably being free of the bad juju that comes from a fanbase of SoCal barelyfans and Doomers. Positivity feeding on positivity seems to help a lot of teams.
#mostfansgettheteamtheydeserve
I think the comment was directed on managerial style as the OP phrased the narrative, not intended to be what worked previously. Scioscia had a blueprint and was pretty consistent. Some years it floundered, 2003, but was pretty damn good after that. About the time Jedi, AP and JH came onto the scene.
Yah, true. This was just the 1,000 comment about “what worked in 2002″…. not the worst at all.
But what really worked in 2002? The players did their f**king jobs. And LUCK. I start buying into “system of greatness” discussions after the second WS appearance within a few years…. like that last series of Giants teams.
Any team that wins the World Series is lucky.
No amount of luck will ever get a WS appearance, let alone a ring, with players like Rengifo, Wade, Velazquez, Marsh (still on the job training), a struggling Stassi all playing major roles.
Exactly. Take a bunch of good players and some OK ones, hope a couple get hot and the rest play solid baseball.
The hot guy might be Neil Walker or Marco Scutaro, maybe Panda, but all of those guys had much higher floors than Wade, Rengifo, and co.
I have to agree. Velasquez would be a nice bench piece as a late-inning defensive substitution, but he shouldn’t be starting games for longer than a 10-day DL stint. Wade should have been DFA’d after 20 games.
The Angels used to give washed-up vets longer chances than they deserved, now they even hang on to nobody’s who have never been successful.
Mike also had good coaches and I think that’s where Maddon and Nevin are challenged. I don’t think their staff is that good. Also, if Nevin was a good coach, what was he doing while Maddon was losing? Scioscia had young guys coming up who wanted to be great. So having more guys at your disposal and tinkering with that helps. I’m inclined to agree with the minor league manager comments.
Disney actually had POBO and structure within the angels FO. Arte took over, enjoyed the seamless transition then shit the bed by hiring all of his buddies to run important decisions. Pretty simple when you boil it down.
Huge take! I like it.
All I remember about the POBO, Disney would bus us down from the offices in three fully-stocked, luxury coaches for the weekday get away games. Insane employee engangment polices.
As of this morning the Angels are 30-35 in third place in their division. On the morning of June 17, 2021 the Atlanta Braves were 30-35 also in 3rd place in their division, and we all know how that turned out.
The question now becomes- Does Perry have the acumen to honestly evaluate the deficiencies in this ball club and then complete transactions that can address these deficiencies and salvage the season?
The Answer to this question maybe the difference between “The Angels are Champions of baseball” to “Just another Halo Losing Season”
Last year, Atlanta loaded up on replacement players when suffered injuries, including to Acuna. The Angels have given no indication they plan to do anything, and there’s the valid question whether intern Minasian has the acumen to pull anything off assuming he got a go ahead from billboard salesman Arturo. I want your number one, but expect your number two.
We’re stocked up on sub replacement level players: Wade, Rengifo, Lagares all have negative WAR. Lagares manages -0.7 in only 48 ABs, which is hard to do.
Mayfield at 0.1 and Duffy at 0.2 WAR are our shining lights with Squid’s 0.7 WAR pacing the group.
Perry needs to cut bait on that pile of nothingness and get some useful pieces.
Cue Fletcher’s activation as “like making a trade.”
You are so correct!
And as we all know, the key to good GMing via the internet CoachDad approval process is giving a clear indication of what you plan to do before you do it.
Oo, I like this!
Just went to LL for the first time this season and saw 550+comments on the GT and 1 comment on the postgame.
We do have a stable number of comments even after losses which shows that
there’s not even complaining much!!!
That’s what a slump buster site should look like. Lets get some momentum.
It’s impressive how Nevin has stepped in to be as clueless as Joe. Perhaps it supports the idea that any manager we employ simply needs better players. I say this despite our impressive one game winning streak. I hope Arturo will let Minasian look around. I read this morning that the Marlins are trying obtain Laureano from the Athletics. Maybe we can go after Montas, for example.
“Perhaps it supports the idea that any manager we employ simply needs better players”
Think you hit the nail on the head with this sentence. No manager is going to magically make players instantly better. To me, the only way to get these guys better is to put a spy in the Dodgers clubhouse to see what they give their players to magically make them better. Way too many ok players go there and suddenly turn into all stars.
If players aren’t self-motivated to become a star / improve, there is no one who can force them to do so. For me, this is the issue with Tony “no bags”: he lacks the intangible that made players like Trout, MJ, Kobe, Tiger Woods, Bill Russell, Jack Lambert, Larry Bird great competitors every day/every game.
At this point, I believe it is best to think of Tony as a sunk cost and move on from the idea he will ever be part of a Big Three. He’s literally our Russell Westbrook who doesn’t even have the health to play, with a much longer contract. I give the Lakers no credit for acquiring him, but some credit for trying to get rid of him. What ideas do we have for making Rendon work, aside from hoping his injuries go away and sticking him in the middle of the lineup when he does? I would suggest increasing the payroll to acquire top end talent to provide the production Tony can’t give us.
Exactly.
Nevin has been handed a roster with way too many utility players and too few actual MLB starters. Just like Maddon was handed.
You get 9 innings per game. Any inning that features Wade and Squid back to back in the lineup is the equivalent of punting an inning.
Hard to win when other teams have 9 offensive chances and you have 6.
I of course agree. I just don’t understand why the ownership and FO don’t seem to understand, or just ignore.
My theory is that the MO of the offseason was to stock up on quality pitching. To do that there was no money left over for infield help.
Perry probably tried to build an infield the way Eppler used to try to build a bullpen: bring in a lot of meh and hope 1 or 2 pans out.
I agree, as he had one hand tied behind his back with Arturo’s self-imposed salary-cap. Juxtapose to the Mets, where Eppler was given adequate funds, and delivered an immediate winner to his owner. No reason we couldn’t do that with a team that already features Trout/Ohtani.
That Mets team…. it’s 50/50 they won’t be dismantled or left in shit contract limbo soon. Pro sports aren’t exactly full of guys with a ton of money, who go on a “win now” spending spree, and then continue that spree for years. Doesn’t matter how rich the guy is.
You could be right. No big contract is ever a sure thing, but with Trout already moving past his prime but still great and Ohtani leaving possibly leaving end of next year, I would prefer taking a chance. Mets fans are having fun right now. I’d like in on that with two all-time greats already on the roster.
Hell yeah. As long as we can do it without totally ignoring the farm I’d love a drunken sailor style spending spree to glory.
Adequate funds ? He has the second highest payroll in baseball. What kind of team would we have with an extra $80,000,000 to spend this year on players?
If Billy can’t win with that type of payroll the Mets should fire his ass now instead of waiting for him to ultimately destroy their farm system.
If the Mets don’t win soon I don’t see Cohen maintaining the huge payroll. The winning will make the money that makes it worth it. People seem to think that wildly rich guys (and Cohen’s money dwarfs Arte’s) will just endlessly pay for huge payrolls because… RICH! But they actually don’t, they still have an accountant or two. The Mets probably have 2 years of trying to buy a championship and then things will get more Arte style stars & scrubs if they don’t at least push into an NLCS.
Exactly, give a GM more money and he will achieve better results.
Nevin is a stop gap.
Andrew will be the true new manager.
OK, we won a game yesterday. If we win today, it’s called “two in a row”. And if we win again tomorrow, it’s called a “winning streak”.
Hell, I don’t even need a “streak”. Just win me two out of three for the next 24 games. Hell, in some of those losses, get one hit, get blown out, have a bullpen collapse. Doomers gotta eat too. But just go over .600 for a stretch of games.
Will be hard to do a .600 clip with our 5-9 of the batting order. Unless the top gets toasty hot, and it could happen. Get the ship headed in the right direction stay in striking distance of the Indians, Red/White Soxs. That’s assuming we can jump over the Rangers Get what we hope is a decent Fletcher back in July, hope Rendon can give us something, hope Marsh and Stassi get off the “almost an AUTO OUT list”. To me it lays at the feet of our offense. I’m hoping we can make our push 1st half of August, a late season run might be our best chance.
They have to become more that just a HR driven offense. One of the fastest lineups in baseball and we are 17th in stolen bases, no traffic on the bases, never an opportunity to use that speed. We are tied for 14th with the Reds in runs scored, not enough….. If we don’t find a consistent offense, we are DOOMED.
I was thinking about the playoffs last night (cue that gif) and how we have to play about .600 ball the rest of the way to get in. That would get us to 88 or 89 wins.
We have 97 games left. 65 down, 97 to go. It almost seems like the season has just started but in another couple of weeks we’ll be halfway through.
My main hope is that the Indians & White Sox play each other 13 more times. The Red Sox get to have fun with the Yankees (ESPN!), Blue Jays and Rays a lot.
Meanwhile I think we have 10 against the Rangers, 3 against the White Sox, 3 against the Girdians…
We do have to run an AL East gauntlet again in Sept, but even then we get Oakland/Texas/Oakland to finish the season.
Our season’s far from “LOST! Boo hoo!”