Good morning Angels fans, how are you today? Same as always? Yeesh, that bad huh? Have some links.
Angels News
So the Angels lost a close one last night. Here, have a condensed game, it isn’t long.
It was Ohtani’s birthday yesterday. People made art, so let’s look at that rather than look at sad stuff.
Hey, at least we can blame the umps somewhat, as the home plate ump last night was really bad.
Oh and Stefanic got his first MLB hit! I am really trying here.
But maybe that is the problem. The ultra positivity of the Jeff Fletcher and the like is letting Arte Moreno get away with the product on the field year after year? Sam Blum thinks so at the Athletic.
The Angels don’t think like that, however. In fact, they got themselves new shirts.
Not sure that is wise to think about the brawl. Mike Trout in particular has not hit well since then.
Jeff Joiner has started to ponder what Perry should do. Do you agree?
Around Baseball
Old Man Albert Pujols may end up at the All Star Game despite being well past his prime. Manfred gets to pick a player, such a Palpatine move of him.
Oh yeah, All Star Game is soon, you can still vote until Friday.
Former Angel Hansel Robles was DFA-ed by the the Red Sox. Yeah an ERA near 6 won’t work at the MLB level.
While the Angels are anti clutch, Baltimore somehow won while blowing leads in 3 straight innings. I am envious.
MLB’s Top 100 prospect list is updated. Surprise, no Angels to be found. Future is bleak while the present is sad.
Looks like players are healthy again. Eloy has arisen in Chicago, while Mad Max is back with the Mets.
The A’s had celebratory 4th of July shooting injuries. At least their stadium deal passed another hurdle.
Anything I missed? Post below for upvotes.
plus Sam Bachman and Taylor Ward and make a Billy Beane style trade
Didn’t know Michael Lorenzen was into that type of stuff. Shudda stayed behind a closed door, IMHO. 😅
No kink shaming pls
The Kinks were a great band
You could get your day tied up for hours listening to them
First time I’ve commented since six games into the 14 game debacle. Now that I’m resigned… or forced… to believe that this team is just as bad as the last ten years I think I can come on, put the hurt aside and just be a baseball fan again.
I really liked the Sam Blum article along with the question and answer that followed. I think Sam hit it on the head when he pointed out that the organization appears to lean heavily on big free agent signings with at least somewhat aging stars and when they don’t or can’t perform the team falls quickly. The angels have no support for their superstars and that doesn’t appear to be changing. “Surprise, no Angels to be found. Future is bleak while the present is sad.”
Mike Trout not hitting? How fortunate are we that we’ve gotten to see the GOAT, that when he has his first real hitting slump, we notice it. That said, for the first time I’ve thought about rooting for Trout on another team. He looks frustrated, and I could see him wanting to leave, along with Ohtani. I would be happy for them at this point if they went on to a team they could be happy with. I’d almost immediately root for their team… except for MFY… I think.
The Angel’s are sellers again… sigh. I think they should sell again but this time wonder if they shouldn’t sell Trout and Ohtani so they can enjoy the playoffs.
I’m agreeing with Pujols in the all star game. He is that player for MLB even though he was a horrible signing by the Angels. (Surprise!)
I’ll be at the all star game booing pooholes. Tell me your real age and admit to gaining your skills in HS to being at least 4 years older than the competition and I’ll have some respect for you. What a crop of crap from MLB, but I can’t blame them for wanting to idolize false gods. I just don’t have to fall in line.
You make a good point. I think it mostly affected us Angel fans, but he should still be in the HoF and I think invited to the all star game. Lying about your age is not a deal breaker for me like betting on baseball or steroids.
Do you have kids? Growing up it was kinda weird to have a 19 year old senior. I know it’s more common now to be held back for sports (I didn’t get to my full height until college but I started that at 17).
If you’re 16/17 competing against a 20+ year old, that’s messed up. What about the mental health of the players that were exposed/used for Albert to gain his advantage. I don’t care about the money or his lack of success with the angels, it’s not my money. I’ve met pooholes in an emergency setting (could care less about HIPAA at this point) and he was taken aback someone on the crew didn’t know how to spell his last name. The guy is a douche. I wish Deidre (ex wife as of this year) didn’t sign a non disclosure and exposes him for what he is, but I think time will eventually do that. Look at how this country treats people who helped mold it, allowing us our freedoms… forgetting they were human sinners who made mistakes… but forget that tear down that statue!!
I respect that you like/support Pujols. He probably has many redeeming features (like his self serving charity work to support his own DS child), they’ve just fallen by the waist side for me. Thank you for contributing to this board and allowing me to say what I want.
I have kids and I see your point, it’s valid. There are players I just don’t like and I’m not a fan of Pujols personally, but he definitely has HoF numbers and a career. Like I mentioned earlier, he lied about his age but I don’t that keeps you out of the HoF like illegal drugs or gambling does. Of course there’s a good argument here, but I don’t think lying about your age crosses that line.
They’re not even sellers because their best player makes too much money. Taylor Ward is the next best trading chit they have.
Yeah, I don’t think they’d get much. I think it will be like every other year.
Weird England law won’t name the perpetrator of multi rapes that was just arrested. Good thing I’m decent at the internets. For anyone wondering who the premier league soccer player that was just arrested for rapes, he is Arsenal midfielder Thomas Partey. I’m not into doxxing or whatever but I’m also not into continuing to enable star athletes to go through life with zero repercussion. It’s like just a sport, no pedestal for you!
https://www.premierleague.com/players/4936/Thomas-Partey/overview
https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/how-police-discovered-link-between-27407720.amp
I actually had no interest in this at all.
Enough to reply. This is the place to post links for the day, right?
You’re right… how could I have gone the rest of the week without knowing who the rapist in England is?
It was literally the top news on sites a lot of people here might visit in a day. I think we are a looooong way from the days of things like this (thankfully) being swept under the rug. If you want an Angels reference because this is an angels site (and allegations like this have come against Angel players before) please see Jarrod Washburn circa late 2002 season
https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.309015
Innocent until proven guilty. In this case Washburn was innocent, by 2002 standards.
I still can go my entire life being totally ignorant of the English soccer rapist and be absolutely fine. In fact, I could not find out about 100% of the rapists that aren’t in my government or local to me or mine and I’d be just dandy.
2 posts for something you coulda just scrolled by. Someone’s a little cranky pants today.
Thankfully your opinion means as much as mine, absolutely nothing.
Interesting read. Not some little scraping by club either. I don’t follow soccer closely til WC but I actually know more about that team than just the name lol.
Appreciate your common sense and replies ace
What’s soccer?
It’s what P. T. Barnum said was born every minute.
Will there be a list of the Banned members.
Also will there be rewards for pointing out their new accounts.
Hint: look for members that have joined on or after July 5th. Previous burner accounts may apply.
One of them has a new account that we know about. The other one can’t unless he circumvents the IP ban. We are hoping that the one guy will behave himself going forward.
Edit: The one guy’s new account is gone too. Oh well.
It’s obvious who the two are…I’m not saying anything but good riddance.
it won’t be hard to spot, come back with new handles all they want, but no matter how hard they try, they will fall into familiar thought/word patterns which will expose the clever way they thought they fooled us all, and rather quickly.
It’s on my bucket list….. to be banned from somewhere.
I can tolerate another decade of this shit…..I’ll wait for the “Angels Dumpster Fire Season 2032”. Then, I’ll unhinge.
I like the suggestions that JJ has made over the last two weeks on Halo trade scenarios.
It offers a perspective on how to right our sinking ship.
Of course, as fans, we get attached to the players that we especially like and it’s hard to see them get traded or released.
But, if big changes aren’t made, big improvements probably won’t happen.
The problem I see is that Angel’s management doesn’t make big changes. They are incrementalists. Small changes here and there. Sign pitchers to one-year contracts. That kind of thing.
I see a need for big changes. Hopefully, something along these lines will happen for future improvement.
I say it’s worth a try…. but I say that understanding that if we trade guys we know are fairly good for prospects it will NOT make us good right away at all, and we will have to watch Walsh be Walsh on some other team while at least half the prospects we trade for do not pan out. Sure, we’ll blame Arte, but Moreno Malvado will be mostly a folk tale in this case as he is in most others. Even if we “tear it all down” and trade everyone it will be mostly for salary relief in some big cases, and then if we get say 12 fairly good prospects for all our trades we’d likely get six players that never get anywhere, two Rengifos, a couple useful guys, and one guy who can replace the star he was traded for.
We’d also have to sit through a couple years where Arte doesn’t sign any big names because of development timetables…. this, of course, would enflame the “buy me playoffs now!” crowd…. who are also probably “blow it all up now!” people currently.
That’s how actual reality usually pans out.
It would be interesting to see what happens though. So that’d be cool.
We can’t get salary relief from Rendon. That’s a four year anchor. Plus, do we really trust Minasian to make solid moves. I’d much rather entrust the transactions to you.
Ung…. I think I’ve guessed horribly wrong on about half the free agents I have wanted…. and about 70% of prospects I think will be good.
I’d take that percentage.
Incrementalist is pretty accurate. They also fear failure but as any business cliche will teach you, fear of failure rarely cashes in worthwhile success.
Yikes, not a single Angel in the top 100 prospects? That hurts almost more to me than this crap season. I’m not happy with the present, but to not have much hope for the future, that is despair. I can’t change teams even though sometimes I wish I could, so like many of you as well, I just distance myself, watch many fewer games, and simply check in every once in a while. I want to win as much as the next guy, but not sure what little old me can do about it. When I travel to Toronto for what me and the uncles call “mancation” to watch a few games next month, I’ll bring a sign that says something like “sell the team, Arte” and see if I get on Bally’s tele feed. Lol, yeah right. I’ll still do it though!
The act of not watching and not spending money is probably the best you can do… and contacting the Angels to let them know. Sure, you’re just one guy who is depriving them of what? $200 – $1000? and your complaint will disappear into a huge file on a PC. But if 500 more people do this in 2022 than 2021 it gets noticed.
Yeah I was going to say more pressure from national media could push some kind of new action but we’ve already seen the wasted Trout stuff, wasted Ohtani stuff, Skaggs stuff, minor league pay and fired scouts stuff. It’s been a rough stretch and none of it seems to be making the needle move at the executive level.
It’s Arte’s toy and we all need to accept that but man why not just re-assign Carpino to a ceremonial role and allow an experienced baseball or sports exec to come in and re-shape the office culture, hiring etc?
Thing is, the Arte’s Toy thing is cute, but I am willing to bet that he’s fairly desperate to win. The team’s attendance is down, even with bloated “reported” numbers. It’s down almost 9,000 per game from when the team was last good, and if the team sucks it will go lower. We used to comfortably break 3M fans, even with crap teams like 2017, we won’t this year unless we get a playoff push.TV eyes are probably even worse cause you can’t 714 Tickets those.
And this is with Ohtani Tourism as a draw. It also doesn’t factor in how 2020/21 were both far less than half the numbers Arte’s used to. we used to be around top 6-7 in average attendance, now we’re down towards 11…. and sinking.
The team is Arte’s only major asset now and is the key to his plans to expand into much bigger real estate money…. or something else. At no point has he seemed to be comfortable just high fiving himself because the team he bought’s non-liquid value has gone up a ton.
This is his high profile primary source of revenue. His finances stagnate if he doesn’t build on it (while his annual taxes and estate tax do not). The TV contract will end. He needs a stadium site, preferably with attached land. He needs political goodwill so he can pressure political bodies into letting him build stuff this century. 3.5 Million delirious post championship fans will do that.
Yah. I think it’s not just a toy for him. He’s getting boxed in and the only way to not run aground over the next 10 years is to string together some years of winning big. I can only totally guess, but he’s likely looking at things like signing big stars and measuring the value of such moves going forward since they haven’t worked thus far and, even if his only goal was butts in seats, that’s starting to tail off too.
This is why I think last off season actually looked more like PTP working than Arte meddling. This next off season will likely also not feature many 30M a year contracts either and they will likely hold onto prospects. And I think the Ohtani decision will be a big fork in the road.
Wasted Fox Sports West TV deal was the real waste. We’re already halfway into it and zilch to show for it.
How is Bachman not top 100?
Hasn’t he been injured this minor league season first back spasms and then something with his bicep. I think the other issue is that he projects as a reliever not a starter.
I’d guess he’s in the MLB rankings around the 105 to 115 range.
Gotta love how one pudgy draft evaluator said he projects as a reliever and now…. three years since he was last a reliever in college…. that’s the story.
It was nice seeing The Plumber get his first big league hit.
Whatever else happens with him in his big league journey, I admire his grit, his determination, his love of the game.
I guess this is why we are rooting for him.
We know that Trout and Ohtani have big league DNA; but when you see a guy like Stefanic, who should be a plumber, up there hacking and getting a big league hit, that’s a thing of beauty.
Like The Cobbler, I will root for The Plumber as a undrafted guy who made it.
Now does The Plumber have a better half with a Twitter account?
If not a significant other, a parent with attitude will do just fine.
Walsh, Mackinnon, and Stefanic are all great stories. These are the type of players that I can somewhat relate with because they were drafted low or not drafted at all and they worked their way through the minor league system without fanfare. Walsh made the All-Star team.
I prefer great players to great stories. It helps to draft better.
He looked good too, not bighting on those first two sliders.
The teams failure goes beyond Perry. It starts at the top. Arte meddles too much, he’s the Jerry Jones of baseball. Arte fired scouts, the organization lacks people that know anything about baseball. Nevin, Wise and Reed should be fired. The team loves handing out lousy expensive 1 year deals. My 03 Acura is more reliable than the bullpen. The Angels implosion was 8 years in the making that was directly caused by Arte.
Arte wasn’t a bad owner at the beginning. He lowered beer prices, I used to see him all the time at the tailgates, he used to sit with the fans. Things just went downhill after changing the name to LAA.
As seen on Reddit yesterday, Angels haven’t had a winning season since dropping “Anaheim”
What are you talking about?! Their first 5 season after renaming (honestly people care about that lol) were literally winning seasons. That’s from your own link.
Facts are lame.
They were still “of Anaheim” so going by “official” legal loophole name
Noted. I dabbled in sports marketing and actually understood the change from Anaheim back to the OG LA. My favorite name (not 90s uniforms) is the California Angels.
California was the best version
I thought Jeff’s suggestions in the other “If I were Perry” post were really good.
Where I’m at is that the franchise is beyond “easy fixes”. Until everyone (ownership, front office, baseball operations, fans) are committed to making the hard choices that will build the foundation for long-term success, I’ll just enjoy the team for what it is: getting to watch Babe Ruth and Mickey Mantle play while the team loses 60% of it’s games.
Crash and Burn is exactly what happened with this team and those of us that were sucked into the vapors of the exhaust. I was so positive the PTP was doing so well in his evaluations on the roster that I drank the Kool-Aid and even wrote a song about jumping on the “Train”. I haven’t watched a game for awhile now, starting with Houston and have just run out of “Steam”. Unlike most, I do not lay the blame on PTP. There is enough blame going around that the fingers can point to too many in the organization. All fingers are pointing in the wrong direction though, and by pointing at PTP you miss the biggest culprit, ARTE MORENO. What Jeff has done is looked for ways to maximize the talent on the roster for trading for needs, and he has done well, much better than I could or as PTP has done. I would miss both Walsh and Ward very much, but the team has needs to fill.
It would be interesting to see what we could get for Ohtani and Trout, but that’s a pipe dream. I will follow the team from a distance now and deal with with my other interest and check in once in a while as I wean myself off the Angels even more. Crash and Burn is very difficult as I should have taken the advice of Jack Frost and others and felt the team would not last at the 27-17 pace.
Here is the perfect storm:
1.A bloated payroll from two players who are earning almost $40 million each per year, dead money being paid to a player who is not playing and upcoming raises to players if the Angels want to keep them – particularly Ohtani;
2.A budget that is too small given number 1. A GM has too many holes to fill with not enough money to do it in a manner that is successful (unless he gets very lucky which is not something to count on);
3.No farm to fill in holes on the roster at a manageable price.
A Two Prong Analysis/Solution:
With these three problems, if I were President of Baseball Operations, I would say to Arte – “you put us in this position by agreeing to the enormous contracts that you did – so you are going to have to either (1) raise the budget to around $235 million to allow me to go out and get good players to fill the holes and keep Ohtani or (2) blow it up and rebuild”.
The problem is that Arte’s self-stated goal for the last 6 seasons has been to be “competitive” not to win the World Series. So, maybe he considers this team to be competitive? Maybe hanging around .500 is competitive to this owner as long as butts are in the seats and $12 small pizzas are being sold with $14 beer.
But to me, the hypothetical POBO, it is one of two moves. Either (1) the owner increases payroll to allow me to sign Ohtani and fill the many holes on the roster with quality players (not necessarily superstars but at least 0 to 2 WAR players) or (2) we blow it up trading Ohtani and others to fill up the Farm with high quality youth and start the 5 year rebuild with Trout and Rendon the only unmoveable pieces. There is no middle ground.
Arte seems like he continues to want a middle ground. Be “good enough” to fill seats while keeping payroll down. I think those days are quickly coming to an end given the payroll commitments on the books and an Ohtani contract rapidly approaching. Something has got to give.
I wish we had a POBO that I trusted to put the big choice to Arte – to have the tough conversation that, in my opinion, has to be had.
One last thing – I saw Kuhl at a restaurant shortly after one of the big contracts had been issued. I congratulated him on the signing and after saying thank you, his comment was something to the extent of “now we have to find places to pay for it”. That is the problem – if this team is going to go big and has no farm to speak of, it has to go BIG. There is no middle ground without a farm system. In for a penny, in for a pound. You cannot invest big and then cut and scrape (for example cutting scouting and player development etc.)
I think this is likely coming to a head – if it doesn’t, we know that the owner is okay with the status-quo and then you can decide for yourself if hanging with this team is worth the aggravation.
Sadly this isn’t getting better any time soon:
#1 not getting any better and maybe worsier if Ohtani is given a long term deal.
#2 same problem for 2023
#3 farm is getting worse, not better. We have a lot of pitchers that may ban out but position player depth is glaring
Look at what the Dodgers did. They took on a ton of salaries and gave guys time to develop and then made proper adjustments. Granted they invested into their farm system. The problem is if you’re gonna spend wrongly in mediocrity you stay mediocre. They won’t overspend to improve and have done a poor job developing guys. They’re just repeating the same mistakes. This has Arte written all over it. Look at what Eppler has done in brief time so far. The value of Adell and Marsh are dropping and that’s the price you pay when you hang onto guys. Couldve wouldve should’ve. Thats shrewd baseball for ya. I do foresee them playing better, but now you need time which you don’t have. This team too many hitters with bad habits who don’t do much. Therefore teams can pick and choose. Reed has got to go and I was not a fan of Nevins doubleplay comments.
Soooo…. develop the farm because we need young and inexpensive but don’t hold onto prospects but also don’t spend on free agents accept when we want a free agent but also only the one’s who turn out to be good and never get hurt and extra also sign them cheap… plus some coaching advice…
Problem ohviohsly solved.
Yep, we totally should have traded Adell for Miggy when we had a chance… oh wait, different mistake
I think it’s cute how so many people on here think a POBO is gonna basically be a proxy for themselves. “POBO will tell it like it is. POBO will have the hard word with dad… err Arte. POBO will stop dad, I mean Arte, from meddling in the team I own, I mean he owns. POBO will implement all of my best ideas, but it will still be Arte’s fault when they don’t work. If only POBO.”
This is especially funny to me since most POBOs aren’t like Freidman. They are successful GMs who had important AGMs and didn’t want to lose them to another team so they bump up to POBO and said AGM becomes GM. There’s no special magic where the owner was like “Holy shit, I need to be put in my place! I need to hire me a POBO!” If we want a fkn POBO so bad we’ll probably have to actually root for a GM to do well at some point…. which is impossible for most sad sacks.
I do think that, at the core, Arte wants to win. Partially because he likes to win, partially because he feels a personal connection with long term players like Trout, but also because winning makes a lot more money than losing. Winning teams have a lot easier time finding stadium sites. Winning teams get a better TV deal in the future.
I understand why he wanted to keep the team relevant while trying to rebuild, I mean, look at these people. I laugh my ass off every time I try to picture CTPG sitting through a team like the 2018-22 Tigers.
I’m sure he’s sat there wondering “WTF? Why do so many of these guys get hurt or just plain suck?” because, in a lot of cases, if guys had just played to their statistical norms, or just below them, the team would do well. But they don’t, and trust me, Arte’s well aware of the nearly 1 billion dollars he’s pissed away trying to keep fans engaged.
As that engagement wanes and wanes he’ll hopefully either sell the team, which will either be good, bad, or the same for us, or change tacks… which he might have already done. I mean sure, the legend of Moreno Malvado lives on, but he seems to be letting PTP run a lot of stuff since bringing him in. I have no idea where prospects live now or what they eat or if coaches are coaching and scouts are scouting. I do know that none of you have any idea either and that if anything’s changed in this area it’s gonna show up in months or years, not weeks.
But the Angels have clearly been aping the Blue Jays and Braves, we’ve also heard mumblings of them trying to copy the way the Cardinals do things. These are all good directions to go with PTP. So we’ll have to see what happens.
You are right on about us, the fans here at CTPG not truly being in the “Know” about the real thinking of Arte and the true direction of how he wants the direction of the team to go.
It would be difficult at best to believe that Arte can come to a conclusion that he is the biggest part of the problem, for me that is a giant leap.
As far as the future though, that is a guessing game. Based on the past though I sure do not see Arte telling PTP here is 235-250 million for payroll and an additional 50 million for Scouting and Player development, here’s an extra 25 million to sign top draftee’s and so on and so on.
Does Arte want to win? My answer would be this, Arte wants to make money and he does not equate winning to making money. If I am wrong, then it is simply Arte does not know how to make a winner and he thinks collecting Baseball Cards works to selling tix and he then makes money and that is all that matters, no thought to long-term forecasting, management game planning for long-term winning.
One lesson we all have learned is loading up with stars and scrubs will not bring a winner. Not having good drafting dept., not having a great scouting dept., not having great player development dept., and having coaches that work on the cheap, all of this is a recipe for losing.
Angels’ Mike Trout Says ‘This Is Where I Want to Be’ Despite Disappointing Season
https://bleacherreport.com/articles/10041136-angels-mike-trout-says-this-is-where-i-want-to-be-despite-disappointing-season
I guess he kinda has to say that since he signed what is essentially a lifetime contract with the Angels.
But everybody wants to know the Secret.
Obviously the secret is evil mind control drugs that Arte made in his lab.
don’t forget a dash of stripper glitter.
Does it make me a bad person that I don’t care anymore? After the June buttercup, I can’t bring myself to expend the energy.
Only 254 days until pitchers and catchers report to Spring Training.
That’s the spirit!!!
Spirits?
I’ll have a couple!
Lets hope Perry forgets to tell some of those Pitchers & Catchers when reporting day is.
Guesstimate of Wednesday February 15th, 2023.
Maybe Arturo and Minasian will forget to report too.
In the seventies I got through a multitude of Ryan & Tanana less games during my innocence of youth. I’ll get through this too.
We all made it through the Disney years “mostly” unaffected.
Although I am permanently scarred from those awful uniforms..
I’ll take that Disney World Series.
Indeed!!!
“In the seventies I got through a multitude of Ryan & Tanana”
Ah yes, I remember those early – mid-Seventies games well. Our version of Spahn and Sain was “Tanana and Ryan, then lots of cryin’ “
Ohtani and Trout, then lots of doubt!
Ohtani then Trout, everyone else is out!
Ohtani and Trout, but we’re shutout!
Ohtani, Trout and a bunch of Sauerkraut!
Hopefully they see now that in order to make the playoffs they need MLB quality position players at each spot? Love your faith Rex, but in my opinion the current owners focus is on merchandise money not putting a quality team on the field. How many times do our television guys need to repeat “The city uniforms are so good looking that they can’t keep them in the team store” Don’t get me wrong I like them as well, but Guby and Patrick have been reduced to carnival barkers in a circus of clueless clowns.
Great call big balco 100% spot on. I still wanna love this team and this game but it’s really such a struggle now.
Why would they see that now when they haven’t seen it for years?
I’m sorry that was a reply to RexFregosi I should have entered that way.
Perry and Arte sure looked smarter than me in April when they got by with their AAAA, banjo hitting SS after not alloying any investment into a real MLB quality SS. – the lineup was strong enough so they could afford to go defense-first there.
Hopefully they see now that in order to make the playoffs they need MLB quality position players at each spot. They really messed up at SS by going cheap.
AAAA MIFs = 4th place
It gets better – And now we get to celebrate big roidy going to Cooperston. Summer for MLB sucks in 2022
I hate seeing cheaters like Ortiz getting in.
Just break .500. Playoffs were always just gravy. If you’re upset about missing the playoffs you’re the problem.