Good morning Angels fans! How are you today?
Angels News
The Angels won two games in a row! Witchcraft!
In said game, Shohei Ohtani did a few historic things. He became the first AL pitcher to throw 6 shutout innings AND hit a home run in the same game in 50 years!
He also passed Ichiro in career MLB home runs!
Oh yeah, he also became the first player to have 10 wins and 10 HR since Babe Ruth in 1918!
In non Ohtani news, Dillon Thomas has cleared waivers.
Oh, and the Angels’ first round pick this year is already now at AA.
In fact, AA is where all the action is at, since new Angels C prospect is on FIRE.
Hey, Mike Trout is hitting balls again! But will he play this year?
Around Baseball
Baltimore is winning so much they are in the WC race. What the hell?!
Want to feel better about Jo Adell? Jarred Kelenic is historically bad. LOLZ Mariners.
The White Sox keep getting injured. Tim Anderson is out with a hand torn ligament. I am pretty sure that is a BINGO for White Sox injuries.
Dodger Stadium gondola is progressing. It will still be harder to get out of than Angel Stadium.
Harper is maybe returning this year. Him or Trout, who plays first?
Anything I missed? Post below for upvotes!
Regarding:
From 7/18:
(https://www.reddit.com/r/whitesox/comments/w2il79/the_2022_white_sox_have_injured_nearly_every/)
And then yesterday:
(https://www.reddit.com/r/baseball/comments/wkbo3b/the_2022_white_sox_have_now_injured_every/)
Not sure sure if its a industry wide conspiracy or what , but in the 16 professional games that our newest draftee sluggers, Sonny Dichara and Zach Neto have played they’ve been HBP a total of 7 times. That seems a little excessive even for the minor leagues.
Well, the Tigers fired executive vice president and general manager Al Avila…. who was both executive AND vice… but also still just GM instead of Baseball Operations. So not a real baseball person…. I’m pretty sure. Vice president and assistant general manager, who is also obviously so much more than just an assistant GM, Sam Menzin will take over for now. The article I read listed all the injuries to the team and crapperformance from overpaid stars but totally failed to blame Avila and totally missed the fact that the Tiger’s owner is 110% the cause of all that intentional misfortune.
Obviously all they need is a POBO…. and some new arm parts for Manning and Mize. They also need to realize that Spencer Torkelson is NOT an MLB quality bat, give up on him, and trade him to us for Wantz.
I’d rather see O’Hoppe hitting .350 with zero home runs that .214 with 3 homers
Really Fungo Ale ?. You must be joking. Should we really be all concerned about Logan Hoppe’s .214 BA he put up from his whopping 18 Rocket City At Bats? But since you’re hyper critical , How about OBP of .389? is that good ? because thats Logan’s on base percentage for those very same plate appearances as an Angel farm hand.
Oh and by the way how about catcher that amasses a .272/.392/.515 slash line? because thats O’Hoppe’s slash line this year when you factor in his 316 plate appearances he amassed in the equivalent AA Eastern League before he joined us. That would be good for 12th Place of ALL HITTERS in the Eastern League. Not sure about you but I think thats kind of good for a catcher
And one more thing if you are really concerned about young Catchers AA batting averages how about .237 for an entire season? cause that was 23 year old Mike Napoli’s batting average for AA Midland in 2005 when everyone knew he was playing in a hitters park and league. Of course he also had an OBP .372 and a slugging percentage of .508. But those minor league numbers really don’t have any bearing on a players major league success now do they?
Sounds like its time to remove the beer goggles and start mixing in some coffee before you pass out in your own dark fog.
You know how it is. Don’t like owner + Must hate GM + must hate all moves + Must wish all new players turn out to suck X 6 =
Shitty fans X shitty team =
Bad JuJu
We don’t win WS again till all of us are dead in wilderness.
O’Hoppe 3 for 14…all HRs. DiChiara hitting .304 with a .556 OBP. It’s nice to see the possibility of future Angel hitters there. We’ve been focused on the pitching at Rocket City and now those two plus Neto make the box scores a little more interesting.
I was listening to a guy on my technology box this morning. He was talking about how the Cubs and Rockies have both integrated focused analytics into their MiLB development, draft, and trade acquisitions.
The theory is that two things don’t work. First, old Moneyball “look for OBP/OPS” is still a good measure of value but everyone does it so you won’t get ahead on that.
Second, and related, while a good pitcher can take time to develop, a meh arm at 20 can become a valuable arm at 25, most hitters are what they are at a very early age, like 19 years old. They can make slight adjustments and improvements, but a bad contact hitter will almost ALWAYS remain a bad contact hitter. A guy who only walks 7% of the time may jump to 10%, but he’s not gonna jump a lot.
He actually mentioned us picking Neto. Said he IS a contact hitter. He may need to adjust to competition, may even flame out if he’s not good enough to hit MLB pitching, but he is pre-set to make contact and get on base. So he’ll develop faster, which fits our FO’s plan well.
But what the Cubs and Rox are doing is interesting. They have used analytics guys to figure out as exactly as they can which pitches are most effective in their home ballparks. This is because 81 games in the same place is an “inefficiency” that only that team can have. They then look for those pitches, especially those pitches in players that DON’T throw 100MPH high in the zone (the current McDonalds of pitching analytics). Then their position prospects are a mix of high contact guys who are all training at multiple positions mixed with the Eppler style “athletes” with a ton of speed or power, or just strait studs like Zack Veen… but more of the later.
But their focus on specific pitching styles and contact hitters who can field allows them to streamline their scouting and analytics quite a bit. So it’s not as huge an investment. Especially with college and arms within other teams systems, those players show themselves pretty clearly without having to look at 100 pitchers 20 different ways.
BUT this may suppress the hip rankings of their prospects and farm. It’s the AMAZING TALENT guys who get attention, while these teams are collecting a bunch of multi-position players who will hit for a .650 -.750 OPS. Thus the various go to rankings will have the Cubs as a top 5 system on one site and somewhere in the low teens on another.
His point was that there are teams that can be very focused and build a good system without hiring 20 analytics nerds. Maybe ol Cheapn’Evil would go for this?
The Cubs have a “President, Baseball Operations.” The Rockies have a “Vice President and Assistant General Manager of Baseball Operations and Assistant General Counsel.” So… since neither club has a President OF Baseball Operations they are surely doomed to fail. The Cubs were almost there, but that damned comma ruined the whole thing.
It sounds like the Rockies version of a POBO does some lawyering? I also like that he is an Assistant GM…. Of Baseball Operations. You know, as apposed to the team store…. which is really…. an assistant GM.
But all of this only makes it more obvious that having a POBO and not a GM can’t help but completely revolutionize a baseball team. This is made most obvious by the fact that both the Rox and the Cubs owners are famous the world over for being held at bay and completely uninvolved in baseball decisions. Baseball and marketing are as far as the east is from the west. POBOs are like Jesus.
Cubs and Rockies are subpar so there is that when marveling at their approach
True that. I mean, why wait to see if their plan actually works when you can just bitch now, eh Eeyore?
Hate to say it, but they should’ve traded Ohtani at the deadline.
I am glad he is still here and in theory remains a Re-signing option. I know he won’t always continue to be able to do both hitting and pitching but I sure enjoy him more than I would have ever thought back when Eppler came back with him from Japan. I think I enjoy his hitting more, no I think I enjoy his pitching more than his hitting, oh heck, I just enjoy watching him play baseball the most of all.
Lets say we’re able to re-sign him for $40m a year for 5 years. Do you do it? If he gets an arm injury we then have a DH making $40m a season. Seems pretty risky.
Hell yeah I do it. Letting Ohtani leave would be worse than letting Nolan Ryan walk.
I disagree about your Ryan/Ohtani comparison, only because we know with the benefit of hindsight that Ryan had many many more excellent years ahead of him once he left the Angels. Are you convinced that Ohtani can continue this level of output on both sides of the ball until he’s in his late 30’s or 40’s?
For the record, I do not want to trade Ohtani. I love him. But if I have to choose between another insanely frustrating season like the past few or rolling the dice by trading him to get a ton of young controllable players, I think the decision is actually pretty easy.
And like I previously said, I want to see Ohtani in the playoffs and if he can’t be there as a Halo then I would prefer he gets there due to being traded to a contender as opposed to signing with a contender in free agency. Watching him play for another team in the playoffs will be much less sour on Halos fans if we have 4 or 5 good prospects that Ohtani netted us.
We don’t need him to pitch/bat like this into his 30’s/40’s to make signing him for 40M for 5 years and obvious ‘Yes, please and thank you’.
40M is cheap for just one side of Ohtani. 40M we already have with his pre-arb money + Upton coming off the books.
The comparison was between Ohtani and Nolan Ryan, which is why longevity played into my argument.
$40m is not cheap for one side of Ohtani when you have two other $40m contracts and an owner who has limits on spending. I’m not talking about a potential Ohtani contract in a vacuum, the team’s makeup and salary obligations play a part in my assessment, even if you want to ignore those factors.
Sigh….. yeah. Though someone (Jeff?) brought up the good point, if the goal is AAA players that are ready to go NOW or even pre-arb MLB players with some value a team in contention (who is likely to be who trades for Ohtani) isn’t moving those guys now…. but in the off season we are more likely to get those players.
The Padres moved a few of the kind of guys you’re describing for Soto, like Gore & Abrams.
I would not be happy trading Ohtani. I love him. Having him and Trout on the same field (health allowing) is something Angels fans will always remember. But this team ain’t winning dick anytime soon without some overhaul. Ohtani is the best asset this team has, he’s non-committal to re-signing with us, our probability of being a winning team to convince Ohtani to stay doesn’t seem feasible, and the amount he’ll cost to re-sign will further hamstring the team from filling other needs due to other exhorbitant contracts. I get that Arte can’t let go of that sweet marketing revenue that Ohtani brings, but I could give two shits about that. I just want to root for a winning team and eventually see Trout in the playoffs. I also really want to see prime Ohtani in the playoffs, and he’s not getting there with the Halos.
every morning I check who’s pitching. Today I let out a soft “oh god….” when I saw it’s Touki Toussaint. I mean, I hope he does well but when I look at the lineup and I look at the rotation I think back to the off-season and the “If I Were Perry” articles. Nobody said “I’d put Tucker Davidson and Touki Toussaint into our 6 man rotation”.
Enough of this winning stuff, ok that Ohtani won and all, but let’s get serious and get back in the hunt for the Lotto pick. Winning at a .400 clip is still losing and we pick up nothing for it. This roster pretty much sucks and is embarrassing too. Solet the team get something out of the suckage like a young player or 3 that will help us. Picking up some help in the draft helps out a lot more than winning today. Besides if we sign a FA SS or Pitcher, we lose out on a #2 pick as it is. I liked Thor a lot but looking back I would rather have had that #2 pick a lot more. Doing the same stuff over and over and still losing is just stupid. We need to reboot as I don’t see Ohtani returning and Trout and Rendone are questionable moving forward.
Amen. This is what infuriates me about this franchise over the past 10 years: we never do anything 100%. We have a few hot streaks to keep playoff hopes alive. Go into a major swoon mid-season, and then half-ass the remainder of the season to get close to .500. We then draft in the middle of the pack, and the cycle begins anew.
I dislike Arte’s leadership NOT because he won’t spend more money, but he spends his money in really stupid ways. The Angels will spend $196M in 2022, they spent $205M in 2021, and $170M in 2020 and got shit for expenditures. This is ridiculous….because it never changes.
It only gets worse from here. There’s absolutely zero evidence that supports either Rendon or Trout will be any healthier going forward than they’ve been over the last two years. If we give Ohtani $45M per year for 8 years, we’ll be adding him to the sunk cost list in 3 or 4 years. He’s 29 years old. Ohtani’s next contract is paying him mostly for what he’s already accomplished – not for what he will be accomplishing going forward.
Wail and gnash teeth all you want – but the team is not close to competing for a championship. Unless there’s a radical change in the organization’s player development and operational strategy immediately, the results will not change. #blowitupnow
Never. Sign. Another. Player. For more. Than 80M. Again.
It will hurt to see our versions of Freddy Freeman and Francisco Lindor leave. But name me one time the “sign the huge star” move has paid off for a team, be it the original team or after a trade.
Sure, you can name one. And I’ll name five that blew up.
You want to moneyball the shit out of things? Here’s your market inefficiency. Long term contracts with an AAV over 25M. Just don’t do them. Fans will complain as you let the free agent markets march by. They will demand a champion flavored ace. They will weep when you let Ohtani leave in trade. But the team will be better. Lock up guys who have a solid rookie seasons on six year extensions. The end.
Buh bu but our player development department is a basket of Cobras that can’t train anyone to play baseball and openly tries to kill you players.
Watching the game last night two things went through my mind:
1) I am sure other teams deal with terrible luck, but good lord what did we do to the Gods to deserve all the things that happen to this team? Ohtani gets stepped on in his last start, this start he gets hit with a line drive in the leg last night. Which leads me to my next thought:
2) Ohtani is a gamer man. He continued on to throw the guy out on the line drive play, hit a homer later in the game, and didn’t want to come out after six innings. Sometimes I forgot how rare Ohtani is and nights like last night remind me of it. Whether he is with us or not next season I have truly enjoyed the Ohtani years here in Anaheim, at least from the perspective of watching the man play the game.
Yes, grateful that he is still providing something we can enjoy in an otherwise lost season. I like the last part of the mlb.com article.
Plus he’s an actual good pitcher.
Which is why I won’t be pissed if we extend him…. even though extending him is a stupid idea. It’s the nicest version of stupid.
He’s a gamer for sure. Reminds me of the gutsy Boston game – didn’t have his usual K numbers, but gutted it out long enough to give the team a fighting chance to win. I personally like watching him hit, but I think he’s really better off as a pitcher. This is one of those games where “he doesn’t just throw, he pitches”.
I think the pressure of the 10th win was getting to him the last few games. Hopefully now that that’s resolved, he will relax more. It would be really nice to see him get 200 Ks this season. Round numbers look very attractive to MVP voters.
I have not seen the record numbers for career pitch and hit a home run in same game.
I know Ohtani has a pile of them but I’m too GA cause somebody here probably knows.
here’s a good article about pitchers having good (even better than that in some cases) hitting seasons.
https://bleacherreport.com/articles/963130-15-all-time-greatest-offensive-seasons-by-a-pitcher
*Chavez Ravine.
Zero emission stabbing!