There it is. 2022 is over for the Angels. A season that was filled with promise and hope that this year would be the year. Instead, the team once again finished with a losing record as that hope is demolished.
Shohei Ohtani has nothing to be ashamed of, however. He did something no one has ever done. On the mound for one final time, he took a perfect game into the 5th inning. Alas, like the season, that was blown and what was once hope turned into dust. He ended his last start going 5 innings, allowing 1 run on 1 hit, walking 1 and striking out 6. No last win for Ohtani-san.
At the plate, things weren’t looking good. The Angels barely did anything against a CY Rookie. 3 hits and a walk in 7 innings against a rookie with an ERA over 5. Pathetic, just like the team.
Highlighted Recap
Shohei Ohtani had a perfect game going into the 5th, but a walk, a hit, and a sac fly meant he lost the shutout.
Ohtani left after 5, in line for the loss. The hitters needing to come through, somehow.
While the next two relievers kept it a 1 run game, Weiss allowed the 2nd run of the game.
A sac fly would bring in a third run.
In the 8th, down 3, Adell tripled and rookie O’hoppe drove him in.
After a Rengifo GIDP, Mike Trout hit his 40th home run of the year.
The Angels were down to their last gasp. Ward was up first, he grounded out. Duffy was next, he flew out. Fletcher was the last chance to extend the season, he grounded out.
Angels lose their last game of the year, get swept by the A’s, and may have seen the last of Ohtani in an Angels uniform.
Wasn’t that game just the perfect sendoff to the season? Trout homers and doubles, Ohtani does his thing again and……………we lose. If one game perfectly summed up the 2022 season that was it.
Here’s to the real men of CtPG and our team, the Los Anaheim Angels of Redness. The team we fans wished for all year, October to October. We did it guys.
💪 💪 💪 💪
😠 😡 😫 😢
Bad farm system strikes again……..Good Gawd!!!
Looks like a real impact player.
You concentrate more on other teams’ players than our own. Stop being weird.
What does Jer Jer taste like? He looks like he might be coconut flavored to me…
is that Alex Rodriguez?
It’s not all bad, the Angels did a marvelous job this last 3-game set and secured the 10th pick of the 2023 MLB Draft
What’s sad is that even the worst teams have a 1.6 in 10 chance of getting #1…. so more than 8 out of 10 times, not gonna be Nats. Watch some team like the Cubs land it. Heck, even if we bombed the last month we’d still only have something like a .75/10 chance.
The tank’s just not much of a plan any more.
And with our “good fortune” 6 players with a better record than us will have better lottery luck and we’ll be drafting 16th so our final swoon will be all for not.
Duurz id mader? Deefelopmant platypus no goo goo cachoo.
but we can go down to 16th. That would be something lol
Medium length piece by Sam Blum at The Athletic discussing, demanding, some kind of transparency from Arte. Man hasn’t spoken publicly in three years, since taking zoom questions about PTP’s hiring.
Sam can go fuck himself. Nobody “has to” speak to the press if they don’t want to. No one’s owed that. If you crave transparency that much just go friend more women on social media.
Signed Arte Moreno
Okay, baseball season is now over with.
Give Shohei the AL MVP when the time comes, then it’s all about ST 2023.
We can wish all we want for Shohei to be MVP, a season that arguably is more of a fantastic achievement than last season, but it won’t change the facts that a Yankee who is adored by not just NYC writers, but all East Coast writers because the West Coast is not watched as much. Judge set a real unblemished record that MLB can say is the American League record as their selling point. Maybe if Judge played on a Midwest team the results would land differently or if the Yankees were not playoffs bound. But we know what Shohei accomplished, we know how talented he is because nobody now or in the past history of the game have ever seen before. Yankees, Playoffs, American League record beating Maris out by one, and Judge’s own personality leave little doubt that he is the league’s MVP.
I am not even sure that Shohei can repeat what he did this season ever again as it is just that spectacular of an achievement.
I believe Shohei is ready for bigger places
Why do you state unequivocally Judge’s record is unblemished? The ramp up to this season was all about how there was no PED testing for months and things could be odd given same. Then Judge comes out and hits 62 this year. He hasn’t been close to anything like that in years. His stats look like McGwire. Great rookie year. Cannot stay healthy. Suddenly a phenomenal jump.
Nothing about this says unblemished to me. It looks the same as McGwire and Sosa way back when. Of course writers wanted to think that was unblemished too for a while. Until . . .
Same with Lance Armstrong.
People can celebrate Judge and I agree the Eastern media will ensure him the MVP. I just wouldn’t say unblemished. Especially not this year.
Ohtani’s awesome. Had a great year. He’s still a full 1 WAR behind Judge. He gets just as much suction from the MSM as East Coast guys too. 311/425/686 with 16 SB and 10 rtot in the field isn’t just breaking a record = winning MVP. If Judge wins he earned it, probably more than Shohei.
It would still be sweet if Shohei won though cause screw the Yanks, I’m just not gonna squeeze my thighs together and start talking about undervalued pitching WAR and “greatest season evah” and other fairy dust bullshit trying to make it sound like Shohei’s the obvious choice and he’s robbed if he doesn’t get it.
I wish the MSM would stop talking about Judge like this is the greatest offensive season evah too… it’s f***ing not, not even close. They all have the internet, just like me. They can see they’re full of shit just as easily as anyone else with Google.
The Angels are pathetic and I don’t see anything changing anytime soon.
Nope, but there will be people doing the hope and faith bit once again. We’re going to hear but “24-13” and “but injuries” again.
I am going to hope. Not sure I have faith — but I will hope. It isn’t that big a stretch. For their lineup, they have 1-3, 5, 6, 8-9. They need a real 4 hitter and a 7 hitter. The positions available are first base and left field. They don’t need superstars — they have those guys. They need legit major leaguers who can reliably hit the ball and drive in runs. Plenty of guys fit the bill including guys that are getting closer to being over the hill but could provide one more year (or two) behind Trout and Ohtani.
The pitching could use another legit starter. Again, nothing awesome. Just someone decent and reliable. An Odorrizzi type but healthy. And they need legit bench talent. They cannot be relying on Adell, Moniak, and guys like Rojas etc. Why is this so hard??????
Why is this so hard? That’s a question for the ownership (or for the new ownership).
I agree thay Adell isn’t cutting it and Moniak’s hand keeps getting abused by baseballs.
From the looks of the free agent market this off season, hope is all there is. They have some depth for next year at least in the IF.
Fuck this season and everyone in management responsible for it.
F- for the old manager
F+ for the new manager
F- for the GM
Z – for the owner
Wasting another year of Trout and Ohtani…disgraceful run of form.
Pretty much sums it up
I tell you — that Trout HR must have gone 500 feet !!
Wow.
MLB just pushed a notification saying it was 490!
Keep that back healthy & properly treated this offseason Trout. He could challenge for 60 next season
He could hit 63 and no one would care because he doesn’t play on the east coast.
Wrong
If he was a Dodger or Giant he would get respect. Nobody cares about the Angels or Padres however……..ask Vox SB Nation. The Lakers, Dodgers, Giants, Niners, Rams, Warriors, Seahawks, USC, UCLA all get attention nationwide…
I am curious: whatever did happen, or not, to SBNation’s Dodger, Giant, and Padre sites? Did they unceremoniously dump their writers, too, or did they keep, say, Dodger and Giant people, for market reasons or whatever?
If he did this all we would hear is how the Angels organization is wasting his talent.
They came into the season with a bang and barely sputtered across the finish line.
Why does everyone think Ohtani will be traded? They are three years away without him.
What reason do we have to believe he would sign a long term deal? You can’t let him walk for nothing in a year.
If they can extend him I think we would all be happy, I don’t think it’s likely.
If all you are getting for him are three or four unproven prospects then you might as well be getting “nothing.” Some people here seem content with that idea. I am not.
I say let him play through 2023; with a healthy Ohtani and Trout this team could make the playoffs next season. Not saying we will, but we could. Actually, I think the odds would be better that we do then we don’t.
The ink isn’t even dry on the final scorecard of the worst season i’ve lived through and we’re doing this already?
We just don’t know what Ohtani wants. If he doesn’t want to be here long term then yeah, you need to hope you hit on a few prospects and trade him.
But, like I said, I’ll be the happiest girl around if they are able to keep him. It just doesn’t seem likely to me.
I get that. Really what I am talking about is the entire 2023 season vs a handful of shit prospects. We are already invested in Trout, who is still close to his prime if not quite in it, and Rendon of course. We are close enough to winning to make it work. Personally, I’d rather take my chances on 2023 with Trout, Ohtani, Ward, Rengifo, Sandoval etc and see if we can make a run. I don’t think that is an unreasonable position, despite what happened this year.
I admire the optimism, I do. I’m just not gonna bet on the same group of guys with a few one year deals thrown in.
Hope i’m wrong! Of course I would love for you to be right.
I don’t think Jack is necessarily in the wrong. The team does have an intriguing mix of talent now. But many of them are not beyond intriguing: Walsh was an intriguing talent not long ago, now he’s a pumpkin, for example. Maybe Ward and Rengifo will stick to being pretty good, or not. Maybe Walsh can return to being at least a pretty good platoon bat, or not. The problem is that the organization is not deep enough to handle mishaps, and intriguing talents all come with serious question marks. Heck, even our expensive superstars come with potentially serious question marks–like how many games will they miss, or how long can Ohtani keep doing his two way thing? (I think Mark Langston said Ohtani reminds him of Bo Jackson, which makes me rather uncomfortable…but, if I remember right, it wasn’t necessarily that Jackson played both football and baseball that did him in physically).
We have had “bad things” happen to us often enough that we shouldn’t just blame bad luck and insist that “things woulda been different only if X.”. Bad things happen and besides, it’s not just us that bad luck happens to. And good teams either have internal resources that can step in themselves or can be dealt for replacement talent, and have FO people who can pay the price to make the necessary moves to stay competitive.
So I’ll take a more cautious and conditionally optimistic view: we have a few more intriguing pieces who might be good next year than before. There are more internal resources who seem (near) major league ready, if not for us, at least as trade bait. So I think a gamble is not unwarranted–if the sale goes through quickly and the new ownership is willing to take the risk. But unless things work out “perfectly,” decent spare parts will be expensive, and we know that some people insist that spare parts shouldn’t be so costly.
What is hopeful is that, especially with Shohei onboard, we may not need as many spare parts. Potential rotation pieces seem actually somewhat plentiful (Canning’s back is not irrecoverably broken yet, right?) BP may still be iffy, but at least we should have some interesting arms with options in the system. Still need some players, but they shouldn’t be really that expensive as far as positions go (but then, Navapile and Ben Joyce’s father did happen…), plus some insurance depth (I hated Ward becoming a starter b/c Ward on the bench was a very valuable depth piece. Now, we have some spineless mollusks on the bench instead.). Still, the barrier doesn’t really seem THAT insuperable.
First, agree with the “bad luck” thing. Alot of that comes down to a general lack of a strong, foundational org philosophy and positive detail oriented culture that fostures winning. That is the most important thing — more than players !!
So, my recent comments here about the new owner being the key is the most fundamental answer here I think. Beyond ownership and culture I think our talent is quite good, playoff worthy actually. Just Trout and Ohtani alone make you a playoff team if the culture is good and the team executes at a good level in RISP situations, man on third with less than two outs etcc.. We don’t do that so, ultimately we end up losing alot of 1 run games. Fix the bullpen a little bit and start doing that and wallah , you’ve got yourself a playoff team and perhaps more…
I DO expect Walsh to bounce back big next year. His funda-mentals are solid and he has the skill. This year was simply an “off” year. The real Jared Walsh will be closer to what we saw last season, if not quite consistently putting up those numbers.
One big thing to be optimistic about is the improvement in our starting pitching. Who among us predicted our SP would be this good? I for one was confident about Sandoval, but I did not necessarily believe that Suarez and Barria would continue to improve or that Detmers would bounce back after the mechanical adjustments he made in AAA.
This is one big reason I feel we need to go for it all next year instead of blowing it up and dumping Ohtani for a bunch of unproven shit etc.. With the right owner in place I think things could turn positive surprisingly quick for this team.
I’d really hate to be PTP, other than pure dumb luck – there’s really no way out of the mess.
First we have to see who the new owner is. That is the key !
He’s a big part of the mess. Loup and Tepera are just two of the most obvious misfires.
But He’s given us (O)Hope.
But if you look at the previous records there was no indication that they would flop this big, in fact on paper they looked like a pretty good upgrade. You are forgetting the relief pictures are notoriously streaky. Many people thought that the signing of Loup and Tepera were good, they both just sucked this year. Who knows they may pitch to their norms next year.
How do we stack up with the Mariners, Rays, and Orioles (just missed the PO’s) next year? The Orioles won 83 games and Rays won 86. Guardians improved a lot as well from last season.
How do you stack with a single cell amoeba?
Sure are hostile today BOI 💋 👠 ~~~ 😆 🤓 😜
Come on now. He asked an actual legit question… let’s not shit on him when he does actual baseball fan interaction. The question he asked is exactly what the Angels have to sort out. Close the gap with the WC teams.
Hope and faith, remember
I think we saw more of the real Orioles the last two months…
You saw how we handled Tampa when we were whole.
If we are healthy and pitching we can play with anyone. The one big question I have is the bullpen. Had we not traded Raisel I might not be saying that…
But then again maybe they weren’t completely healthy either and they traded away Blake Snell and Willy Adames the past few seasons.
The Rays are eventually going to have to rebuild eventually just like OAK, and CLEV.
I would say that if the keeping Ohtani comes in at +35 million a year, we can’t keep him even if we “really” want to keep him. The simple reason is that would put us at 100+ million in payroll for just 3 players leaving us none to invest filling holes in the future, just more dumpster diving which has not worked out so far. Your thinking is that not many or even no prospects pan out so building around the players via the draft is not the way to go.
I say trade him while we can get something back for him 3 or 4 prospects (and maybe one of those prospects hits) is better than a sack of magic beans. I don’t want to see him leave, but I just don’t see a way the Angeles can keep three 30+ million players on the team and field a team that has enough depth to complete. Taking out the Dodgers, Yankees and maybe the Red Socks how many teams have even two high paid players on their payroll, let alone three.
I would also say even though with new ownership hopefully coming in, that our current GM has done an overall good job, it looks like he is improving the farm, it does take some times to improve a farm that was/is as barebones as ours.
Other than bullpen potentially we don’t have any holes to fill. Now, one could argue that if Adell continues to struggle we would need a LF, but for now, at least the start of 2023 our lineup is pretty much set. And it is a good one !
I am not panicked about Walsh like others are, and I also feel Stassi will improve offensively next season. Plus we have O’Hoppe as a backup who could potentially take the starting catcher role if Stassi does not improve his hitting. Other than adding one or two bullpen pieces possibly I don’t see all the “holes” you are talking about.
Here is my view of our starting lineup for 2023, (configuration for a RH starter for other team). At least to start:
I like this lineup, with the possible question mark of Adell. The SP with Ohtani at the top also looks to be pretty good.
You are counting on players that have a pretty long injury history:
Trout, Fletcher, Rendon, Walsh (his history there is a pretty good chance he won’t come back from his injury or is difficult to come back from.)
Or are unproven or did well for part of a season with no history of long term success:
Rengifo, Ward, Stassi and/or O’Hoppe and as you said Adell
That pretty much leaves the only proven everyday player is Ohtani.
Now I try to be as positive as the next guy, but what are the chances that the guys with a history of missing time because of games with injury will be healthy all season or don’t have a track record playing to the same level?
Or the guys with unproven or did well for part of last season are going to pan out. I think Ward will be do at least what he did this year, O’Hoppe I believe has the potential to be better than league average but is he ready for the big leagues now, Rengifo, I am not sure that this year was a mirage or not, but I think he returns to his normal level, Adell well I had high hopes for him, but even though he as been jerked around, he is just not panning out and I think he is what he is and will the real Stassi please stand up.
So yes if everything goes the Angels way they have a decent everyday lineup, my question for you is when was the last time that everything broke the Angels way? 2002 that was a long time ago. I remember too many years been a fan since 1964 that things did not work out for our Angels, can you say Native American Burial Ground.
Well, if you are using injuries as a way to shoot down my argument, all I can say is that a fan of any team can be pessimistic by predicting injuries. Over the course of a long season it is most likely that somebody will get injured. You deal with that when it happens. However, predicting that Trout will get injured just because he missed parts of the last two seasons is by no means a solid argument. Certainly saying Ohtani is the only “proven” player is beyond ridiculous. Trout, Ohtani, Ward, Fletcher, Rendon, and now I would include Rengifo are ALL proven. You could also argue that Walsh is proven and that this year was simply a down year (as I have argued elsewhere). So, in short, injuries can happen to any team, and predicting possible injuries is not a good reason to abandon hope.
With the exception of Rengifo, isn’t that the staring lineup from this year? And we won 73 games. And very similar to the previous season too?
I like the look of that lineup on paper too, but then I remember this seems like a repeat of every year. We’re in a tough spot.
Not really.
Rengifo did not enter the starting lineup till much later in the season, and he of course at that time really emerged as a quality player. Also, we had Fletch at Leadoff for much of the season.. in my lineup he is dropped to 9th. Also, Ward would now be in the clean-up spot instead of Rendon. I like that much better… SO, in short, it is not just the players but where you bat them in the lineup.
Before I even read more of the replies to this below, I just stop right here because you are making absurd statements that fall outside a reasonable argument. You went from being concerned about “unproven prospects” (which I already disagree with a little) and now you are saying “sh*t prospects”. Next you will be saying that the prospects we get are actually non-human, but a bunch of woodland animals standing on each other’s shoulders wearing human baseball uniforms, and we’ve been tricked.
Take a look at the trades involving the last few superstar players in MLB; here I mean Mookie Betts, Juan Soto etc. Tell me how those players who were traded for the superstars look now and maybe you’ll understand why I use the word “shit.” It has to do with their value relative to the player they were traded for…
So…… how many days till pitchers and catchers report?
Hey, at least there’s no lockout or pandemic screwing everything up!
Careful, the media is already riding the “monkey pox” wave. They will soon have us all disinfecting every surface around us, multiple times a day. Lysol will be bid up on eBay, Lysol wipes will replace crypto in creating the newest millionaires.
Buy stock in Clorox !!
Those wipes will go up to $15.00 for the small container !!
Worst season? You are wise beyond your years Mia, but I can assure you, this season’s edition does not rank anywhere near the all time Angel train wrecks.
Did I say all time? I don’t think I did.
Exactly. You’ve had it pretty easy
I think you’ve lost the plot here, pal.
How can anyone think that a healthy Trout and Ohtani gets us into the playoffs? if Trout were healthy this entire season and hit his projected what 55 homers or so that wouldn’t lead us to the 14 more wins we need to get in. This organization needs more than just those two guys healthy. Hopefully they can figure it out and put some sort of run together. But based on the past eight seasons I don’t have a lot of faith in that happening.
100% concur.
You don’t Trade players like Shohei & Trout.
Too bad we’re terrible about building around them.
Here’s to catching lightning in a bottle with our FA signings this offseason.
Just don’t sell him to finance a broadway musical.
The ship sailed on getting a haul of MLB ready talent for Ohtani. If Ohtani wants to stay, it’ll be an overpay.
Sometimes an “overpay” isn’t really an overpay; Magic’s first big contract with the Lakers ($50 million at that time in the early 80’s was a hell of alot of money; but look what it brought them!) turned out not to be.
The key is we have to get an owner who is willing to spend big, at least initially. Since it is unlikely we could find a true ace on the FA market in the next two years our only chance of winning with Trout and avoiding the ignominy of having the greatest player of a generation wasted is to somehow keep Ohtani. If our young pitching continues to improve I feel it IS possible to have a strong rotation AND team around Trout and Ohtani.
As stated, the owner will be the key. Keep your fingers crossed!!
Don’t forget to add in the Rendon overpay. We just exited the Upton and Pujols overpays, although Pujols is good, as long as he doesn’t play for us c
Annnndddd…. here it is, what looks to be 85% of CtPGs “new owner” plan for the future.
Correct. You keep him for next year. If things go sideways midyear, you can always deal him then. But you need to try next season with him. If the team comes together, you can always sign him later if you are close. He likely wants to play on the West Coast. There are only certain cities he would likely consider.
No disrespect intended, but I actually disagree with every single thing you’ve said here. It is a nice brief post, and well said, so it was clear to compare to.
I guess ultimately we’ll see what happens and how it pans out.
The Giants won 100+ games last year without a big AS and the Rays and Mariners also did this year. I’m not gonna be the same mean and nasty Uncle today that everybody dreads during Thanksgiving and Christmas, but we all should know by now where we’re not good enough at.
But…but we just need to have hope and faith again (something we have been doing since 2015) and the team just needs to be healthy again (even with a new athletic trainer, players were still getting banged up).
Heck, even the Padres made the playoffs without Tatis playing a single game or an Ace.
There are always other options if you want to avoid hope and faith. The first that springs to mind is drinking yourself to death this winter. Solves what looks to be your main issue PLUS you feel warm inside and giggle a lot.
Nah, not ready for that yet. Been watching some UCLA football seeing if they can pull the inevitable.
Wait. UCLA football? And you hate hope and faith talk?
Why did the Giants win last year?
One word : pitching.
With this rotation we have the potential to be pretty darned good with SP:
The bullpen of course is a different story. ALOT of question marks there; however, potentially Bachman can put it into Overdrive and be either a closer or set-up guy. We’ll have to see about the rest. But the starters could be pretty good.
Health. again with the f***ing health. If we had Rendon, Trout, Ward, Walsh (even if he can’t hit lefties), Fletcher and this years version of Rengifo all season things would have been very different, even with our meh bullpen.
Unless the new owner is in place before the trade dealing AND is willing to take on the PR nightmare of being the new Judas that dumped Ohtani, Shohei will be playing all of next season in an Angels uniform.
Unless Arte trades him this off-season.
As much as I am looking forward to seeing who becomes the next owner, I am one of the few that is on this hope and faith train.
I mean how many excuses for have this team had for the past few years? “24-13” is going to be the new angels fan meme, it’s always blaming injuries, and hoping to god they spend a bunch on free agents.
Unfortunately, I just want to see Shohei play in October, it just won’t be with this team. It’s a shame how some peole think the Angels should embrace the Rockies philosophy and let players contracts expire while getting nothing in return with the copium of “at least were not helping the other team win” (I kid you not there are Rockies fans thay believe in that drivel).
Deep down I have a feeling Ohtani wants to be traded but is trying to be about the optics and not be worried about backlash. As much as I enjoy watching him play and put on a show as a two way player, it feels like were keeping him here hostage because of muh marketing.
It’s like when you are trying to put in your two weeks notice at work so you can resign and find a better job and the boss says “nope, you can’t resign, you are stuck working here”.
Why not, the Dodgers and Astros have let many good players depart in recent years.
This allows the PR nightmare of a major controversial trade (see the Dodgers 25 yrs ago when they traded away Mike Piazza) to not be so bad.
Plus Ohtani isn’t getting any younger, what if ever struggles out of the gate next year? Anything can happen.
You’re spot on with the Astros and Dodgers though.
Ohtani’s pitching is good for another six years or more barring injury.
Six years might be stretching it, especially if he continues with the two-way stuff. I say we could expect a good, strong 4 years as a SP, at least approaching what he saw this year, or averaging the last two pitching season… One of the benefits of signing a guy like Ohtani long-term is that even if after 3 or 4 years he drops off significantly as a pitcher you could always let him be simply an OF or DH and you still get a pretty good offensive player for your money.
THIS actually points to what I would do if I were NewOwnerz and wanted to keep Ohtani. Literally sign him for 5 years and 275M. Bite the big payroll bullet with Ohtani and Rendon on the same roster, overpay Ohtani to take a short contract while guaranteeing that I’m not paying a DH with a busted out arm 40M a year in 2030.
Build the farm while I pay out my nose. When Rendon and Ohtani’s contracts are up go “Cheap NewOwnerz” with home grown guys. If I can’t do that, go “Cheap NewOwnerz” with scrubs for a couple years, turn a large profit for a while, recharge while the fans bitch and moan. Then take another run with spending money post Trout.
This, of course, could only happen if Ohtani wants it and his mom lets him stay.
Yeah, overpaying for 5 yrs would be great. I would do that in a heartbeat. If he would take the $275 million for 5 years, then you definitely do that. Because what he does as a starting pitcher is ultimately harder to replace/find, and you have to think about investing strategically in that part of the equation… That is why I like this plan.
The Doyers traded away Mike Piazza in early 1998 and then didnt make the playoffs for 7 straight seasons while Piazza went to the World Series in 2000.
You realize you just shit on your own argument , right ?
Mets ended up losing the World series and they only went to the playoffs one other time with him. But I understand, some of you guys think we should hold players hostage and gaslight them with “24-13” and “but injuries and we just need to be healthy again”.
I bet you thought the Lions trading away Matthew Stafford was awful and he should still suffer with them instead of a chance of playing in the superbowl huh?
I just don’t want to pay Ohtani 50M a year when he’s 34 years old.
Absolutely no chance that happens this offseason. Why do you think it didn’t happen at the trade deadline?
With the team for sale there is no way Arte would want to detrimentally impact any franchise valuations prior to the sale.
Agree, a new owner will demand that no one fucks with Shohei
Any new owner that can afford the team can back up the truck to pay Ohtani.
Doesn’t guarantee they will.
And how can you convince a player to re sign with your team when you have never reached the playoffs his whole time here? 24-13, “but injuries”, or “Cali Swag” is not a selling point, especially for a person that wants to play for a team that has a chance to play in the playoffs.
They would have to reach the playoffs next year and Ohtani would have to enjoy the ride. Or the new owner would just have to have so much money he will overpay to be good.
Yeah, regardless of long term potential value, Ohtani is too much of a symbol to mess with: Arte wants to keep him around to keep up the team valuation, but that’s also putting the new ownership in a potentially very bad PR position of dumping the greatest baseball player of all time as their first order of business. Doubt anyone wants to do that: no ownership that does not want to do their utmost to at least make a good faith (and public) effort to keep Ohtani will take over, IMHO.
This is unfortunately the scenario for us.
That either Arte or the new owner may decide that they have no intention of paying Ohtani to stay. But they don’t want their image to suffer.
So they let Ohtani reach free agency and walk away for nothing.
But they claim that “we made a strong push for Ohtani” which cannot be substantiated at all.
Now the owner looks like a good guy, but Ohtani looks like the villain who turned his back on the loving arms of the Angel Fans to go grab as much money as he could from the Yankees.
We honestly won’t know until the ownership comes in, they could ever become a Steve Cohen, or become like a Bruce Sherman or the Royals new owner.
Finally the season has ended. We will always have April. How many times will Firecracker Phil get tossed next season, over/under 15 times?
5. He will be fired by July keeping that number somewhat low.
We just got swept by the lowly A’s to complete this shit show of a season?
And Nevin returns so Lets Run it Back!
It was a very Angel ending. Come in with a 7 game winning streak, face the worst team, get swept including a game where the starter takes the loss because he gave up one hit.
I thought the game was tonight. I missed what could be Shohei’s last start as an Angel. I’m so mad at myself.
At least he qualified as a pitcher.
Whimper. Fart.
The Angels end the season with a whimper. Perfect way to end this sad, embarrassing year. Here is to next year finally being our year. See ya in Spring Training!
I thought everyone wanted the angels to have a better draft spot. Lost the last 3 so there you go.
I don’t really care about draft position. A good organization finds talent at any spot.
We were at #8 for a while, which would have been better than 10, especially factoring in the lottery percentages. I think the 3 in a row avoided us dropping to #11? Oh well, whatever, it is all over.
keep it all in perspective, losing sucks but
we just witnessed the greatest season ever by a ball player
see you in Tempe in 2023
Who will finish a distant second in MVP voting.
Next year!
Twebur wins the prediction game. He had us at 72-90 before the season. One game off. The rest of us were FAR more optimistic.
I said 89 and in April changed to 91 and thought that was low.
Welp. Woke up just in time to see the final out. And now the extension news? I can Phil the magic for 2023 already! And of course they open the season AGAIN in Oakland.
The can has been officially kicked down the road.