Good morning Angels fans, gotten used to writing 2023 yet? Have some links!
Angels News
Fangraphs has their ZIPS projections out for the Angels. Oh wow they did not hold back on the criticism of the team. WOW.
Jo Adell has power, but is he trade bait? Other Angel fans think so, how about CtPG?
Around Baseball
Devers is staying with the Red Sox for now. I bet he is still mad that his friend is gone to another team though.
Nootbar is playing for Japan in the WBC. NOOT.
2022 was a down year for offense, but some positions were worse than others.
Baltimore and KC made a trade. I do like those IF/OF types.
Dodgers hiring a suspended former Astros front office video guy. Suspicious.
Dominic Smith is going to the Nats. 1/2M.
Correa is STILL technically unsigned, and whatever contract he does end up signing in the end will be drastically different than what was reported when the news broke last year.
However, one of the biggest news topics in all of sports is the injury of a Buffalo Bills player on MNF. MLB teams and players have given support. This is a reminder that all sports are entertainment and that player safety is more important than our enjoyment.
Anything I missed? Post below for upvotes!
Well, as we did with Sutton, Matty V, Rich Waltz, Patty O, we will give Randazzo his fair shot.
Still confused why you wouldn’t bring Victor back after he was so open to coming back.
Oh well.
That management group seems to hold grudges. I’m sure they didn’t appreciate him trying to be GM and then quitting (even if for good cause)
I hate that you’re probably right 😔
The evil. It’s there. All you have to do is really want to see it. there is no possible way they could have just wanted to hire someone else. It has to be the secret evil.
You’re right. Forgive my wreckless blasphemy implying dear leader may have displayed signs of emotional decision making in the past. I will enjoy my 6th PBP announcer in 4 years and bask in the divine wisdom of he who owns.
Bummer, there goes our hope of signing Devers next year, in case Rendon still struggles…
I’m laughing.
I don’t follow too many other teams religiously enough to know their announcing crews, but is it “normal” to have a rotating cast of play-by-play guys and one color?
https://www.ballysports.com/west-socal/news/bally-sports-west-and-los-angeles-angels-announce-wayne-randazzo-as-new-televisi
vasgersian and o’neal will still call games in 2023 along with the newbie randazzo.
Unreal. This team cant be sold soon enough.
It’s gonna change everything. I’m engorged with lust for Newownerz the Unicorn.
Sarcasm aside, I imagine a new owner would like to have a non-embarrassing booth with some consistency like every other team in the sport.
We are likely looking at Randazzo missing every Friday for the Apple garbage which is where Vasgersian and O’neal come in to do the Friday-Saturday games. Vasgersian probably gets the “big” weekend series in full.
Shit, are they doing that fucking appletv bullshit every Friday?
You don’t happen to remember how long we are “blessed” with Matty V do you? I think working around that deal is what really keeps us from what we want.
If only Arte and Carpino knew how to eat a contract to make an embarrassing mistake go away.
Can’t imagine where I got that silly idea they’d be capable of doing that over the last 15 years
Why does Carpino/Kuhl keep screwing this up?
I like how its ambiguous what thing they’ve screwed up you’re asking about. Could be literally anything about the organization outside of Trout and Ohtani.
Dear America.
Much like Santa Clause, a solid recovery for Damar Hamlin will not arrive till you stop looking for it every ten seconds. I know you’re scared, but why not stop scratching at this, check back every week or three, and let the people who actually know the man take care of their business without us all staring at them?
Also, why is the hashtag #DamarHamlim? Do you have to misspell his name in order to spout your theories about coof jabs? Or is there some other reason I am ignorant of?
Some idiot ex-NFL player-now “Analyst” blames the ball carrier for lowering his head.
Well, I get that in theory…. accept Higgins hit “Hamlim” in the chest with his shoulder pads.
That same hit happens 100’s of times each week. The likelihood that “Commotio Cordis” is the cause is matched by the likelihood that the young man had an unknown underlying medical condition….which will open up more extensive medical testing to rule out the 1 in a 10,000,000,000 chance something bad happens..You’re correct, the anti football rage will gain incredible traction with this and the Tua concussion issue. The CTE issue will be nothing compared to what is coming.
It will be interesting to hear the cause…if they ever know. And their will be a chance we don’t hear about that cause.
Being a Browns fan, you a Steeler fan, notice the team involved in both the Tua concussion and the Hamlin issue happened in Cincinnati? All the more reason to believe they are evil….just like the Doyers, Mariners, Stanks, RedSucs and Asstros.
I know I’m supposed to hate the Bengals but I just don’t. I liked Boomer as a little kid and they sucked most of my life so no fierce rivalry. Same with the Browns. Why hate the Browns? It’s not 1958 anymore.
The Ravens…. now there’s a piece of shit team with total crap fans. If a person likes the Ravens I know they beat women and children.
Concur…
Baltimore is a dirty, ugly city!
–Norm Macdonald
Up and coming hate with the Bengals.
Vontaze Burfict was a great reason to hate the Bengals. Crazy dirty player and their fans loved him.
But nothing fires me up more NFL wise than beating the Ravens.
Thing with both the current Browns and Bungles is their timing works great for me. Even a team as glorious and wonderful as the Steelers has to rebuild every now and again. Last year, this year, next year we will probably be “horrible”. That being the case I have no problem with Bungles fans having a good time for a few years. We’ll get our QB situation set up, etc right about when they start running into salary issues with all their good players. Have fun meow cats, Steelers’ll be back soon, we’ll probably have a couple years of rivalry and then they’ll fade again.
Bal-ti-never-more
The injury of that football player reminds me of why I don’t like football, where the object of the game is to hurt the other player as much as possible on every single play.
The MNF injury was on a rather routine play. It was nothing that could have been prevented. Shoulder guards are tied off over the chest, it was not a dirty play. Football is a tough sport, no doubt. But the object is to move the ball and not be brought down, so you have to hit hard. It’s hard to believe that type of injury is not more common. Different mindset than Baseball for sure.
I’ve had the same happen to me several times, as a usually undersized football player most of my life, it resulted in getting the wind knocked out of me.
I have wondered in the past of football is similar to boxing in that all the “protection” leads to more health risk.
To spite what most people think, back when boxing involved bare knuckles or very light gloves boxers careers lasted longer, fights lasted longer, fighters died or were badly hurt less often, and fewer of them became “punch drunk” in old age. Contrary to popular belief, the gloves boxers wear are not to protect the person being hit but the fists of the man doing the hitting. That protection actually allows boxers to punch each other as hard as they can for a far longer time, where as bare knuckle fighters have to manage their hands, which means more “defensive” jabbing, body shots, etc and less punches to the head as hard as possible.
Being a guy with a lot of Brit friends I’ve played rugby before for fun. I’ve seen Aussie Football too. Same deal. No pads, less horrific injury record because those huge guys have to manage how hard they hit the guy they are stopping. Lots of arm/shoulder tackles. What if football went this way? Really good head protection and that’s it? I bet the game would actually still be pretty fun to watch, just different.
Very few people get the point of the gloves. They are all about protecting the hands. My hands used to hurt and swell when using the 6 oz. Fairtex gloves in my old gym. Boxing gloves are so much better.
The fights lasted longer back then because there was far less action per round. Now we see sustained action from bell to bell.
Why? Because as boxing has reduced the number of rounds (from 15 to 12 in my lifetime) they’ve made each round more important to win. And they’ve also taken away some of the need to pace yourself to the point you almost take a round off.
But those guys in the 20s-70s were way more punch drunk. They did way more sparring and had way more gym wars. Their careers just lasted longer because we didn’t know any better.
The modern day football helmet is a blessing and curse for the same reasons you’re discussing… it’s used as a head missile today. They feel and are more protected than ever. If they had less protection “your Ruby scenario” people would think twice about spearing head first with their helmet, not wanting to hurt themselves. The punishment/energy would be equalled out with defensive player naturally not leading head first into the runner. Defensive players need to feel less protected when to comes to head first tackling.
Do you watch boxing or MMA? Just curious.
The football play looked pretty routine. Kid took an impact to his chest at the wrong phase of his heartbeat if what I’m reading is correct.
I’m surprised this particular injury doesn’t happen more often in tackle or combat sports. Those rugby guys don’t even have pads, for example. In Muay Thai we knee guys in the torso all the time and if your aim is a bit off you can hit the heart area.
I’ll admit there are a handful of times I’ll watch a fight and see somebody get hurt badly enough that I’ll feel bad for being the guy whose dollars make the sport happen.
All major American sports leagues are incredibly dangerous. Football obviously, head, spinal, overall trauma to the body on a weekly basis.. I’ve heard it described as getting into a significant car accident over and over…
Shocking a baseball player hasn’t been killed or gravely injured “recently” by a batted ball or bat. The speed of a traveling baseball has gone up dramatically in a very short time. Someone is going to get speared with a broken bat one of these days and it’s not going to be pretty. And of course the ball frequently traveling 110 MPH is a tragedy waiting to happen.
A Hockey puck hitting and stopping a players heart has happened, puck hitting head/face could kill a player..A skate cut a goalies throat and almost bled to death on the ice. Checking along the boards could easily kill/paralyze a player.
NBA? Still think the possibility of a freakish 6-10 athlete jumping so high and landing on their head or back could cause a death…
It’s all dangerous….but it’s still not as dangerous as getting into a car and driving to the store to pick some groceries.
The benefits of playing sports for all of of us, at all levels and all ages, overwhelmingly outweigh the risks….not even a discussion.
I would like to invite any of the Oprah Facts fans out there who keep repeating that playing a game of football is the same as being in multiple car accidents to go out and test it by getting into multiple car accidents in a day.
I bet it hurts more than playing football.
You’re probably right….cars are built so much better and safer today..you can literally drive one off a 250 rock cliff and survive.
https://nypost.com/2023/01/04/dharmesh-patel-accused-of-intentionally-driving-tesla-off-ca-cliff/
Leigh Steinberg, famous football agent put it this way. “–Television and in stadium crowd insulates fans from realizing the G Force ferocity of every hit. The only way to truly understand the level of impact is to stand on the sidelines. America’s most popular game, but I struggle with the reality that it is a traffic accident on every play.”
We are all free to participate or watch others. For me, I chose not to.
Yeah, as a former football guy, I am actually totally ignoring this offramp of the grief tourism highway. Holy Fck, I get it people, you saw it with your eyes, on TV. Oh no!
So now we all have to publicly perform in one way or another. Which always slowly devolves into making it about ourselves. So now I have to ignore all the jock hating, vegan, violence averse white people on my SocMed suddenly being “horrified” by the “violent collision” that almost killed this man. WHAT ABOUT THE CHILDREN!?! Is football racist? Why can’t we all just play soccer, like the Dutch? I bet this is Biden’s fault…. unless of course it’s Trump’s fault…. Russians maybe?
It wasn’t a violent hit at all. It didn’t even involve helmets. It was just incredible incredible down to the millisecond bad timing. If there is one thing out there we can probably be assured we won’t see again for another 75 years it’s this. We are gonna be OK guys, and you’re not a horrible person if you don’t display your #thoughtsandprayers and just hope for the best for the guy without anyone else seeing it.
I’ve already had a dozen conversations with people who didn’t know anything about Hand Egg until Tuesday morning all about how football is insanely dangerous and we should just get rid of it cause “experts” + #thoughtsnprayersnthoughts. OK folks, I have seen that you have helped Hamlin with all this. Signal received. Stop with all the caring.
wow, you are even more nuts than I thought
Are you gonna be alright?
It was just an observation. I mean you always say the most nutso things, but sometimes you outdo yourself.
So…. You’re safely un-triggered, but you are firmly in the performative concern is awesome camp… as long as you’re happy.
you do say nutso things. You should be proud of that. It’s what makes you entertaining. Hunter Thompson said nutso things, too and he’s highly respected for it.
Let’s not go too far there, ha ha.
Gitcho keeps the boards entertaining for sure.
I’m pretty much with you. Yes, thoughts and prayers that a young man makes a full recovery and is able to lead a productive life.
But at the same time, grown men running full speed into each other is dangerous. That’s why we pay other grown men to do it while we watch.
You want the big money contract, you take the danger. There’s a shit ton of boxers and fighters putting way more of themselves on the line than an NFL player for a lot less money.
Freak play. One in a million chance we see it again. Just like Ryan Shazier’s paralysis.
At this point we know the risk/reward ratio and should let folks decide for themselves if they want to play any sport whatsoever.
I’m not making light of the circumstances, but to your point as far as “contact / hits” go, this play was a non-event. In my opinion – this is a “shit happens” situation: when your time is up, your time is up. If you are living in a Russian army barracks on the ground floor of the ammo dump with a giant red “x” on the roof – your time is up faster.
If the minions must find something to blame, I’m sure there’s a linkage to assault weapons and large capacity magazines in all this somewhere. Maybe a “Six degrees of Kevin Bacon” situation to be sure.
Eleven degree of AK47?
Are we even allowed to think that sometimes shit just happens anymore or is our collective god complex so overfed that we think we cause everything somehow?
I don’t. I loved Ali back in the day, but what happened to him in a way proves my point that it is a barbaric blood sport.
Cool. What I figured.
Ali stayed around way too long. My biggest complaint with boxing is that there’s no organized structure to tell guys when they need to stop. As long as some promoter can make money, guys keep getting sent out there.
It is brutal. Even as a lifelong fan I struggle with it from time to time. But I know a lot of pro fighters and they love doing it.
Ali lives in a haze because Joe Frazier beat his brains out for talking a bunch of racist shit to him. Ali won the fight, but he left his health on the mat even if he kept fighting long after Frazier II.
Frazier was the shit.
Crazy to see corner outfielders were right at league average. Used to be those were premier offensively.
Catcher is actually higher than expected league wide. Perhaps I was traumatized watching Stassi and Suzuki.
😂 lol
What about Velasquez at SS, and Matt Duffy and company at 3B?
I really enjoy Squid in the field. If he could only hit league average for SS’s he would be awesome. Matt Duffy had to much laid on him, he has never had a big year in the majors.
Velasquez simply was not viable in the weak lineup that we ran out last year. I could see him being used this year as a late inning defensive replacement for one of our below average defensive shortstops, moving Fletch over to 2B, but I don’t want to see him swinging the bat very often.
I can’t argue that, but he has good skills in the field.
I would rather have the best defensive team in the field than a bunch of stiffs like Ford at 1st. Guys like Walsh and Fletcher (at 2b) and Squid at short help out pitching so much. Pitchers with bad defense behind them do not attack the plate, so, they start to make mistakes. That then means we play from behind. Great defensive plays pump a team in the field up big time. Yes, I am aware of Squid’s weak bat, and Fletcher’s lack of over the fence power, but defense seems to always be discounted more than it ever should be.
There were 4 of them available this winter, but we didn’t want to pay up and now we have our choice of Fletcher or Velasquez.
I know. All we had to do was live a life of faith in Newownerz The Unicorn and we could have signed a Big4 SS and then Ohtani and then ice cream for everyone every day. Cause why would a billionaire buy a team and even consider having a payroll under 400M? Unfathomable!
I agree Marine. I find it humorous when people post things like “if only.” The Angels have had numerous OFs that were great defensively but if only they could hit. There are good hitting catchers but if only they could actually play the position well defensively.
This is what the game is all about. Can you hit well enough to play? If not, you are a minor leaguer or a fill in. Can guys throw enough strikes as relievers or have enough movement on their pitches? If not, minor leaguers. If you can hit some as a catcher but cannot catch effectively, minor leaguer.
Squid has been given numerous chances. He is a slick fielder who doesn’t hit well enough. Every team has at least someone who thinks they can turn a guy like this around. Every so often, it happens. But the general rule is, guys that cannot hit don’t hit. It’s useless saying if only. BTW Moniak appears to be part of this group now. We will see as he is still young enough to get at least one more chance.
Squid is a late inning fill in until proven otherwise. And that likely will never happen.
From what I’ve seen Moniak’s problem seems mostly plate discipline and approach. He’s definitely young enough to break through. Hopefully, he’s working on those things this offseason.
Speaking of what the game is all about, how many teams are out there that don’t have some “if only” going on?
All teams take flyers on guys. They just don’t expect much yield and cut bait when the hope turns sour. For the vast majority of guys that haven’t hit in the past, the return date comes quickly.
if only Rengifo’s GG nomination related to his play on the field, we could start planning the parade.
Better put that me.
Does Squid provide enough defensive value over Fletch or Rengifo in those late innings? One could argue that Squid’s speed on the bases tips the scales for a roster spot, but (a) he’s not getting on base by himself, and (b) who would he pinch run for, maybe Renfro or Stassi? This seems like very limited value.
Squid, without significant improvement with his bat, seems like a wasted slot on the roster. I’d rather have a league average bat with power on the bench for late inning pinch hitting matchups.
Squid’s best value might be letting Soto get consistent playing time in the minors.
Yes, pinch running and late inning defense will be his role but if there’s an injury I’d expect Soto to get called up and Squid’s role to remain unchanged.
Unless, of course, he learns how to hit.
By Soto, you of course mean Neto, right? 😉
SSS, but Soto already seems to have a better approach at the plate than Squid. Unfortunately, the expectation is for him to regress into a somewhat better hitting (but slightly worse fielding) verison of Squid. Or if you will, Soto might compare to slightly worse hitting, but more power and a stronger arm than Fletch. I wonder if Soto is already close to his ceiling, and if so, then the real reason you keep him in the minors is for depth. Does Squid have any options left?
True. Though Squid, even if he hits at his normal incredible suck levels, would be OK on this team with last years defense and HR output IF the rest of the line up is healthy and hitting. If the other eight hitters all have OPSs over .750 say. Then we could handle having a “PREMIUM” short stop. But that’s a tall order.
yep, thats why we need to get a Correa deal done today.
Prior to his season ending injury on September 13, Squid had junked his left hand hitting approach . so in his last 23 games he hit .274/.297/.484.He still needs to walk way way more and strike out way less but that O line would be an encouraging sign with his elite glove . You could at least platoon him against LHP’s but I’m not sure who the other piece of the puzzle is. (Fletcher? Soto? other?)
I really hope this improvement isn’t just a small sample size. He’d be a massive bargain with those numbers over a full season. Despite my previous statement, I do like watching his defensive prowess.
But…we all can see his problem isn’t just which side of the plate he hits from. His plate discipline and approach are just bad from either side
I’ll preface this with the obvious: I’m no scout.
Squid’s hands are crazy fast. He looks to me like a guy who was able to hit well enough in the minors simply by using his fast hands. He could guess wrong and still make some contact. Maybe put the ball in play, maybe foul one off.
At the MLB level, though, you need good pitch recognition skills and Squid doesn’t have them.
We need someone to go all Clockwork Orange on him and make him watch 1000 hours of pitches coming in where, if it guesses the pitch wrong, it gets the hose again.
He’ll be Rogers Hornsby sans the racism.
Interesting take. You would think that with his fast hands he wouldn’t have to guess, just prepare for pitch sequence tendencies. Instead, it seems like he’s always guessing.
Disclaimer…I’m no scout either, and didn’t make it past frosh-level in high school…so, take anything I say with a grain of salt.
I knew about that trauma, ha ha. SS and 3B throughout the league are good. Ours just sucked last year.
I found it pretty easy to find catching help for my off season piece, but still didn’t think catchers league wide were only about 10% worse than their peers.
That Zips article is spot-on. Highly recommend that everyone read it and get a dose of reality about this team. It’s not all negative – in fact it has the Angels at 87 wins if everything goes right. But if there are injuries- watch out! It’s very realistic.
Separately, the chart of OPS+ by position is very interesting. Collectively the team was league average and it showed in the W-L record.
Agree. The 2023 pitching is, on paper, better than the 2022 version that was 6th best in rotation ERA in MLB.
The 2022 offense was #22 in position player WAR last season. Even worse, the team used 34 position players last season…and 18 of them had batting averages below .200 across almost 1600 at bats.
If the team gets “just” league average offensive production in 2023, the playoffs are reasonably in reach.
It’s a quality article 71, but the analysis is also overdone with negativity. Like others have noted, the notion a high priced SS, Judge, or Nimmo was an answer makes little sense. The dismissal of what the team did to fill holes and failure to mention Urshela is unkind. Reasonable moves were made.
The author also seems to have missed a key part of all of this. If Ohtani is on a one year deal and you don’t know if you will re-sign him, the FO will want to make enough moves now to be competitive if things truly come together but also weight its options later. This includes bringing in trade deadline talent if the WS is a possibility. Or trading Ohtani if the off-season moves failed.
The author totally overlooks this part of the equation. And it’s a key part.
I think it’s less negativity and more reality. But I do agree that knocking the team for not signing another high priced FA is unfair. The rest of the article is spot on. I think this team starts at 87 wins and moved downwards with injuries.
I see no reason why Fangraphs should hold back on the digs.
I think the analysis that we should have signed Aaron Judge or one of the $250M+ shortstops always strikes me as weird though when the same articles tend to criticizie the big contracts gone bad that sunk previous iterations of the team.
This team didn’t need an Aaron Judge, it needed to spend one year of Aaron Judge’s salary on revamping player development infrastructure.
In 2022, the team was really bad. My interpretation is that Fangraphs is being fair given just how bad things have been. They were positive on the starting pitching which we know has the potential to carry the team in 2023. The risks they note with Trout and Rendon are real, and honestly it’s reasonable to lower expectations on both given the issues they’ve had over the past few years.
I have far more faith in Trout staying on the field then I do with Rendon.
I think this is the year where Rendon will be viewed as a sunk cost if he doesn’t play at least 140 games.
I’m already there, why wait one more season.
I’m with you, but I’ve been lambasting for bringing this up in the past. That said, I’m pleased that Minasian acquired Gio and Drury to serve as replacements for Rendon, with the other being available to help out with the Walsh situation.
I really do expect Walsh to have a 2021 season once again. Fletcher should return to 2020 form if healthy.
What is just sad is Trouty can’t be really counted on and there is no replacement once again for him. But maybe this year we do get over 600 PA’s out of Trout, then that would be 40+ HRs and 100+ R/S.
The Angels just seem to be snake bit when it comes to injuries to the team’s best players, but if we dodge the long term injuries we could be surprised at the end of the season.
BOTH – spend on premium players AND build development infrastructure
PONY! I WANT PONY!
its Time for us to grow up Gitcho and finally start acting like a big boy team.