Bundle up and stay safe in the massive storm that is hitting CA. The good news is there’s a ton of baseball to watch on TV.
A collection of All Star teams is battling it out in the World Baseball Classic, with games in Tokyo, Taichung, Phoenix, and Miami.
This first round consists of 4 pools of 5 teams playing round robin. The two teams with the highest winning percentage in each pool will advance to the knockout round.
The Angels have 17 players in the tournament, representing countries around the globe. That link also shows the players from every MLB organization who are participating.
Mike Trout is the captain of Team USA and is excited to play in the WBC and face his teammates. We could see Trout dig in against Patrick Sandoval or Gerardo Reyes of Mexico this weekend. A finals matchup of Trout vs. Ohtani is almost too cool to even dream about.
Speaking of Ohtani, no matter where he is he does Ohtani things.
Here’s when and where to watch all the WBC action.
The World Baseball Classic isn’t the only baseball going on in Phoenix and Florida, however. Spring Training will keep going at its normal pace.
The absence of so many stars will pave the way for playing time for prospects. As of this week, Jo Adell is leading the Angels in playing time and figures to get more with Trout gone.
And while we focus on the players, this is Phil Nevin’s first time running the team in Tempe. Nevin is building trust and giving the Angels a fresh start.
One of the few true position battles in Angels camp is for the sixth starter spot. Tucker Davidson has added to his arsenal in order to stake his claim to that spot.
Also in the mix for that job is Griffin Canning, whose fastball was reported at 94-95 in his first start since 2021.
CBS took a look at 10 top MLB prospects who could make the Opening Day roster of their club. An Angel was named.
To me that list is too safe. If you’re going to make a prediction, go out on a limb at least a little bit. I’ll say Ben Joyce is the prospect who is on the verge of making the cut.
The flamethrower is among the prospects who have turned heads in Spring Training thus far.
Speaking of prospects, MLB came out with a new list of the Angels top 30 prospects. A big part of that list is expected to be MLB ready within two years. Things might be looking up.
From around the league:
Everyone knows about Aaron Judge’s power, but he has a secret weapon he wants to unveil this season.
Enjoy your wet, chilly weekend as best you can. Indoors with baseball on TV. Be safe, and link what I missed.
I intensely dislike the Yankees, but I’m finding more and more that I like Judge.
I’m impressed that he, like Trout, looks for weaknesses in his game and then works to improve them.
I’m not sure I’m all for the Corbin Caroll 100M+ contract before he plays a full season and wins Rookie of the Year. It reminds me of when Barrack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize for “future acts”…. and then went on to bomb more civilians and kill more American citizens with out trial than Bush did…. accept Caroll will get paid a lot more and may actually be worth it. Ruiz in Washington, the Baby Braves, I understand. Those FOs saw those guys for extended periods and pulled the trigger. But Caroll could flop from jump, and he’s getting paid more than all those guys. It just seems like Arizona is clumsily copying the Braves.
Oh. And Mitch Hanniger is hurt. Stupid PTP coulda signed him but genius man love of Tootie Farhan Zaidi went out and pulled that trigger instead.
It’s a gamble at that sample size for sure but… have you watched the guy play? Mookie Betts 2.0. I think the contact works out to something like $11 million/year through his prime playing years. Could be the deal of the century for the D-backs, or merely a regrettable but non-crippling (read: non-Pujols-level) mortgage payment.
Oh yeah. I’ve seen him play and he is really exciting, so yeah, the gamble I understand. It’s just more gamble than other teams have been willing to take thus far. Though you are right. Even if he is just one scouting report cycle away from being meh at this point, it’s only 11M a year and he’d still be pretty useful as a CF even if he “collapses” and only has a .650 OPS.
It’s not just the Braves thing. He’s good, great hit tool, approach and top of the grade speed. Arm is just average. Forget about the billionaire ball club, imagine playing in your prime years for only $11M? Carroll is taking a chance as well.
D-Backs are coming.
The Evil Arturo Speaks!
https://twitter.com/Jared_Tims/status/1634614070459641857/photo/1
Complete interview is on SI.com
I thought that looked like Verducci in Arte’s box Thursday but thought it odd cuz Arte doesn’t speak to journalists.
He wanted Turner but Perry wanted depth. Wish he decided he wanted both.
Good interview but wish they spoke more to Shohei extension status and where that was.
I just wish Verducci had asked him why he decided to ignore the farm system over the last 10 to 12 years.
Yup. Nothing says “nego she ate her” like talking to a reporter about an ongoing contract negotiation.
I haven’t read any of it yet, but just saw some highlights posted.
I thought it was incredibly interesting that Arte wanted Turner (who I also wanted the most) but Perry said lets spread out the money.
Like many others, I’d like Arte to up the budget and get the players we get AND sign Turner so we turned our biggest hole into a huge positive.
But if we are going to stick to a budget, I’m really glad that Perry was the one who called the shots here and did what he did. Just getting Turner and nothing else would have been yet another top-heavy season of .500 baseball or lower, depending on injuries.
I was also encouraged that the team actually did what Perry thought was right, instead of Arte’s inclination to sign the big star.
So now Perry is the evil one?
Perry issss…. Andrew?
I read this as Arte saying he believes the team has gone all-in. But, in fact, it hasn’t. There is no reliable shortstop and the bullpen is highly questionable as is the team’s overall depth if injuries occur. Arte is saying that there is no consideration of losing – but the reality is that even if the team wins 10 more games than 2022 ( which would be remarkable) the playoffs are not a guarantee.
So, I personally am very disappointed in this answer. It’s a marketing answer. It’s essentially ‘we will complete’ which is the same message for the last 5 years.
I hope the reality is the team has a plan to trade Ohtani if they are not realistically in contention in July.
Better than nothing I guess? but this is the definition of a puff piece which I imagine was the terms of him agreeing to do it.
He cracks beers and loves the game! Just wasn’t ready to walk away from his love! Team is only bad because Josh Hamilton tried too hard in spring training and hurt himself!
It feels like “Arte spends X” is mentioned at several points during the article like a defense mechanism. Would have loved to see Verducci attempt to ask about minor league & player development spending. One of the “turbulent” items they allude to but don’t actually explore was the bad press during COVID when we were one of the stingiest teams with regards to scouts and minor player pay.
I think people who know what ails the team know that underpaid (and fed!) players, scouts, technology, international operations etc. is the spending that evaporated. I’d have preferred a 1 paragraph article of Arte’s response to answering for that.
I know. Neither of these assholes will just stick their hand in the woodchipper. I want to see a hand get chewed off so I can feel alive again and my needle can get half moved. I hate how actual real life works and even though my teenage years are well below the rear horizon I still wish so so hard to finally see my dad, I mean Arte, get forced to admit he screwed something up. Someday. Some. Day.
We are fit.
One thing I’ve observed the last few years but haven’t spoken much of is the increased level of training staff in camp. Warming up, stretching etc are much more nuanced and in smaller groups with more dedicated instruction. Maybe the move to the minor league clubhouse helps too because it has a real weight room.
Arte got called out a bunch of places for being cheap 5 years ago, but PTP seems to have gotten better analytics staff and word is minor league teams are getting more resources too.
Add training staff to the list as it’s apparent it’s much better and bigger than it used to be.
No injuries or even tweaks this spring is incredible and I’d think it’s related to increased investment.
(If there are any new injuries before Monday, blame me for jinxing it.)
THIS is an actual good thing that I wanted. Kudos to the FO.
That top 30 prospect list…. I follow about 1/2 dozen teams fairly closely and I just don’t understand them a lot of the time. I mean sure, teams like the Orioles and Sneks being at the top makes sense, they have a ton of sick talent coming up AND top top prospects in their Top 5.
But MLB lists our BOTTOM 2 as Jordyn Adams and Arol Vera. That’s a FAR cry from what we had a three years ago. Livan Soto is 16. Mason Erla 18. But we’re what? 25ish?
I follow the Reds and Pirates. I get it, they have De La Cruz, Marte, Johnson and Davis, but honestly I am not sure De La Cruz outperforms O’Hoppe at all. Nor will Davis. To me, both team’s 25-30 prospects are less attractive than ours, hell, the Reds bottom 15 isn’t better at all. I follow the Cardinals. Yes, they have Jordan Walker. But I’m not sure I’d take Tink Hence over Ky Bush at all. I can see that their top 5 is probably better than ours with guys like Alec Burleson still on it, but it’s really not THAT much better than our top 5 other than Walker.
And none of these teams have 80% of a future bullpen sitting there ready to go.
And yet they will all be top 10 farms.
It’s the same as the Pre-Season August NCAA Football top 25 rankings. Mostly based on tradition, the previous year and trendy regurgitated hype. It’s like asking who has a better hair cut? Ken Burns, Janet Yellen or Al Davis’s kid Mark.
Much of the Angels poor ranking today is based on the deserved and accurate poor rankings of the past…And I guess, someone needs to be ranked 25th. We haven’t earned “Favorite Team” status like the cool teams. With us, really no where to go but up. That’s fair, after over a decade of producing a shit farm system. I’d say the difference the 8th ranked and #22 isn’t as much as the experts want us to believe.
Long live the Angels Farm system, long live PTP! An organization on the rise!
And to the hope that one day soon “2002” might become sad, confused and very quiet.
We need to stand up against the baseball industrial complex man.
Is it me or are our prospects really just as good as other top ranked teams but we have sucked for so long now we don’t deserve any love?
I don’t think we’re top ten or anything, but I look at some of the teams ranked eight or ten spots higher than we are and, even when it’s cases where I’m pretty familiar with the prospects, I don’t see how we are 25.
I actually do have a theory. Take a team like the Cubs, who have risen hard, or the Reds. I honestly think that a lot of these evaluators get a little goopy over prospects who come into a system via big trades. I also think everyone overrates recent draft picks that have a lot of hype. See a name like Pete Crow Armstrong enough and the farm he’s in MUST be at least #15 right? Prolly better! Sure, he’s a very good prospect, but there’s still a very good chance that he’ll never be as good as David Fletcher’s brother who is a meh prospect.
I just don’t think most evaluators have the time to really look at David Calabrese while PCA is glossy and cool and was part of a big trade. But really, at this point, they aren’t miles apart in actual ability.
We lack flashy names and have not traded stars for flashy prospects, so we get ranked low while we poop out Detmers, Ward, Walsh, a bullpen and who ever else pans out over the next couple years.
UNC men’s basketball is the latest example- they were preseason #1 and now aren’t even making the tournament.
Yeah they had everyone returning from a good team last year so it made sense …. but hey I’m sure it’s a lot of “they’re a blue blood so they’ll be good” too.
As I recall, in 2003, we had basically the same team as in 2002, and we sucked giant donkey dongs
The Baseball Industrial Complex
I really am focused on the Farm and have been super frustrated with drafts and player development as you all know. But there has been definite and significant improvement over the last two years. The Angels’ Farm today feels like 12th-15th to me. It might be a year or two away from becoming a top-10.
Past history will keep the rankings lower but I know what I see and it’s definitely a reason for optimism
I remember when we had a top #1 consensus farm team for a few years at the turn of the century – Kotchman, Mathis, Wood, Aybar, MacPherson, JTY, etc.
I just don’t remember all the pennants that resulted from it.
Well it’s tough to argue about the success the team had 2002-2009.
And had a couple of those pieces been traded in the trades we all know were missed (Beltre for example) you might have seen more championships.
Agreed.
Even though we didn’t win it all again, I can’t complain about 2003-2009. I would be happy if we had that sort of success in the past few years.
There is always the “random” element in the playoffs where anyone can win, so I kind of see making it to the playoffs the gauge of a good season, whereas winning the WS is a cherry on top but not as predictable.
What trades did we all know were missed?
Beltre was a free agent ( for 2 straight years) that Arte lost out on because he tried to play hard ball wit him and Boras.
The only lost trade I know of was the Miguel Cabrera trade where the Marlins wanted Howie Kendrick, Jeff Mathis, Nick Adenhart and Ervin Santana but the Angles wouldn’t budge so The Marlins instead took the Tigers young talent.
You can read about here. https://theathletic.com/3262682/2022/04/21/behind-the-blockbuster-trade-that-took-miguel-cabrera-from-marlins-star-to-tigers-legend/
I really don’t regret not making the Cabrera trade other than it might have prevented Arte from trading for Vernon Wells or signing Grandpa Groundout a couple of years later.
You’re right. I meant Cabrera. That trade would have been incredible for the Angels for around 5 seasons. Or signing Beltre. Either one of those moves would have been significant.
I also want to add that the point was that the Angels having a top farm system was meaningful. We won a WS in 2002 and then enjoyed the greatest decade in the history of the franchise.
I can’t imagine you were/are a proponent of what the Angels did (Wells and Hamilton etc) versus what could have been (Beltre or Cabrera). So I’m not really sure of the point you are making.
Having a top Farm can be a difference maker. The Estadt, Salmon, Anderson, Lackey and KRod group won us our only WS. To me the Farm is 75% of the calculus presuming good coaching and player development.
Beltre is all on “Take it or leave it” Arte.
That #1 farm is a great example. Do the experts mean to tell us a #20 system couldn’t have plopped out a slightly average SS and a semi-ace starter and that’s it?
I am in Japan goofing this weekend then off to do work next week, but getting through Shibuya station in Tokyo was surrounded by six video monitors that suddenly started playing Ohtani ads for New Balance, all while I was wearing my Angels cap.
Been watching the Japan games in my hotel room. Boy, the fans love Nootbaar! TV Interviewed him after the last game, and when he said he loves Japan in Japanese at the end, the crowd went even more berserk (had been using a translator.)
I haven’t been here in five years, so forgot they keep track of type of pitches and location at bottom right, but instead of a fastball, they call it sutoraito “straight.” All pitches English words written in katakana. Makes more sense to me than calling them fastballs, since they are pretty normal pitches. They do not distinguish between two and four seem. Other categories: curve, slider, change up, and what they call cut ball. Oh, and the triple last night announcers called “third base.” My favorite loaned term was used when Ohtani hit the single with the bases loaded: “timely hit” pronounced “timuri hito”
Whelp, now that Canning is back I guess I’ll fall back into the dumb habit of calling him “Griffith.”
If Del Taco Tony was still here, we might call him “Del Griffith, the shower curtain guy. “
But not Del Rice suck ass Angel manager 3.0?
Barney Fife for his sticklike figure
my pictures from the two USA exhibition games.
Got there early, but I spend just a half inning at Diablo yesterday – had to get back to work – but i liked the few i got in Tempe better than the ones obtained watching the entire game in Scottsdale.
Get off my lawn!!!
The secret police showing the iron fist in the leather glove.
I noticed the Red Sox and Royals are 9-0 and 11-2 this spring. I wish the Angels were as good as them.
My work appears to have blocked MLB.com but not Twitter. SMH If only I had a device that didn’t need to go through work’s Wifi… Wink
I Nevin going to grow on me?
I would have swung and missed at Davidson’s changeup, but I’m thinking, without watching any games yet, that Canning may be the guy. It’s nice to have slightly too much pitching. (Ben Joyce makes me giggle a little… on the inside… because I’m a man)
Aaron Judge’s secret weapon is MLB helping him out with juiced balls. I talked to a dumb MFY fan at happy hour last week who thought Judge was better than Ohtani and had no idea the MFY got juiced balls. SMH!!! Judge is going to need to steal more bases because he will hit less HR’s. Then he’ll get hit and not finish in the top five of MVP voting but he’ll get some votes because he plays for MFY.
I’m irritable today.
GF’s mom is still staying with us until it clears up in Crestline and she keeps trying to feed me sugar while I’m trying to lose fat and build muscle. Four trays of Danishes, brownies!!! Can I pay Grandpa to take her for a week? She likes kids!
You don’t fly flags in spring, my friend
Yeah, ask Jabari Blash. The year he tore up Spring with the Padres…Blash in the pan.
For good reason. In 2022 Mickey Moniak ( then with the Phillies) finally “put it all together” and hit .310 with 5 Hrs and and a 1.291 OPS in spring training only to lay a giant turd in the regular season by hitting .170/.207/.302 so lets all take a chill pill on ST stats.
I saw a fake post last night on BR that I noticed was taken down about an hour later.
It was a fake tweet from Keith Law or Rosenthal or someone, announcing breaking news, that Ohtani had been traded to the Astros, for Urquidy, Tucker, and like 3 of their top 12 prospects.
I checked other outlets and when nothing was there, I knew something was fishy.
But for a second, I thought gitch’s dream had come true.
😉
What a douchy thing for someone to do.
Id probably do that deal. But Crane is too smart ( and too cheap) to ever sign off on something like that.
That deal…. I’d giggle. I haven’t giggled since I was like 2 years old.
my main criteria to trade him – does this make us a better team in 2023?
and its a resounding No
This is how you wind up having the same criteria year after year after year. Till your only hope is a unicorn Steve Cohen owner who comes in and basically subsidizes mistake after mistake till the sun shines on our dogs ass. Keeping Ohtani this year only to pay him 600M for the next ten years or lose him all together is stupid whether it makes the team slightly better this year or not.
Put simply, if I had to agree to miss the playoffs again this year, but get built like the Braves by 2024 or 2025 I’d be fine with it.
Too rational and sensible for the fan logic around these parts.
Here’s how Team USA got its superstars to say ‘yes’
https://www.mlb.com/news/featured/team-usa-2023-world-baseball-classic-oral-history
The new list of Angels farm talent is nice to see. While the Organization is still ranked fairly low (consensus around 25th) I think it could take a big leap forward with the Organization’s apparent commitment to developing players. Within a couple years, if this continues, I could see the Angel having a top-10 farm even with some of the players like O’Hoppe and Silseth graduating to the majors.
For these same reasons, I feel a bit sorry for Adell who has not had the benefit of top coaching. That said, he is 23 and very athletic. Maybe he will figure it out, like some do, by the time he is 25.
Red Angel vs Blue Steel
https://twitter.com/PitchingNinja/status/1634181935923601408
😆
If Tucker Davidson is able to defy expectations by becoming a viable 6th starter due to the Angels helping him develop a new pitch, that would be absolutely amazing. Not just because of Davidson, but because it would suggest Perry may have had some success in improving the Angel’s training and development programs.
I’ll temper my expectations, but it’s nice to hold onto the dream of Trouhtani and a better-than-expected pitching staff leading the Angels to the playoffs.
Matt Wise for president 2024?
Or the Driveline Guy
TUCKY DEEEEEE! The most incredible semi-tolerable bottom of the rotation pitcher ever to wear a red hat in 2023!
Mang’ager AL.
https://sports.yahoo.com/retired-pujols-believes-moving-coaching-222746313.html
Is Nevin already on the hot seat?
Nah, by “Just not yet” I think Pujols means “Not until the Cardinals have an opening.” Pujols’ has never had his heart with the Angels. He might have liked Mike Trout and some of his other teammates, but the Angels as an organization was and is just a paycheck to him.
“Albert Pujols is open to transitioning”
I thought the world was coming to an end.
Ha!
Maybe Transitioning to his AARP membership
he’s transitioning to get off the ‘roids
Didn’t that happen a few years ago?
Go away Albert, just go awaaaaaay
What a great game between Taiwan and Italy this morning! Exciting!