The 2023 MLB Draft is complete and the Angels have 20 new names in the organization, led by first round slugger Nolan Schanuel who is already signed.
Here’s a look at the young man fulfilling his dream. Stick around for a quick interview.
Strike zone discipline was definitely the theme of the Angels draft, particularly early. Lacking a 2nd round pick due to the signing of Tyler Anderson, Perry and his team took another bat first player in Alberto Rio from Stanford in the third.
Rios has a very interesting back story and resident Angels guru Jeff Fletcher also gave some information on the entire Day 2 class.
The Angels were are the forefront of the draft process when they selected Ben Joyce’s twin Zach Joyce in the 14th round, thereby ensuring a supply of ligaments and nerves to repair Ben’s arm when he’s hurt.
Here’s a full list of the 19 young men drafted by the Angels this season.
The Angels primarily pulled from the college ranks again, particularly early in the draft.
Like usual, I agree with Turk’s Teeth’s reading between the lines here. If your organization isn’t very good at developing players, draft players that are already largely developed. Perry’s drafts definitely indicate he realizes this. Yes, you’ll miss out on the projects with big upside, but you also won’t pull an Eppler and draft a college football team that can’t play baseball.
Overall the number of shortstops taken in the first round seems to rise every year. Or is that just what the government tells us? FanGraphs takes a look at the what and why.
One shortstop the Angels drafted a few years ago is finding a groove at AA.
Meanwhile…
The best All Star game in sports was played in Seattle on Tuesday night. Ohtani walked and Carlos Esteves pitched a shutout inning.
The game set another record low for ratings. It almost like nobody watches as much of anything now that they have endless viewing and watching options. Ratings were much better when we had 3 networks and had to get up to change the channel.
I will say I turned off the game for about 20 minutes with Artificially Big Papi and his cohort Alex Rodriguez were shown ad nauseum. I’d say I would hope for better from Fox, but come on, this is Fox. You don’t pay a billion bucks or so over blatant lies and sexual harassment if you have standards.
Speaking of organizations with no class, the Houston Astros roll into town for a three game set staring today. Yordan Alvarez will still be out but he’s coming back soon.
I still think Houston overtakes Texas and wins the AL West. If somebody who didn’t follow baseball read that sentence I’d get lampooned.
I talked about that and all things Angels on the BaseballPhD podcast last week. Here’s a link. I start about minute 25. Give it a listen and let it count for the longform this week.
Have a great weekend and link what I missed.
At least Albert Rios must be smart (Stanford).
Me, him, and Robert Oppenheimer all have that in common!!!
Omg an actual smart decision, putting Moniak in cleanup. He has been amazing with RISP this year, so this makes sense.
https://twitter.com/SamBlum3/status/1679995591605243904
My dude is stealing money and having a good ol time lol
Or, it is in response to a reporter that he feels is a giant Dick.
Even if that were the case and the reporter is the largest lumpiest dick in the biz.. it’s tactfully poor judgement. Just like attackingly the fan in Oak. As leaders / professionals we deal with people we don’t like regularly. The trick is to never show your hand. Real G’s move in silence like lasagna.
I think it’s only this reporter he has the big issue with. Might be wrong on that. And reporters and the players have disliked each other since the invention of sports and reporters. Nothing new, has always existed.
It is unfortunate that some of them take that route of hating each other. Sammy has a tendency to plant controversial seeds in twitter for click bait of his Athletic article, so his purpose is pretty obvious, but they often seem petty. On the other hand, Rendon must be an insecure guy about himself, easily excitable by such a trivial question.
I remember Mr. Kuriyama, WBC championship manager for Team Japan, was gracious to the whole press corps after being interviewed for about an hour right after 15 hour flight from Miami. He has always understood how important the function of the press was to disseminate the exciting part of baseball throughout Japan and develop and grow future life long fans of the game especially in the young.
Always have always will and sometimes the players are warranted in their disdain for reporters. This is not one of those times. No one on the Angels beat is particularly venomous and even if they were towards Rendon, he should be self aware enough to realize he deserves every ounce of that venom.
Rendon??? Who is this Rendon person??? Ohhhh, you mean 40.
🤔 I thought that was a hat
If anyone wants to say something positive, how about this? Take the Angels record against the NL West and throw it out. Then determine how they have fared against the rest of the teams. I presume this changes the overall picture quite a bit.
No, it doesn’t change the overall picture. Because it’s always something. If it’s not being able to beat the AL West, then it’s not being able to beat the NL West. That’s part of being a losing organization, it’s always something.
You could have just said “no, I don’t want to be positive.”
Watching Padres vs Phillies and the fantastic play by Ha Seong Kim for Schwarber’s would be bloop hit when Yu Darvish is pitching makes me smile and my heart filled with glee. Yes, Padres and Phillies have nothing to do with Angels, but to see a Korean player and Japanese player on the same team in MLB makes me extremely happy and feel international peace at least in Far East Asia.
Second half of MLB season has begun!!!!!
https://twitter.com/BillShaikin/status/1679967144786956294?s=20
Incredible.
You seriously couldn’t make up how big of a failure this has been. This is without reminded us all that he is making $38.571 million in skrilla this year
Always great to see Rendon doing what he does best, ILing. Not that he added much the few games he was active.
I don’t think anyone can argue against you anymore in this regard. 🏳
I take no joy in being right about this. His contract runs for years.
I remember this article each time Rendon misses a games.
https://www.si.com/mlb/angels/news/angels-news-gm-minasian-predicts-anthony-rendon-wins-comeback-player-of-the-year
2025?
“He’s spending the winter just adding to his body strength, adding to what he can do,” Nevin said at the Winter Meetings. “He’s never felt better. I think this year for Anthony’s mind more than anything was huge.”
Always a red flag
France still carries severe reverse splits. Which is probably why the Plumber is getting the start and the LH Cabbage or Escobar is not.
Also the Angels are 3 for 16 against the French. With Rengiblow hitting the only HR against him.
France on Bastille Day
Viva 🇫🇷
Glad they are giving Stefanic another go, and Cabbage an opportunity. If the concerns to date have been their gloves, they’re not going to get a real chance to challenge those doubts in PCL parks, which can be rough. The team needs the offense.
oooh, Moore and Neto!
All the additions are nice.
Forgive me, but I don’t recall Stefanic being productive in MLB and I know he’s had multiple chances. Why is it good that he’s coming up? How is this better than keeping Fletch and hoping Fletch can play better like he did in prior years?
They’ve never handed him the job, he’s just had spot starts here and there.
Stefanic has 80 plate appearances in the MLB.
Renfifo seriously stays up?? Fletch should be in that role. Who cares if Gifo can switch hit when Both sides suck. Crazy
They love Heefo’s first pitch swinging
He definitely fits right in with that.
Jeebz. CtPG and Pharma sales departments. The two places where being cute and white are seen as primary skills.
You see CtPG and Pharma sales….I thought he was talking about porn. Renfifo stays up. Fletch should be in that role. Gifo can switch hit. Both sides suck.
If we were to trade “someone” to the Doyers……need has went up along with the time frame……. If we were to do something like that.
https://twitter.com/ByJackHarris/status/1679951347192418309?s=20
What a contrast between the Dodgers and Angels! I am sure if Kershaw were on the Angels, they would not have permitted hime to communicate his injury like he did.
Huh? . The players can say whatever they want. Its their bodies.
Both Asstros and Angels must have some language in their contracts that they are not allowed to talk about their injuries without their respective FO permission. Of course, there is an exception that Rendon does not even need that language in that he would just raise his middle finger every time media reporter approaches him.
as Kiyotchan says, the FO won’t let them discuss injuries. Why? Because, I believe, it’s some sort of stupid strategy so other teams won’t know, either for game knowledge or trade value.
Or HiPAA or some such legal mumbo jumbo thing
No Angel player has uttered this phrase in a long, long, long, long time.
Dr. ElAttrache is the surgeon who performed TJ procedure and the repair of congenital split patella surgery on Sho, by the way. I am certain that Sho is a big fan of Dr. ElAttrache.
Please lord, let’s fleece the Doyers for a little extra since they “need” Ohtani now. Don’t wait till July 31st. Bring me the prospects!
Neto is back! And leading off!!!
Heart of the team is back… Good news
And this makes me very happy. But then I saw that Rengifo is batting fifth and playing third base.
On no. Where’s Cabbage, move Mous to 3B.
Neto is b’ack. Welcome to Stefanic. Fletch is (most likely) DFA’d.
https://twitter.com/SamBlum3/status/1679963798080479232
Cabbage is up!
The only problem is we dont have a RH centerfielder to hit against Lefties so either Moniak is going to play against LHP now or Squid will get the start out there.
Moore is back. Welcome to Cabbage.
https://twitter.com/LAAngelsPR/status/1679965570282983424
Rendon, Adell and Bachman now officially to the IL
I remember Bachman being pulled during his last outing, so I am not surprised. I hope he is not out for too long. Adell’s injury is oblique, so I estimate he would be out for at least 6 weeks. Have no idea regarding Rendon; might be appropriate to assume that he would not be back for the rest of the season, and consider trading for legit 3rd baseman. Rengifo is definitely not the answer.
They may be still be able to option Fletch without DFAing him.
You are correct based on the following twitter from Angels PR.
No I don’t think I am because they would need a 40 man spot for Cabbage . So it’s probably the same deal as before . they may have actually made the move days ago and since there were no takers Fletch is back off of the 40 man.
Man I hope Neto stays healthy.
MLBTR confirmed that Fletch cleared waivers and outrighted to SLC to clear a spot for Cabbage.
Nobody lept at that 49 OPS+ and weak ass arm? Does no one appreciate grit in the MLB any more?
One thing Fletch proved is that having our AAA team in SLC isn’t going to work unless they just “tax” 150 points of OPS from every player who comes up from there.
Fletcher is being outrighted to the minors, which means that the Angels are again placing him on waivers. If Fletcher clears waivers – and he undoubtedly will – then the Angels can remove him from the 40-man roster and assign him to the minors. Fletcher has accrued enough service time to refuse assignment and become a free agent. But if he refuses assignment, he would forfeit the guaranteed money remaining in his contract.
Same as before although Fletch is getting closr to enough service time ( I think its 5 years?) to refuse the outright assignment and take the money with him. I’m sure the Angels were getting pretty close to that anniversary date.
Yes, when he was called up he needed only 61 more days of service time. So it’s probably around 50 days now.
According to BBRef, it is 32 days. (51-19)
Ohtani hitting ninth? Did Nevin have a stroke?
He is hitting in 2 hole. You probably thought the last box was 9 hole; it is for his pitching function.
Nothing Nevin does surprises me anyone. I’m glad I misread that.
batting 2 and 10, hoping no one will notice, Bobby V. lent him the mustache
😆
Man we all need someone in our lives who believes in us unconditionally the way the Angels believe in Luis Rengifo. Good grief.
True. Although I haven’t ruled out blackmail as an alternative answer.
LMAO. Blackmail is super plausible
Only explanation I can come up with is that Rengifo is unpredictable. Since our expectations are low for him with his Mendoza line batting average, the opponent pitchers would be lulled into throwing meatballs to him, and he would surprise us with occasional good results. I miss Urshela.
Fk me that’s a 2022 style line up. Way to go sad donkeys. You’ve got the team you wanted deep down in your large intestines. Maybe you can bitch us past 100 losses? Let’s see.
Every time I see Squid up to bat I think of some of your screen names and laugh.
Lots of ex Angel sludge news:
https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2023/07/athletics-outright-tyler-wade.html
https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2023/07/ryan-tepera-opts-out-rangers-free-agent.html
Yet still no word on our current MASH unit of Moore, Rendon, Neto, Adell and Drury.
Come on peoples we got a game to play tonight.
https://twitter.com/Angels/status/1679932638239539200?s=20
Brutal, but expected replies.
Damn. We are an angry bunch.
Cant really blame them.
My mama always said “if you don’t have something nice to say … say it anyway”
😆
swing.wav – Fans: “His swing sucks.”
“ALL OF OUR PLAYERS ARE HURT. I AM A SAD SACK PIECE OF SHIT WITH THE MIND OF A FOUR YEAR OLD. I AM ANGRY AT THE C LIST SCRUB WHO HAS TO PLAY BECAUSE EVERYONE IS HURT. I ASLO WHINE “WHERE WAS GOD?” WHEN HORRIBLE THINGS HAPPEN TO ME EVEN THOUGH I’M AN ATHIEST AND BLAME ARTE FOR CAUSING ALL THESE INJURIES. SOMEONE BRING ME A BEER AND SOME ICE CREAM!”
If the C in C List stands for Jay-Man’s favorite word, I’m all for it.
It’s nice seeing the irony bros commenting together again
A little help here:
How many players can we name who were traded by a team then resigned with that team later?
Aroldis Chapman was the first I thought of. Traded by the Yanks, signed back with them that off season.
Greinke with the Royals.
there was a decade long gap in between.
Rickey Henderson.He did it 4 times.
You did say “later”…
In a walk-year Rickey Henderson was traded by Oakland to Toronto at the trade deadline in 1993. The Jays won the World Series, and in the off-season Henderson signed with Oakland.
This Ohtani sweepstakes talk is really getting crazy – all over the interwebzzzz
Tons of fan bases huffing the “cope-eee-yum” stuff.
Did the Angels miss their Ohtani extension window for good? Was it because they banking that 2021 was a fluke season and it wouldn’t happen again?
https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/32332296/shohei-ohtani-very-open-long-term-contract-los-angeles-angels-four-mlb-seasons?platform=amp
If true, team leadership should turn in their red polos. That’s malfeseance at it’s worst.
This was probably the last time Ohtani may have spoken glowingly about extending with the Angels. Everything after that has seemed to turn into “I just want to win…it sucks to lose.”
That is the only time I disagreed with the way Ippei (I admire Ippei’s expert interpretation 99% of the time) translated what Sho said. He simply said that it was frustrating to lose. (He used Japanese word “悔しい”.) Use of “Suckage’ connotes that he is blaming someone else, while it could also mean that he expressed his frustration that he could not do more to win.
Considering how humble our unicorn is I would think the later translation.
Shortly after the ESPN article, there was this too:
https://apple.news/AaXN-PdNzRzyi9f2aK7AATw
There are multiple offers on the table…I guarantee it.
As much as you all hate Arte…he is still a billionaire.
Negotiations are what you do to make those billions.
That’s why I say Ohtani’s agent is playing hard to get.
The one thing this embarrassing organization does will is keep things in house.
This is an organization that
seems toactively hides information. Contracts talks, the most basic injury information, the inner workings (or lack of) the front office, stadium deals/local city government, several others….let’s be honest, no other team in professional American sports would hide for this long an “ISSUE” with one of its main players like what’s been done with Stassi. It’s a thing, and we know with the minimal amount of humans that exist in the front office,theyHE controls what gets out. His arrogance and lack of transparency coupled with the countless number of major past issues surrounding this team and his obvious distrust of trust media, we have no idea what this idiot is doing. I agree with you, he likely is actively negotiating with his people behind closed doors. We also know his one go-to move is to give out HUGE long term contracts…unfortunately most do not end well.I don’t know how Jerry Colangelo put up with him when he was a minority stake owner for him during their DBacks ownership days.
Why? because he complained about Colangelo burdening the team with long term deferred payouts to free agents? if I was a minority owner I probably would have been pissed too.
Less than 7 1/2 hours to go before Angels game and 4 hours to go for the first MLB game of the latter half to commence, the quirky portion of Kiyotchan declares that the explanation why Dusty chose JP France as starting pitcher tonight was finally identified thanks to the twitter world.
Happy Bastille Day!
I love how all this “Angels had Ohtani for 6 years now and couldn’t do squat with him” punditry is lacking a lot of nuance. But I guess you can’t have a lot of nuance in 280 characters or on TV where you’re outdoing each other for quotable quotes.
2018 – Ohtani the pitcher was shut down in JUNE due to an elbow tear and missed 2 months (as a pitcher). Tried the band-aid of platelet injections, tried to make him pitch some more, but ultimately shut down and ended up needed TJ surgery. Finished the season with a more than respectable .925 OPS as a hitter and won a well-deserved AL ROY. But he wasn’t a full-time 2-way player.
2019 – Ohtani was a full-time DH (since he can’t pitch), finishing the season with a .848 OPS and 18 homers. Shut down in September due to needing a knee surgery. So the Angels got a mid-tier DH in Ohtani for this year.
2020 – pitched for the first time since 2019, couldn’t even get one single out in his first game against the A’s. Tried to pitch again against the Astros, and ended up lasting into the second inning. Shut down pitching again for good when it was revealed he has an elbow strain after his 2nd game, so no choice but to DH the rest of the season. As a DH, he ended up the shortened season with a sad .657 OPS. So the Angels got a horrible DH for 2020.
His 2020 was so bad in fact, that there were talks in the offseason of whether the Angels should give up on his 2-way prowess, because so far, it wasn’t working, that the Angels needed to decide if he would just be a pitcher or a DH moving forward. The “promise” of Babe Ruth Ohtani was nothing but a
mirage.
Don’t get me wrong, I would love for the Angels to re-sign him, but I’m also highly annoyed at this almost delighted punditry that he be traded and go elsewhere. It feels like almost everyone in the baseball world is inwardly cheering for the Angels to suck so badly the next 2 weeks so there’s no question Ohtani would be a Dodger or Yankee next season regardless if the Angels trade him or not.
I think the punditry says the Angels were not good enough any of his years here and that is true. You shouldn’t be annoyed by that because of 2020 where he was bad as he recovered from surgery and played in empty stadiums.
Yes, the Angels weren’t good enough, but it wasn’t like this 2021-2023 version of Ohtani is what the Angels got from the moment he started here either.
Like any MLB player, he’s one injury away from being shut down for an extended period. Factor in that he plays two-ways, has somewhat of a history of injuries, and will be 30 next year, the odds of him landing on the IL go up dramatically each season.
Very true. He is one major injury from long term IL.
However, during his rarely allowed interviews, one of the common themes of his answers is to play whole season without major injury, and he will have done it for 3 straight years if he plays the rest of the season. As everyone knows, he worships Ichiro, who played combined 28 seasons without major injury. Ichiro was famous for his workout regimen off season and during season by utilizing his own sets of exercise machines both during Arizona spring training days and back in Kobe while he was back in Japan. As far as we know, he does not consume alcohol or chew or smoke tobacco products. He does not go out for meals. He goes through similar workout regimen that Ichiro used to and he sleeps a lot. Therefore, unless something freakish happens, I don’t see why he can’t continue to complete free of major injury seasons for another 5-6 years.
“If it’s on the internet, it’s the truth” So there’s little risk in putting out bullshit because there’s always someone who will accept it verbatim.
The issue for me remains that I don’t see how any team can be successful long term with roughly $90M in annually payroll obligations (for multiple years) to two players in their 30’s. It’s just high risk and ultimately foolish.
If Cohen wants to spend more than $300M in annual payroll before being taxed by MLB, more power to him. I’d bet that the Rays win more games than the Mets over the next 5 years with less than a third of the payroll.
Preach! It’s the same cycle we’ve been on for years and it hasn’t worked out.
I agree with everything you say. National pundits have been calling the Angels from selfish to horrendous and everything in between since last Saturday’s loss.
This is a great post in that his 2-way prowess did not appear until 2021. Shutting down pitching in 2020 turned out to be an important factor in retooling his pitching portion. It is often said that it takes almost 2 seasons after TJ surgery to regain presurgery arm strength. And I noticed that he started to develop and employ his breaking balls (probably on advice from Yu Darvish) rather than fastballs and split fingers, which would stress his elbow. He has learned along the way how to stay healthy throughout whole season after trial and error of the first three.
BTW, some Nostradumbus was proposing an Ohtani trade w/Mets that included:
Ohtani & Rendon to Mets
Mets #1 & #2 prospects (3B & SS) two other top ten prospects including a C & P (All four allegedly blocked by veterans on the big club) and a couple of other players tossed in.
I hate to say it, but this would net more than one comp pick via the QO option.
Besides, just because you get traded a player doesn’t mean you can’t sign him back (ala Willie McGee). Pipe dream, I know.
BUT, this was something pulled out of a “Sports writer” nether orifice, so…….
The Mets farm system is actually worse than ours. A pox on Arte’s house if we trade with a team that has a shitty farm system.
The Halos would do their due diligence. You’d have to imagine any MiLB SS in the Mets system would be blocked by Lindor. Just because a farm system doesn’t “Rank” well doesn’t mean they don’t produce any talent.
Due diligence – just like we did prior to acquiring GMJ and Vernon Wells?
Due negligence?
The team needs to rebuild basically in the same window Rendon’s contract runs so attaching him to Ohtani makes no sense to me. What are we gonna go for it in 2024 with Rendon off the books? And sign or trade for another albatross to fill the void?
I agree. If you attach Rendon’s contract to anything, it will become toxic. If Ohtani is traded, Rendon should not be attached.