The Lucas Giolito deal gets called the number one best trade before the trade deadline, as seen from the White Sox perspective at least. The article did call Giolito the best rental starter on the market. Did the Angels get fleeced or was this a good trade?
Liam Hendricks can’t catch a break. He just had Tommy John surgery. James Kaprelian, of the As, just had your basic season ending shoulder surgery. Marcus Stroman went on the IL with right hip inflammation. Domingo German is on the restricted list after agreeing to go to inpatient alcohol abuse treatment. This may be “pre-hab” because he apparently had some kind of “incident” the day before yesterday. Bo Bichette is on the injured list with right patellar tendonitis.
Steve Cohen thinks Billy Eppler did a phenomenal job in the Mets’ recent fire sale. Trey Mancini got designated for assignment by the Cubs. He’s very likely to clear waivers.
Photo credit: Rex Fregosi
If Ohtani wants to win, I expect nothing less than excellence tonight.
I’m sure he is listening and considering your opinion as he prepares himself for tonight’s game 😂
And a CGSO
without a hit
Or a walk
Or on base with dropped 3rd strike.
Plus 3 hits including 2 HR
“Brandon Drury is going to play at least two more games as part of his rehab assignment. #Angels want to see him swing without any hesitation.”
https://twitter.com/RhettBollinger/status/1687227260527333376?t=6Y7TXMbS3GPoI93JsuS1hA&s=19
“Mike Trout is expected to progress to hitting off a tee as soon as today. He had previously taken dry swings on Monday and Tuesday. Nevin said the ramp up should be pretty quick once he starts hitting a baseball.”
https://twitter.com/RhettBollinger/status/1687228129134182400?t=0imB1P445yZN3eHua-BgTw&s=19
C’mon back boys.
“Angels want to see [Drury] swing without any hesitation.”
Unfortunately, El Paso’s pitcher wasn’t very accommodating as he threw four wide ones to Drury in his first at bat.
In his second at bat Drury, without hesitation, hit an opposite field home run.
Well, here we go. The teams done exactly what I DIDN’T want. Don’t trade Ohtani? Check. Desperately hope for the chance to overpay Ohtani for a decade? Check. Desperately trade a pile of prospects for the slim chance at maybe making the play offs so we can get our dicks punched in by the Astros or Rays? Check. Desperately hope this experience convinces Ohtani to let us fk ourselves instead of going to the Doyers? Check.
All this effort spent so that we maybe have a shot at….. doing something stupid.
Ah well. It is what it is now. So I’m gonna hope we get super hot and smash our way into the play offs and then go all “Phillies” and advance. Long term this whole thing is stupid, but hell, sometimes stupid is really fun. I can enjoy some stupid fun. Plus I can root for Neto and Moniak etc etc and hope for future goodness.
But holy cow am I getting visions of a future where the already ultra SDE bitch tone around here ramps to 11 and goes full Fox New/CNN style runny mascara screechy when things work normally and Ohtani is on another team next year while we sneeringly monitor the progress of the prospects we traded to see which jar of hot piss fills up first so we can drink it with a chaser of “I told you so! I hate you dad!”. Next couple years could be great for Sad Donkey.
Meanwhile I will wallow in mediocrity and be happy if we finish over .500 and PTP keeps pushing to develop the farm we have left. Onward to championishness!
Well said. On point!
Nice to see you back! Solid commentary, with a bit 🤔 of attitude. Agree we aren’t likely going anywhere. And we gave up too much.
We now officially have absolutely the worst farm. By far. ( well maybe not official yet, but there’s no doubt). Likely to remain there for the foreseeable future, given what we gave up, combined with our typical poor drafting, poorly funded scouting and development.
But, hey! We’re all Angles fans here, and maybe Trout, Drury, O’Hoppe and others all come back and kick ass, all our new shiny acquisitions exceed expectations, and we win the whole thing! Angels hopium!
TOR 60-50
BOS 57-51
NYY 56-52
SEA 56-52
LAA 56-53
LAA vs SEA – 4 game series starting today
HOU @ NYY – 4 game series starting today
TOR @ BOS – 3 game series starting tomorrow
Not to being a prisoner of the moment and be too hyperbolic … but … these 4 days will be quite important.
Rangers vs Marlins will also be pretty competitive this weekend. At least, Sandy Alcantara is projected to pitch on Sunday, and he has been nails in his last 2 outings.
I know it goes against my uber-optimistic persona, but I have little faith that we will catch TEX or HOU.
Hence, why I’ll be rooting for a HOU sweep of NYY.
It was entertaining to read the comprehensive spectrum of dooms of Rangers fans in X world when Scherzer gave up 3 runs right off the bat (pun intended). They are deathly scared of Houston only a game behind. Of course, it’s not the fans who play baseball, but it was fun.
Will be curious to see how tired Javier would look today on nationally televised game on Fox. I will not be surprised to see if MFYankees win this game tonight. For some reason, I am not that scared of the Bronx No Bombers for the rest of the season.
BTW, the Fox MLB game will lose 1 to 10 at least in terms of ratings to the 1st preseason NFL game Jets vs Browns. Will Aaron Rodgers guarantee Super Bowl win tonight?
Like I said, Javier looks tired.
Did not even last 5 innings. I would be concerned.
I don’t believe that English isn’t your first language!
Important series yes; but, the month of August is make or break time. Angels play 27 games in August. Do you know how many are vs under .500 teams? If you guessed 3, you win the prize. Sept is easier but August is the gauntlet.
Texas: 6 against < 0.500 teams this month, only 3 in September.
Blue Jays: only 3 against <0.500 teams this month.
Houston: only 2 against <0,500 teams this month.
Mariners: 10 against <0.500 teams this month. only 5 in September.
According to this schedule, Mariners are going to win the division title. 😆
Did the Angels get fleeced or was this a good trade?
Well let’s see. What’s Gioloito’s ERA since being with the Angels? Something around 7.5?
Yep. Exceptional trade for the White Sox. Typical waste of a trade when the only real move was to trade Ohtani. Six possible excellent prospects, of who I would imagine at least two or three end up being really good players. Something to look forward to starting next year instead of having literally the worst farm in all of MLB.
And a fair number of years of losing to look forwards to. That would even be something if Perry would let it happen, but we all know that he won’t, nor would Arte.
“Six possible excellent prospects, of who I would imagine at least two or three end up being really good players.”
ugh… is there a new definition of “excellent” that I’m not aware of?
Maybe I’ll do this research…someday…..but out of the 100+ draft choices the Angels have had in the last 10 years, it would surprise me if more than 10% actually generated positive WAR over during their playing years. In addition, it’s likely less than 3% of prospects during that timeframe were voted to an All-Star game once.
If one of the six we just traded is an All-Star level major league player, I’d be stunned.
Didn’t we have to trade away guys who were likely from that 10%?
I mean, it wasn’t like we put all our prospects into a giant claw machine, and the White Sox used the claw to pick up a random prospect out of the 100.
They only traded with us in exchange for what they considered the top end of our prospects.
So saying out that we had 100+ prospects and only 10% are good, so it is 90% likely that the ones we traded were “bad” is dodgy math.
Well sir or madam, the insult that the math was dodgy must not stand. Therefore, using The Code Duello, covering the practice of dueling and points of honor, you are challenged to pistols at 20 paces.
For the record, I was a student of the esteemed Theoretical Physicist Yogi Berra. Using his theorem that “Baseball is 90 percent mental. The other half is physical”, the analysis above regarding our traded prospects is beyond reproach.
Yes. The powerful sense of “sad boy with pissed jeans and wet sneakers” that drives the base of “real Angels baseball fanzmen” seems to have taken hold of ol’Lucas. It’s the kind of awesome transformation we beg for every time we get a higher profile player so we have a new turd to throw on the bitchfire and keep our angst warm.
But we didn’t get fleeced. We traded a catching prospect we have blocked for a guy with a positive ERA plus heading into “the race”. We could have traded for Verlander and the general sense of limp dick that Angels fans have would have caused Justin to be out a year with Lupus and Kate Upton to wake up one morning looking like Joy Behar. It’s the power of our JuJu.
Wow, Juju and Lupus. What a transformation!
The Wetting.
https://twitter.com/Rbasir15/status/1611637210104885250
Today’s lineup
2B Rengifo
DH Ohtani
1B Cron
3B Moose
LF Grichuk
CF Moniak
RF Renfroe
C Thaiss
SS Neto
My earlier post (screenshot attached) is quite timely considering where Moniak is placed in the lineup.
Mickey has a 1.286 OPS when he bats in the #6 spot (14 ABs).
Back to S/L/R/L/R/L/R/L/R.
https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/61de76aa-0926-4590-99b8-c5f70887f730
https://youtu.be/B7sEtc326kM?t=20
Nevin did his daily ritual of reviewing crashingthepearlygates. Keep it coming he says.
Phil loves Rengifo batting leadoff.
It’s not like Rengifo has thrived at leadoff and been our best non-Ohtani hitter for the last month, right?
Rengifo at leadoff (48 ABs)
.333 / .396 / .625
As far as super-injured Angels lineups go, I like this one
No Drury today
He struck out twice at SLC last night and went 0 for 4.
Did they call him up or is he still in SLC
He is not on the lineup even as reserve, so he is probably still in SLC.
trAdition
Taking a page out of the book of “GhostGuest” with his Foundation Building Materials song series, I am going to start a BANDAI NAMCO “Blasts” of the Game series…
Here I will select a player or players from each team that day who I think will hit a HR. With this I am not attempting to pick every HR in the game, rather specific players who I feel are likely to hit one or more … There may be others in addition. Also, mind you, I am NOT picking who will win the game, I am only picking HR’s here.. Not the same..
For tonights game here are my “Bandai Namco” picks for “Blasts” of the game :
Angels
Shohei Ohtani
Luis Rengifo
Mariners
Dylan Moore
Scherzer today, 2 innings, 3 runs, 6 hits…so far. He might not give up anything else
White Sox had numerous opportunities to knock Max out in the first 2 innings. Now he has pitched already eligible for quality start.
He ain’t so tuff……
Scherzer’s first game as a Ranger: 6 IP, 3 runs, 7 hits, 9 Ks, 2 BBs
Giolito’s first game as an Angel: 5 1/3 IP, 3 runs, 6 hits, 5 Ks, 1 BB
Scherzer’s will be looked on as a success since Texas scored 4 behind him while the Angels only got 1 run in that Toronto loss.
How much you wanna bet that Scherzer doesn’t give up 9 runs in 3 1/3 in his second start as a Ranger?
Be nice if his next start was in ATL.
At noon in the heat of the day…..
I would not mind that happens in his next 2 starts, particularly on 8/14.
He won’t give up 9 runs.
He’ll give up 10.
Both Lorenzen and Flaherty did well as starters for their new teams today.
De Jong not so much in that he missed covering for 3rd base when Orioles placed a sac bunt to Chappy and not seeing De Jong at 3rd base, threw the baseball away over Vladdy Jr’s head, allowing the runner from 2nd to score. Good for us Angels fans, though.
Stay healthy my friend
https://twitter.com/JeffFletcherOCR/status/1687141796319809536?s=20
This needs to get fixed. Can’t we at least get the fundamentals of the game covered somewhere in the minors?
https://twitter.com/SamBlum3/status/1686802719665778704?s=20
Not even Big Brain Perry can fix a Billy inEppler pick
Criticizing Eppler for drafting Adams is valid. But Adams has spent five years in the Angels system (I am not counting the Covid year), and yet he is still deficient in very elementary aspects of playing baseball. That isn’t Eppler’s or any former or current front-office executive’s fault.
How much can we attribute the game’s performance for nerves? First MLB game, team in the playoff hunt?
Definitely nerves play a roll – but these are Little League fundamentals such as throwing to the right base and cutoff man. We have seen too much of this from Angel young players to have it be a random occurrence associated with nerves. This is a complete and complete and ongoing failure of the development of minor league players which is my biggest criticism of Arte and this Org. They are not investing in the minor league system bc those dollars do not immediately put fans in the seats. But any good baseball Org knows of the importance of drafting and developing young players. This is the main reason I want new ownership.
Another article to strengthen my thought that Apple may be thinking of assisting certain potential owner with first name initial “M” and last name initial “S” to purchase the Angels. I am also in the camp of ‘this is Arte’s last season of ownership regardless of the result.’
https://appleinsider.com/articles/23/07/31/apple-rumored-to-be-a-potential-espn-strategic-partner
We should be so lucky. I hope we can all say goodbye to Arte, and thank him for being a truly horrible owner. Starts from the top on down. Someone new is obligatory. I wonder if they would keep Perry. I lost respect for him for. not making the right decision whether Arte agreed or not, and trading Ohtani. The Angels would have to play way over .500 ball to even have a remote chance of getting a wild card.
The goal should be to at least become league average. With something like this and the other deficiencies this organization has. At least be average.
Agreed. Middle of the pack would be a huge improvement.
That’s what I find frustrating. You wouldn’t accept that from 11 and 12 year old league players. I was a better technical outfielder at 14 than Jordyn Adams and he has been playing baseball professionally for 5-6 years.
He probably never saw 20,000 people all looking at him at once. He should have gotten over that after that first big play, though.
I see what you both are saying, but really small sample size. Everyone has a bad game. I hope it turns out to be a fluke.
I’ll assume it’s part of his software. trAdition.
I’ll take my bad assumption and apologize if I’m wrong.
sample sizes aren’t congruent but here are some Moniak OPS numbers —
.852 OPS batting #1 (96 ABs)
.847 OPS #3 (55 ABs)
.667 OPS #4 (21 ABs)
1.286 OPS #6 (14 ABs)
1.064 OPS #7 (10 ABs)
1.822 OPS #8 (9 ABs)
vs RHP
3B Rengifo
DH Ohtani
2B Drury
CF Moniak
1B Cron
LF Grichuk
RF Renfroe
C Thaiss
SS Neto
vs LHP
3B Rengifo
DH Ohtani
1B Cron
LF Grichuk
2B Drury
RF Renfroe
CF Moniak
C Wallach
SS Neto
Platooning Rengifo and Moose at 3rd, means Moniak at leadoff and Moose cleanup vs RHP.
The main issue with a platoon at 3rd is that Rengifo, one of our hottest hitters, would lose a majority of the playing time if he only starts vs LHP.
SEA is starting 4 RHPs in this series. A strict platoon results in 4 starts for Moose, 0 for Rengifo. There’s obvious situational nuance that should be used in building lineups, but Rengifo should be our starting 3rd baseman IMO.
Several Thursday morning intriguing games,
Phillies vs Marlins: Both teams still thick in WC races in NL with Braves being practically “given” NL East crown. Our ol’ friend, Lorenzen has started after being traded for the Phillies, who have reportedly converted to 6 man rotation.
Rangers vs White Sox: Scherzer’s first start as Rangers against former Angel Troussaint. Assuming Rangers on 5 man rotation, Scherzer will face the Angels on 8/14.
One curious early afternoon stanza game:
Orioles vs Blue Jays: Gotta give it to Blue Jays for winning it for Bo last night though much of the blame should go to Sho’s high school baseball BFF, Fujinami who plunked Chappie and Jensen with bases loaded twice. Some Angels fans applauded Fujinami for his revenge acts for Blue Jays hurting Ward and HBPing Sho, but Orioles fans were horrified. Flaherty’s first game as Oriole against tough Gaussman. It will be another closely battled game, and I personally would like the Orioles to win.
Fuji completely sold that game last night.
We NEED the Orioles to pull this one out
Fujinami was considered a ‘better’ pitcher, who was a first round draft pick out of high school along with Sho. (Four teams selected him; by lottery, Hanshin Tigers got him. Only Nippon Ham Fighters selected Sho because it was widely known that Sho was going to MLB.) After mediocre 2017 season, Fuji underwent pitching form alteration, which caused complete loss of control, and he has not regained it since then.
There have been people in Japan who thought that he did not work diligently enough like Darvish or Sho, but this comparison may be little too harsh. He also appears to be mentally too sensitive; he was visibly upset with tears in his eyes in a game in Japan after throwing ‘dangerous pitches close to batters head’.
https://youtu.be/tShH-ySCXGE
Fuji will pitch some amazing inning or two, but will also break Orioles fans hearts in others.
I’ve watched enough of Fuji this season to confirm that his pitches are awesome and he has literally no idea where he’s throwing them.
He has the yips. Not sure how “yips” translates in Japanese.
In English: Mitch Williams?
They know ‘yips’, which have been well known amongst Japanese professional golfers. In fact, one of the Japanese articles I read specifically used the term to suspect if ‘yips’ is one of the causes of his lack of control.
The Orioles did their job. Now it is Angels turn to consummate their business as consummate baseball team.
peep my new post ! We are in remarkable sync right now hahahahah
Addressing your question on the Giolito trade – I didn’t like it frim the moment I heard about it. A 2 month rental of a player who has pitched pretty poorly on the road this season (look at his splits) is arguably little better than what the Angels already had in their system. And Perry gave up two of the best prospects on a barren farm to get him. That said – I understand why he did it and under the circumstances cannot he too critical.
I agree with Steve Cohen. Epperson did an excellent job collecting valuable young players. I believe the Mets are way better today for the long term. I wish the Angels would have taken a similar philosophy.
Great contrast between introvert Moreno and Cohen, who is courageous to admit his mistake in front of tough NY media and be clear about their long term plan, lowering Mets fans expectations for at least a season. I am still curious about the Mets going aggressive on Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who is now projected to be the best pitcher in NPB for three years in a row and will ‘only’ cost $200 MM x 7 year with one time $20 MM posting transaction fee.
Despite their mediocre W/L record thus far, by turning into big buyers at trade deadline, both Padres and Cubs have been perfect in August. I know it is only small sample, but I believe both of them are serious contenders for playoff spots. FanGraphs predict their chances at 45.7% and 34.5% respectively.
I am hoping that some of that good buyer mojo would rub off on the Angels this weekend.
So where is “home” going forward? Since Anaheim isn’t his “home” will he suck in Anaheim as well? Should we expect his home awesome sauce to only happen in Chi-town?
I thought about that too. On a 2 month rental- where is home?
this is deep.
This and other bullshittery.
“Home is where you wear your hat”
I didn’t like the trade either for the same reasons. Not sure Verlander would have come here but I would have preferred trading for him over Giolito, if you’re going to give up your 2 top prospects. At least in that scenario the Mets are eating 90% of his salary and you have him for the next 2 years.
The Giolito trade sucks, no doubt. It’s a high-stakes gamble that is unlikely, but like you said, it is understandable under the circumstances, because the options were trade Ohtani, do nothing, or trade the farm for Giolito/Lopez.
Anyone thinking the Angels could have gotten Scherzer or Verlander instead is delusion (I’m not saying you think that). Neither of those players were going to waive their no-trade clauses to go to a team with an outside shot of making the playoffs. They were holding out for teams that are very likely to go to the playoffs.
The SoCal Seraphs scored 10 runs in their three-game set against the Atlanta Quickretes. Here is the list of how many runs our individual Angels produced:
1.75 Grichuk
1.50 Rengifo
1.50 Escobar
1.25 Wallach
1.25 Renfroe
1.00 Ohtani
0.75 Neto
0.75 Cron
0.25 Moniak
As it has been all season long, put the new guy in the lineup and he will produce — here is Grichuk leading the team in ARP. When Drury comes back, Nevin should find a way to keep Rengifo in the lineup since Heef-o has been near the top of these ARP lists for some time now. The Brave pitchers ate Moniak up this series. I hope he is able to regurgitate himself and significantly contribute again to the team’s run production.
And here is the Actual Runs Allowed per Batters Faced update. I went through all of Leone’s games to catch him up and include him on the list.
0.06 Moore (127)
0.08 Estevez (184)
0.08 Soriano (94)
0.09 Bachman (77)
0.10 Ohtani (488)
0.10 Sandoval (452)
0.10 Silseth (124)
0.10 Weiss (25)
0.10 Joyce (21)
0.11 Detmers (434)
0.11 Canning (357)
0.12 Giolito (552)
0.12 Anderson (447)
0.12 Lopez (190)
0.13 Barria (272)
0.13 Leone (127)
0.14 Webb (133)
0.15 Loup (142)
0.15 Wantz (96)
0.16 Devenski (140)
0.17 Reyes (34)
0.18 Herget (71)
0.18 Mederos (17)
0.19 Suarez (123)
0.23 Ingram (14)
With Giolito’s implosion against the Braves and Anderson’s recent string of quality outings, they now have matching ARA/BFs for the season. Silseth has thrived in the spot starter/long reliever role while Davidson got himself DFA’d and Barria is quickly losing his luster.
Given where Weiss is slotted, why don’t they keep him on the team? He has looked much more effective in terms of stuff the past couple months than I recall from before.
The Foundation Building Materials’ keystone of the game tonight versus the Seattle Mariners is “Mean Street” by Van Halen.
Now that the Braves are past us, the time has come to finally make a break from our routine of losing season after losing season. We’re sick of these four walls — it’s time for the Angels to get mean.
As Pineapple12 explains down below, the Angels need to win two and lose one for the rest of this season to catch that WC3.
It’s time to turn hunter into hunted and strike those poor boys down.
https://youtu.be/U2R2KXNQR1M
“….strike those poor boys down.” Ha ha ha.
I did the math after yesterday’s loss and am punting on the idea of winning the division and WC1-2. Our most realistic hope for the playoffs is snagging the WC3 in 5 team chase. We will need to finish with a minimum of 90 wins.
AL Playoff Picture
East = BAL / TB
West = TEX / HOU
Central = MIN / CLE
WC1 = TB / BAL
WC2 = HOU / TEX
WC3 = TOR / BOS / NYY / SEA / LAA
Angels are 56-53
53 games to play ➡️ 34-19 = 90-72
vs SEA 3-1
vs SF 2-1
@ HOU 1-2
@ TEX 2-1
vs TB 2-1
vs CIN 2-1
@ NYM 2-1
@ PHI 1-2
@ OAK 3-0
vs BAL 1-2
vs CLE 3-1
@ SEA 2-1
vs DET 3-0
@ TB 1-2
@ MIN 2-1
vs TEX 2-1
vs OAK 3-0
= 35-18 + 56-53 =
91-71
Today’s roster
DH – Ohtani
C – Thaiss / Wallach
1B – Cron / Moose
2B – Drury / Rengifo
SS – Neto / Rengifo
3B – Rengifo / Moose / Escobar
LF – Grichuk
CF – Moniak / Adams
RF – Renfroe
SP – Ohtani, Detmers, Giolito, Sandoval, Anderson, Silseth
BP – Estevez, Moore, Lopez, Soriano, Loup, Leone, Webb, Barria
Estimating IL ETAs =
Chris Devinski = 8/7
Mike Trout = 8/11
Griffin Canning = 8/18
Logan O’Hoppe = 8/28
Ben Joyce = 9/1
Anthony Rendone = ???
Sam Bachman = ???
I think you should flip Moose and Rengifo at 3B and it’s not even close.
not even close?
In July,
Rengifo
.315 / .398 / .671
6 HR
12 RBI
19:10 K:BB
(1/8 in August)
Moose
.272 / .306 / .457
4 HR
11 RBI
19:2 K:BB
(0/4 in August)
Small sample size proves nothing. Moose is an excellent fielder and a team leader. Rengifo is a bonehead with no baseball sense, who is best used as a utility player.
BTW, I’m not trying to pick a fight, I just disagree about one line item.
I know you aren’t picking a fight. No worries haha.
Moose can be a great leader from the bench and I don’t mind finding him playing time in a platoon role. Rengifo has been far superior for the last month.
Rengifo (318 PAs)
63:34 K:BB
20% K rate
10.7% BB rate
Moose (108 PAs w/ Angels)
29:4 K:BB
27% K rate
3.7% BB rate
We need to ride Luis Rengifo’s hot streak for as long as possible.
Some of those series I’m not so optimistic like 3-1 against Seattle and winning against both the Giants and Reds. Even Cleveland. Hope you’re right.
Those weren’t necessarily my predictions, moreso my best guess in trying to find a reasonable route to 90 wins.
It’s not going to be easy.
That’s a plan with no margin for error. I’m just not sure the Angels can get to 90, but for all those Angels’ fanatics out there, here’s some hopium I’m selling.
There are 7 teams (excluding the Twins) currently ahead of the Angels in the playoff race. Your breakdown shows the Angels have 18 more games against those teams (3 HOU, 6 TEX, 6 TB, 3 BAL).
However, the Blue Jays have 26 more games against those teams (including the one they are currently playing vs the O’s.) That breaks down as 4 vs the Rangers and 22 vs the AL East teams. The Red Sox have 35 games against those teams (3 vs Rangers, 7 vs Astros, and the rest vs AL East).
The point is, the other wild card contenders have lots of games left against each other, particularly intra-division AL East games. The next two months, particularly September, has a lot of potential for shakeup in the standings, so when all is said and done, it might not take 90 games to reach the playoffs.
2022 Phillies: 87-75.
Also, 2022 AL WC3: 86-76.
I did not know that. it would be interesting to observe for the next few seasons how many wins do these WC3 teams end up with.
I realize this looks like hindsight but I never understood the allure of Giolito. He had one good year in I think 2019 and since has been hurt or only moderately effective. His motion isn’t exactly fluid. I get he might have been the best the Angels could do. By reputation, he should be their number 2 starter. He hasn’t looked like it yet and there is only a short time window left in the season. Let’s hope for the best. That’s all one can say. Lopez does look good and they won a game due to having him. That counts too.
He was 7th and 11th in the Cy Young race in 20 and 21 – so I find it hard to see how only 2019 was a good year. (By that standard, there are very very few ‘good’ pitchers in the league each year.)
2022 was an off year for him, but so far in 2023 it looks like he was returning to form (2019-2021), at least by the stats. Sure 115 ERA+ isn’t quite where he was at, but it is better(by a lot) than any other pitcher on the not named Shohei. One bad start for us hardly invalidates the 121 innings with the White Sox.
Giolito is a good pitcher. He’s not nor will ever be an “ace” that anchors a pitching staff. The problem is not Giolito, it’s the expectations of fans. Hell – half the posters yesterday wanted to DFA the guy.
He was not going to come here and “run the table” in every game he pitches. He’s going to have great games, good games, and really shitty games. My hope is that he has more great and good games than shitty games.
As for the trade itself, I remember when Newcomb was traded for Simmons – and there were many who expressed dismay regarding giving up a #1 or #2 pitcher for a defense-first shortshop (even though Simmons was as close to Ozzie as anyone has been in the last 20 years).
Fast forward – Newcomb washed out rapidly and in hindsight the trade was a strong win for the Halos.
Prospects break hearts. I’m perfectly fine trading a prospect for a player who has already graduated to the major league and is performing. The trade will look better if Giolito re-signs with the Angels in the offseason.
Good post. I agree about prospects generally. Also as to if Giolito re-signs and pitches better. I’m still wary of his actual talent level and the Angels would need the right price to extend him.
The other thing to consider is Giolito is merely a two month rental. We have not had much luck doing that in the past.
Yes. A third thing to consider is what would it have taken to get Lorenzen back instead of Giolito? Although again getting López makes a difference.
Small sample, but Lorenzen has pitched well as Phillies today.
Lorenzen ($8.5 MM x one year)
Giolito ($10.4 MM x one year)
T. Anderson ($13 MM x 3 year)
Lorenzen has pitched 8 innings, and may return to finish the game. Amazing. I think he wants to return to Anaheim.
Hindsight 20/20 on Zen vs Gio but the baseball story of the return both to the Angels and to OC would have been good
It’s been a long time since we’ve needed any rentals. We’re usually offloading guys.
I think it is all a balance. Sometimes you do trade a prospect for certain situations, and sometimes you don’t.
I agree that prospects are hit or miss. But at the same time, I can’t escape the logic that every single “good” player was once a prospect… so it can’t be true that “all prospects will suck, let’s trade them” like some on this site seem to promote.
And part of my thought process is that if we go the route of a team that likes to trade away prospects for proven big-leaguers, we can find ourselves in the position of having an empty farm and little young talent, being forced to sign FA to compete. And with this owner, we can see where that leads… to picking from the spare parts box and having a bunch of below replacement-level positions. We’ve been trapped in that circle for years.
I’ve been convinced that building up a whole bunch of strong young players from your system is the way to go, and then supplementing the few open positions with perhaps big FA signings is how you get over the top.
Your last paragraph does have a certain amount of truth to it … However, what it leaves out is that clubs make different kinds of decisions at different times in their histories, based upon their current talent level, their mix of youth and veterans, the budget etc… SO your prescrption, while probably a good philosophy overall, is not something that would necessarily hold true every year, or even say a certain 5 year window…
Right now because of the Ohtani situation and the uniqueness of Shohei, coupled with where Trout is in his career, it makes sense for the Angels to go all in. If not now, then when ? This is the perfect time, in fact the necessary time to trade a few prospects… If Shohei ends up leaving this off-season and two years down the road we have an older Trout and more kids around him it might make sense not to make those trades… The point is that one approach can’t be effectively applied for every team and every year…
I believe I did say that in my first paragraph when I said sometimes you do, sometimes you don’t. I didn’t leave out that certain clubs make different decisions at different times. I agree completely with that idea.
Now I know we apparently disagreed on what to do in this particular situation of this year’s trade deadline, and that is fine. In particular, I’d disagree with you saying that “This is the perfect time”. For example, the perfect time would be if we were 15 games above .500 and leading the AL West when we reached the trade deadline. THEN you trade away anyone necessary to win a WS.
However my assessment was that we had very low odds of making the playoffs, so I wanted to manage our assets differently and play my cards to become a much stronger team a few years from now. That’s all. In a couple of years, when the hypothetical young players we might have received would have become solid contributors, we might have a had a strong broad core of starters, and then we grab a few high-priced FA and go all the way.
But it is all risk. Every single young player that we might have acquired under my plan may have flopped. Sure that is possible. Just as it is possible that the current team misses the playoffs by 2 games, Ohtani walks out of here, and we don’t see a winning season again for 3 years.
Hmmm. Well, as regards “perfect time” I’d say it is not like a mathematical problem that has one answer only,. I mean last season might have been the perfect time as well, or the year before. What I really meant was that it makes sense to do it now… You may be one of those folks like Fansince71′ who is not in favor of keeping Ohtani, and that is fine…
My thinking is that because of the collection of quality position players we have and their respective ages it makes sense to go for it now. And as I have said many times before, “going for it” requires your team to have at least one “Ace” starting pitcher … That means if you want to trade Shohei or simply not re-sign him you’d better have an Ace prepared to step in right away. Since the Angels don’t have that other than Shohei and are not likely to be able to pry one away from another team it is crucial to keep Ohtani on the team.
To all you Nevin fans, put him in charge of the player’s locker room and find someone to manage during the games.
Nevin would excel at handing out towels.