First off, let’s remember this is a game and supposedly a distraction from reality. Between the tropical storm, earthquake, and senseless shooting at Cook’s Corner this week the plight of a baseball team looks like the trivial exercise it truly is.
But what a brutal week it was for the Angels. Last Friday Ohtani hit a grand slam and the team pulled off a triple play and they still lost that game. The triple play was sweet, though.
On Saturday the team would split a double header to lose the series to Tampa Bay 2 games to 1. That on the heels of predictably losing series to both Texas and Houston 2 games to 1. The Angels haven’t beaten good teams all year and a 3-6 stretch against three of the best team in the American League was expected.
But then there was good news. Mike Trout was activated and back in center field for Tuesday night’s game against the Cincinnati Reds. Finally some good news!
But, alas, that brief moment of hope was dashed thoroughly and completely in a torrent of bad news that was worse than the rain downpour last Sunday.
Rough night for the sport and brutal night for Angels fans. Those two represent the best of the team, the best of baseball, and the favorite players of 99% of the folks in the stands. We probably won’t see 27 until next March. We might never see 17 pitch for the Angels again.
The sports news cycle must go on and now the articles are about how this latest injury will reshape the free agent market.
This season is a bigger disappointment than the last several. We had depth, we made moves, but with 17 players on the IL at one point there just wasn’t ever really a chance to see what it could do.
So now we look to the future and I think there are some good young pieces here. Let’s start with the emergence of Logan O’Hoppe.
And while I don’t expect to see much power from Nolan Shanuel, he’s good at taking walks and making contact. I’m really interested to see how the league adjusts to him.
Really, he couldn’t have had a better week. He’s the one ray of light in these links.
From around the league:
Wander Franco was placed on administrative leave with no timetable to return. No bueno.
While the Angels year has been disappointing, the only way to describe what is taking place in San Diego is perplexing.
Speaking of disappointing seasons, how about BOTH teams in New York. The Yanks snapped a 9 game skid on Wednesday night thanks to the heroics of Aaron Judge.
Meanwhile the Mets disaster is already looking forward to next year. They will retire the numbers of Dwight Gooden and Darryl Strawberry in 2024. Apparently they weren’t able to lure the two back to finish the 2023 season with them. Even at this age, they would’ve helped.
Stephen Strasburg is going to retire due to repeated injuries. The San Diego State alum was the number 1 overall pick and a World Series MVP. Interestingly, the Nationals do not have insurance on the contract. As of now no word on the exact financial ramifications as of yet.
I’ll definitely check in on the Angels playing the Mets this weekend. But the Little League World Series is the brand of baseball putting a smile on my face. California is still in this thing.
Enjoy your weekend. Link what I missed. And let’s go El Segundo!
I had a dream last night that the Angels started winning, 7 in a row, and were 68-67. “This team…”, I thought. The dream went on and the record became 74-68.
Somehow I doubt that’ll happen but it was pleasant
It’s easy to believe it’s a thing.
https://fanbuzz.com/mlb/angels-curse/
This dude will be the best player in MLB by 2025.
Insane size, speed, range and power.
His strike outs will keep him from being the best.
Unfortunately no-one seems to care about strikeouts anymore.
Expecting announcement of today’s starting lineup soon, seeing Adams, Stephanic, Fletcher, Padlo, and Walsh played last night, but not Cabbage, I suspect he might have been called up.
Sandoval is projected starting pitcher today and Silseth tomorrow. Sunday is TBA. I think Nevin is hoping that somehow both of them would pitch 6-7 innings, but if any of them fail, Canning or Barria would come in for long relief. If Canning or Barria is not used, then that pitcher will start on Sunday.
Zach Weiss was claimed by Red Sux on the last day of DFA. Lots of luck to him.
Sammy is in NYC, but I decline to post his skewed picture of lineup.
Schanuel 1B
Ohtani DH
Drury 2B
Moose 3B
Rengifo SS
O’Hoppe C
Renfroe RF
Moniak CF
Grichuk LF
Cabbage has been called up. Pad my own back for deductive and investigative reasoning.
Further roster movements.
https://twitter.com/RhettBollinger/status/1695173926580625899
No longer are we Devo
But are we not men?
Pretty unusual to see OF in 7-9 slots
When was the last time Sandoval went 7 innings? It always seems like The Angels are into their bullpen while the opposing pitchers cruise for another 3 or 4 innings.
I’d love to see the hitting stats for first pitch swinging. I suspect it’s the same as for longer at-bats. The only difference, if I’m right, is that the opposing starter throws fewer pitches, thus goes deeper in the game
You can see that for individuals.
This year, Sandoval’s BAA is .252. It’s .289 when batters swing at the first pitch, and .238 when they don’t.
He’s clearly substantially worse in early counts. BAA is .356 when the ball is put in play on the first pitch, .333 on a 1-0 count, .308 on a 2-0 count, .381 on a 101 count. The BAA plummets to below .3 and even below .2 when he’s thrown 4 pitches in an at-bat, or on 0-1 (.294) and 0-2 (.182) counts.
The obvious problem is that in order to get to the counts where he has success (more strikes than balls or 2-2-, 3-1, etc…), he has to get past the counts where he doesn’t do very good.
Patrick Sandoval 2023 Pitching Splits | Baseball-Reference.com
Last time was July 18 when we played agains MFYankees. (I wish we had another series or two with them). He pitched 7 or more innings in 4 out of 22 outings this season.
I also dug this photo from the Cincy series. Who doesn’t love Shohei?
This infield is SO much better than ours. And so cool how they worship Shohei.
Wow Elly is a big man that makes Shohei look normal size and his teammates look like Lilliputians
That made me look up. Elly is 6′ 5″ with 200 lbs. I bet he will be adding more muscle mass over next few years. He will be one of the faces for MLB, being worth the admission $. Also wonder if he were born in the US, whether he would have chosen baseball over basketball or football.
I use Safari for browser and it did not show the picture and has blue square with ?. So, I just guessed based on what you posted. Hope I was right.
https://twitter.com/BallySportWest/status/1694549108839547328
Go to a website called The Halo Way. The picture is in the website’s newest gallery.
Thank you. These are great professional pictures.
Shohei would be a great fit on the Reds
Ohtani would double their payroll.
In fact the Reds are paying Moustakas twice as much money than the current entire Reds starting 9 combined.
https://twitter.com/BeyondTheHalo/status/1695112724756517360?s=20
Wonder what Rendone said now
Why cover up for him. Let us know what he said.
exactly whole reason you are there as a reporter
Unless it’s off the record ( which he then shouldn’t even tell us he’s not going to tell us) then write about it.
It’s your job. And since team management already hates Sam the hat. What does he have to lose?
that’s the problem with modern reporting. They often don’t tell the “what”.
He’s basically being a dick, no need to delve any further.
One might argue that Anthony Rendon is a “BITCH”
Pain Tolerance is apparently an issue with our team.
But not with our fandom. It’s got to be the highest in recorded history by a mile.
Nikkan Sports interviewed Dr. Furushima, elbow specialist, (aka Japanese Dr. ElAttrache), of course, regarding Sho.
Q: Ohtani will accompany the Angels to New York and continue to bat. Is that going to affect his right elbow?
A: The risk is different for left or right handed batter. The stress is much less on the lefty hitter with right UCL tear. The reason is the right elbow does not extend at the time of impact with baseball whereas the left elbow does. There is a slight risk when he would hit outside corner pitch, but it is still minimal. If he feels pain doing it, then he should stop to prevent further tear.
Q: Ohtani continued to bat when he tore his UCL the first time in 2018.
A: It must his understanding that batting would not further damage his UCL.
Q: What is the success rate of second TJS?
A: According to American research paper, it is around 50%. With our method, the percentage is not that low. If treated and rehabbed well, the result has been spectacular.
Q: What is your experience when you performed second time TJS?
A: First of all, it is rare that players undergo TJS for the second time. It is only for professional players wishing to play for a long period of time. I have performed second time TJS on Japanese and Korean players, many of them who played in MLB. All of them were able to return to play. I even have Shohei Tateyama (Yakult Swallows), who underwent the surgery three times, and he was able to come back and play.
Q: With making a hole in the bone for placing transplanted ligament , isn’t it more difficult to create another hole?
A: With American method, that could be a concern. With metallic screw, the hole may enlarge. We don’t use metallic screw and do not create a hole in the bone. Thus, we can reuse the same hole and use the contralateral (left) UCL for transplant. (I am assuming he takes just a part of contralateral UCL.)
Q: Are you saying if you remove the old ligament with new one, you can use the same hole?
A: Yes, but the second or third time around, there is going to be scar tissue which needs to be removed, so the procedure becomes so much more complex that requires experienced surgeon.
Q: With unknown degree of tear, is PRP therapy going to be effective?
A: I don’t think PRP will help. I can’t think that torn area of the UCL, especially torn transplanted UCL, would heal with PRP alone. PRP may help alleviating inflammation and pain, but for someone who underwent TMJ, it just does not work.
Q: PRP may help with first time UCL tear?
A: There have been prior successful cases. For professional players, it would be just buying time, but for younger players, middle to high schoolers, it would be a good option.
Q: Ohtani had cramping in various parts of the body prior to the injury. What is your opinion regarding the UCL tear for the second time?
A: I believe that it is from accumulated exhaustion due to lack of rest. I think his whole body was stressed. Just focusing on his right arm, normally muscles around the elbow would protect and reduce stress on the UCL, but with exhausted muscles, there must have been inordinate amount of pressure on the ligament. He was throwing many sliders and cut balls and those tend to exhaust the forearm muscles. Obviously, throwing 100 MPH fastball stressed all of his forearm muscles, much more than throwing 85 to 90 MPH.
Q: In US, throwing splitter is believed to place most stress on the elbow.
A: We have research data which compared fastball, slider, and splitter. The conclusion was that the slider placed most stress on the elbow.
Q: If you were asked for second opinion, what do you recommend?
A: If it is torn, especially the area involves the transplanted area, I would recommend surgery.
Q: You don’t think that it will heal by not pitching for the remainder of the season and off season?
A: Once it is torn, it will continue to weaken his arm. He will probably decide what to do in next few months.
Thank you Faceless one, this is very informative.
I’m all for Angels management slander but I’m not sure I agree with Ben Verlander saying Shohei’s injury is on the Angels.
He chose the Angels because we offered him autonomy and confidence in his judgement. He is in charge of his own schedule, work outs, recovery etc. Maybe he shouldn’t be (?) but he probably wouldn’t be an Angel or have done half the amazing things he’s done if he wanted to submit to some risk-averse front office. He also probably wouldn’t have been allowed to pitch in the WBC or pitch at all after his first surgery when he came back looking real shaky.
The legendary version of Ohtani we have seen is because the Angels let him cook, so to speak. This is the flip side of that coin.
Pile on slander from yesterday….source is a douchebag, but I’m sure it’s true. And I’m sure there is much more that will never leak for all the usual reasons.
Angelz4ever
18 hours ago
Things are so bad now CJ Wilson has climbed out from under all his photo equipment and slithered onto social media to lambast the Halo org. A former malingerer player who has the unmitigated nerve to start squawking
https://twitter.com/str8edgeracer/status/1694086187194224903?s=20
https://twitter.com/str8edgeracer/status/1694534598649372719?s=20
This was funny and true
https://twitter.com/JeremyWooldri17/status/1694820255821119802?s=20
I have also listened to that podcast, and I actually like most of his previous takes, but I vehemently disagree with him this time lambasting the Angels, saying that Angels ‘milked’ Sho until he was broken.
Ben Verlander has increased his popularity (and financial potential) by becoming ‘self appointed’ biggest Shohei’s fan. However, he did not cover him until Sho had amazing 2021 season. Angels fans have adopted Sho since 2018 and stuck with him thick and thin. Ben is a kind of ‘bandwagon’ Shohei fan, just as I became Angels fan because of Sho.
I am also aware that he spent sometime in Japan, exploring the birthplace of Shohei, and became popular there for doing so, and with Fox Sports backing, he was able to interview Sho exclusively ahead of this year’s WBC and during the event. However, if he were to question Sho directly now, Sho would strongly defend his Angels front office, probably stating that it was all his responsibility, no fault to his coach, manager, or GM.
I thought it was because he had Alex as his podcast partner
Having Kate Upton as sister-in-law does not hurt, either.
I know. It’s rubbish. The Angels used a six-man rotation to limit Sho’s workload. His career high in innings pitched was last year (166), which is very reasonable. He has exceeded 100 innings pitched in just three seasons with the Angels. I don’t recall Shohei ever throwing 120 or more pitches in a game while he has been with the Angels.
I do think Shohei throws too many hard breaking balls, which undoubtedly causes great stress on the elbow joint, but that strategy seems to be Sho’s decision and not at the insistence of the Angels front office. And Shohei certainly isn’t alone in relying heavily on a slider and cutter. Slider usage has increased substantially in recent years, even before Driveline became the leading guru for pitchers.
Does Ben Verlander propose how frequently Sho should have rested? Is one day a week sufficient? Two days a week? Should Shohei have pitched only once every 7 or 8 days? Should he have always gotten a day off before and after his scheduled start as a pitcher? And even if Shohei had rested more, would the additional rest have prevented the UCL tear?
Exactly. Ben just emotionally screamed, but he did not offer any constructive recommendations. We know because of the unique nature of two way player, there was no one else to compare to; therefore, no prior data. No disrespect to Babe Ruth, but I don’t think he was doing to the extent that Sho has been doing.
I think everyone was watchful, but Driveline numbers do not reveal the exact nature of the UCL or the exhausted level/lactic acid of the arm muscles. This time, Sho happened to push too far. He will use this as another learning experience and move on.
So does Ben also blame the Asstros for his brothers TJS ?
Give me a break
I know. Apparently Justin had no problem with the Astros “milking him” because he happily returned.
The Foundation Building Materials’ keystone of the series against the NYM this weekend is “Living Without You” by Randy Newman from his debut album.
So long Ohtani the pitcher. So long Mike Trout. 2023 was never going to work anyway.
Time to face the dawning gray
of another lonely day
Baby it’s so hard
living without you
In the case of the Angels, the remedy for this team would actually be found in this Randy Newman Song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5mAuPg1ZZw
The best element of this photograph isn’t the line of descending Angels that starts at Ohtani, it’s the inclusion of the guy with the walrus mustache in the fan dugout behind home plate. I’m always disappointed when I turn on a game and that guy isn’t standing in the corner watching the game.
The first known picture of “Andrew” has been captured: black hat under Ohtani’s elbow. It looks like he operating the camera, but in fact it’s a secret sonic weapon that microwaves Arte’s enemies from afar.
Like everything Arte does, it doesn’t work correctly.
The sonic weapon is taking out his own players……maybe collateral damage, or he views his own team as an enemy, which would explain some things. 😀
Ya, who is that guy…great seats!!
Sorta looks like John Bolton.
Wilford Brimley lives!
Orange County Customs father
Handlebar mustache-bro. The dude is a regular in that dugout suite.
Sho is gonna accept that qualifying offer and we are gonna be left with half an ohtani.
An ohtani in the hand, is worth two in the bush.
We’ll at least the Halos will still be Shohei the Money
I’d rather have half an Ohtani for one more year than the fourthish round pick that we would get if he declined the qualifying offer. Ohtani is one of the only DHs worth around $20 million (Yordan Alvarez is the other).
I wouldn’t be mad.
I do see him moving on though.
I don’t think so. There are a number of teams that will be offering him significantly more than the QA to hit next year. If we’re able to keep him it means we only need one additional middle of the order bat and we have the rest of the line up.
This was from Athletics:
The story in baseball circles is that Ohtani is worth north of $70 million a year to the Angels before he throws a pitch or swings a bat, because of all of the additional revenue they get from corporate sponsorships, stadium signage, and merchandise related to Ohtani sold at Angel Stadium. Whatever the real number is — and it would vary by team, as well — it’s going to be enough to make Ohtani the highest-paid player in MLB history. If he’s hitting every day, and making 25-30 starts, he might be worth $100 million a year by himself between the value of his production on the field and the value he provides off the field.
He should be paid that number. He won’t, because there is no way on earth any team is going to more than double the existing record for a player’s single-year salary. MLB teams are owned by sheep that live in fear of the MLB commissioner’s shears. We’ve got an owner in Baltimore lying through his teeth about how just giving one young player on the roster a nine-figure extension would put the team permanently underwater. Do you really think some other owner will offer Ohtani half a billion dollars or more in an environment where his compatriots are pleading penury so they can shove their hands in the public purse again?
Add in the airfare and hotel and other touristy kitsch (Dismal-Land, etc) and he’s easily worth $200M just in revenue generating.
The guy by himself is like the gross national product of a highly industilrialized nation
Then let Dismal-Land, etc. pay part of his salary.
Source on that?
Source: History Repeating Itself
That would be a $10 million dollar discount from this year
I’m completely against teams retiring players’ jersey numbers. If you want to honor a player, then put him in your team’s Hall of Fame. Just leave the number alone.
I love how three of my favorite players (Leon Wagner, Vladimir Guerrero, Mike Trout) all wore #27, and I’m excited to see the next great Angel step up sometime in the future and wear #27.
I love the disconcerting feeling of seeing an Angel who is wearing #15 play left field.
I love how David Fletcher can honor his favorite Angel, David Eckstein, by wearing #22.
Yes, and the Yankees’ indulgence with retiring numbers is a case in point. They are running out of desirable numbers. They’ll eventually have an entire roster with jersey numbers that resemble non-roster spring-training invitees.
I agree with you there though I also understand the sentiment of retiring certain numbers to honor legendary players, my evil twin bro!
I am also noticing that little leaguers are increasingly wearing 17. Especially Fan Chen-Jun, who throws MLB equivalent of 105 MPH fastball and bats pretty well.
I still remember with a chuckle what Sho said why he chose 17. Someone on the Angels was already wearing 27.
In the legend I have created in my mind, Mike Trout chose number 27 because 2 was the number of his favorite player, Derek Jeter, and because 7 was the number of the player he was always compared to, Mickey Mantle.
Possibly
Note that his Twitter handle used to be Trouty20 and when I met him post ASB (after futures game) in Cucamonga, he signed an auto for me with 20 after it.
The Quakes assigned him 23 the next day for his first pro game (vs Bakersfield @ Bakersfield IIRC). But when he debuted in 2011 he went with 27.
I had heard that the Angels assigned him the no 27 jersey not the other way around
Source?
https://www.trout.la/why-does-mike-trout-wear-27/#:~:text=When%20Mike%20Trout%20was%20promoted,had%20recently%20vacated%20the%20number.
TrAdition!
60 % chance of rain at gametime… It looks to continue in New York for the next few hours through the night. I think there is a good chance this game gets rained out. Which means, you guessed it : yet ANOTHER double-header coming up …
If the season was rained out it would be a relief.
We like to get our losing done in one 24 hour period.
with or without Shohei we ain’t winning and the primary reason for this is substandard or inconsistent pitching. It’s been that way since 2015 through 3 GMs .
Until the Angels solve that issue it wont matter what new wunderkind hitter they pluck off a college campus to hastily rush to the majors
No doubt it’s problem #1. But problems 2-10 are really bad, will be as difficult to fix and will take just as long to fix them. And that’s not even discussing Arturo.
We keep acting like our young pitchers are a good core, yet they never consistently are. Yet there is this nagging feeling that if they move on, their next team will fix them. I believe they are coached into bad approaches on the mound, just like our hitters have bad approaches at the plate.
The fact that pretty much all of our young pitchers have shown “flashes” of being good, or even really good indicates that the talent is there. I think Detmers is a perfect example of this … And this is true of Sandy as well.
But the lack of consistency to me says that Wise and others are not catching little slips in the mechanics etc, or on a deeper level some issues in the psyche or the “approach.” I have also felt for a long time that our pitchers are not adequately prepared for the opponent/s. I mean strengths and weaknesses of hitters and also who is “hot” and who to pitch around etc..
Do we even have advance scouts any more ?
Maybe they need to get away from the Driveline stuff and actually learn how to pitch.
Ever since we lost this guy: https://redstormsports.com/news/2003/11/20/St_John_s_Athletics_Mourns_Passing_of_Howie_Gershberg very few pitchers developed by this organization really learn how to pitch.
This is not the sole cause, or maybe not a cause at all, but this move seemed a little greedy after having a good season from the SPs in 2022 and hope that the Angels won’t try to change what is working if they have a chance to do this again.
https://www.si.com/mlb/angels/news/angels-news-shohei-ohtani-to-see-increased-workload-next-season
Yes, Shohei accepted and should take part of the responsibility as well, so I’m not blaming any idiots in the management, but hopefully the lesson
is kept for the future.
A future without Arte…
Any chance Rendon also announces his retirement from baseball?
If you had $00+ million coming to you for sitting on your ass, would you retire?
He would have to care enough about the team to do so and I don’t get the sense that is his viewpoint.
He at the point where he’s now trolling the beat writers, his teammates, and the fans, and loving it. He’s the anti-Ohtani, who plays on with a torn UCL.
The fan in Oakland was right !!!
He really was!
Sam Blum needs to interview that guy
Sure – he could retire, but there’s no way he’s leaving $116m on the table. Arte is going to pay him whether he retires, sits in the clubhouse watching “Looney Tunes” reruns, or is striking out on balls in the dirt.
But Rendone’s ex teammate has allegedly just retired and walked away from over $100 M in guaranteed contracts.
He did that solely because he loves his team?
I believe Strasburg would play if he was physically able.
I believe Rendon is very content sitting on the sidelines until he experiences no “discomfort”.
The difference is Strasburg loves the game. Rendon exploits the game.
But Steven didn’t have a beat writer he wanted to harass and fight.
His contract is a giant ATM, why would he stop drawing from it until it runs out of money.
HUGE Trout news….
He has finalized his golf course layout.
https://twitter.com/MikeTrout/status/1695070118345105414
It’s what the uber-wealthy do…….
So he’s got plenty of time to play at his GC July through March, every year from here to the end of his contract…(fuck, I think this is my first negative Mike Trout post, how fucking bad does an organization have to be?)
Since life imitates art, Perry should follow the example of the Seinfeld character George Costanza and use the following to guide future baseball decisions:
George declares that every decision that he has ever made has been wrong, and that his life is the exact opposite of what it should be. Jerry suggests that he try doing the opposite of what he would normally do, saying, “If every instinct you have is wrong, then the opposite would have to be right.” George then resolves to start doing just that. He orders the opposite of his normal lunch, which gets the attention of a beautiful woman who had ordered the exact same lunch. Again following the opposite of his natural instincts, George walks right up to her and introduces himself by saying, “My name is George. I’m unemployed and I live with my parents.” To his surprise, she is impressed and agrees to date him.
George continues to do the opposite of his instincts on his date with Victoria. He stops shaving, yells at noisy cinema patrons, and refuses to come up to her apartment.
George discovers that his date’s uncle works for the New York Yankees, and uses that connection to score a job interview with them. At the interview, George openly admits to his interviewer (the aforementioned uncle) without a hint of shame or regret that he was fired from his last job for having sex with the cleaning woman and quit the job before that because his boss wouldn’t let him use his private bathroom. The interviewer is impressed, calling George “the complete opposite of every applicant we’ve seen.” He introduces George to Yankees owner George Steinbrenner, at which point George angrily berates Steinbrenner over his history of terrible management decisions. Steinbrenner immediately orders the interviewer to “Hire this man!” George is hired for the position of Assistant to the Travelling Secretary and with his new job, he can now afford to move out of his parents’ house. Before he leaves, he makes sure to tell them that he loves them both very much. Which is, of course, the complete opposite of how he actually feels about them.
This one simple change would have the Angels leading the division, a fully talent laden farm system, competent baseball development staff, and a coaching staff that make grand master chess champions look like 3rd graders.
So, Perry just wouldn’t come into work then.
He’ll pull a Dipoto and Quit on the team.
That’s certainly one possibility – the options are endless.
Not sure about that but he would definitely mix in a salad or two.
He’s a Quitter….
https://youtu.be/X0kx_Mo9OX8?si=kx9vuOxuLfMK-Bdp
😂 🤣 😂
It would have been the Summer of George.
I still don’t understand why Ohtani would want to continue to DH rather than completely shut it down. It’s either he loves the Angels that much (and this may bode well on re-signing him), or he’s still trying to showcase himself to any of his potential future teams. The latter may be him trying to show his value as a hitter even when he can’t pitch (which I think everyone knows by now).
Fletcher had an interview yesterday where he surmised that this injury puts his pitching future in question, considering the lack of success rates for other pitchers in history. Any team who signs him will have to accept that 2 years of whatever monster contract he gets, will be relegated to DH duties, unless they make him play the field. After the 2 years comes the looming question of whether he would be able to pitch effectively again. Sho may very well end up a 50M/yr DH for the rest of his career.
Shohei not only is a very likeable character and person, he not only is a Unicorn and one of a kind teammate, but most importantly is that he is the most self-driven thoroughbred Baseball player any one of has seen since maybe Pete Rose, and he even surpasses Rose in being self-driven.
He needs to be out on the field every day, he wants to be the best ever at what he does, and what he does is plat baseball, period. He needs to be out there as the DH, it is how he will lead his team, he cannot and will not just sit back and watch.
He wants to be the MVP, he wants playoffs, he is driven to meet his own expectations. After TJS he may not be able to pitch, then he may become the best RFer in the game, would that surprise you if he did?
Not a soul has ever seen a G.O.A.T. before like Shohei, he still has plenty of time to go and get his TJS, but he just can’t stop playing to have surgery just yet.
Agree…he should be under the knife today.
PLP is a bad idea…just fix it the right way!!
He has zero to prove to anyone who wants to sign him (which should be every team) as far as him wanting to continue doing DH duties. He needs to just get the surgery done and be a batter only going forward. He shouldn’t play another game in an Angels uni ever, or at least another 18 months.
I really think that if he chooses to DH full-time, he can easily break Judge’s HR record. He has obscene power, and being freed from tolls of pitching, he’ll focus solely on hitting the entire season and proceed to mash. He’ll get there.
We may never see 2021-2023 Shohei again but he can still break records.
Or he may end up being a high leverage relief pitcher or closer for a team. The right arm can no longer take the toll of 6-7 innings of pitching every 6 days, but it may still be devastating for one inning or two, to close out games.
Well stated and I completely agree.
A DH only Shohei is still worth the price of admission. He has 60 homer potential and is a marketing boon for any franchise, not to mention a delightful human being.
how could he play the field tho, after TJS, while they wait 2 years for his TJS to fully heal?
Good morning to Angels faithful, playing out the string from this point forward is fine but would still like to finish out at .500. Go Angels-beat the F_cking Mets.
Yes, I know the Angels pretty much suck, but they are my team of choice, and I will root for the wins I know might not come. 🙃
I
My advice to you is to start drinking heavily.
Loud burp… to follow.
GPB should listen to him. He’s pre-med.
Let me guess. He is aiming to become liver specialist.
I’m guessing you’ve never seen Animal House. The correct response is “I thought he was pre-law?”.
Don’t worry, though, we all think you’re a cool dude.
😃 🍺
Start? I was under the impression he never stopped !!!!
I don’t always root for terrible franchises, but when I do, It’s the California/Anaheim/LA Angels.