Over the weekend Shohei Ohtani cleared out his locker in preparation for an imminent elbow procedure. The MRI on his oblique injury revealed that he wouldn’t be coming back this season. Mike Trout aims to get back into the lineup before the end of the season. Anthony Rendon says he was diagnosed with a leg fracture weeks ago and doesn’t know why the team didn’t announce it.
The Angels might need corner outfield help next year depending on how things go with Taylor Ward and Jo Adell. Here is the shopping list. The Angels just waived a couple of those guys and most of the rest are uninspiring. Here are the available center fielders in case it’s time to move Mike Trout to a corner. Hey! We could get Jake Marisnik. Shohei Ohtani on the Boston Red Sox? Ugh! Meanwhile, Jeremiah Jackson is killing it for the Binghamton Rumble Ponies.
Orioles right-hander Noah Denoyer underwent Tommy John surgery. Drey Jameson of the Diamondbacks will follow suit. Alex Cobb has been pitching through hip discomfort for several months. In the same link, the Red Sox are looking at Mike Hazen as a possible replacement for Chaim Bloom. Kim Ng’s contract with the Marlins is over at the end of the year.
Former Phillies manager Charlie Manuel suffered a stroke during a medical procedure and is in bad shape. They say he is making progress.
For some reason I couldn’t get on this site a little while ago.
So many injuries, the team collapses, Ohtani leaves… but CtPG goes down, that’s too much!
😄
https://www.si.com/mlb/angels/news/angels-news-japans-nhk-broadcast-pulls-coverage-with-shohei-ohtani-done-ml0802
Bye bye Kiyo and Japanese television
I don’t believe there is a curse on the Halos for all of their injuries. I 100% blame the training staff. These players are not properly prepared for the long season. I have seen the injury bug hit other franchises and the final solution has been to revemp their training program. Continuing to manage the health of players the same way and expect different results is the definition of insanity.
Looking at mlb dot com I see the possible angels hitters includes Adell. I thought he was done. If not, if he rejoins the team then maybe Shohei will be available when we play in December
Yes, activated. Paris on the 60 day IL
Hey we’re not the only team in town with two stars and a underachieving record!!
ClipperChargerAngel.
Just some wanderings…… The Angels in the early and mid ’70s were some of the worst teams I’ve ever seen for the Angels, but the run of bad teams from ”16 to ’23 are just as bad in a lot of ways. But what the current streak has had is injuries that just keep on coming non-stop. The other item of concern is how unlucky the choices of Free Agents have/Have not performed. Albert and Rendon are the two biggest failures, but the list is still bogged down with a lot of names with both pitchers and hitters a like underperforming.
I used to roll my eyes, smile and scoff when the Indian Burial Grounds or being Jinxed was brought up. While now I may not yet believe in this Voo-doo type stuff, I do not treat it as being something to smirk at. Careers do go downhill or end here it seems to me and yes, I do believe it is somehow a trAdition that is fun to tease about and at the same time it sometimes is a real thing, or is it just bad luck that is random?
Look at Mike Trout’s career for instance. Mike’s first 4 full years was the start of a career very few have ever had, on pace for no less than top 5 in all-time WAR. Then injuries that have been non-stop since. Not since Mickey Mantle have we seen something close to this happen, except Mantle got to have a 10-year run as opposed to Trout’s 5- or 6-year run.
Didn’t you think it odd that one of our favorite pitchers of all-time in Jared Weaver, lost his mojo so quickly at a young age? I thought after being a good guy signing a contract that favored the team, that Jared was going to put up great numbers for a long time to come.
The 2023 team has been Jinxed all season with a crazy amount and assortment of injuries as I have ever seen on any team in my lifetime. Tripping over 1b and breaking your tail bone? Not the run of the mill injury now is it. Having a pitch smash a player’s face just doesn’t happen very often. Or swinging a bat in the on deck circle and injured for the rest of the season. The team’s best pitcher going down to a 2nd TJS is not common, but yes it does happen, but not to Super-Stars. Is what has happened to Jared Walsh all that common?
Just some wanderings………
🙃 😬 💀 ⚡ 👺 ❌ ☠ 📈 🚧 😡 🕚
Need more emojis!
True, mugshot without a name plus what round he was taken in the MLB Draft.
Ha, nice!
You make a lot of sense, GP. I don’t know how to make sense of this.
I wanna know how our farm system crashed and burned from what it was in 2005 to where it’s been since basically 2011.
Generally, the simplest exclamation is the best. Here, the simplest explanation is that there are organizational failures from top to bottom, which are the result of not having a true Baseball Org.. The team can’t just bring in big names and expect to win. Great Orgs are built bottom to top.
Again- as Lucille Ball said:
“Luck? I don’t know anything about luck. I’ve never banked on it and I’m afraid of people who do. Luck to me is something else: Hard work – and realizing what is opportunity and what isn’t.”
Same can be said for curses.
Branch Rickey famously said, “luck is the residue of design.”
Post All Star Break graph
Do you mean since Post All Star Break 2015?
I always enjoyed like this graph JHW as it is very telling and reflective of the standings. A couple of takeaways I had:
In the case of the Padres, overall they’re fine but the season is made of wins and losses. They can’t win the close games. 6-22 in 1 run games, 0-11 in extra innings
Wow, that is very telling. They also extended a couple of guys they shouldn’t have.
Yep. Even .500 in those games and they are in the race.
Hunter Renfroe is now available.
https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2023/09/reds-designate-hunter-renfroe-for-assignment.html
trAdition….we really know how to destroy a career.
Great selling point for free agents. Come play for one of the worst owners in baseball, play on a losing underachieving team, likely have one of the worst seasons of your career, get hurt often with unusual injuries, and finally 50/50 shot at having your career destroyed going forward.
Giolito looks revived. Two good starts in a row, including a shutout with 12 K’s.
There’s a link tomorrow about what the guardians are doing to make Giolito’s slider back the way it was before the Angels got hold of him.
They’ve changed his pitch mix as well, from what I understand.
Francona > Nevin
Anybody Else > Nevin
Indian coaching and Org > Angels
Bingo. Cleveland manages to stay relevant every year
Would cost to much to claim.
Arte is not going to let Perry claim anyone while hoping to get under the penalty
Why on earth would the Angels claim him?!
The real question is, “what would it take?”
Even in my joy at the Mariners’ slump there’s a sour note. Or maybe, in tank terms, something shiny.
“ The loss was Seattle’s 11th in 16 games in September, over which it has a minus-16 run differential. Across the AL, only the White Sox and Angels have worse records this month.”
It’s always 😀
“only the Angels have worse so-and.so this month.”
yeah, but he’s still way better than the two guys who followed him, plus the Mariners will still at least finish with a +500 record for a third straight yr while us and the Mets (what’s the name of their GM again? with his season season starting $440M payroll vs GPD’s $140M payroll….highest ever in MLB history). Take him back in a heart beat and only two other guys over him. Jeff Luhnow#1 and Theo Epstein#2.
I’m in an interesting time with my favorite sports teams..
Clippers = we’ve been good for a decade since Ballmer took over. Consistently been a winning organization trying to break thru. Heartbreak after heartbreak, still going after the chip. This season feels like the last hurrah with the current squad. With the best owner in professional sports, the future is never a major concern.
Colts = we tanked for Andrew Luck and it worked. The Luck-era was pretty awesome, until we broke him. Struggled finding a QB and found ourselves in purgatory for 4 years. Tanked again last season and now have our new franchise QB. Outlook looking positive.
Ducks = core aged out, and we flat out sucked for years. Refused to rebuild and stumbled into hitting on a few late lottery picks. Finally, last season embraced the tank and now sport a top prospect pool. Next step of the rebuild begins this season. Outlook looks positive.
Angels = hmmm where to start lol. It’s finally time for the rebuild, a proper one. I would love to re-sign Sho to a 1-2 year contract, however that’s a dream and can’t be counted on. We are actively tanking which will result in a {fingers crossed} top 5 pick. Outside of 3 more years with the Rendone albatross, our salary sheet is pretty clean moving forward. As yall know I hope Perry is retained and allowed to properly pursue a rebuild.
No sport or team is equal in building long term success, but at least in my recent experiences bottoming out quicker will help us get to where we want to be — eventually. Here’s to the next 2 weeks being the bottom.
Nice. I really only have two teams.
The Steelers have an incredible owner who hires good people and lets them do their jobs. Stability, continuity, success, and good drafting are their hallmarks.
The Angels are the polar opposite in every single facet.
I root for various other teams but not enough to consider myself a fan. 2 teams and boxing.
I’m toasted… I have 1 team. The Angels. Sigh.
Oh, I guess I really enjoy watching the Olympics too…
I’m a closet Ram fan all the way back to the 70’s Coliseum days.
I remained a fan through St Louis…will I do that if Angels move?
Don’t know…it would be so easy to hate on blue and be a SF fan.
I gave up on all sports except baseball a long time ago. Here’s who I used to support:
For football, one Sunday when I was in the third grade, I sat down on the floor when my dad had a football game on and I watched too. It was Steelers v. Browns, and Bradshaw threw a 60 yard bomb to Lynn Swan who made a balletic catch and scored a touchdown. I thought that was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen in my life. Was an intense Steeler fan from then on.
The last football game I watched was a Super Bowl between the St Louis Cardinals and Tennessee Titans when the Titan QB was scrambling around for the go ahead(?) TD, but he was tackled inches away from the goal line to end the game.
I quit because I wasn’t a fan anymore of players destroying their health for my entertainment.
For basketball, I was a supporter of the Lakers back when they had Adrian Dantley, Norm Nixon, and Jamal Wilkes. Then Showtime came along and made basketball the ultimate party. Good times.
The last game I watched was the final game of Kobe’s rookie season.
I quit watching because the officiating drove me nuts. It seemed like there were three uncalled fouls on every play and numerous fouls that did get called when no infraction at all had occurred.
For college sports, I supported UCLA. Rooted for Reggie Miller and Don MacLean in basketball. Terry Donahue was the wunderkind FB coach.
I stopped watching because I got married, started a career, and just didn’t have the time anymore.
The last college sporting event I watched was when I was in my twenties. I went to the Rose Bowl to watch a UCLA football game. I sat close to field level by one of the end zones and could only see what was happening when the teams were within the twenty yard line of my end zone. Ron Cey was there and walked by me. I wonder how he got stuck with the crappy seats.
Regarding Cey, what has he done lately.
No, I will continue to hate on SF forever based on living here. I loathe the team that worships the most notorious cheat of all time, and their SoCal hating fans. I know this because I’ve live in SF for the last 35 years.
I have Angels, UCLA, Rams (until they left) and Lakers. The first three were all broadcast on KMPC. The Golden Age with Dick Enberg calling all the games. The Lakers had Jerry West and Elgin Baylor. I bandwagoned the Rams recent SB but I ignore them the rest of my time. With the Bruins basically moving to the other part of the country, I’m pretty much over them. The LeBron Lakers feel like a mercenary team, but I still enjoyed the Covid championship. The Angels have always been my primary team, but they’ve tested my patience this year.
How many times have you had a window broken out in your car?
3 times. My car has been hit twice while parked in front of my house, both times incurring more than $10,000 of damage. The catalytic converter on my car has been stolen four times, the last two when I had the extra protective guard installed. The people on NextDoor blame me for the window break ins, saying that it was my fault since I probably left stuff in my car, which I actually didn’t.
Ugghh, both my father in law and sister in law, have had their windows smashed out in the Japan Town area. I told them that you can’t park on the street unless your fine with a smashed out window.
I would certainly be forced to ignore the politics of the city.
SF is a shithole ruined by progressive policies’ of the left.
Good news is it’s a long ways away from the Halo moving.
Nice Steelers win tonight. Huge defensive play was the difference!!
Fellow Colts fan here!
AR looks like the real deal. And I think Steichen was an excellent hire to pair with him. This is definitely the best I’ve felt since Luck was playing, but I still miss watching him on Sundays. I’ll never forget the comeback game against KC with the superman TD dive.
If you’re a Boilermaker you know heartache.
Browns fan💩🤡😱😭
Angels fan 💩🤡😱😭
Balanced with the Lakers and Kings
I hate the Steelers almost as much as the Doyers. But have respect for how consistent and great those franchises have been for many decades.
Go Browns! Return the favor and Kick the Steelers in the mouth tonight after being the recipient for the past 20 years.
There’s 2 versions. So Which Browns are you eyeing?
Same teams for me, too (minus the Colts, as I just don’t have a horse in the race when it comes to the NFL… pun intended).
I don’t agree with you about how bad we are.
There’s only one person that this whole shabang hangs in the balance from and I’m not mentioning his name, but we have Schanuel, Neto,and O’Hoppe as a core to look forward to, If we were to hire the right people to oversee these guys plus Detmers, Silseth, and Griffin are all fixable and then we can right this ship in one season. The Cubs rebuilt in one yr, no they’re not 2016 good yet, but they’re headed in the right direction.
Add Sandoval to that fix mix and yes we have a decent core to build around for the future
Sprinkle in a little Ben Joyce and Luis Soriano and then you’re really cooking.
I’m also a Clippers and Ducks fan.
Clippers: The org had talent and were a consistent playoff team for 3 seasons before Ballmer. Letting superstar Leonard play GM in order to sign Leonard was a huge gamble that I didn’t like because it meant sacrificing a young 6’7 phenom PG in SGA. Acquiring another superstar who breaks down physically in PG-13 for SGA, PF Gallinari, and like 10 first round picks! If your superstars breakdown in the playoffs consistently, then it’s time to move on from said broke down stars. There’s a great saying, “The best ability is availability.” Guess same can be said for our Angels.
As for Ballmer, love the guy! New home coming soon too!
Ducks: Ducks went into a rebuild starting at the 2018-19 trade deadline.
2017-18: Made playoffs
2018-19: No playoffs. Finished with 8th worst record, drafted 9th = C Zegras
2019-20: No playoffs. More TDL sell offs. Finished with 5th worst record, drafted 6th = D Drysdale
2020-21: No playoffs. Finished with 2nd worst record, drafted 3rd = C McTavish
=== Note the pattern of suckage. We weren’t adding top talents between 2019-2021 summers. To start 2021, three youths made great strides in RW Terry, C Zegras, and D Drysdale. Also, everyone was healthy to start the season, but we were still lacking talent depth when injuries arose. Old GM Murray stepped down in Nov due to his alcoholism causing disturbing behavior at work. New GM wasn’t hired until All-Star break in Feb. ====
2021-22, Pre-new GM: 3rd place in Pacific (playoff spot) at All-star Break.
2021-22, New GM: No playoffs. Sold off all physicality and best defensemen at TDL. Finished with 10th worst record, drafted 10th = D Mintyukov
==== 2021-22 TDL reset the rebuild, meaning more time sucking ====
2022-23: No Playoffs. Finished with worst record, drafted 2nd = C Carlsson.
The Ducks have been rated one of the top prospect pools in the NHL for years. The problem occurs when the forward prospects go pro (NHL) as it doesn’t translate such as C Steel, LW Jones, and LW Comtois. It is the defensive and goalie prospects that have kept the Ducks a highly rated prospect pool for a long time.
Expect another development season this year and next because we’re waiting on all the young defensemen to reach the NHL level as well as this year’s 1st round pick, C Carlsson.
There’s a great future with the Ducks b/c so many top talents are close to each other in age. We have four top-6 forwards moving ahead in RW Terry (2015), C Zegras (2019), C McTavish (2021), and C Carlsson (2023). It’s difficult finding two top-6 centers and the Ducks potentially have three! Terry, Z, and Mac are already at the NHL level. There’s a superfluous amount of defensemen in the org that one of prospects (Henry Thrun) asked to be traded to a different team b/c he didn’t see a future with Anaheim.
At the NHL level, we currently only have one top-4D in Fowler. The rest are bottom pairing D that are being asked to play top-4 minutes. Prospect D Drysdale missed last season due to a labrum injury after playing the first 8 games. The closest D prospect to the NHL is LaCombe and he should be breaking into the NHL this season.
Buccaneers (NFL): Call me surprised. Without Brady, I thought we wouldn’t win any game. Here we are 2-0 to start the season. The defense is stout. Journey QB Mayfield is playing the safe game and it’s working. Dunno how long a great defense and pedestrian offense will go, but it works better than a great offense and no defense like the Chargers.
Ninja Star, activate!
Happy Monday Halo faithful!!
Excellent tanking job this weekend. The Nationals and Cardinals have 7 games against the Braves/Brewers, respectively, so giving the broom back to the Tigers was a key defeat.
It’s going to be tough, but I have faith the Angels can go 1-8 against the Tigers, Twins and Rangers.
I dont think the Nationals can be in the top 6 (not sure where I read that, but teams that dont get revenue share $ can’t, i think)
The Angels only scored nine runs in their three game set against the Detroit Meijer Grocers. Here’s the list of how many runs each Angel produced:
2.75 Walsh
1.75 Grichuk
1.50 Fletcher
1.50 Schanuel
1.00 Phillips
0.50 O’Hoppe
In another universe, the Angels are battling for a playoff spot, and the top half of a lengthy Actual Runs Produced list is filled with guys named Trout, Ohtani, Rendon, Renfroe, and Ward. In our universe, Walsh gets called up and immediately leads the team in ARP. It is his first time this year being the leader.
And here is the updated Actual Runs Allowed per Batters Faced list for our Seraph slingers:
0.00 Daniel (13)
0.07 Joyce (28)
0.09 Bachman (77)
0.10 Estevez (260)
0.10 Silseth (205)
0.11 Canning (489)
0.11 Soriano (170)
0.11 Escobar (16)
0.12 Sandoval (616)
0.12 Detmers (596)
0.13 Anderson (629)
0.13 Wantz (130)
0.14 Loup (224)
0.16 Devenski (140)
0.16 Herget (105)
0.16 Marte (29)
0.17 Barria (349)
0.18 Suarez (135)
0.18 Reyes (49)
0.18 Mederos (17)
0.19 Ingram (25)
0.22 Rosenberg (108)
0.23 Diaz (30)
Nevin has clearly underutilized Eduardo Escobar. It seems like it would be a good idea to have a position player throw an inning or two each week of the season. Rosenberg had a crappy game the other day and it put his ARA/BF right in the crapper. Neither of the Angels’ two most exciting pitchers, Chase Silseth and Ben Joyce, pitched against the Tigers. Here’s to hoping they get in the next series.
I still want management to try resigning Ohtani, hoping a 1-2 yr. It would give him a year to validate his true $ value after surgery, and give us a year to evaluate our hopeful young players. There are many who suggest don’t offer him, start rebuild. I don’t find 5+ years of rookie ball that will go nowhere a positive future. It’s not just a case of Angels not being good, it’s the fact they our division is stacked. Astros, Rangers, Seattle will be good for a long time. Not to forget other current American League power houses that make wild card impossible. At least Sho brings excitement to every game..
Let’s not torture the man anymore, he never got to play in October with this team and is playing on one of the most dysfunctional organizations in the league. The insanity needs to stop. I want to watch a winning team, not just one guy.
I don’t see any point in having Ohtani here, knowing we’ll have a losing team and no way to improve for the next few years. We’d be paying him massive money just to have the same results as this year.
Might as well invest that money in a wiser way and rebuild as best we can to get us out of the rebuild phase faster.
I guess one corner case would be to sign him, knowing that we have every intention of then trading him for prospects whenever that is convenient for us. Another way of looking at it would be we pay a massive 1/2 year salary just to acquire the right to trade him for good prospects later. I have to admit, on the surface that is exactly the sort of thing that this team needs to do to get back to contention quicker. We are going to take forever if we just rely on the draft and free agents.
But there is one big problem with this idea…. why would Ohtani ever agree to doing that? That is exactly what he doesn’t want. So given that, I do not think he will sign with us in the first place.
I can think of 1 way. He’s signed to a 2-year contract, but he gets traded away to a team of his choosing at the 2024 trade deadline. The Angels can market him for the first half of the season (last chance to see him) and help the rebuild even more with the talent that he can bring back in a trade. The team that get’s Ohtani has him for one additional year that he may/should be able to hit and pitch for them, making the level of prospects coming back better for the Halos
True that!
OK, 2 years $100MM here we come!
Sad to learn of the declining health of Charlie Manual.
I was living in Kobe, Japan from 1979 – 1982. My favorite nightspot was a bar called the Attic, which was owned by an American baseball broadcaster in Japan, Marty Kuehnart, and run by a really great Japanese guy, Jumbo, whose American step-mom was from Carmel, California.
Every so often I’d see Charlie Manual at the Attic with other American baseball players in Japan having some drinks sitting at a table in the corner of the bar.
Manual was a baseball hero to the Japanese. He was nicknamed, Aka-Oni, the red devil.
Manual didn’t have much of a baseball career in the US; but in Japan he blossomed leading the Japan Leagues in dingers a couple of times and batting over .300 in his 6 seasons there.
One year, while he was playing for the KIntetsu Buffalos he was hit in the face by a pitch. It required surgery where screws were inserted into his jaw to reset the broken bones. Manual was out 6 weeks, but came back to play the rest of the season, against the advice of doctors, to help the Buffalos in their playoff push.
This is one reason Japanese baseball fans, and myself, loved Charlie Manual.
Manual once said of playing baseball in Japan:
“Without a doubt, Japan made me a better player because it made me more dedicated,”
Most baseball loving folks in the US remember Charlie Manual as the baseball manager who led the Phillies to a World Series Championship in 2008 (?).
I remember him as the Aka-Oni…..
Great story, thank you
Good morning, start of second to last week of the season and we are mostly hoping the odds of a number one pick are improving. Good thing. AAA lineup is the starting team currently. Good thing? Yes, it’s a good thing and here is why.
Normal way of doing it the Angels Way has to been cut corners in every area of running a ML team and spend on Free Agents. Looking at the Free Agent class is seriously underwhelming. Nothing but grief including the Unicorn. Not even much in cupboard to trade. Not much to even sign to return that makes sense. The string has run out and it’s time to admit that the teams now at rock bottom and needs rebuilding. Arte still owns team and is not going to call this right – no matter which way he goes because well, he’s Arte Morano.
It’s going to be a tough call as it means trading Trout and not signing Ohtani and drafting not just college kids but some HS kids too. setting the target for ’27 and beyond.
Rebuilding a whole organization is a major undertaking and I don’t believe in no way is Arte capable of pulling the trigger on this call.
I agree with all of this. And while it’s going to hurt seeing the Halos lose a lot of games, it’s nice to play the underdog for a little while.
While I know Arte needs to go, I actully like Perry. He’s identified that depth is something we lack, and he’s trying to change a culture withing a bad plan presented by management. If someone would allow him to recreate what’s been done in ATL, then I think we have a good window again in 26-27.
Perry gave it a good try, but he’s working inside a ruinous franchise that needs to be entirely revamped.
It would be really nice to see what Perry could have done if he had been allowed to trade Ohtani.
{resisting every urge to post more pro-Schanuel content}
I love the Unicorn and hope he does great wherever he goes but…
If I was Angels owner, I wouldn’t’ resign him.
He’ll be a great DH, but chances are about 50/50(?) he’ll be an effective starting pitcher again?
A great DH with the prospect of a starting pitcher is still worth quite a bit. I am sure there is a price where that works for both sides.
Worth more than Rendon’s $38 million per.
And with Trout’s injury history, the Angels shouldn’t be blocking the DH slot.
This is an incredibly simple yet incredibly relevant point.
Maybe one of the biggest factors overall regarding bringing back Ohtani.
Let’s go Cardinals!!