Buck Showalter is interested in being the Angels field manager and the Angels are interested in Buck Showalter. Will Arte offer enough money for Showalter? Only time will tell. Kevin Cash doesn’t want to leave Tampa Bay.
Shohei Ohtani is among the finalists for the Hank Aaron Award.
The IOC is considering baseball for the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles (and also flag football).
I guess you have to take the good with the bad. Fangraphs gives Craig Counsell an A- for how he handled pitching in the Wild Card round. He got a D for his offensive decisions. The Astros are shedding some of their front office types even as they compete in the playoffs. Specifically they got rid of Assistant General Manager Bill Firkus and Farm Director Sara Goodrum. The Red Sox fired their pitching coach Dave Bush.
Felix Bautista had his Tommy John surgery.
Grades get handed out for this season’s big rule changes. I like this sentence: “It’s as if people are drawn to forms of entertainment that don’t threaten to waste their time.” Go figure!
Photo credit: Rex Fregosi
Rintaro Sasaki, Japan’s top high school prospect, will forgo NPB and instead play college baseball in the U.S.
https://sports.yahoo.com/rintaro-sasaki-japans-top-high-school-prospect-will-forgo-npb-and-instead-play-college-baseball-in-the-us-213355872.html
Garvey running for the Senate seat. So that’s another Dodger loss in the early round
Ha😀!
$300 million worth of payroll.
$300 million worth of campaign contributions.
And they both will come up short.
😂
Trout isn’t the only one who struggles in big moments. The annointed Doyer does too.
https://www.latimes.com/sports/dodgers/story/2023-10-10/dodgers-mookie-betts-struggles-nlds-diamondbacks
Is he available?
What big moments is he talking about? I don’t remember Tr’out being in any “big moments”.
KC playoff series.
Trout just avoids those situations all together.
I seem to recall Mookie having some HUGE postseason moments as well.
Shrug
The picture for these links looks like Rendon dressed as Super Mario holding a giant putter.
I figured the image would be good for today’s session of the two minute hate.
Showalter has won 3 manager of the year awards. Those go to a guy whose team finished a lot higher than everybody expected.
It will take a miracle to turn this team around in a year. Honestly, if Showalter is Arte’s biggest addition this off season I’d be just fine with that.
I gotta go with Arte selling as an addition(?) I’d like to see.
Showalter will be a “restore the reputation and goodwill” type of hire. Everyone knows the Angels are not thought of fondly in the league right now, so you would want to hire someone with credibility.
And Arte being the guy who’s very aware and sensitive to optics and perception, may do just that.
On Showalter’s side, despite the disfunction in the org, he’s probably thinking there’s still great pieces there – Trout, IF healthy, then the young core of Neto, O’Hoppe, Schanuel, Rengifo, Moniak, Ward, Adell, Thaiss, Canning, Detmers, Sandoval, Soriano, Joyce, etc. A team that he can work with and steer to better results. Seriously, a 10-win improvement from prior years, or getting them to .500, even if the team just barely misses the playoffs, would make Showalter a serious MOTY candidate.
At least it wouldn’t be “on the job training” like Nevin or all three GM’s Arturo hired.
this is exactly why I want Showalter or some other experienced, previously successful manager. I expect, though, that we *will* get an inexpensive trainee.
We already did
Remember Phil Nevin’s predecessor? Oh yeah, almost forgot FIELD SKIPPERS STILL DON’T MATTER ASK THE WASHINGTON NATS and Joe Maddon who also doesn’t know how to tie his shoelaces anymore either since 2016
Scioscia, Maddon say hi
Rather hire a younger guy with EXPERIENCE and especially PREVIOUS POST SEASON EXPERIENCE……..Tingler is gonna turn just 43 next month, while Buck Showalter will cost more and be older and more stubborn.
There’s no disputing that he leaves the organization better than when he started, historically.
Instead of having all these off days – why not make these 7 game series as they should be?
Now finally you’ve said something I agree with ’71.
I should delete that post then! 😂
🤣🤣🤣
This schedule makes the least sense possible.
4 games competed against a stacked college football schedule on Saturday. Two competed with the NFL on Sunday. Both games yesterday overlapped with portions of Monday Night Football.
Yet on days when the sports calendar is free teams have multiple off days.
And the geniuses at MLB can’t figure out why ratings continue to decline.
Great point. I was amazed that MLB playoff games were on something like channel 350. Without a voice remote, I probably would not have found the broadcast. Football dominated the regular channels.
I got so wrapped up in the Texas vs. Oklahoma game I forgot the playoffs had started.
I did a quick check here to make sure the site was up and running and saw the playoff thread I had scheduled or I would have had no idea they’d already started.
Blame it on the interns!
Can’t chase ratings every playoff series!- Phil Nevin
Ratings
Can’t have 4 games spread out, there won’t be any viewers in the afternoon games.
Can’t have 4 games played at the same times, cuts into viewership
Because post season baseball on Christmas Day just feels wrong.
i just saw we traded we traded Quero in July??? wtf
i was pissed enough in Sept when i saw Bush and JJ were gone, but Edgar Quero too?
F’in platypus got ripped off big time.
Welcome to the rage. I hated that trade when it was made. Misplaced optimism based on good results against the Judgeless Yanks and Tigers led to a misplaced all-in mentality. But what is done is done.
O’Hoppe was injured, Stassi has issues, and then there’s Thaiss …
I’m not sure what made them so confident we could do without Quero in the pipeline. I guess they figured there’s always some guy like Wallach or Juan Graterol out there.
They truly don’t know what they’re doing.
because O’Hoppe is good, Quero hit a wall at AA, and Laverde is the new Quero
It actually makes sense. Where was Quero going to get ABs in the majors with O’Hoppe as the starter? We traded him for horse dung, so that’s true, but I wish we’d have rec’d more for him.
Could have been part of a trade for a younger controlled player.
I’ve gone down several clicks on the playoff dream, if we would have stayed in contention into mid-late September, I’d been ok with all the trades.
We want for it, didn’t work, oh well. But the implosion was mortifying. And even embarrassing by our own well established trAditional standards.
Free Querro
Free Cuba
Could this be the year that the Blew Crew finally jettisons their manager after another post-season train wreck?
I thought about that too. Good thing they just gave him an extension .
I suspect a team like Cleveland or even Milwaukee ( if Counsel isn’t retained) would be perfect for regular season Roberts
Rec for “…regular season Roberts”
The laptop doesn’t leave the building, so…….
I could be regular season Roberts……just older, fatter, less articulate, and easier to fire.
Cue up the Doyer year end elitist-techie-gibberish press conference, “I love this team, nobody works harder, I’ve never been around a better clubhouse, Dave’s not the issue, we have to get better,
we have to learn to cheat better, we view this season as a success,we need to adjust our secret injections, need more of a time release formula to adjust for the week off after winning the division every year and not playing a meaningful game since in August 1st, we just need to get better, nothing to see here please move along, stop asking so many questions that I have no answers to.MLBTR does a good job providing a realistic assessment of the franchise….
Offseason Outlook: Los Angeles Angels
https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2023/10/offseason-outlook-los-angeles-angels-9.html
Really good discussion- excellent in fact. It does not bode well whatever happens with Ohtani (imo he’s already gone). The overall roster is middling at best and the farm is awful. Not a lot of optimism in that article.
After watching the Doyers play the last 2 games, they really really need a full time DH who cant pitch for at least one season or two.
Yes – if Dodgers fail in Ariz their desire for Ohtani will likely skyrocket
Why? Their problem is pitching he wont be effective on the mound until until at least 2025 but probably not until 2026.
Only if Lee Iacocca was alive and wanted to own a baseball team.
This article made me think of the classic song by The Clash:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BN1WwnEDWAM
As great as Ohtani is, I’m probably in the 51/49 camp of let him walk. Paying him half a “Billi” would almost certainly go poorly for the club and we still don’t have enough pitching to win in 2024 – at least on paper.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SoduRTF9J-o
Excellent accurate, and very depressing summary. I can’t believe, knowing what we know about Artie and his family, that he would be interested in any long term plan. He doesn’t have the time and no one is going to want to watch years of irrelevant rebuilding. Honestly things are so challenging I feel like Artie has only two bad choices. Sell, or spend lots of money. Unfortunately, there is a really weak free agent market, so even spending money may not be viable. I don’t believe he want’s to sell, so he and Perry will have to be really creative to interest people in attending games next year. They will need staring pitching and a couple of middle of the order bats. One last thing, I don’t believe Buck would tolerate Rendon. If they hire Buck, Anthony needs to be gone.
Flag Football?
Should just have Wiffle Ball instead of baseball then.
Or Olympic Over the Line!
I’m sure “Pickleball” is going to be in the Olympics if not the next one, then soon. Personally, if it’s not the Luge or Bobsled events, I’m not watching.
Even synchronized swimming?
The younger generation is bringing in as a new Summer & Winter Olympic game: Avocado toast eating.
😆
They are actually going to bring in Men’s synchronized swimming! And you just thought that was an old SNL skit with Martin Short.
And Harry Shearer!
https://youtu.be/AEvLap_49gk?si=81Jgzvh9LO_GD8dJ
😆 I actually have a Best of Harry Shearer dvd with this entire skit.
We could use “I’m not a _ _” for everything!
I’m not a strong hitter……with RISP.
I’m not a strong pitcher…….with 2 outs
I’m not a strong manager…….when it comes to making baseball decisions.
Oh that I lived this long to experience that……
The Olympics are largely a collection of activities that we’ll watch for a couple of hours every four years and then put away.
We have yearly leagues for the actual sports we want to see.
It’s as if people are drawn to forms of entertainment that don’t threaten to waste their time.
I always try to watch the fencing (I fenced in college), but if NBC has the Games, it will probably be on Peacock, so I won’t be able to.
If you fenced in college you were probably pretty darn good. And a lot of time and effort behind that.
Just the small stuff, like watches?
I believe it was mostly Yards.
Front Yards with White Picket Fences were very popular back in those days.
Or like our stupid outfield fence in right field with a yellow line cutting it in half.
Voted #1 dumbest ground rule in any North American Stadium by “Stadium Digest”.
I came up with better ground rules, playing over the line in my backyard as a kid.
Hey pal, watching televised curling is freaking awesome…..said no one on the West Coast ever!
Here we would want to sweep the ice with motorized leaf blowers.
The new, hip kids will use the cordless, battery operated leaf blowers.
I hope they will televise the recharging of the batteries….