Good morning Angels fans, have some links.
Angels News
Angels have their bullpen coach. It is Steve Karsay.
That is it. That is all the Angels news. It has been slow this offseason so far. Maybe Perry is waiting on Ohtani?
Around Baseball
Andre Dawson continues his quest to get the MLB HOF to change his plaque cap to Cubs. He went in as an Expo as the HOF forced him to.
The Oakland A’s are dead. Long live the Oakland B’s! Yes, a Pioneer Oakland Team called the Ballers/B’s.
MLB and F1 are being sued for the FTX crypto crash scheme as they promoted that a ton. Especially Umps.
Now that the A’s are moving, expansion is on the table again. Who would you want a new team to be in? I want west coast teams so we can kick the state of Texas out of the division.
Liam Hendriks and Cody Bellinger are the AL and NL Comeback Players of the year! Maybe Trout can win it next year…
Francisco Lindor won Philanthropist of the year by the MLBPA. I did not know that existed.
HOF votes are trickling in. First, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th votes are in. Way too early to tell who who will get in, but just enough to yell at people for being wrong. Here is the tracker.
Anything I missed? Post below for upvotes,
Just read a report that a “source” says the Rangers have dropped out of the Ohtani sweepstakes.
That news alone brought a smile to me.
I don’t want to face Ohtani playing for the Rangers for the next 10 years.
And having Ohtani jump up and down on the mound at the Big A wearing a Rangers uniform celebrating the Division-clincher year after year.
I also see a rumor that we are very interested in Snell.
That doesn’t bring as much a smile to my face. We shouldn’t be going after him.
Nikkan Sports reported that Seiko (Watch) started “Congratulations, Shohei” campaign for winning the second (unanimous) AL MVP. People who buy designated watch (at least $733 or higher) will receive a bobble head statue of Shohei in green business suit. https://www.seikowatches.com/jp-ja/special/ohtanibobblehead/202312/index
Seiko apparently did an interview with Shohei before 2023 season and the followings are Q&A which took place in the interview.
Q: Do you enjoy facing challenges?
A: Yes. I genuinely enjoy the game of baseball. It could be impromptu baseball or youth baseball. It could be simply joyful by playing overall, or it could have a purpose or goal that I set. With the pressure of reaching it, I derive pleasure from the accomplishment. Some people may desire to veer away from the pressure, but I think there are people who thrive in those pressure situations. Since I am given the opportunity to be in the pressure cooker, I would seek to enjoy the process.
Q: What is the source for you to desire to face challenges?
A: Whether it is small or big, I have drawn much pleasure when I have accomplished goals since I was small. Even during practice, when I was able to do things that I could not do before, I was really happy. I feel that having even small success in whatever you are doing keeps you going.
Q; Was there any experience that kept you going?
A: My youth team was never strong. But, when my team made it to the national tournament, I was excited. Yes, when I went pro, my team (Nippon Ham Fighters) won championship, but the entry into the youth national tournament was one of my major wishes, so when I accomplished that goal, it had a huge effect on my life.
Q: Do you have any message for people who are facing challenges?
A: I think there are many people who are not happy when they are not producing positive results despite trying their best. There are situations which require patience and others where positive results occur right off the bat. When things become more challenging, it is human to feel like quitting, but if whatever you are pursuing is worthwhile to persist in, I think you are fortunate right there. It is up to that individual to decide what to pursue, and it turns out to be baseball for me, but whatever direction he or she determines to go, they will find their happiness by doing their best.
I am fortunate and grateful in that I am allowed to do what I like to do. If I can finish my career still loving baseball, I would consider myself as one of the happiest people in the world. So, I will continue to do my best, and even if you are having difficulty with realizing your goal, I hope that you persevere.
Let me guess. They asked Angel Hernandez to look at it and see if it was a good idea.
I still have this vivid memory of a Steph Curry/Charles Barkley commercial that was all based around a premise/joke from Curry that “I dont need to be an expert, its just too easy” to invest in Crypto.
Yikes!
This is just another standard bankruptcy clawback lawsuit. I wonder if Steph, Giselle, TB12 and Kevin O’Leary are going to give back their millions as well?
Beltre 100% so far! Did I read it right… 4 votes so far?
Perry is obviously hamstrung by the Ohtani decision. When the free agent is your free agent you are doubly bound to try to retain him.
Respect to Lindor. I also didn’t realize that award existed. It needs far more publicity. The work some of these guys do off the field eclipses even the greatest work they do on it.
As I’ve said previously, Shohei in his 30s and two Tommy John surgeries and half a billion is not the recipe for this team. Yamamoto who would be our 25 year old ace at half the price is. Then we have some room to insert our aging contracts at DH rather than stuffing it with Shohei. I will root for him wherever he goes, but with so much our payroll wasted on Rendon, and to a lesser extent Trout,, we just don’t have the room given Arturo’s views about payroll.
I completely agree.
If I wrote a real Perry piece with an eye towards being a functional MLB team with a competitive window I’d sign Yamamoto and Lee, overpaying a bit, trade off Ward, Trout, Sandoval, and Canning, get a boatload of AAA/AA talent and look to really contend in 2-3 years.
(Yes, I know Trout doesn’t have a ton of value. Remember I ate half his salary to get a pitching prospect back in my off season piece.)
That’s what I’m thinking, I love Shohei but not at half a billion for a great DH and maybe a great pitcher, however we can easily pick if he’ll pitch (or possibly even hit) by who he signs with. If he signs with the Dodgers they’ll figure him out and he’ll win two Cy’s and a couple more MVP’s… If he signs with the Angels he’ll never pitch again and will hit for a couple more years. TrAdition? (did I do that right?)
I totally agree.
We cannot afford to sign possibly a $500MM DH, who also blocks Rendon and Trout at DH.
Even though I think Ohtani is the most exciting player I’ve seen in my life and I wish he could be remembered as an Angel for his whole career.
I agree as well. I hate the idea of Ohtan winning a WS with another team and going into the HOF with that team’s ballcap, but I just don’t see a path where the Angels can re-sign Ohtani and make a serious push for a championship. I’d rather watch Ohtani go and rebuild than flounder in mediocrity for the rest of Trout’s and Ohtani’s careers.
If Ohtani goes into The Hall with another cap it will reinforce the failures of Arte. Not that we don’t already know.
I agree as well but I was always of the mind that they should have traded him around the time the Padres got Soto midway through 2022. One guy doesn’t make a team but a few huge salaries can certainly kill one. Ohtani is the unicorn but the Angels missed executing on all the windows of opportunity that he gifted them.
I hope he does amazing things wherever he lands but “be careful what you wish for” was never more true.
But I feel if we’d traded him at the 2022 deadline for 5 top prospects the pitchers would all have had TJS by now and the hitters would have Adell-ed
Blum with a kickass Q&A with our new pitching coach, Barry.
https://theathletic.com/5097883/2023/11/29/qa-angels-pitching-coach-barry-enright/
“I saw (Reid) Detmers, I saw (Griffin) Canning, I saw (Patrick) Sandoval having two or three different sliders. A few different breaking balls. A cut slider. Detmers had more of a sweeper at times that blended in with his true slider. And sometimes blended down to what the curveball looked like. It seems like there was a lot of experimentation without the potential of them understanding that you need to get into 0-1 and 1-2 counts.”
“With seeing Detmers, that guy, we’re going to make him into a star. I have full confidence that that guy has the ability to be a star. Left-handed pitcher. Great velocity. Ability to spin the baseball. It comes into consistency, command and knowing himself better than anyone else.”
“One of the biggest things in the interview they said to me — which was great — they said, “Barry, you have full autonomy to say no to us. And we’re going to need you to do it. Because we’re going to come down with suggestions.” I told them I want all the feedback. Throw the data at me. I’m going to ask questions. I’m going to ask for data sets on this. I’m gonna ask guys if their arm angles have dropped. I’m gonna ask, “How is he moving?” I’m going to ask all things and absorb it, go through it and see where it applies. And then simplify it and dumb it down.”
“I think that’s what (people) see as old school. No data, you go out there blind and you just go grab your balls and go get them. There’s an aspect to that, but you’re also extremely dumb if you don’t use TrackMan and Edgertronic and all the resources that are given to you.”
Shades of Mickey Callaway.
At least they’re not his balls.
He talks a good game. Hopefully he can coach too. And the suggestions from above are likely to be more than he suspects or wants.
That’s already an improvement over Wise.
https://x.com/Super70sSports/status/1729938382199894240?s=20
Hi Editors. I submitted my IIWPM – just needs a photo and it’s ready to go. Thank you
You today, Gitcho next.
Thank you. Appreciate you all
Perry’s family tree is a circle if he really does wait on improving the team until Ohtani decides who gets to fund his generational wealth…..
How about Charlotte and Nashville, then something like this?
WEST (National)
Padres, Dodgers, Angels, DBacks
Seattle, San Fran, Las Vegas, Colorado
Houston, Texas, STL, KC
Cubs, Brewers, White Sox, Twins
EAST (American)
Detroit, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Nashville
Florida, Tampa, Atlanta, Charlotte
Bos, NYY, NYM, Toronto
Baltimore, Philly, Pittsburgh, Wash
By the way, I’m more of a purist, but after a few years, I think people would grow to love it. Heck, I still think of the Brewers being in the American league.
I am still hoping that Portland, OR would have a shot for MLB team. Portland has consistently ranked 1st or close to it in MLB viewership among cities without a team. However, the political atmosphere of Portland is quite hostile to baseball as Portland kicked out 3A affiliate of SF Giants to make room for MLS Timbers. So, I am not very hopeful.
But, if Portland gets in (maybe Phil Knight will have change of heart), I would like to see both Texas teams banished to East and bring Brewers back to West (National).
Same here about the Brewers.
Sometimes even the cheaters.
I still think of the Astros being in the National League . Unfortunately it’s not true .
The NBA model obviously works and it is set up East/West. That keeps the vast majority of games in prime time in all markets.
Works for me. I’d like to see the schedule unbalanced. I always liked how teams could play in one league, look like complete underdogs, then come in and dominate the other team in the WS. ie, 88 Dodgers and 90 Reds against the A’s.
I think Mike needs to worry about playing 140+ games before he starts to care about awards again.
Perry has to skate some thin ice this off-season. If the Ohtani sweepstakes end up lasting months, do you keep the money Ohtani would receive in limbo while other players sign elsewhere? Shohei could do the league a favor by being one of the first off the board.
It’s not like he is waiting for anyone to set his market. Pros of being a unicorn.
The schadenfreude of anyone who bought into crypto heavily in the last 5 years is delicious. Those FTX patches looked absolutely ridiculous on the umpires. Fcking beanie babies for tech bros.
“beanie babies for tech bros” 🤣🤣🤣
Great post!
I’m remembering that ridiculous Matt Damon ad “Luck favors the brave” – not his finest moment.
There is old Japanese saying “残り物には福がある”, loosely translated as “there lies eternal happiness in what is left over”.
My thought is Shohei is waiting for the majority of highly ranked FAs to make their choices before he makes his. That will make MLB Network happy in that they will have something to talk about until possibly early next year. Not so much for Minasian or many CtPGers.
I hope you are wrong and that Shohei decides to lead the market not react to or wait for it. He could really do the Angels a disservice if this drags on too long.
Why is it a “disservice” by Ohtani?
For once I agree with you Blutarsky.
It’s a business not a popularity contest.
I renounce my post! I’d rather drink a gallon of water and piss on a spark plug than have 1978 agree with me. 😂
Your loss pal.
Start Chuggin!
https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/26dcab82-6106-4e23-8d62-2c482ebdb51f
Only because he has to know that it hamstrings the Angels, where he has played for 6 years and undoubtedly has some good memories. I realize he’s gonna do what is best for him. It would be nice, however, if he made a relatively quick decision to allow teams like the Angels to pivot. I don’t get the impression he is a greedy person so the difference between $525 million and $550 million is unlikely to matter that much to him.
We did a disservice to Shohei for the last 6 years lmaooo
I see this take a lot, but let’s be real:
The Angels organization bent over backwards to accommodate Ohtani. Remember the “Shohei Sunday” routine? It was cool to catch as a fan but wreaked havoc with every other starter’s routines. Last minute mixups of the rotation to accommodate his fatigue as the season wore on, etc.
I do seriously wonder if a team that is already winning is willing to go to those lengths.
It’s as lazy as the “Imagine if Trout and Shohei played for the same team…” takes. Those hot takes are obviously from people who didn’t watch the Angels.
Shohei was mostly injured for the first three years when Trout was still in peak MVP form, and vice-versa for the last three years. They never played together at full strength for a full season.
And yes, a major reason why Shohei became the unicorn was because the Angels bent over backwards to accommodate him. After his horrible 2020 season where the mainstream punditry was “maybe it’s time to give up on the 2-way thing…” the Angels instead stuck with it and more than that, fully unleashed him to the league in 2021.
Usually, when I make a half billion-dollar decision I take my time.
Then we will have a true “Japanese standoff” since the majority of the FA market (and trades as well) will not move until Shohei makes up his mind.
The major free agents will wait on the large market teams if any of them still think they have any hope of signing Ohtani so that no free agent dollars are left on the table.
My gut still tells me that we will know either at the end of this week or in the beginning of next week so that there will be a mad flourish of activity in Nashville.