Torii Hunter joined the Angels as Special Assistant to the General Manager. Mike Trout is also a basketball fan. As many of you probably know, Nolan Schanuel had his on-base streak terminated retroactively over the weekend by MLB. Guess who featured prominently in “Lineup Changes That Must Be Made Already.“
Stephen Strasburg officially retired over the weekend.
The MLBPA is getting hot under the collar about the pitch clock again.
Injuries
Trevor Story dislocated his shoulder Friday night and landed on the ten day injured list. Shane Bieber will undergo season ending elbow surgery. Braves pitcher Spencer Strider has damage to his ulnar collateral ligament and will be evaluated further by a specialist. J.D. Martinez has overall body soreness from his ramp up and won’t be playing for at least the next four games. Diamondbacks shortstop Geraldo Perdomo has a torn meniscus which will cost him at least a month.
BTW, I love what the Houston Asstros are doing so far.
Paging 2002…paging 2002…please call Framber.
Houston Astros starting pitcher Framber Valdez, a two-time All-Star, was scratched from a scheduled start Monday due to elbow soreness, the team announced.
Per MLB.com, Valdez felt soreness while playing catch Sunday and traveled to Houston on Monday morning to be examined by team doctors. He was previously set to start against the Texas Rangers in Arlington.
I always route for the Asstros failure, not injuries.
Not rooting for injuries. Just an FYI.
This warms my heart. https://twitter.com/TheAthletic/status/1777377406862643382
Can’t wait too much longer to set my prediction in stone: 71-91 record team.
FWIW Ohtani got boo’d in the same intro and #6 got it as well (although his intro before his first AB there were many more cheers before the boo birds came out in full force). Halo fans, a fickle bunch
There shouldn’t be a reason why Arte is on the montage. But at this point of his life, why would he want to continue to own the team, just take the money and retire in AZ. I remember him walking around the tailgates, shaking hands, taking pictures. He used to sit behind home plate with the fans. People used to love the man, I did too. He just ran the team to the ground with no real plan on getting it back on track.
Like many successful business people who built a healthy financial empire, they frequently live long enough to completely destroy something else and/or to become a pariah.
Roger Murdock, Frank McCourt, Donald Sterling, Marge Schott, Barney the purple dinosaur, Arte Moreno?
Bill Cosby, R. Kelley?
Georgia Frontiere, Rachel Phelps.
Barney reboot coming soon! Just like Arte!
https://www.thewrap.com/barney-dinosaur-mattel-revival-2024/
Barney is the devil incarnate.
This guy looks friendlier. The original version always looked creepy, like he was wearing lipstick, and slightly satanic.
Musk is on his way!
Roger Murdock? So I take your not a fan of NBA players flying Planes?
https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/bdeb5da0-5070-450d-b393-09cf3bd68d5b
The reason is that everybody low-balled him while his asset was up for sale.
He then got pissed off and took it off the market. I don’t blame him for not selling the team for a bargain price, but at least if he’s going to continue owning it he should invest in the product on the field.
I keep hoping that the reason he has now dropped his investment into the team is one of reasons A or B, and not C
A. He is about to sell, so he lowered the payroll
B. He is holding out for next year’s really good free agent class to spend
C. Revenue streams have collapsed so much that he is setting a new waterline for the club (back to the 80’s… “small market club”)
No one in the crowd is booing you, sir. They’re saying “Boo-urns! Boo-urns!”
I wish I could afford to have someone hack that video and play the baseball “Highlights” from the Naked Gun movie during calling all Angels.
Something has to give with our start since it’s surprising to have a winning record given:
We need to play the Marlins more frequently
Silseth and Zuniga to the DL.
Fulmer and Strickland brought up.
Soto and Plesac DFA’d!
Disappointing start to Silseth’s 2024 campaign.
…..what was that about Trevor Bauer again?
Silseth with “elbow inflammation”.
😲
Raise your hand if you said we should sign another starter like Clevinger, even though we already had a full rotation, because we’d need more than 5 starters this year.
Then again, if Silseth was a reliever and Clevinger started, maybe Silseth doesn’t get injured? Stuck in a logic loop…
(almost everyone raises their hands)
Pitching?
We don’t need
No Stinking
Pitching!
Even the hard core “play the kids” people wanted another starter. Detmers is OK, but not many people expected Anderson to be any good. The other guys are known to be wildly inconsistent.
Oh man, here we go. Injuries already. Ok, ok…Bauer, Urias and P-Diddy, come on Minaisan!
With Adell & Moniak needing more AB’s and Sano seemingly holding his own, I wonder if Hicks’ days are numbered……
I’m lost on Wash’s thinking. Why isn’t Rengifo hitting 2nd and Mickey hitting 7th?
Hopefully…
#FREEMONIAK
Glad his on base streak is over, maybe he can actually focus on hitting the ball better.
Tonight’s Lineup
https://www.mlb.com/gameday/rays-vs-angels/2024/04/08/746252/preview
Not too surprising that Schanny’s getting a day. Like trying Mickey in the 2-hole.
Rendon is seeing the ball better and making sharp contact. His stats should improve. Trout has 4 HRs and 4 RBI. Yikes. Your number three hitter and best player hasn’t driven in anyone but himself.
Sano looked ok but not impressive so far. Moniak doesn’t look like he did last year. I’m wondering if he makes it at this point. Hope so.
Rest of the lineup is what it is.
He never gets a hit with runners on base. That’s on him.
So we have our two best hitters who are both hitting almost 150 points higher than anyone else hitting 7 and 8. You got me.
O’Hoppe could bat higher. Rengifo is a streaky guy that has played best once the Angels are out of contention. I’m unsure they need to bat him in any given spot. Ninth would be fine and move Neto to eighth. Or move Neto to second and Moniak eighth. Whatever.
Indians opener vs White Sux. Very fun to have baseball on not caring about either team. Talk about letting the kidz play. Watching Major League during spring training and the intro being the guardians bridge or whatever they call it, makes sense that name won out. Definitely wins out over spiders or avengers but missed opportunity for Cleveland Wild Things!
The Lineup I hope to see tonight:
3B – Rengifo
1B – Schanuel
DH – Trout
LF – Ward
2B – Drury
RF – Moniak
C – O’Hoppe
CF – Adell
SS – Neto
I’d be open to Sano at 1B, but since Schanny’s a leftie, he likely starts.
I like it.
I would prefer to see that line up every day for the next 2 months except for Adell and Trout swapping positions.
I thought Wash might give Trout a DH day here, but based on recent patterns, he’ll probably do that in game 3 against the Rays.
So, anyone see anything about the USA Curling team yet?
They almost got swept too.
I thought they were going to sweep?
Perry has done a poor job this offseason, Arte also to blame. Failing to sign ANY decent starters was a shame. Batters were washed veterans. Bullpen so far a bust. A good GM would’ve signed Imanaga who is lights out, only 10mil /yr and would replace Ohtani’s Japanese fan fare. Or maybe made a low risk high payoff trade like how Sox got Tyler ONeil from Cards for two nobody pitchers. Cards prob taken Adell instead. Boras failed all his big FA’s, and Perry couldn’t take advantage of any of them? Still 2 cheap options to give this team at least a kick into gear, sign Bauer already and Brandon Belt.
Perry can only do so much. At this point, it is Arte who decides who gets signed and how much money to spend. Trout did try to plea with Arte to open up his wallet. There is a reason why there has hasnt been a succesfull GM in a long time.
Arte gave up this year but I don’t know what his plan is going forward.
I’m happy the Angels did not pour the money in trying to replace the guy who left to join the Dodgers. Let the kids play.
like Hicks, Sano, Cisnero, Garcia…kids like that
Those are skids
Channeling my inner Gritcho…..if you were any one of those free agents, would you want to sign and play for the Angels? And pay an incredibly high state tax… If you had a choice? Winning only 65 or 70 games?
It’s the same reason why I have trouble trying to score a date with super models, they have better options… even though my mother told me I’m special and people like me.
True, but I thought Snell wanted to sign here, and most of the Japanese FA’s are looking for $$ and comfort. Except Yamamoto who was guided by Ohtani.
We certainly think your special 😎
Zero. Look at JD Martinez…not active as he is trying to get in game shape. What the hell does this mean for a DH? Double-Bubble, seeds and pine tar is all that is needed.
Nailed it. Why do some just assume that every FA wants to play here because zOMGTROUT!! Snell might have wanted to be here, but no one can say for certain he would have given the Angels – given their track record – the same deal.
Giants aren’t that good, but they are closer to a WC spot than the Angels. For a player who is seeking playoffs over money, it makes perfect sense to sign elsewhere. It’s not always cheap Arte and stupid Perry.
And we’re still 5-4 and in second place in our division.
It’s a Murracle.
https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/023986c5-8a53-49d2-8e0a-c002da68db6f
We played the Marlins three times.
That’s why.
I think the league needs a little more time to catch up with Imanaga’s pitches. Let’s see his stat line come AS weekend.
Im hoping that Rendon decides to retire after this season if things continue to go the way that they are going. I understand why Ron wants him at leadoff but at some point, he needs to do whats right for the club. There will be some good wins, there will be a lot of bad losses, but I want to see this team head towards the right direction. Also, I am pretty happy that there’s no homerun hat this season. Its pretty hard to watch players wearing a hat each time they hit a dinger in late August when they are down 7 runs and on a 5 game losing streak.
If anything, Rendon would do a Strasburg, but have a psychologist state he can no longer work a job that requires performing in front of large groups of people. Medically retired players get their entire contracts paid out.
I knew a judge once who claimed he had a fear of courtrooms for a similar reason.
Wow. That’s crazy.
He was secretly attending medical school on the island of Dominica. He’s disbarred now.
😮 But even though he was disbarred, did he get his license to practice medicine?
Unknown. He was kind of in the nature of an enemy. He had to come back from Dominica to defend himself in the bar proceedings, I know that.
He had a nursing license before law. Maybe he went back to that.
Looked him up. No physician license in the state of CA. His nursing license might be current, but his name is kind of common. The Nursing Board also lists an osteopath out in Victorville with that name.
O’Hoppe, Ward, Trout, Rengifo , Sanó our best hitters right now.
Detmers, Anderson, Moore, Estevez our best pitchers.
…and Sano best pitcher.
With so many dudes
struggling, it’s asinine that Rengifo is sitting. Hey Mickey needs more AB’s as well.
For the love of Allah, sign Trevor Bauer already.
It will be interesting to see how Anderson fares tonight following last week’s stellar outing. I’d be happy with 6 innings / 3 runs.
I was waiting for somebody else to suggest Bauer.
Didn’t want to become the site pariah all by myself.
Dude throws strikes and he’s never been convicted.
I already know what you all will say…just get over it!!
There’s a reason(s) he hasn’t been signed by any team, not just us.
He’s an unpoppable human zit.
That’s just setting up Bauer’s big payday in a collusion suit against MLB (Ala Kaepernick).
Unlike Kaepernick though, Bauer can still ball at a high level.
If ManRam, Aroldis Chapman and that Dodger guy (After 1st domestic assault) can get a MLB team to sign them, then Bauer should be able to.
Do it now Arte!!
Clearly he is a jackass of a person.
But who cares…he throws strikes!!
If being a “jackass” as a person was the determining factor, there would be a lot or job openings in MLB and everywhere else.
Bauer is instantly our 2nd best starter at worst should we sign him today.
Wouldn’t it be hilarious if Mr. “…I would sign for MLB minimum” has some team come out and say, we tried and he told us to do something to ourselves.
I think the odds there are remote. He’ll jump on the first opportunity I’d presume.
Maybe if he was left handed, someone would’ve bit by now.
any collusion suit by Bauer would result in MLB’s investigation becoming public.
My hunch all along has been there’s things in there Bauer doesn’t want to become public. So he’ll stump on social media but avoid the courtroom.
And I’m saying this as a guy who has changed his tune on the SD lady’s accusations.
Or perhaps he’s calculating that launching a lawsuit would result in him never playing in MLB again?
If accusers lose credibility and their are no convictions, then what are we talking about here? He’s “guilty” because the corporate narrative and cultural zeitgeist says so?
Sign the dude. Low cost pitcher that helps us now and at the deadline.
Right.. but he MUST have done something else (murder? .. just throwing it out there) because SURELY theres a reason why no club will sign him.
The one thing i know about collusion is that its always done in good faith.
REC for solid employment of sarcasm.
No lies detected.
At the time Kaepernick was quite capable. It’s absurd to suggest there was another reason he couldn’t find work other than the political fear of him taking a knee. Now, of course, he’s too old
He was flailing pretty badly towards the end to begin with and likely figured out that the “social justice” hustle was far easier and quite lucrative.
Kaeperknee didn’t even finish his last season as a starter on the Niners-He was done dude.
He (Kap) was a declining QB and also a polarizing locker room figure. I never cared about the kneeling, as a lifelong 9er fan and owner of his jersey. He simply couldn’t throw a back corner fade or recognize when a receiver wasn’t covered (all of this in the red zone). His demands were to be paid manning money. He won like $5 mil in that lawsuit which is nothing in NFL dollars
Let’s see…
Kap opted out of his SF contract.
Was offered a deal by Denver he turned down because it didn’t guarantee him the starting gig.
Told Seattle not to offer him a contract because he only wanted a starting gig.
Moved his public workout 15 minutes prior to it starting.
Asked for $25 million from the XFL.
Kap clearly got more publicity and money playing the martyr role than he would have as a backup in the NFL. His actions clearly show he avoided every opportunity presented to him.
That’s why he settled his suit for couch change by NFL owners standards and they didn’t have to admit any wrongdoing. The tab was less than the likely legal bills.
As a fan who followed the 49ers close, he was not respected in the locker room. Also did not possess good passing skills, decision making ability and miserable as a leader. THEN he started all that other malarkey. But yeah, maybe he could have become a backup.
He also dated aldon smith’s ex while he was on the team and caused drama, even joe Staley called him out on it. Nessa completely ruined kaep’s career
Look how polite and respectful he was before he became a radical-race-baiting-dick. Nice, happy kid to anti-cop thug in a short time.
(To be fair, we all grow as adults, shit happens and we change, we become more aware) But this guy was, is still I guess, playing a part…Victimhood leaders can get paid well. It’s an option when your playing career is over.
https://youtu.be/ogWQcdykCaM?si=APHo7yhbwrR7QyuX
Kaep was never a good qb, his legs helped him alot.
that’s a lot of you saying this so I stand corrected. Thanks, all!
He’ll never win a collusion suit, he opens his mouth and gives good reasons not to issue a contract. Simply, Bauer is a dick and no one wants to deal with him, period. Cancerous to the club house dynamics. Pretty easy to comprehend.
A poem…
Went to the game yesterday….
With my friend…
who ditched the Angels for the Red Sox…
because of Arte…
Stupid Arte
Also was in attendance yesterday. Contemplating going outside to stare directly at the sun, unprotected, during the eclipse. Then, if I can achieve deafness, I’ll then complete the trifecta. I became a dumb ass back in 1978 when I became a fan of this team.
Free the Realtors! Sell Art! Joiner can do the mortgage!
If I landed a billion dollar deal, just one, I’d retire the second it funded.
I hope it says FREE IPPEI on the front
New Braunfels, Tx where I live, is within today’s full lunar eclipse zone. Heading out shortly to a neighborhood gathering at the park for the fun.
At work with my special ed students taking turns having a look at it. They’re loving it.
that’s awesome.
We do fundraisers and donate plenty of supplies to my son’s school but yet eclipse glasses were never on a list. So he’s on rainy day schedule.
Why teach science?
We’re doing a cross country trip next week on the I-10. Looks like we’ll be “close” to you , I’ll wave as we drive by! 😀
Be lookin’ for you
Didn’t catch any baseball this weekend, but at what point does Rengifo get his starting job back?
Rendone and Drury (even Schanuel) aren’t hitting well to justify keeping Rengifo on the bench.
FREE 👑 LUIS
its disrespect at this point.
Rengifo = 6/15
Rendone+Drury+Schanuel = 9/86
What are we doing, Wash 😂😂😂
I’m convinced the only reason Rendon is on the roster is because Arte refuses to eat the $70m or so he’s owed. There’s no other logical reason why Wash continues to start Rendon given he can’t hit for average, can’t hit for power, and can’t get on base. His glove is average at best.
They wait until the final season of a bad contract to finally release the underperforming player. RenDone isn’t there yet. I think they’re counting on an injury as the easy way to get him out of the lineup.
Problem is, He’s already eating the money and not getting any value from having him on the roster. The only alternative they really have is playing Rengifo at 3B, which I would support.
-0.4 fWAR so far. (You’d think it was worse than that.)
Having him hit leadoff is a recipe for failure. It is amazing that we’re above .500 with him hitting under .100 and an OBP under .150.
And with Schanuel’s struggles it is REALLY unsustainable. I DO think Nolan will start to turn it around, but with Anthony I am not sure he ever see’s .260. Time to bench him for Rengifo, who as others have pointed out holds his own hitting leadoff.
And which you would quickly come to regret!
Silseth has proven to be great one time through the order then get shelled the second time around.
He’d be a perfect long reliever, which is why I so adamantly wanted Lorenzen or Clevinger. Both signed for cheap and would’ve been a boon to this club.
Instead we got Stephenson who hasn’t pitched yet and is damaged good for 11 times what the other two received.
Epic failure.
Clevinger…why did he sign for pennies when teams were pitching starved? Must be a character flaw somewhere. Curious.
When does Minasian get responsibility for the vast majority of his FA signings/trade busts? The bullpen was supposed to be a strength after all the money was spent there this off season. Instead, it’s terrible as usual and he did nothing to strengthen the very weak SP. Working for Arturo is an explanation, but shouldn’t be an excuse.
Signing a guy due to a hot half of a season for $33 million was a big risk. Most of us said so at the time.
However, at that time plenty of starting pitching options remained and we all kind of thought/hoped we’d add one.
Yes Arte cut the budget this year but that budget did include $33 million over 3 years for an arm. Perry spent it on an arm that hasn’t shown any signs of actually pitching this year. That’s on him.
I guess it comes down to how much meddling Arte does, that no one on this site can frankly see. We can all sit around making theories, but no one knows what really goes on inside the Angels management meetings.
Frankly, I’m not sure how productive it is for us to keep harping on it either. Even if we drive the narrative on this site to eventually convince everyone here that “Perry is to blame! Get rid of him!”… who cares? It isn’t like Arte is reading this site and is going to realize “wow, those CTPG people want Perry gone, so I better let him go”.
I agree with Jeff though… Perry sure seems to be the one who decided on Stephenson, so maybe he didn’t do enough diligence on his health. Or maybe he did, and this is just one of those injury things that no GM could know about beforehand.
I’m not going to say well Perry should have used that money to instead go get Clevinger, if we have no idea if Arte was nixing the signing of starting pitchers.
Perry’s FA track record singing of pitching FAs are concerning. End of story.
If that was truly the end of the story, then I would agree. And not even bothered to write my prior post at all.
I do think he has made good trades and I tend to overlook last year’s deadline deals. I believe Perry would have traded Ohtani in 2022 if f-Arte did not interject.
I don’t know when and what they’ll do, if anything but If Rendon is still hitting at 200 or under after a month they should definitely be doing something. Probably the most frustrating thing so far is that even though they know they aren’t going to win this year, they refuse to use the opportunity to fully commit to evaluating their young players. Obviously they’re committed to living with Schany and Neto, but not Moniak and Adell.
This I completely agree with. Adell should be in the lineup every day.
Isn’t it time to give up on him?
It’s been years of AAAA status.
He should have been traded for a like player on another team.
This time of the year, batting stats are so magnified, we are less that 2 weeks into the season. I’m more of a promoter of a steady line-up, let batters get comfortable vs playing Jenga with the line-up and batting order. Time will weed out the warts.
Understood, but what is the purpose of watching Hicks and Sano who likely won’t even be on the team next year instead of Adell and Moniak.
It’s probably some tacit recognition by the coaching staff that there’s no there there. I still would like to let them prove it over the course of a season, particularly Moniak. OTOH, it appears Schnauel could use some seasoning in MiLB.
Agree, questionable. I think Sano will fade away and lose ABs.
Pitching Silseth is doing just that-playing the younger guys, so they go through their lumps now and are better in the future. Sandoval for all his talent just can’t throw pitches in the strike zone, period. Sure, pitchers need to pitch to the edges but not on every pitch like he does, maybe he has a lot of talent, but he is also showing up with a .10 cent head. I hope he turns his career to being a great pitcher but will believe it when I see it.
I still have faith in Silseth, losing all faith in Rendone, building some faith in hands of stone Renny, losing faith in Sandoval, have all the faith in the world in O’Hoppe (I posted the day before the season started that this kid would lead the team in several categories) and losing faith in Washington’s line up choices, gaining faith in the Bullpen. I have zero faith in Suarez ever being a decent pitcher ever again.
BTW, Texas has a 1b who has started the season hot, I believed then and I believe now that Walsh and Fletcher never should have left us. That’s my opinion and I’m sticking to it.
Taylor Ward is holding up his end of the deal as our best LF’er in many years. Zach Neato Neto will find his stroke and be a .265-.270 hitter this season. Is it time to start Moniak for a couple of weeks to see if he is the real deal, I certainly believe so as Hicks is just a back up at best.
Work on one thing at a time theory, put Drury in at 1b, move Schanuel to DH to allow him to work on his hitting before reinserting him back in the field. Maybe trying Sano out at 3b before signing a former Ray and Giant 3b to fill in the gap. 😃
You don’t have to agree with all of my ideas here, but do you like more than 50% of them?
One thing I forgot GO DETMERS!!!!!
In my opinion, we the fans have overhyped Silseth. Like alot of prospects, Silseth has potential this is currently unrealized. He likely came to the majors too soon and could have used more time developing in the upper minors. He throws an interesting array of pitches, but remains inconsistent and hitable. He’s just 23 and maybe he’ll figure it out, however as someone mentioned yesterday – he’s a project that the franchise will need to be patient with.
Your assessment is accurate. Our starting pitching, which has not been good so far on the whole, is not going to look so good as long as the offense continues to sputter. Silseth is getting close. He pitched well enough to win with some offense. He only gave up runs in one inning yesterday. Even if he had just allowed one less solo shot, two runs in five innings would have been considered a solid effort, and had he been a little more economical and gone six, we would’ve all been happy. Honestly, right now he should be a back end of the rotation guy, which is what he is. The real issue is top of the rotation. The last 3 guys, as a group, have been pretty decent. It’s Sandy and Canning who are killing us right now along with parts of the Pen.
I’m thinking it is Minasian insisting on running him out there to try to justify his all pitching 2020 draft of terrible pitchers.
He has not had the opportunity to stay in the rotation after a bad start or two, now he has been given that opportunity and with the experience of success and taking the hits he will mature as a pitcher that we can count on. I see good things happening for him.
I gained a lot of respect when Rendon legged out that IF single. He could’ve just pro-glided it, but he ran it out into a hit.
He’s hitting the ball hard and they’ll soon find grass. return to 2019 form, probably not, but nevertheless, he’ll start hitting.
We’ll see.
Yes, it’s great to celebrate Rendon doing the job he gets paid $245M to perform. He’s a true American Hero.
But he’s NOT doing the job ! That’s the thing.
As leadoff man his job is to get on base. His current BA is .094.
His OBP is a pathetic .147 !!
We’re in agreement. My use of the word “job” was related to “legging out the IF single”. The point being players are expected to run hard when they make contact….especially those like Rendon who make contact so infrequently.
Yet he’s quintupled his OPS in just 3 days.
Not hard to do when it is that low …
Just looking for the silver lining in the outhouse my friend.
Anything above 10, 50, .250 would be a great success at this point. I’m betting on the under.
BTW-Wasn’t it reported that Suarez reported to ST lighter? Did he go on a feast diet since?
He is what he is. He’s a long reliever. No one should expect more. Odds are 50/50 whether he ends the year still on the roster.
Why below 50-50, put a fork in him.
50-50 is what he’s expected to gain during the season?
Sano has taught him to worship at the altar of fried foods.
Soth slipping him food on the side?