The Angels had a meeting with their starting pitchers, the catchers and the pitching coaches yesterday. the subject matter was “why so few first pitch strikes?” Said Ron Washington, “When we come out of that room, we’ve got to come up with a solution, because this can’t continue.” Reid Detmers got into this list of young pitchers trending toward greatness. Hopefully, the meeting didn’t screw him up.
The White Sox designated Zach Remillard for assignment. They selected the contract of Danny Mendick. The Mets, for their part, designated Michael Tonkin for assignment.
Now Wade Miley has the dreaded elbow inflammation. Pete Fairbanks is on the injured list with a nerve related issue. Jordan Lyles is on the restricted list due to an undisclosed personal matter and the Royals selected Tyler Duffy in his stead.
Max Kepler is back from the injured list and the Twins also selected Ronny Henriquez.
A fan apparently got Aaron Boone ejected for arguing balls and strikes when Boone hadn’t said anything. Among the various veterans who are struggling this season is Aaron Judge. He says if the situation were reversed, he would probably boo too. Here is a list of about seven other guys who are playing an uncharacteristically bad game of baseball. Aroldis Chapman got a two game suspension for something he said to an umpire that got him ejected.
Photo credit: Rex Fregosi
Good speed in our lineup tonight. Particularly 7-9 and 1
Adell
Rengifo
Neto
Trout
Let’s pressure them tonight.
Trout leading off is interesting, he will not swing at first pitch. This may be what propels him to get his bat back.
I’m OK with Trout taking a few hacks at 1st pitch meatballs.
I hope he does-it will be a strike
We all have a great laughing time at M.M. singing Happy Birthday Mr. President and the Tank-Tank-Tank with tanks on a train, although we did remember George and his cold Ding-A-Ling. Thanx to all.
Stephenson TJ surgery. Perry might as well resign now.
I have such Baltimore envy. They sucked for a while but what a great young exciting team they have now.
Stephenson off to get TJ surgery, as expected.
No updates on Rendon yet
2026 and 2027 now looking solid for the 33 & 34 year old version of Stephenson the set up man
Paying $11 million a year to a guy that cannot pitch for likely 2 years and wasn’t with the team before. Perry has now found the worst signing ever. Amazing considering some of the past.
Quick question- do the Angels have to pay him or will an insurance policy cover his salary while injured?
Doubt it will make you feel any better, but there is a team option that now kicks in for something like $2.5 million for an additional year for missing year one due to injury
Lineups are out:
Trout CF
Schanuel 1B
Ward DH
Sano 3B
Moniak LF
O’Hoppe C
Adell RF
Rengifo 2B
Neto SS
Trout leading off, first time since the Soth era?
Good to see Moniak and Jo on the field together again. Hopefully this is the end of the Hicks experiment
Wash has almost reached the point of drawing names out of a hat. Actually, for once, all of the teams current best hitters are in the line up at the same time and I appreciate his willingness to think a little out of the box and try something different since all the regular stuff isn’t working. Also, the guys who have not been hitting well so far this season are not stacked together as usual but are interspersed with guys who are. A good effort at shaking things up.
That way whenever a good hitter gets a hit and gets on base, the opposing pitcher has a few easy outs and gets out of the inning.
😄
I remember making lineups for my old softball team, and we’d group the 5 best hitters in a row so that we’d for sure score big every couple of innings, with the guy that always hit a homer at the end of them. Sure, we’d have a 1-2-3 inning sometimes in between, but oh well.
I hope that Wash commits to this lineup for a couple of weeks, at minimum.
Obviously Drury will get starts at 1B, 2B & DH and Thaiss for a couple of games.
Favorite lineup of the season.
10/10, no notes.
Hopium tank = refilled
Replace Schanuel with Drury and I’m all about this lineup.
I know Schanuel has finally dropped in some singles here lately but I still feel like he needs AAA time.
Glad you brought up Drury. Having him be non-productive has been under appreciated.
Whatever his defensive limitations may be, he’s an RBI guy. Just not yet in 2024.
Drury’s only asset is to hit and drive in runs. Unfortunately he cant even do that so far this year. Id rather watch Schanuel hit worm burners that make it to the outfield than Drury strike out or display only warning track power. The other problem with Drury’s slump and bad hammy is we’ve been stuck watching Ren E Faux butcher ground balls in key moments no matter where he ends up around the diamond.
Looking at his career, last season appears to be more of an anomaly than most of his career. He’s really only had a couple other decent years out of 10 seasons.
Hell yeah. I have banged the Trout at leadoff spot for a looooong time.
The fact that he’s striking out less & running more make him our best option currently on the roster. Schanny, on paper, should be able
to perform well in the 2-Hole.
Me Likey.
Let’s see. Trout isn’t a lead off guy anymore. Sano isn’t a 4 hitter: Moniak isn’t a 5. Other guys are struggling.
Brutal.
We don’t really have true lead off hitter, or #4 hitter, although we might have a #5 hitter, so that does make it a bit of a challenge.
I get it. However, that being said, putting known square pegs in round holes doesn’t make sense.
Rendon and Schanuel have been fine at leadoff
Trout is fine at 3
Ward was adequate at 4
Drury can hit 4
The rest of the lineup is a bunch of who knows hitters except for O’Hoppe plus Sano can hit sixth.
Wash is looking to jumpstart the offense and Trout is our best player. I like the move considering the state of our offense – which is horrible at the moment.
Trout’s approach with bases empty and Trout’s approach with runners on are different.
Generally over time all splits will even out but we’re going on years with this and I’m hoping Trout isn’t permanently in in boom or bust mode with runners on.
His high leverage splits for the last 5 years have been so bad.
.196 bating average in high leverage situations since 2020
One thing in defense of this season is so far his K rate is only 16.7% in these situations (just 12 PA so far). His BABIP is 0%, so a little bad luck mixed into a small sample size.
Not sure I understand the whole Leverage index calculations after reading the definition it just made my head explode. But Career wise The paper GOAT still has a career slash line of .306/.454/.597 with RiSP’s and .262/.453/.447 with 2 outs, and RiSP’s. So its seems that he has been some clutchiness in the past.
Absolutely. He was phenomenal until 2020. It fell off a cliff and never came back after that.
He did have an OPS over 1.000 in high leverage in 2022 actually but it was due to walks and HRs. His BA was still low.
I think you meant 2023 TB because I show:
2021 RISP .423/.583/.885
2021 RISP w/2 outs .364/.533/.636
2022 RISP .243/.380/.554
2022 RISP w/2 outs .265/.405/.588
Today is April 23rd
That is all.
On this date today, 300 years ago, nothing interesting happened here in Orange County CA.
Well, maybe an
IndianNative AmericanIndigenous person caught some good game for dinner.I’ll be so glad when we’re not playing AL East, AL Central, NL East and NL Central teams…..
😀
….. or AL West or NL West. 😉
LOL….yeah those too
I’m sure we will catch a white hot Chicago White Soxs team when we play them.
Jared Walsh back on the board.
The Dodgers are wasting Ohtani’s prime.
We did it first!
Angels > Dodgers
Rec for you my fellow Sm@rt@ss friend!
Heard this on MLB radio: Angels leading the league in team meetings.
It’s Terry Collins era-esque and I could see Washington losing the vets on this team at the end of what will likely be a tough season.
Lakers choke it up, Kings get completely rolled, and Trout strikes out with bases loaded in 9th
Fuck Earth Day. Stupid planet.
I concur.
The sun hates us too…shut down or trade it.
When all else fails, the answer remaining is to trade ’em all and TANK TANK TANK TANK TANK TANK TANK TANK TANK TANK TANK TANK TANK TANK TANK TANK TANK TANK TANK TANK TANK TANK TANK TANK TANK TANK TANK TANK TANK TANK TANK TANK TANK TANK TANK TANK TANK TANK TANK and more TANK TANK TANK.
F-yeah, war machines. We’ll beat those Yanks.
Trade Shohei! Oh wait……
Trade Trout for more TANKS!! 😀
Tanks sound more effective than drafting raw kids and sending them immediately to the front line without any training or modern weaponry.
Trout is not washed. He is slumping. He will bust out
It is amazing how short people’s memories are. He was tearing it up a week ago and hitting HR’s, leading the league in fact. And now he is washed again. I think these people don’t understand how baseball works. It is a game of failure — and periodic spurts of success or thriving are actually cherished. Some folks want their stars to perform ALL the time. Pretty damned unrealistic if you ask me ..
Agreed, but we were so used to Trout being slump-proof that we still think he should be at this age.
Trout slump proof? Have you been watching the same Trout for the last decade? Even when he was young August was his greatest enemy and “Real Men of Baseball” were all laying it squarely at the feet of Soth because Trout was just too overused and tired by the end of July…. and also squarely at the feet of Arte for not spending on MOARSTARZ!
So many places to lay a single thing squarely
Except that he’s hitting .236 with .326 OBA which is pretty severe. It’s not like he dropped to .270 and .365. His career numbers are over .300 and over .400 so he’s well below that and he’s close to 100 ABs. I agree rate numbers can fluctuate more now with fewer ABs. He walked twice last night which is good and that’s something that he has not been doing much lately which helps keep the rate numbers from so much fluctuation when you’re going through a cool spell. And as long as you bring it up, I want my stars performing all the time if I have a choice. 🙂
ALL the time? What people here do understand Trout is faltering with runners in scoring position and when the game is on the line, he performs miserably. Not even average, miserably. That is a concern.
Oh, you mean like he failed last Monday in Tampa Bay when he hit the go-ahead HR in the 8th inning, with you guessed it, a runner in scoring position ? The Angels were trailing 1-0 and after Trout’s AB they were leading 2-1.
So, it is not like he can’t do it. He can. Hitting a baseball consistently is often thought of as the hardest thing to do in sports, and I think it is. The problem here is that people expect Trout to perform like he did when he was 24 yrs old.
Guess what? He’s not 24 any more. To expect that production is ridiculous. I think we should be happy that his power numbers are very strong and realize that the BA won’t be what it once was … And he is stealing bases again, so that is good. Another way to contribute.
And weren’t you a Trout fan? I remember several supportive comments last year or prior… Have you turned on him ?
this is reminiscent of the AROD CANT PRODUCE IN THE POST SEASON but like a way more sad version
and its april
and is the season over yet
clearly, just explaining why there are so many people slamming Trout after taking three strikes last night. To me, his decline has set in two years ago so don’t care what month, you can chose to believe it any way you want
Gotta love some CTPG Guy. At the end of the season, when it turns out this meh team is meh, he’ll also be incensed and worry that we’re gonna lose Trouts heart and search for the evil in the dark hidden heart of everything…. like the meh is a shock to him.
Nobody is saying he is washed, just shrinks when the game is on the line, Not 100% of the time, that is why his stats are not .000.
Okay, and who doesn’t “shrink” in big moments at least some of the time?
BTW, have you seen Shohei’s numbers with RISP this season ? I guess he’s not very good either ….
It’s not just this season though. This is the third year in a row its been a problem.
.243/.214/.118 avg the last 3 years with RISP
And it’s worse when you look at high leverage, he has been un-clutch for half a decade
.150/.222/.214/.240/.100 going back to the 2020 season…
So, should Arte ask for his money back ??
Let’s start with Rendon first, he’s the real crook
Ahh the Laker defense! Show how another sucks more to deflect the point of the discussion.
Huh?
But the season is not over, things will even out if he plays the entire season while I am to GA to look it up I believe May and June are usually Trouts best months. But could be wrong.
So there’s confirmed shrinkage? He just shrivels up like a frightened turtle?
Great scene a few minutes later when George and Jerry are trying to explain it to Elaine and she isn’t getting it.
The problem is when you’re only hitting .236 overall it’s hard to look good in any situation.
Here’s some free advice to you Ron Washington to tell the hitters at your meetings, swing at strikes, don’t swing at balls. And that goes double for you, Mike Trout.
Surprised nobody has thought of that yet.
Don’t tell the Doyers.
Adell has already 2 HRs, to opposite field at that, in very limited PAs.
I think given an everyday role he could easily get to 25-30.
Unleash Jo, Wash!!
And steal that many bases.
For players with more than 30 ABs, he is 3rd on the team in OPS, behind Trout and O’Hoppe, and just ahead of Ward. With all the players we have currently hitting under .200, He should definitely be playing every day.
And if anything, use the next 2-3 months to “showcase” Adell to the league and see if he can be a good enough trade asset (because at the rate it is right now, this team will become sellers again come July again).
Perry can really go scorched earth here and jettison Ward, Adell, Anderson, Sano, Hicks, Drury, Rengifo, Estevez, Moore, Garcia, Cimber, Sandoval, (if he gets fixed), and Thaiss. Sell, sell, sell!!!!!!
I’m all about this, although I’d want more than Minasian could probably pull off for Taylor Ward.
Adell’s ceiling is 30 HR / 30 SB.
I love Mickey, but it’s been time to give Jo the RF spot.
If we are gonna suck, at least Jo will make every game fun.
I would still put Mickey in RF and put Jo as DH. If his defense is really that suspect, at least find a way to get his bat and speed in the game. I think Moniak and Jo can rotate on the DH/RF spot, save for the occasional Trout turn at DH.
Good point
I have seen worse defense out Mickey than Jo so far this year so I’m not worried who plays where other than Mickey is so lost at the plate right now.
It’s worth a try…. but I don’t want to hear us complaining about how Wash is sooooo stoooopid for playing him in the OF and comparing his defense to a war crime and blah blah blah.
He’s gonna be a guy with some speed and power…. and a few errors…. and lots of Ks.
I’m bought in
No doubt. The question for me has always boiled down to BA. Is he a .200-.220 hitter OR a .240-.260 hitter?
Defense as a war crime lol!
No complaints from me. I’d rather see the team finally fully committing to playing Adell everyday and see once and for all, what they have in him. Is he the answer to any good question the team has? Or is it time to give up and finally jettison his butt?
I’d rather see lots of Ks and baserunning blunders from Adell rather than from the washed-out Hicks. There’s incentive in seeing what Adell can finally do as an everyday player. There’s NADA in Hicks.
In terms of winning, I don’t know that it’s going to matter what line up Washington rolls out so throw stuff against the wall and see if it sticks. I’m firmly in the “let the kids play” camp and they might as well see what they got. There are zero MiLB reinforcements coming and it’s too late to undo whatever damage they’ve done in rushing up the prospects they did have.
Just my druthers, no charts or graphs, but I feel like we’ll get the same production out of Adell as Sano…. but with some speed. So I’d rather have Adell play, and DH. Plus, we need to see if we’re keeping Adell or not, which adds value to his playing time.
Agreed, but we like charts and graphs. 🙂 Basically true as a hitter because Sano has pretty much replaced Rendons 1Bs and BBs with no power and is getting on base at a great clip. Adell may not get on as often but he will have more XBHs and SBs. Drury is the odd man out today but since he hasn’t been hitting and likely will not be on the team next year, it doesn’t really matter. I support getting value out of the season by determining what you have and what you will need going forward.
He’s the same as rengifo. Both have all the talent in the world, but they continue to make head scratching plays too often.
With Rengifo I’ve always just assumed that he’s not very bright and then he gets on a heater so I don’t know squat.
One thing I constantly wonder about the folks on this site, do they watch other teams much? Rengifo just isn’t GOOD. He’s not horrible. And about 2/3 of the teams in the MLB have a couple of that guy in their line up. The guy who can hit a little but fields meh. I’m talking teams that win. They sacrifice defense all the time.
But Old Man Real Baseball loves fielding because, unless you’re Vizquel or Ozzie Smith, there is ALWAYS something to bring up to help coach MLB players and guide MLB coaches from our keyboards.
He’s a depth piece alone for good teams. This team lacks enough talent to truly compete, period, end of story. This squad has less than line up supported by less than reserves.
Hyperbole warning! Baltimore’s starting AAA squad at the outset of the season would have a steal of a team for team trade. I somehow don’t have it in my DNA to swap allegiances but sometimes regret that attribute when I objectively look at the opposition teams players.
I watch O’s games…. a couple of em…. they’re fun team. You can have a fun “break” and watch some other team, you can still love the Angels.
I’ve read this at least 3 times today as “Unleash Joe Walsh”
Me too, it’s pretty funny
We should consider banging trash can lids to communicate what pitch is coming in order to help our incorrectly-guessing batters
Air horns?
I think you’re on to something here…..
No need for Trout….you know it, I know it, the pitchers know it, the scouts know…and he knows it…high fastball. ..KKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK
It’s been depressing to see the GOAT regressing so young, he should’ve been good for at least three more years.
I’ve never heard of a rule against fans tipping off pitches.
Plain and simple It’s just not fun watching this team….If you’re into winning teams.