Morning Angels fans. We are almost done with May, can you believe it? Have some links!
Angels News
The Angels actually won yesterday somehow. There goes one of their remaining home wins this year.
Seriously though, the Angels are on pace to break the modern record of fewest home wins in a non shortened season. In 1961 when 162 games became the norm, no team has won fewer than 22 home games in a season. The Angels are on pace for 19.
But hey, the Angels win means that maybe they will turn it around somehow. I mean it was a bit lucky with that MFY error and… oh, it is now officially a hit. Huh… weird.
Around Baseball
Speaking of the MFY, their SP are on a hot streak. 15 consecutive games of 5 IP and 2 ≤ runs a game. That is the longest streak since 1893. That is 131 years ago. Not only is no human that old, the American League wasn’t even a thing yet!
Remember Jaime Barria? Angels SP/RP who couldn’t quite be good enough for either so he was cut? Yeah he went to Cleveland, and he was sold to the Eagles of the KBO. Dude now has to learn Korean.
On the topic of learning, we all have to learn some new records, as the Negro League records are now integrated into the MLB database. Is this a good idea or not?
Another ump retires, Paul Emmel. No idea who he is, must have been good.
Hitting is really sucking across MLB even with so many pitching injuries. Expansion is the way to go. 32 teams now!
Anything I missed? Post below for upvotes!
On the pregame, they just posted the Josh Gibson is the best hitter of all-time stats versus Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, etc. I’m all for guys getting recognized. Especially guys that weren’t allowed to play in a league due to skin color. But MLB stats are MLB stats. Non-MLB stats are non-MLB stats.
Tonight’s Lineups
https://www.mlb.com/gameday/yankees-vs-angels/2024/05/29/746228/preview
No Pillar 🤔
Other than Moniak instead of Pillar, this is our best line up with our current active roster (hitting wise).
Need Sano to recover from his boo boo
In other news:
How ’bout that Blake Snell
What’s that country song? Thank God for unanswered prayers
Wow, 0-3, 10.4 ERA 😳
😲🫣
But if we signed him he’d be undefeated with an ERA and WHIP under 1.00
🤣
🤣 🤣 🤣
My biggest/only knock on O’Hoppe is the same with 90% of MLB catchers that I see. You don’t snatch the glove to the strike zone when framing a pitch, you catch it towards the strike zone.
Look at Bob Boone and Sosh’s years behind the plate to see two pitch framing artists at work.
My concern with O’Hoppe is his defense. His caught stealing % is near the bottom of all major league catchers, and his “pop time” (time getting the ball to 2nd base) is middling within his peer group. I realize our pitchers may suck at holding runners, but arm strength and accuracy is on him.
The attraction with him is his bat for the position. Without that……
He’s 50 games into his first year starting in the majors after a major surgery, you don’t think his arm strength and accuracy will improve?
I thought the surgery was on his left, non-throwing shoulder?
He’s playing way too much. If Thaiss isn’t a credible back up, then go pick one up.
In fairness, O’ Hoppe has at least two very generous pitchers who like to give extra steps to baserunners. Most bases are stolen on the pitcher, not the catcher.
Maybe easier to frame pitches back in a day where 96 MPH was rare?
Fast forward to today, where everyone now throws 97, harder to do?
I bet he frames Anderson’s pitches very well. The rest of the staff have problems hitting locations
MK Sports reporting that Jaime Barria is signing with Hanwha
Wow, Barria off the board…
Good read about O’Hoppe. Lots to learn, but I think this kid is going to become an All-Star someday.
Bet he makes big strides in calling games by next year. Sounds like he’s calling most of the pitches.
https://www.ocregister.com/2024/05/27/angels-catcher-logan-ohoppe-feels-the-growing-pains-as-he-learns-how-to-handle-the-pitchers/
I would go with execution more than selection even though he’s learning regarding selection. We need Gubi to help in the are of pitch selection. Just listen to him on broadcast. I do agree with you that someday he will be an allstar. I believe he would be one this year if he was slugging like last year with the same BA and OBA he has this year.
He was a great pickup. It will be fun to see how high his ceiling is.
I like O’Hoppe, been a supporter since day 1. Big kid, strong frame who needs to take hold of this franchise. He’s got the stones to do it but ABs have not taken hold up to this point. Hoping he progresses to a William Contreras or a Patrick Bailey at the plate.
Lack of longer, instructive minor league stays really showing with the young guys. Baserunning, defense, pitch calling
Agree, this is what I’ve been saying for three years.
Doubt instruction from a poorly developed minor league system is going to help much. It’s the byproduct of being in a notoriously bad minor league system in general. This has been the case for a long time. My opinion, it all starts from the top down.
Pitch selection has definitely been an issue. Recent example is the third fastball in a row to Soto. If you watch pitching, that should have been a breaking ball on the outer half of the plate.
Several choices in the Guardian series made little sense too. Losing guys after getting two strikes due to pitch selection really hurts.
Barria to Korea. It even rhymes.
I don’t really understand the stats from Negro leagues being integrated into MLB stats. I can see it for those players that played in MLB so they can post career stats, etc., that include prior play. But I read early today an article saying Josh Gibson is now the single season record holder for season average because he hit .440 or something one year in the Negro leagues. In MLB records, if that’s how it works and the article was accurate, that stuff doesn’t make logical sense. The feat wasn’t done in MLB. Pretty simple.
Nice win by Halos last night. They deserved to get one of them. I do worry about the bullpen going forward. I don’t wholly trust Estevez and I wonder how many innings guys like Strickland, Moore and Garcia can pitch.
Anderson tonight & Sandoval tomorrow.
If we’re to take this series, our best shot is tonight, obviously.
I want Moniak to play more but, Kevin Pillar is making that almost impossible with his red hot hitting.
Jo Adell – I’ve said repeatedly that 30 homers over a full season was probable, but the question was always is he a .200-.220 hitter or a .240-.260 hitter. He seems to have regressed to his career mean. Hopefully the kid has another “adjustment” in his bag.
I think he will. I listened to him on a podcast and he is an intelligent, thoughtful hard-working young man from a great family. I think he was incredibly poorly handled by previous Angels coaching, and he is currently unlearning the many bad habits he was taught. Let’s give him a full season and hopefully he will end up in your higher range.
Just needs ABs to figure out what we got, simple
Well said on Adell. I was turning into a believer when he was hitting .250 with some power. Now he’s on his way to .210 with swings and misses being a problem. He’s better than Moniak who has had more chances over the years and is still hitting .180 right now.
It’s a shame but you can see the minor differences between MLB quality and almost MLB quality. Almost doesn’t quite make it.
As long as you’re not trying to win, you can play young inexpensive guys who are not performing until they do or until you decide you’re ready to compete. Unfortunately, I don’t believe the Angels are fully committed to either tanking or legitimately competing so the only guys I believe they will trade are expiring contracts. I as others do, like his attitude and intelligence, but so far it isn’t translating into production.
I was saying two years ago that Adell needed to be traded to the Pirates for the reasons you just noted. Angels now are at least closer to being the Pirates so he has a chance here for a while. We will see.
This is where I’m at. Seemingly a great kid, works hard, uber athletic, but what separates the wheat from the chaff is consistency and being able to make the adjustments along the way.
Yes, well framed.
Boooooo Boone. Boooooooo. Boonesey get soft and gooey on Angel, and loses to the Angels.
https://sports.yahoo.com/yankees-manager-aaron-boone-comes-132335495.html
I just read a Yahoo sports article to the effect of MLB players from all around the league say that Hernandez is a really nice guy, with the caveat that he just happens to be very terrible at his job. I figure he is a major shareholder of Yahoo or something.
Jeff Fletcher talked to other umpires once about whether they are embarrassed by Hernandez and the word was other umpires love him because he’s a nice guy.
Fantastic! They should convince he to stay, because he’s a swell fella! 😀
The term “nice guy” is literally always followed with word “but”
I coach HS ball and we regularly got an ump that was just absolutely terrible. I mean bad. If he saw velo, you had no idea where the strike zone would be. But, his personality was so good that the kids loved him and you just felt bad arguing with him. One kid came back laughing after striking out looking and said, “That’s just Lewis. If I’m getting rung up, I want it to be from him.”
Hey Aaron. Angel said he changed his mind. He’s coming back. Now what do you think? LOL
There is a gaggle of CtPG followers who believe the umpires, the league and NY have it it for the Angels. Let’s keep it up and kick this guy to the curb.
Ahh, the Vast International Umpire Conspiracy to Only Screw the Angels.
1/3rd mark of the season, and where do the Angels stand?
Pitching sucks:
Offense has surprisingly been resilient, despite the loss of the bats we expected to carry this team. Most likely because the replacements have carried their own weight so far – Pillar, Calhoun.
But 2024 season was really about the kids anyway:
They don’t walk much, fail with risp, and can’t throw first pitch strikes seem like issues that have been around here for years.
Nice summary. The fact that pitching across the league is on the up swing this year makes the Angels pitching so far look even worse and the hitting look a little better. Pillar’s production has been completely off the charts during his so far limited stint. Regarding the kids, it’s only been a third of the season and we need to let it play out. With that said, Neto and O’Hoppe have showed potential and will both be fixtures in the line up for years to come. The others are still question marks. Moniak has been unbelievably bad and Schanuel, although not as bad as Mickey, under normal circumstances wouldn’t even be playing. Even with his brief hot streaks mixed in, he’s currently at an 82 OPS+ which is 20% below the league average, and especially bad for a 1B. Adell who for a while looked promising is quickly regressing as his current line is 216/279/475 for a 108 OPS+, down from an OPS+ in the 130s. He’s now a little better than average and on the way down. There are still 108 games left so things can obviously change. We need to be patient. The pitching, with few exceptions, has been really awful.
….and this playing out is a surprise to anyone? The roster construction indicated this type of outcome before the season even began.
Not a surprise, but just a summary of where the team is at so far. Rengifo is certainly one of the few pleasant surprises, at least as far as the level of hitting improvement over last year. I have been disappointed with Moniak and Schanuel so far. I expected better of both. This is supposed to be a year of evaluation, so I have no complaints about the line up or who’s playing where. I did expect our starting pitchers to be better, they have been a major disappointment so far.
Anderson is the only surprise from my perspective. Rengifo is good, but playing him requires acceptance that he will do something “dumb” in most games. I expected regression from Moniak given his BABIP. Schanuel had a small sample size in 2023, so his issues are also not surprising. I think Neto has held his own; the book on Adell will be written based on how he now adjusts to the pitching adjustments he’s seeing now.
Pitching remains the Achilles Heel on this team. Sandoval and Canning are back of the rotation guys at best. Detmers could be a #2 or #3, but he’s so inconsistent and has yet to “take the next step”. He could be Sean Newcomb junior. Without a dominant #1, the team is just running in place.
As for Calhoun and Pillar – both are playing way over their heads. Ride them as long as they hit, but they will turn back into pumpkins. Prepare accordingly.
Without free agent help, the timeline remains 2027 at the earliest for a playoff contender.
I completely agree. I am not surprised by Moniak and Schanuel but somewhat disappointed as I expected both to be better. I did not expect 70 points of OPS+ regression for Moniak and I was hoping that Schanuel could build on last season but that has not happened. With Rengifo, it seems like the better he hits, the more mistakes he makes on the bases. As I said, I did believe the starting pitching would be better than last year and it certainly has not.
Thus, we only get Scuttlebutt about Shufflebot. He’s made an appearance 1 time after 2 months.
Just not good enough to string well played games together, hard to find many clean games period. They always find a way to make things difficult, just don’t know how to close out AB’s, innings, games. I think this young core is a long way off from becoming a consistently good group of MLBers. On the job training at this level is a tough path. I do think Wash will be a good Sherpa helping them climb the Mountain to .500 baseball.
Totally agree about not being able to close out games. We’d be right in the race in the AL West if we had a solid bullpen and effectively closed out leads in late innings. That more than anything has hurt us this season.
Nice post. I especially like your use of “Sherpa” in reference to helping the kids “climb the mountain.”
“Break out season” is pretty generous for adell but i guess that bar was low.
Take game 2 and the series tonight!!
Go Halos!!
Let’s give making trades at least another month or so. If Anderson, Ward and Rengifo all continue to stay on the path to having value, our haul will be much greater in quality and help us in the future. Making trades in July we will know the who’s who in the race to the playoffs.
Also there should be a plan in place that rebuilds our minor leagues system. Since our needs are many, it should be rather easy to identify those needs in priority and then to target the players we want. Problem is again scouting, or lack thereof. (Gawd my distain of Arte grows by the minute).
Every MLB team is in need of pitching, so who else other than Anderson is expendable from our pitching staff?
Do we have any value for the team in the minor leagues that currently projects as a major leaguer and at what positions?
We certainly need pitching our own self’s, so do we trade our staters other than Anderson?
We need help in the OF, so do we hold on to Adell or trade him? How do we address third base? Do we trade/release Rendon and eat 37 million for two and a half years?
Currently we need another starting catcher, we need to address 3b again, a starting CF’er, a real second baseman, a RF with a bat and arm, and so do we conclude that everybody knows that everybody goes if we can better ourselves.
And what do we do to fix the “BlowPen”? Lots of questions and lots of needs, so let’s hold on until we know who is in the market for what we have that will help them. We have a path to rebuild and that equates to winning down the road. Remember the defination of stupid, doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. That has been Arte and company for too long, time to take a few years and restock and then make a run for the gold. While I too enjoy winning, I also see where trading what we have will bring results down the road, and as I have one foot out of the end zone and might not be around to see the next Championship, I believe it is time to build a winning organization now and hold out hope that Arte gets outta town as soon as possible or by sundown.
If it nets a good future piece, trading Estevez soon wouldn’t be that painful. I think the progress, or lack thereof, of Ben Joyce may directly affect that decision. I do think Strickland and/or Garcia can close upon Estevez’s departure.
I would love to see them release Rendone, but it won’t happen because of a jury insurance reasons. The insurance is covering his salary ….. again. ….. while he “heals”. Arte is not going to eat 37 million if the insurance will cover any part of it due to injury.
True, and we don’t need to release him if he’s hurt, we just need to find a replacement.
But, what if I’m really butt hurt because Rendon keeps getting injured on purpose just to spite me? THEN is it a good idea to release him just so I can be all “Yeah! Take that sleeze!”? Totally worth 37M a year right?
Maybe not to Arte even though you and I would be happy.
Barria should’ve never lasted as long as he did on the angels, he sucked ass.
No idea why the angels waste a roster spot on such shitty players.
Most teams have at least one guy like that on their roster. You need an innings eater or somebody who is not really qualified to be a starter or high leverage guy. The problem was not that he was on the roster, but that shit for brains Nevin decided to use him to CLOSE what was the most important game of the year last season against the Astros at home on Sunday Night Baseball. It was the rubber game of an incredibly crucial series as the Angels were trying to move up in the standings in the critical “convince Ohtani” phase post All Star break.
IF you have a Barria on your team he needs to be used in long relief, NOT to close a tight, pivotal divisional rubber games.
I see what you’re saying, but former employee #17 had $700M to convince him otherwise.
Who is this #17 you speak of?
He’s talking about Eppei’s friend, Shohei. The guy who went to the Doyers for almost 3/4 of a billion dollars, most of it was bizarrely deferred until the 2040’s. They were gambling buddies, $100’s of millions worth of wagers. They sure loved to gamble.
….yeah, that guy.
Dude, he sucked before nevin was here. Losing organizations keep around guys like suarez and barria for years without moving on, not successful organizations. No way the doyers keep barria or suarez for half the time the angels have had these guys here.
Not true. He showed flashes of ability. I saw him pitch 6 shutout innings against the Orioles a couple of years prior. Good slider, good off-speed stuff. Problem is that as a starter teams would eventually sit on the off-speed stuff because his fastball was not good. Again, not everybody on a roster is going to be really good. That is not the way baseball works. A team has to learn how to use guys who are on the lower tier of their talent hierarchy. That is part of the skill of assembling a team and especially how to manage those players.
Apparently your eyes failed you, no mlb team wants to trade for the guy, they see how shitty he is.
In answer to you question of why did we keep Barria.
Barria was young and showed a lot of promise. He had several seasons of success with one very good season. He held no other pitcher down in the minors from being promoted that I am aware of. It’s not like he alone stopped us from being a winning team either. And as we held no better of an option at the time Barria filled a need.
He was not good. He was used in mop up roles that made his numbers look better than they did. Any game he was in that was close, he blew it.
As Angels fans we also can have hope that MLB will also send these two umpires to their $400,000.00 per year retirement very soon, C.B. Bucknor and Laz Diaz. Let’s hope that Manfraud is on a mission from God to clean up the MLB Umpires Union that protects the Blind, Stupid and Ego Maniacs that wear the “Blue” and shows that he really cares about our sport.
It’s time to start selling. Braves need to replace Acuna. Have a full farm system. Let’s do this. Ward could bring in a nice prospect.
Atlanta actually is seen as having a bottom 5 system nowadays.
They still have some good pitching prospects. A few are going to take a few years, but I’m good with that.
You are the kind of guy who has no idea what he is talking about. Just jumping on the “sell, sell, sell” bandwagon and repeating the meme of the day without any deeper critical analysis.
https://youtu.be/i2uu6NF2inY?si=ZkXZHQ-anJKCdEl5
Oh – you think we have a winning team and should stand put? Brilliant. The view from on top of your unicorn must be breathtaking.
YOU DO NOT TRADE SHOHEI OHTANI… I mean Taylor Ward…. YOU JUST DON’T!
This actually isn’t a bad idea if we can get someone good for him. Rebuild = Pain. Just get the most for the pain.
Talking trade value–
What do you think are reasonable returns for our potential trade chips in Anderson, Ward, Rengifo, Pillar, Strickland ?
2026 starting rotation that pitches to a 3.2 ERA?
Ward and Rengifo have further contract control and should bring back some decent prospects.
Anderson’s return will depend on how much salary Arte eats or doesn’t eat. Expect him to cheap out and get an underwhelming return.
Pillar and Strickland get lottery tickets.
Ward actually has 2 years of club control after this year. He’s a good player and he’s cheap, if he were to be traded, He would need to be replaced. Unless we’re writing off 25 and 26, or getting a magical return, we should keep him for now. It depends on when you think the team could be competitive. Most of us, including you, I believe, think we’re still a long way off.
Anderson’s salary is what, 12 million? His current performance exceeds the contract IMO. That said, if Arte had to eat more salary in exchange for more highly touted prospects, he should do it.
3/39 so $13 million per year. He’ll be owed about $19 million at the trade deadline.
Arte could’ve eaten salary in the Thor and Iglesias deals to get better returns but he didn’t. He’s had other opportunities too and didn’t.
I doubt he does here, but I’m with you and I would.
OT: how great was the Fury/Uysk fight?
Rematch is confirmed for Dec. 21st.
Iffffff we end up having a fire sale, I think we should call doyerville and offer a Rengifo/Anderson package. They can use Rengifo now and Anderson is great SP insurance for a team designed to win now.
What that nets, I’m not sure, but I’d wager it would be a couple of 5-15 level prospects. Is that enough or is it better to hold em? Both are productive.
Good morning isn’t beating the Yankees so much fun that you want to do it again and again, which by the way could happen as soon as, well I will not jinx us, but go Angels.