Fresh off back to back series wins in Texas, the Angels came home and were swept by the Cleveland Guardians. Cleveland is a good team, but the home losses continued at record pace. The Halos then dropped 2 out of 3 against the Yankees, bringing their home record to 7-21.
That is a pace to win 21 home games per year, which would be an MLB record in a bad way. The home woes are bad enough to create memes.
Arte needs to save money where he can. Ticket sales have to be abysmal. Last Sunday I was able to pick up three club level seats on StubHub for $27.40 total including fees. ESPN shows the Halos still bringing in 29,000 people per night, but that is down from over 32,000 last year. That figure is tickets sold not butts in seats, though, and the attendance bumps from the Roid Sux and Yankees will be done for the year. Expect sellouts for the Dodgers series but outside of that, lots of empty seats vs. the A’s and others.
Highlight of the week? Let’s go to the absolute blast from Matt Thaiss on Sunday. It was the second longest Angels HR of the year and temporarily tied up the ballgame. A huge shot from the backup catcher.
The craziest play of the week came on Wednesday against the Yankees. I’m not sure which is less common, the Angels working their way out of trouble or a key call going against the Yanks. Both happened here.
Tyler Anderson again was the Angels Stud of the Week (I just made that up). Griffin Canning fought and clawed his way through 5 innings on Tuesday despite some defensive miscues. and deserves some merit. Anderson is having a tremendous year, checking in with a mid 2’s ERA and consistently putting up quality starts. And he might be on the move.
Tyler Anderson, Taylor Ward, and Luis Rengifo are three guys who should bring back solid returns. Yes, trading them will make the 2024 Angels significantly worse but this team is playing for 2026 and beyond and the prospects acquired this summer might help with that.
The Plumber is back. To make room for him, Jose Cisnero was transferred to the 60 day IL. Stefanic was optioned to Triple A Salt Lake City.
From around baseball…
Mets reliever Jorge Lopez went bonkers on the field and followed that up by throwing the Mets (or perhaps himself) under the bus. Either way, he’s DFA’d and likely getting fitted for an Angels uniform as I type this.
Brewers hurler Robber Gasser is making the Josh Hader trade look much better from the Brew Crew’s side.
Happy birthday to MLB’s oldest living player! Art Schallock turned 100 this week.
Umpiring is about to get a whole lot better, too. You think that link is about Angel Hernandez, don’t you? It isn’t but it is an interesting read.
And here’s your longform reading for the weekend. Shoto Imanga has been brilliant (until Wednesday) without a ton of velocity. SI did a great piece on how the four seam fastball is being used (or not used) in the current game.
David Fletcher is definitely not a fan of the four seam fastball.
And now for the NCAA Regionals. I think UC Irvine got screwed out of hosting one, but overall the field is solid and we are in for a few amazing weeks of college baseball. Here’s a complete bracket to bring you up to speed.
And don’t sleep on the Women’s College World Series. I think last weekend’s Super Regionals were among the most exciting ball I’ve ever seen. The pace of the game is lightning quick, momentum changes are swift and severe, and the overall quality of play is brilliant. Here’s a primer.
As I type this on Thursday I’m getting ready for my son’s final game of the Spring season. Definitely a happy/sad moment. He’s grown this season in every sense of the word. And as always being a small part of this process and the lives of his teammates has been a blessing. We’re looking forward to a summer free of schedules, but I’d love to keep this group together and watch them grow as friends, people, and teammates.
Enjoy your weekend and link what I missed.
This will most likely get lost as we will comment on the game threads and postgame until Monday’s links. I know we have delved into media money and how teams might have less to spend in an effort to keep their profit margins the highest possible. Those are high stakes. Let’s not forget about the people that make the stadium run.
Having gone to a few games this year, I know ushers got a whole $0.31 raise. Considering Taco Bell is now at $20/hr that seems pretty pÅthetic. Anyway, there was a protest this last home series by the concession workers against the Angels/Legends for lack of transparency regarding getting their tips. Seems pretty straightforward that fans tipping those that help serve them think those same workers are getting the tips (that’s often a ploy as to why they don’t make as much as say TB employees, because TB employees don’t get tips). It’s downright criminal that billionaire organizations keep that money (often as a leveraging tool) from their employees. As we continue in what will most likely be the worst performing Angels team in history and look for CtPG content, I hope that someone doesn’t forget about the little guy. Maybe a job for noob Nolan? I think an interview with Miguel Bautista or an employee representative would be cool and force Legends/Ronald Gottschalk into more action than just a cursory email to their employees. Si se puede
Calhoun batting 4th. That really worked out well last time.
Taylor Ward should be our cleanup hitter.
With respect to the scarecrow…no brainer.
Not all hope is lost, we are still fighting for draft position odds I’ll bet. 😉
Are you betting we’re going to win the lottery?
Even Ippei wouldn’t be foolish enough to take that bet.
Can’t win if you don’t play!!
Only the Asstros are more fun to beat in division play. Let’s Go Angels!
I’m in the mood for a Minasian waiver wire trash pick-up
😅
Probably Sano and the Plumber coming off the IL will happen before any Dumpster diving.
What a dopey schedule we’ve been handed! Houston has played 24 games vs AL West teams, we’ve played 6. Seattle has the next fewest, 13.
We have awhile to go before the schedules for all teams even out. I think we’re not very good but maybe, compared to the other division teams we might be as good as any of them
This reality is in truth about following the NFL and becoming one league. Started awhile back removing league presidents, then combining the two league umpiring staffs into one staff, inter-league play, inter-league play over the course of a period of two seasons playing against every team and not focusing on a team’s own league/division. Weekend warrior casual fans like this playing every team concept, they don’t get the two league idea.
This stated big time with Bud (Get me into the HoF quickly) Selig followed by Manfraud to reinvent what wasn’t broken, MLB.
I’m losing little increments of being hooked on MLB daily because it is rudderless at this moment and heading down the wrong road. Maybe because I’m not interested as much by the game being different than what I coached for 46 years. Maybe because I hung my shingle on the Angels. Or it could be that there are too many teams and I don’t recognize the players in all the teams line ups.
MLB was the only sport that had 2 different leagues, Competition at All Stars and World Series was very real, not homogenized to create a competition that doesn’t really exist.
Panic hits Jerry, fires the offense. News at 11.
Mariners Part Ways With Coach Brant BrownBy Darragh McDonald | May 31, 2024 at 4:45pm CDT
The Mariners announced that they have relieved bench coach and offensive coordinator Brant Brown of his duties. Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic reported the news on X prior to the official announcement. Director of hitting strategy Jarret DeHart and assistant hitting coach Tommy Joseph will expand their current roles to compensate for Brown’s absence.
Brown, 52, just joined the Seattle staff coming into this year. He had previously served as a hitting coach for the Marlins and Dodgers at the major league level. Prior to holding those gigs, he was with the Mariners as a minor league coordinator.
The M’s are having a good season overall, currently sporting a record of 31-27 that has them atop the National League West. However, that’s largely due to a strong pitching staff and in spite of some lackluster offense. The team has a collective earned run average of 3.58, ninth-lowest in the majors. But their hitters have collectively slashed .221/.295/.361 for a wRC+ of 94. That indicates they’ve been six percent below league average overall, a mark that bests just six other clubs in the league.
Over the offseason, president of baseball operations spoke of wanting to lower the club’s strikeout-heavy tendencies, which seemed to play a role in letting players like Teoscar Hernández, Mike Ford, Jarred Kelenic, Eugenio Suárez and Tom Murphy depart, either via trade or free agency.
This year, the club as a whole is striking out at a 28.3% rate, easily the worst in the majors. The Athletics are second-worst at 26.2%, a significant gap. That’s at least partially attributable to the front office bringing in other players with their own strikeout tendencies, such as Mitch Garver, Luke Raley and Mitch Haniger, but perhaps the ongoing problem with punchouts played a role in the club looking to make a change.
Regardless of the reasoning, it’s a notable development since it’s fairly rare for clubs to make midseason staff changes, especially when doing so well overall. Manager Scott Servais will try to guide the club forward without Brown, while DeHart and Joseph step up. DeHart has been a member of the staff since the 2020 season, going from assistant hitting coach to his current title. Joseph was just hired coming into the current campaign
Hitting strategy? Bench coach is also the hitting coach, Ok but why can’t the hitting coach/bench coach be informing the players of where to hit the bat if the players even know how to hit where told?
The Jedi strikes again?
https://www.espn.com/los-angeles/mlb/story/_/id/7935993/los-angeles-angels-fire-hitting-coach-mickey-hatcher
Tonight’s lineups
https://www.mlb.com/gameday/angels-vs-mariners/2024/05/31/745253/preview
Dodgers need to be good at everything? Smith is a good one. I like Contreras and Bailey too. Some nice young catchers out there.
Jealous? I am, I like Red better than Blue, Orange County better than LA County, the 55 better than the 5, and the name “Angels” better than Doyers, but the losing and being second rate to the Dodgers records and being top of the heap pretty much sucks. Just can’t after 63 years get used to it.
Decided I’d had enough of Arte’s antics this week. The only MLB team I had never seen was the Marlins, and they were in San Diego. Gotta love those Wednesday day games, got a seat in the second row behind the Padres dugout for only $89! I think I carried the Halo stench with me to Petco because the Pads lost 9-1 in a total stinkeroo.
Ouch. 😲
I still may go to Vivid and get a seat for the Padres/Halos game next week. I enjoy the experience of the ballpark and always meet nice people who also enjoy commiserate.
It hurts to put money into Arte’s hand.
Vivid Entertainment porn… just like bad baseball, I know it when I see it.
I recognized you as “all class” from when I first joined this blog. Vivid was top quality back in the day.
This is a crazy post 😂😂😂
My type of humor
I normally root for Cal Poly SLO grads but not tonight…Bryan Woo.
Both of my sisters went to SLO.
Looking forward to SLO grad (far left) Victor Glover to circle the moon in 2025.
Grew up in Pomona and graduated from Ontario High School. Which truly shows anything can happen, even if you spend the early part of your life in Pomona and in the IE.
Maybe Glover and the Artemis II crew will recover some of the HR balls on the other side of the moon that we’ve given up this year. `;~}}
Planning on heading to Titusville to see the Atlantis launch. Always difficult to schedule a trip to a launch with delays being the norm.
Here’s one reason there is currently only one team above .500 in the AL West:
2: Mariners – 3.59 K/BB (#1 BB/9 – 2.40)
…
23: A’s – 2.42 K/BB
…
25: Trashtros – 2.22 K/BB
26: Rangers – 2.20 K/BB
27: Angels – 2.16 K/BB (#28 BB/9 – 3.94)
So do I understand this correctly to say that everyone’s pitchers except the Mariners have bad strikeout to walk ratios and that in addition, Angel hitters also walk less than all but 3 teams? Or is it that our pitchers walk more people than all but 3 teams.
Oh, sorry, I definitely did a terrible job of explaining. Those are all pitching stats. The AL West is struggling with walking too many batters compared to strikeouts, and the big difference between the Angels and Mariners is the number of walks allowed per game.
In K/9, Mariners are 8.61 (#13) and Angels are 8.49 (#20).
TLDR: Walks are (contributing to) killing the team.
Thanks, that’s what I thought after I looked again and it makes sense with our observations.
Not having quality pitchers or coaching may be responsible for some part of the equation m ay b e.
But…But…the Spin Factor is on our side…..right? 🤓
3 total comments. That’s all there was after a game against the Yankees.
Congrats Arte, apathy is in full effect on one of the more passionate Angel pages out there. Ive watched a total of 1 game this year and that’s only because my friends and I got together to eat and basically laugh at this terrible team. They got destroyed in that game btw, I know it doesn’t narrow it down at all as to what game but I feel next to nothing for a team I used to listen to or watch 162 games a year in the 80’s and 90’s. I remember one year we were camping at Lake Cachuma and the angels were playing. I couldn’t get the KMPC broadcast but I somehow found the static filled Spanish station. I knew just enough to follow along and learned the Spanish word for home run after Tony Armas hit one to win the game.
Now I could follow them like 10 year old me could only dream of and don’t care. I can watch every game and I don’t, read every story, stat, history and I don’t. This isn’t something new, watching them waste TWO great players careers slowly killed my feeling for this team.
It’s going to be years before they get a chance to be competitive and w/an organization that has decided developing players is too hard, let’s just draft guys who we can throw into the fire right away, it might all blow up again if this stupid mindset fails and we’re right back where we started.
Let’s just draft all pitchers for the next 3-4 years. Something’s bound to work out. Maybe a solid middle reliever. God I hate this.
I agree, I just enjoy reading this site still.
Yeah, I still stop by to read daily, but I’m definitely feeling the apathy and posting less. I also find I’m more often coming to commiserate with the pessimists than to dream with the optimists.
It’s difficult to be optimistic until you have reason to do so like things that give you hope for the future. The club seems reluctant to spend money or to plan for highly likely needs like injuries to Trout and Rendon. They entered the season without a 2B or a DH. They don’t have a very good track record of acquiring, drafting, or developing talent. They have 2 young players who look like they are going to be pretty good but not so much the rest, at least so far. And they have an owner and a GM with a bad record as well. There is not much to be optimistic about unless there is a new owner or a significant change in approach.
DH and 2nd help, or not……
Proof of life video for Drury and Sano (from the burn ward).
We’ve been actively discussing ways to keep this site interesting behind the scenes. It’s not easy with how the Angels are playing and how their management dysfunctions.
For now, here is a nice new offering by cookmeister about the amateur draft.
Unfortunate that you’ve been forced into the print version of PBP guys burning time in a 14-0 game. “Jim, tell us what it sounded like when that Randy Johnson pitch hit the seagull in Montreal”.
I still appreciate the effort and spend more time on this team than is deserved due to all of your efforts.
Mark Langston would totally beatbox an impression of that bird getting hit.
Make politics an acceptable discussion. That should make things interesting. Just kidding!
Actually, your long long sad sad wank brings up a question I have.
Will the Angels be drafting guys they can call up quickly? Or was all of that a combination of our roster always having 20 injuries while we had to keep Shohei and his mom and CtPG Guy happy so we could please please squeeze the knees pay him a billion dollars to stay?
I am a big fan of drafting college guys no matter what, but I’m not sure we’ll be rushing dudes anymore.
Well if we do someone other than Perry will be making those decisions next year.
We suck, but that ump sucked even worse. I counted at least seven strikes that were called balls by that Angel Hernandez surrogate starting in the sixth when the game was close. Maybe baseball wants the MFY to win these games, but the umping objectively makes these games unwatchable.
That seventh inning was Deja Vu. Just like Sunday, Cimber came in, walked the bases loaded, and shit the bed.
“Oh….the humanity!”
I have said, “Let the kids play,” but GD Sam! We’re looking up at the Oakland A’s!!
I love the smell of road games against AL West opponents in the morning. Smells like…victory.
The Angels should go on an AL West tear. That would be fun.
If we can compete and have a winning record against the AL West this year, I’ll seriously consider this season a success.
I’ll consider the season success if we trade the big 3 along with Pillar, and add to our young corp. And also if we draft a legitimate bat this year.
Fletcher and walsh were supposed to be part of that younger core before the recent draft picks and those 2 bamboozled the angels into paying them big
Speaking of Walsh, he’s gone where all recent X Angels go to
dieattempt to resurrect their careers, the White Sox’s. He said Matt Wise sent his best Bullpen regards.I always liked Jered Walsh.
I prefer him to Schnauel at this point.
But he cant pitch like Fletch can.
Baseball is a game of adjustments.
Adell adjusted his swing and got good results for awhile. Pitching has adjusted to Jo’s new swing and is exploiting its weaknesses.
Now we can see if Jo is really MLB material or not. He’ll need to adjust once more and get back on track. Or he’ll sign a minor league deal somewhere next off season.
And we can’t forget, 100% percent of hitters go through good old fashioned dry spells for a thousand reasons (obviously duration is key). Hopefully for him he’s “not feeling it” is the main issue more than anything. No major swing reconstruction is needed……And Jo will get his groove back ASAP.
I just purchased some Adell stock on the cheap. Banking he gets his mojo back, hits .240, starts getting on base, show some pop, cut back on strikeouts, get back to being our slightly better than Average Jo.
I’m more interested in seeing what 2025 Jo looks like.
if he sticks around. Could just be he got good for a few months out of his entire career and then that’s it. History tells me that’s the way to bet, but hopefully he’ll prove me wrong.
Even if that’s true, the Angels might keep him around next year just because he’s cheaper than the guy they would have to hire to replace him.
I wouldn’t even blame them for saving cash during a rebuild, if they would actually rebuild.
Even when Trout was at his best and in his MVP levels, he’s also famous for his August/Sept swoons, which a lot of people, maybe justifiably, blame to fatigue. Obviously I wouldn’t think Jo is fatigued right now, but barring any injuries, this will be his first full season, first time experiencing the ebbs and flows of the major leagues.
Lately, he’s pressing. He’s not hitting, so he’s chasing. Earlier in the season when he wasn’t hitting, he would at least be patient enough to take his walks. He has to get back to that. I hope he didn’t fall in love too much with his power that he’s now going for a HR each at-bat.
Actually, according to Tim Salmon, As opposed to adjustments, Jo has fallen into the bad habit of opening up too soon and pulling off the ball. Very common. What’s frustrating is that Salmon can pick up stuff like that in one game. What are the hitting coaches doing? I would love to have Gubi as a pitching coach and Salmon as a hitting coach, maybe as subject matter experts to provide input to the everyday coaches. They are both very observant and knowledgeable, and actually spot on in their assessments as far as I can see by watching the players on TV. I would like to know why we swing at so many pitches out of the zone and then take pitches right down the middle.
That’s what Gubi said too. It’s a failure of the current staff to help him readjust. I’m not impressed by what I’m seeing roster wide. There is no major progression from last year as promised.
Siggghhhhhh…. for probably the 10,000th time I’ve seen this kind of question on these sites. YES. THE COACH CAN SEE IT TOO. He’s just as smart as Salmon and has a better baseball mind than any clam that’s bitching about him on the internet. If I can see it on TV then yes, one of the professionals in the dugout also sees it.
The magic is getting THE PLAYER to actually do something about it against an MLB pitcher that wants to crush his soul and eat his dreams.
Don’t know why you’re angry, and I’m not actually convinced they do because they’re too close to what’s going on. And just because I was never paid to do it, I know a lot about hitting and you don’t know how much I know or not. You also don’t know if he is as smart as Salmon either.
Adell looks like last year’s model. Chasing breaking stuff that was never a strike.
So he needs to adjust to their adjustment of his adjustment?
Got it.