Pete Rose passed away at the age of 83. Banned for life from MLB, we will see if he ever makes it into the Hall posthumously.
It looks like the All Star teams won’t be wearing pajamas next year. We are reverting to them wearing their own teams uniforms. The “previously used materials” probably signal an end to the see-through baseball pants as well.
Brandon Drury blames swing changes meant to increase exit velocity for his abysmal wRC+ this year. Here is a box score.
Here is a schedule for the postseason games. Jeff scheduled some Wild Card game threads for those of you who wish to follow along. In the Monday double header, the Mets beat the Braves and then the Braves beat the Mets. They both clinched playoff berths.
Farhan Zaidi just got canned. Buster Posey is the Giants new POBO. About Zaidi, the Giants Chaiman said “the results have not been what we had hoped, and while that responsibility is shared by all of us, we have decided that a change is necessary.” John Mozeliak and Oliver Marmol managed to keep their jobs with the Cardinals.
Paul Goldschmidt will be a free agent this off season. I might have linked this yesterday but I figured the last thing the Angels need is another old timer at first base. Still, news is news.
Wander Franco had a preliminary hearing in the Dominican Republic at which the judge ruled there is enough merit to the evidence that he will need to stand trial.
Photo credit: Rex Fregosi
Mike Napoli was shown the door by the Cubs today…..
When the expectation is to win, losing has ramifications…..except in Anaheim.
Not sure how a 1B coach makes that much difference but I understand the optic.
Similarly, firing Wash could definitely be justified after the worst record in Angels history. It definitely would provide a marketing optic to try to support season ticket sales.
Maybe you are giving an accurate assessment here, but 5 managers in 7 seasons really means you are clueless in what direction the team needs to be in, doesn’t it? There I say the issues with the team start at the top.
Veterans that already know how to hit should stick with what works. So I don’t know what to say to Drury.
“Retire Brandon” is what should be said.
Perry should start the holiday season off early and DFA Rendone.
So I was thinking about this the other day. What would you all think about a Rendon for Baez trade with the Tigers? There is a total differnce in cash of $4million dolllars.
Rendon is 2 years at $38.5 million vs
Baez for 3 years at 25,24,24 million.
Tigers have no place for him and their top prospects are MI types. They can DFA Redon and gain a year of payroll a year earlier. We could send them an additional $4 million this year to balanace out the total due to both players.
Baez for us could be asked to play 2B next to Neto. And again if he can’t play, then DFA him.
The trade would also save us $13 million in current payroll for the upcoming season.
Would this work for both teams?
I don’t hate the idea, but Baez has hit worse than Rendon has over the past 3 seasons and wasn’t much better than Drury was this last year. Rengifo is a better fielding 3B over 2B, so that’s a plus. Of course, if Rendon was traded, he’d probably rediscover his health and lead the Tigers to a world series.
Agreed that Baez bat is terrible, but he has plus, plus defense which would have value. Both players are a lose lose, but would the Halos have more value with Rendon or Baez?
Baez is horrendous and has an extra year. Emphatic NO
The question is if freeing up nearly $12 million in payroll cap space for the remainder of Rendon’s contract worth adding on another year with Baez. I think the idea is worth considering since it looks like the team will be carrying a player that sucks regardless.
I want the bad contracts off the books asap. There’s no reason to add Baez (or Kris Bryant).
We are so close to the end of Rendone. Ride it out, baby
I can tell you that on Saturday night, Minasian and Crapino were in attendance and on the field for the awards ceremony before the game, missing was Arte Moreno.
He was in the bowels of the stadium counting the gate receipts
There is a post on X this morning that said that Angel’s 2024 ticket sales were only down by 38k fans versus 2023. (I didn’t verify)
Arte can sit back with his lousy team, cash checks and watch his franchise valuations continue to increase.
Oh NO! Attendance isn’t down enough. Donde esta the comeuppance? We should all cry about this like a bunch of soft floppy bitches.
Look. Here’s the way things actually seem to work. Arte wants to win. He’s not really an owner who sits back and collects revenue like Nutting. BUT there are obstacles. First is actually shit luck. My gah, the FA injuries! Followed by Arte wanting to be over involved and making stupid choices as regards big FAs and the farm, etc. Followed by the fact that, while the Angels make pretty good money, it isn’t near limitless like the Doyers and Yankees. So he does have a budget, usually our payroll ranks right at where the franchise value is.
Arte will always make money just by owning a team. So if we think attendance etc being down will shake him somehow it won’t, other than in a competitive sense. He wants to make MORE money and feel like a winner. Otherwise we could just become the mid-2000s Cubs and he can just rake in cash. Us complaining about an owner desiring this is fking stupid.
We want the team to have money. Thus we want Arte to have money. It’s what will make the rebuild go faster, even if we are burdened with Arte. IF he sells it will be cause he wants to, not because he only drew 2.2M fans one year.
I’m sure he’s seen the graphs and charts that show fewer hot dogs and hats were sold. That ad revenue is down. That attendance is down and REAL attendance is even a bit lower. I’m sure it matters. I’m sure he’s even butt hurt about all the heat he’s getting for sucking ass, though I don’t expect him to say so because I’m not a five year old. I’m sure he’s also concerned about TV revenue moving forward and stadium bullshit.
All of that matters, but none of it will make him sell, and hoping the team’s finances eat shit because Arte is the focus of our daddy issues is stupid because we sure as fk DON’T want Arte to decide to not care any more and just collect the money. He can sell, we’ll be stuck with the mess.
The reality is Arte is finally doing what some of us with brains want… sort of. He’s NOT trying to splash his way out of the problem. He’s seemingly building the farm and it’s facilities. He’s NOT hopped to yet another GM. He’s playing the kids. He’s hired a developmental manager. He’s not signing huge free agents that serve no purpose on a skeletal roster. These are good things even if it means we have to FINALLY bite the rebuild bullet.
Don’t poke the bear you idiots. Do you really want him to go out and spend all his money on Paul Goldschmidt and Max Scherzer cause “names and veteran grit”? And if attendance is still fairly good while the team does the tear down then HELL YEAH, that’s great. Or would you rather be dead broke when the time comes to actually try to sign some FAs and win the division?
Even if what Drury says is true, why would you go the whole season without making any adjustments.
Exactly. Guy tanked his own free agency.
…which means he’s a candidate for a long term contract with the Angels
It was a ridiculous statement, meant to try and increase his value (or interest) in free agency. I think it definitely backfired. But if any part of it is true, you have to seriously wonder about the coaching once it was clear that it was not working.
That’s a long time to repeat a mistake as he had 360 plate appearances with an opportunity to make an adjustment in. Hitters go to sleep, dream about and wake up thinking about their at bats.
I seriously wondered all season why he kept showing up in the lineup. It was painfully obvious very early on that he was done.
Zaidi fodder for thought.
https://www.si.com/mlb/angels/angels-news/angels-should-make-play-for-recently-fired-farhan-zaidi-01j92bzzrv12
“All he needs is a front office that trusts him.”
This is the Angels we are talking about.
Yep. When considering the word “trust”, I immediately think of Arte Moreno. Doesn’t everyone?
We certainly collect players that can’t play, so it makes total sense to collect baseball executives that don’t win…..
Oh hell no. The “Big Brain Brad” of GMs? CtPG Guy’s fragile sense of “real baseball manz” intelligence would hate this guy so much….
Yes. Hire him.
Zaidi came from the A’s originally and I’ll take Zaidi any day over Eppler and Perry.
a few yrs ago Zaidi won the NL west with winning 100+ games something our guys will never jj
4256 hits…thank you Charlie Hustle!!
That number will never be surpassed.
I don’t think anyone will ever come anywhere near that number.
Ichiro had more, although it can’t be called a record, so it *is* possible for someone else to do it all in MLB