The Angels are in the market for relief pitching. At least there’s that. The Diamondbacks are in the same market, so there may be a lot of support for high pricing. This article listed the Angels as a potential surprise landing spot for Jurickson Profar. The article is three or four days old. I guess Profar would be a really big surprise at this point. While several former Angels fell off the All Star ballot this year, Torii Hunter, Bobby Abreu, and Francisco Rodriguez all got enough votes to appear on the ballot again next year.
T-Mobile Park is downright crappy for offense and still they won 22 games that the Angels lost last year.
Adam Jones returned to the Orioles. His new role is special advisor to the General Manager and community ambassador. I don’t know. I guess he just fills in wherever needed. Speaking of the Orioles, they just signed outfielder Dylan Carlson and DFAd infielder Jacob Amaya.
The Marlins signed Albert Almora Jr. to a minor league contract. He’s on the list of guys invited to spring training. Jesse Chavez and Cody Thomas got minor league deals with the Rangers. Former Pirates infielder Tristan Gray cleared waivers and elected free agency.
The Padres will be retiring their pink and mint green City Connect uniforms.
Photo credit: Rex Fregosi
You all already know how I feel about relievers.
😡 💩 👎 …….
Even if you win with them during the summer get ready to see them get knocked around in October. Emanual Clase, Devin Williams, Josh Hader, Luke Weaver, Carlos Estevez, NO THANK YOU PLZ!!!
Sam the hat…still too cheap to read what he’s yapping about
https://x.com/SamBlum3/status/1884277571719946741
As a fan of both teams I dont really care. I do enjoy the Ducks leaning into OC and even going out of their way to put local OC vendors in their team store this year.
But the Angels payroll muscle is more important in baseball so that works for me too.
He knows how to deliver clicks for his bosses at the NYT and nothing riles up the OC fan base more.
ESPN sketches Flaherty to us… https://www.espn.com/mlb/insider/story/_/id/43585244/mlb-2025-best-remaining-free-agent-every-position-bregman-alonso-flaherty
The question for me is: Is he a credible No. 1? Or just a glorified No. 3? Because it seems like we have a surplus of No. 3s presently. Not sure adding another one is the best use of resources.
here’s the thing.
how many true number 1’s are there?
You, would be nice, but you dont NEED a true #1 to compete
If he’s replacing a number 5, I’m for it. I’m afraid of how much Perry will have to overpay since Flaherty has a good shot at making a playoff contender instead.
That’s not Perry’s or Arte’s MO, They signed their starting pitcher already.
It stands to reason that Perry is being truthful when he says they are looking for relief pitching.
Ok, here’s the plan:
Sign the Polar Bear.
Trade Schanuel to the Mets for Bret Baty, Tyrone Taylor and third base prospect Jesus Baez.
Move Trout to left and trade Ward to the Phillies for Matt Strahm and pitching prospect Moises Chace.
Outfield defense improves, offense improves, bullpen improves, farm improves. Taylor and Strahm combine to make about what Ward does so the bottom line impact is the $25 million or so given to Alonso.
If we had to “DO SUMPIN BIG! MAKE ME FEEL!” this would be a good way to go about it.
Of course, sad donkey will hate it when Alonso has one of his slumps and we’ll ju ju him into a .720 OPS. We’ll up the ju ju even more when we all turn on Baty as Schanuel hits for a .400 OPB for the Mets and their fans start celebrating the weird way he runs. And the sad sack will fill with tearsalt when all this “doing” still just means we have an expensive anchor at 1B and 70 wins as we had to offer Alonso at least 4 years, probably 5, to “win” him.
On the flip side. I enjoy Pete, and I dig chicks who dig dingerz. He’s a fun player…. though Cozart and Rendon were also fun guys too before they slid into the piss zone….. perhaps the Polar Bear has the raw strength of positivity to smash through the barrier. And we keep our prospects…. but lose a draft pick…. which isn’t a HUGE deal, but would make more sense next year.
Keep in mind I’m both a fan of the team and an editor of a site that could sorely use some content.
I do think this would be an interesting team, though. The outfield defense would help the pitching staff and a heart of the order of Trout/Alonso/Ward/Soler is nice.
Yep. And our dream of signing Austin Hays has been crushed by that powerhouse in Cincinnati. I really liked that idea…..
I did not. We already have enough hitters taking up space on our roster that mash left handed pitching. Hays hit a pathetic .203/.249/.320 against right handed pitching.( which our batters face 70% of the time) Those are Rendone numbers.
This move would make us worse not better than if we just kept Tay Tay another season.
I’ll always vote for an interesting team.
For 15 years, it’s mostly been a sad place all the time. But unlike other sad sack franchises that hardly ever sniff the playoffs like us, at least we had just a short while ago:
And now it’s a VERY bleak roster I expect in two weeks. And Neto is hurt. Nobody on this roster has me excited – nothing really fresh to get start dreaming bigger dreams. Four new guys, all over 33.
when P/Cs show up, how excited will YOU be for d’Arnaud and Kikuchi?
Klassen and Aldegheri?
Sure I will be excited. I guess. It will be Angels MLB camp and Wash is in charge. But it wasn’t like it used to be.
Grade me:
I’ll type a piece on this but I am excited about several players the Angels will have in camp this season. Most of whom will not break camp with the big club.
Yes. We are finally almost to the point of bad sad that actually matches the online bitching we’ve been doing since about 2006. Soon we can hopefully touch the bottom, then the baseball gods will allow this duck to drink his way up again…. that will be nice.
Why is “Wash in charge” exciting even a little?
I’ll give three reasons. I’ve seen camps hosted by his three predecessors.
Wait! Didn’t you just trade Ward?
Yes I did. Ha ha, epic fail on my part.
Ok, so actual lineup would have Trout/Alonso/Soler in the heart of it and above average bats in Rengifo and O’Hoppe to go with average bats of Baty, Adell, and Tyrone.
Not sure Baty qualifies as average yet, but that lineup looks to be able to score more than the 635 runs last year’s team did.
Yeah but content for the sake of content is what 16 year olds do. I’d rather not have content than to give weight to signing Alonso.
Yes. If you let a thought have a platform then you risk people thinking about that thought and then it’s ju ju increases and it can become an actual thing.
Like Ariana Grande or the Arab Spring being wonderful.
This is why we need to carefully monitor everything and silence wrong think with a firm but instructive hand.
Who’s turn is it to spank Jeff?
It is Jessica Alba’s turn to spank me.
Oh. Oh no. Suffer Jeff, you bad man you. Suffer. You lucked out though cause ol”Jess was sandwiched between Danny Trejo and Neil Gaiman on the old Wheel of Thought Control Spanks.
OT: Trejo is a good dude. He’s at a ton of boxing cards and just chills with fans.
He seems super cool.
Okay Perry, bring back Estevez.
So, so much action expected by the Halos, yet so much (Seemingly) current inaction. Yes, I really think that the Halos are a pawn in the ongoing Alonzo saga, they should just announce publicly that they believe they are now out on him, that reduces Boras’ leverage and shows he’s lost his touch and his hold on reality.
The Angels are a pawn yes, but only in the mind of one person – Boras.
No one else is buying the Angels are ‘active and moving’ here.
Adam Jones charity work and community involvement are extensive.
Good for the Orioles in bringing him into an official job to keep making lives better and building good will for the franchise.
I had hoped Scioscia would take a similar role here.
You know you might have a problem when you can’t stop thinking about Trout and Adell.
Been waiting almost a freaking decade to watch those 2 man the outfield together. Need 140+ games from each 🙏🙏🙏
As to the ballpark in Seattle, you will note that club has gone with pitching recently as more of a focus. They also didn’t want to overpay for Castillo which their favorable ballpark shows might be a long-term problem as the park is likely one of the reasons he looks so good there. Other teams should take note when assessing ex-Mariners.
No Pete Alonso signing news yet. Will he or won’t he? Oh, the suspense!
Probably not. Perry seems to have hid Arte’s checkbook from him.
i like Schanuel a lot. I hope he likes creatine as much as I like him.
Maybe Sosa and McGwire can be “Special coaches” for Schanuel?
“ I hope he likes creatine as much as I like him.” pure golden truth.
Though, honestly, he doesn’t lack size. If he gets a little more comfortable, this being his second year in pro ball and stuff, maybe he’ll just swing harder. He doesn’t have to hit 45 HR. Just get me a higher BA and SLG over all and I’ll be pretty stoked on “Flash”. Above 25 HR would be great. We’ll always need to get “real thump” from some other guys, but if we had a line up where O’Hoppe, Schanuel, Trout, Soler, Adell and Neto all have more than 22 HR and then throw in what ever pop Kavadas adds it won’t be the worstiest line up to watch.
Instead of “Tony two-bags” we can have “Schanny singles.”
But, I hope he settles in with more drives into the gaps. I still hold the opinion that Schanuel can use more time @ AAA if we have an alternative (Kavadas or the Polar Square) for 1B.
“Schanny Shingles”
Rash
Rushto catch the fever!Bloopers over the infield. I want 400ft tape measures or frozen ropes bouncing off the wall.
While he’s not fast, he’s not really slow either. Last year he had 18 doubles to go along with 12 HR. I think there’s an in between zone where he gets up to 25 doubles per year and keeps the HR total about 15.
Add those extra 26 bases to last year and his slugging is .410. Not ideal for a first baseman, but an OPS of .753 for minimum wage is nice.
SOLD! I’ll take it. He seemed to be, even in college, an “almost” power hitter. 46 HR/462B in 700+ ABs. A .698 SLG in college isn’t terrifying, Charlie Condon was .909, but he is a very methodical hitter. If his hard drive starts recognizing a few pitches to really swing hard at he may not hit many 450ft HRs but he can get 20-25 out of there and the ones he misses will be doubles.
A guy who never strikes out, hits 20 HRs etc is kind of what we have been begging for in the past. That 17% K rate may actually go down… that’s not a bad thing at all.
Creatine was already available in the mid 2000s when Casey Kotchman was a overrated prospect. l’M INCREDIBLE AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN!!!