Here is how Bleacher Report ranks all the teams third basemen. Yoan Moncada came in 27th.
A couple of Angels homered yesterday on their way to that 8-4 loss. Here is Travis d’Arnaud.
Here is Ryan Noda.
I will spare you from seeing any of the defensive miscues.
Jose Quintana got a one year deal with the Brewers. The Nationals re-signed Kyle Finnegan. He gets $6 Million with much of it deferred.
Sean Murphy got drilled in the ribs on Friday. One of them is cracked. He will miss four to six weeks. The Pirates placed right-hander Johan Oviedo on the 60 day IL for what they characterize as a “lat issue.” Luis Gil also has a lat issue and will be out for at least six weeks.
The MLBPA expects there will be a lockout after the 2026 season.
The Nationals and Orioles finally settled their lawsuit about the television rights in their local market.
The Angels are hiring a Full Time Analyst, Research and Development.
Photo credit: Rex Fregosi
Which one of you will apply for Full Time Analyst, Research and Development?Hmmm, John Henry?
I don’t have the programming chops personally. I can lift 20 pounds, though.
Reportedly the Halos just signed a pitcher named Jesus, so that may bring some much-needed Divine intervention.
God knows the Halos org needs some form of intervention.
Should have moved the bodies not just the headstones when they built the stadium.
https://youtu.be/Lh_W6FLaMvA?si=_5ZTlIjxwq3_iKiD
It is March 3. We are about three weeks away from the end of Spring Training. It may not be as important for me to focus on every little thing a guy screws up on right now as I think it is.
It’s March 4th. Damn CtPG guy strikes again
Wait, is CtPG guy a particular person or just people in general? I need to know what is being complained about to complain appropriately.
Nothing. CtPG Guy is not in this chat.
Oh yeah… March 4th. Time to panic. I don’t know what CtPG Guy is striking again at or why…. he must hate my inability to read my calendar at work…..?
Keith Law’s first draft board came up today… and it seems purpose-built to trigger a CtPG epileptic seizure. No. 1 is one Liam Doyle… a LHP from Tennessee who, get this, is ranked No. 75 by MLB.
No. 2 is Holliday, which almost seems avant garde with all the recent criticisms about his performance against top competition.
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6165485/2025/03/04/mlb-draft-2025-rankings-prospects-keith-law-liam-doyle-ethan-holliday/
Rocky Top – national champions, Cmo, Ben Joyce – I could definitely see another Volunteer here..
About Holliday – every year this draft class has been ranked, Holliday has been the #1 prospect. now it’s the year, and a lot of players are going to have good seasons, some one will win the Golden Spikes, and whatever NCAA #1 position player or NCAA #1 pitcher WASH picks, we definitely can get the opposite. And probably Holliday will still be Top 3-5.
So do we pick the hottest hand more developed ballplayer? or the consistency Ethan has shown, not to mention the family? It’ll be a tough choice.
Maybe it’s just the nepo-baby-hate in me, but I think it’s more likely than not that EH’s name and pedigree have played in his favor, where rankings are concerned. Interesting to me that Law ranks LaViolette closer to No. 10 than the Top 3 pick everyone else seems to see. Talks about his K rate a lot. Same reason supposedly why he doesn’t like CMoore. The guy has a reverse HO for K-rate.
And I tend to agree with him. Jace’s K rate is alarming and not likely to improve at the professional ranks.
Same goes with any prospect.
Doesn’t need to improve. Needs to hold/flatline… like Aaron Judge’s did. Whiffed at 22 percent in his last year at Fresno. Still whiffs in that range. But, you know, acceptable production.
See, this is why I hate getting super duper pissy about the draft. Jace looks a lot like…. college Jo Adell. Boo hoo hoo. I’d still be happy to take him, but he’s got problems.
But we see his picture a lot. A guy whose picture we don’t see a lot is Duke 3B Ben Miller. He is very good and might shoot up draft boards. But if our FO decides to take him at #2 because he is good and fits a need we will all piss ourselves because we mostly don’t know him. While I have seen Jace, Tyler and Jaime on my screen plenty…. even though they are barely less likely to bust.
Here. Let me be a draft genius for a second. I promise that someone out there will be able to find some sort of issue with ALL of the players in this draft. So serenity now.
If his daddy wasn’t a very good MLB player, would he be rated in the top 10 draft prospects?
He’d still be up there. He is a really really good prospect. Just not Jesus.
Bobby Witt, Bobby Bonds, Ken Griffey, EY, Matt Holliday –
their boys done good
Doyers plan on taking Shohei’s baby if available after the 10th round.
They will defer his signing for 17 years.
The “problem” with this years draft isn’t really a problem. Other than, you know, it’s a baseball draft, so just about all of these guys can bust, even on teams other than the Angels. IF Holliday were to fall to #2 and we took him, and then took a college arm at #47, and then a college bat with our third pick, it would be a good draft. Same with top college arm/bat first. They should literally just take the best “thing” available when they pick and they’ll be as fine as a team can be in the draft.
It would help A LOT if they trade for someone’s comp pick.
They are even in a nice enough draft position, and the draft is good enough early that GASP!, if the team drafted under slot with their second pick and spread that money down draft it wouldn’t be that crazy…. if, for example, a nice college power bat OF or 3B were available at pick #47 but is ranked #55 or something.
Yep. There is a pile of talent out there, especially in the SEC and some of those players are gonna get a lot of lift before the draft.
Stupid Perry.
Angels need position players certainly, but honestly if there was a pitcher at #2 that could be a Jeff Weaver type I would jump on that.
There are a couple guys in the draft that we could take that have a shot at this. I’d be happy to have em….
How is Rengifo going to get traded if he’s such a delicate little flower?
He needs to sack up, play decently and get traded, so I can enjoy this team again.
Jesus that’s a weird standard. Did he run over your puppy?
Players who get hurt all the time are “evil” and hate being baseball players. Like Bachman. He hasn’t even established himself as an MLB player and he already doesn’t want to play in the MLB bad enough to satisfy me.
Ryan Noda has a .407 OBP across 7 minor league seasons and right about .400 his last two full seasons in AAA. So he does what Nolan does well. But Noda is significantly stronger.
Nolan is well in the drivers seat, but he does have somebody pushing him.
i would hope he’s stronger, he’s 7 years older
It’s always good for a ball player to know someone is vying for their job.
Trouty looks sensational at the plate right now.
Would one more 10 WAR season for old times sake be too much to ask for?
Mike’s last 10 WAR (actually 9.9) season was 2018 when he was age 26. That is a long time ago and he turns 34 this year. I would say if he produces 5 WAR that would be quite an accomplishment.
“be too much to ask for?”
We’re the god-forsaken fans of a forlorn franchise owned by Scrooge McDuck.
Yes, it would be too much to ask for.  😆 
Arte is more like “Schmucktales”
I understand the feeling, but you’d be setting yourself up for disappointment at that level. Only 9 players produced a 10 WAR season after age 30, and only 5 of them after age 32 (Ruth, Mays, Bonds, Hornsby and Hans Wagner). Out of Trout’s 10 closest statistical comps through age 32, one was out of baseball (Kiner) and one in his last season (Belle). The remaining 9 averaged about 3.7 WAR for their age 33 season from a low of 0.6 (Belle) to 8.1 (Bonds). Given 600 plate appearances, I’d expect Trout to produce from 4.8 to 5.4 WAR.
That’s probably pretty accurate. Even so, if he was able to be healthy all year, I would hope for 6-8 WAR, which is a dream and highly unlikely.
4 of the last 5 years he was 1.8, 1.8, 2.9, and 1.1. with a 6.2 mixed in. Those 4 years were killers.
I’d love to see it. Between the switch to RF and more DH days, we’re probably looking at 6 or 7 as the absolute best case scenario with 5 being an optimistic but realistic possibility.
I dunno. If Trout has a 10 WAR season again do I have to go back to listening to CtPG Guy whining about wasted Trout every couple days?
Well, at least we do not have a losing Spring Training record. Trouty did have 2 hits yesterday and that’s a positive. @ days in a row of our starting catchers hitting is kool. Go Angels!