The weekend after next is “Rivalry Weekend” in which the local clash of titans will be the Angels versus the Dodgers. If there is any booze left after Cinco de Mayo, you might want to stock up. I forgot to report yesterday that the Angels selected Touki Toussaint over the weekend.
Ross Stripling has officially retired. Luis Rengifo is still an Angel. Joc Pederson is batting .094 at the time of this writing.
The Twins just reinstated Royce Lewis and Willi Castro from the injured list. Jesse Winker will probably go on the injured list with an oblique issue. A.J. Minter is out for the season due to lat surgery.
Tyler Callihan of the Reds broke his arm last night and will probably spend a bunch of time on the IL.
The Red Sox acquired John Holobetz as the player to be named later in the Quinn Priester trade. Triston Casas is out for the season after having surgery on his ruptured patellar tendon. I also forgot to report yesterday about Garrett Crochet taking a line drive to his nose and continuing to pitch.
The Blue Jays signed pitcher Spencer Turnbull and optioned him to the Florida Complex League to build up his arm. They also signed Jose Urena. Max Scherzer and Erik Swanson went to the 60 day IL.
Photo credit: Rex Fregosi
Angels, Andrew Vasquez Agree To Minor League Contract
https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2025/05/angels-andrew-vasquez-agree-to-minor-league-contract.html
The Angels reached agreement with lefty reliever Andrew Vasquez on a minor league deal, reports Ari Alexander of KPRC 2.
The Gaeta Sports Management client would be paid at a prorated $800K rate for whatever time he spends in the majors. According to Alexander, the deal includes an upward mobility clause on July 1 and an August 1 opt-out if the Angels haven’t selected Vasquez onto the major league roster.
Vasquez had begun the season in the Mexican League. The 31-year-old pitched well in a small sample. He only surrendered three unearned runs over 7 2/3 innings in an extremely hitter-friendly league. He fanned six with one walk while picking up a trio of saves. It was enough to get Vasquez back to the affiliated ranks, where he spent last season in Triple-A with the Tigers.
It wasn’t a great season. Vasquez allowed 5.11 earned runs per nine over 68 2/3 frames for Detroit’s top affiliate last year. His 19.4% strikeout percentage and 9.6% walk rate were each a little worse than average. That’s a departure from the norm, as Vasquez usually posts big strikeout numbers in the minor leagues. He carried a career 35.2% Triple-A strikeout rate into last season.
Vasquez’s fastball only sits in the upper 80s. He throws his low-80s breaking ball more than 80% of the time. It’s translated to roughly average results over parts of five seasons in the big leagues. Vasquez carries 4.24 ERA with a 21.5% strikeout rate over 63 2/3 innings between 2018-23.
How exciting. I’m sure he’ll excel and exceed expectations. 💩🤡
Moncada signing tonight. We are saved!
Sighting*
The Angels have called up Connor Brogdon for tonight’s game. If there’s been a more ineffective reliever at Salt Lake in the past few years, I can’t recall who it was.
He’s given up 22 runs in 14.2 innings, with a 2.252 WHIP, 6 home runs, and a chef’s kiss ERA nearing 13.
Its really as if Minasian were just trolling at this point.
Something about throwing something against a wall and seeing if it sticks comes to mind here
What you throw against the wall matters and soft serve brown material seems like it could stick.
Old men. You throw old men at a wall to see if they stick. If they don’t they are low on moisture. Soon a cat will sit on their bed. Then they will die.
That’s what you were thinking of right?
Touki DFA’ed. He should make it back to SLC safely
Connor Brogdon will be DFA’ed within a few days. He knows it, we know it, everyone knows it.
Rivalry Weekend? You mean Angels vs winning a game?
Vs themselves.
If we ate 2/3 of the rest of Mike Trout’s contract and bundled him with Ben Joyce, you think we could net a decent prospect or two?
Soler, Kikuchi, Jensen, Ward, Rengifo, Anderson, etc. likewise should be flipped at the deadline for prospects. Just tear it down, stop pretending you can contend, you don’t have the talent, teamwork, or coaching to get it done.
Mike has a “no trade” clause in his contract. I assume the only places he’d accept a trade to is NY and Philly due to family considerations. The Angels have zero leverage in a trade involving Trout, and we’d probably only get salary relief.
As for Joyce – until he’s healthy and can stay healthy, he’s likely to have minimal trade value.
Sam offers these 10 data points to show why we’re not good:
7.02 bullpen ERA
Taylor Ward: .578 OPS
17 team stolen bases
Minus-20 defensive runs saved
.269 team OBP
318 strikeouts
50 home runs allowed
Kyren Paris: 3-for-44 slump with 26 Ks
Mike Trout: 9 home runs, 8 singles
44-66 combined record in the minor leagues
Dumpster fire status achieved.
Sam is such a stick in the mud. Why can’t he report on things the fans really care about? Like Neto’s opinion on the first 6 episodes of Andor, or Soler’s thoughts on children only having 2 dolls instead of 30. There’s so many positive things he could be discussing related to this team that we as fans would love to read about, but no, he just wants to hate on the awesome job Arte has done with this team. Lame.
🤣
I actually admire Sam managing to just provide stats without any of his own nuggets of narrative thrown in. Proud of our “journalist”.
You putting quotes around the word journalist is a perfect response to my comment
Leody Taveras just picked up by Seattle from Texas who DFA’s him. Glad we let that happen given our complete lack of outfield depth, and the fact Paris needs to learn his trade in the minors.
I for one will be watching the game tonight-I know, someone has to do it.
I would say I will take one for the team, but that euphemism has been twisted to mean something else….
Thank you for your sacrifice.
I honestly only lurk here for the game wrap ups and comments now and don’t watch any games live. Year after year and I had to come to the personal decision the juice just isn’t worth the squeeze right now. Arte done poisoned the orchard. It won’t be forever, I’ll be back, hopefully soon, and I hope it will be for a rebuild.
I’d even tune back in for a good and proper rebuild, but this ain’t it.
And yes, I know, nobody cares.
Hope you’re not going to hop over to the Dodger nation with all the stars and Japanese players. I’m JA too, yet still say F traitor Sho his friends.
Right there with you. Don’t have cable and didn’t bother with the streamer so I really just poke my head over here a couple times a week to get a birds eye view from smarter people who are paying attention.
It’s not that they’re bad — plenty of my other teams are currently bad — its that it seems so helpless and permanent in the case of Moreno’s Angels. Rebuilds can be fun. And yet, we’ve somehow managed to be one of the worst teams in baseball for a decade without any of the excitement and optimism from a booming farm system and a vision for the future.
We’re the loveable losers of California, it’s okay to own it.
If we played a 100 game series against the White Sox, Rockies, or Marlins, would we win any of them?
Yes.
They finally lose 100 games this year, regardless of who they play, regardless of who plays. With Trout, or without, it’s 100 L’s.
Only goal in 2025, keep the few kids mental and physical outlook positive. That’s basically Neto, O’hop and numerous pitchers. Get a positive return on the trade market. Still don’t think Ward and Rengifo’s net us much. Strong chance they both have horrible years at the plate, and of course the usual injuries.
MLB’s toxic waste dump is our forever home
We are….the cesspool
The problem is if we’re bad enough to lose 100 games then the veterans we are hoping to trade are playing too poorly to net us anything of value.
If we lose 100 games, it’s because we are terrible at baseball. Tanking this season will bring us nothing in the draft this time around.
After 1st round draft position
That’s the ticket! Gold right there! I knew there would be a positive to sucking this bad.
Not that many care, but dang, Tickets for this Toronto series are dirt cheap. Couldn’t help myself and accidentally hit buy button on Stub hub. Going Wed $22 field level near 3rd base. Angels suck, but I always said I’m an MLB fan and love the live game.
Enjoy!
The Angels gave our Little League 950 free tickets for tomorrow night. They say it is thanks for us buying 950 tickets for Little League Day. But let’s be real, those seats would otherwise be empty.
And they take the tax deduction to be sure. That said, it’s still really cool for the kids.
Well, they will enjoy the H*LL out of the game-That is nice for the kids.
A friend of mine has gotten 50, then 100 free tickets from last year to this.
No one should ever feel compelled to explain how they entertain themselves. Have a good time at a great price. The beers cost more than the tickets. Haha
I’ve always wanted to watch a game from the diamond club, this season just might be it.
As a teacher I think about all the hundreds of free hours of work and my own professional development that I put in all unpaid, to get better, and the crippling guilt I feel if my students don’t succeed. I don’t understand how Perry can get paid handsomely to live in Newport Beach and still not give a shit. I’m over Arte as an excuse. Dude is awful at game day operations, does not exert any positive influence on player development or game day scouting… nothing. We are the most clueless org.
I completely agree. Minasian is not competent at the job he is paid to do.
Perry doesn’t care about winning? Source?
Actually, I think he kind of doesn’t, or shouldn’t. After all the bullshit “don’t waste Ohtani” era where we let that dictate what we did Perry is kind of left with a situation where he has to focus on building a winner and an org that will get there without “the big splash” every winter. That’s not the same as focusing on winning ball games right now at all and, in fact, may require moves that will make the team even worse in the short run.
What’s awesome though is that it validates all the pearl clutching and brow furrowing at something that any of us want to do on a daily basis. We are finally total crap instead of just complaining like we are total crap. We faked it till we maked it and I for one am proud of all of us here on the internet.
We are far from good. But we are not the most clueless org. My friends in Denver…. sheesh, they just watch the disaster, not the games. Pirates fans are all pretty much domestic abuse survivors compared to us.
It can get worse. Maybe we can will it into existence. After all, as someone pointed out, the Angels are still drawing people to the stadium. They still have a TV contract of sorts. Maybe we can get Arte to truly go “Full Nutting” and just go on cruise control, spending nothing on everything and collecting cash. We already talk like that’s what he does. Maybe we can actually experience that for a few years…. have a little more authenticity forced on us by the baseball gods.
This take reminds me of a quote from Asimov:
“When people thought the earth was flat, they were wrong. When people thought the earth was spherical, they were wrong. But if you think that thinking the earth is spherical is just as wrong as thinking the earth is flat, then your view is wronger than both of them put together.”
Books. So lame.
This reminds me of a quote from an old Southern saying. “Cat wants to be dog.” We can demand that the cat be a dog all we want. It’s still not a dog. Gotta figure out how to get good shit done with a cat.
Or just whine about how our dog is weird and sucks at dog stuff.
Since the Stoneman era ended, my perspective has been the Angels GM position is an audition for the real GM role afterwards. Wins and losses are immaterial.
When Evil Art fires Perry, the next GM will be an assistant somewhere that is willing to take the shit that goes with the position. That is the only source for his replacement. 💯 knowing they are working with less, more guardrails, zero chance of noticeable improvement in a short amount of time. 100% relying on the baseball Gods do us a solid.
No established GM is ever coming here, unless Art way over pays him. We know that not happening.
Bad at GM role on next team.
Arte’s fault for not training them
/s
Ha ha.
It has been five years, and this is the crap roster Minasian has put together? C’mon, this is not acceptable. They have no options in the minor leagues. Re-signing Touki and J.D. shows this. The ownership has made it difficult to excel, but Minasian has mostly failed because he has not built an organization, infrastructure, farm system, and culture. Texas fired their hitting coach. What are we doing?
It’s May 6. That’s why we are backloading a bunch of Touki for filler right now. If it were July or even June 6 we’d likely be complaining about some kid being up and the situation he gets used in. We are also in a completely different situation from the Rangers. On top of that, we can still totally fire some coaches at some point, we just haven’t yet. Given that we could hire ANYBODY and we’d still suck, what’s the rush? Wash’s decision on that, along with Perry, likely has a bunch to do with how the hitters that are be coached think on the situation with Johnny. I have no idea what that entails.
I think you have to see it as just over a year past the Ohtani era. They blew everything up trying to keep him, and when I say blew “everything” the little that there was.
Why do we have so little, year after year? Who owns that, in addition to the owner?
owner, gm, everyone involved in scouting
Who is responsible for this, owner or GM? Who can be fired and replaced?
IMHO, ultimately the buck stops with Arte on everything related to the franchise: baseball, stadium, merchandise, farm system, scouting, player development, salty nuts peanut guy, etc.
Perry just enables Arte. If Perry didn’t like working for Arte, he could always pull a Jedi and take the next bus out of town.
Other than drying him out financially, there’s zero leverage on Arte. Until he crosses over the rainbow, we’re probably stuck with him.
Any other business you’d eventually look at the owner or chief executive if nothing worked for a decade.
Beyond Moreno, the Angels IMO just have a culture and reputation problem. You see it every now and then where players or ex-employees openly rip the org like its common knowledge. This week it was Cozart and Victor Rojas talking about the lack of getaway days and how that wrecks the players’ sleep and makes them injury prone.
Whether that is *true* or not doesn’t matter. It is what players and the baseball community in general terms *believe*.
Sports has so much to do with confidence and buy-in. We can assume after a decade, there just isn’t much of either. This is like Al Davis’ Raiders or Don Sterling’s Clippers. The GM and coaches don’t matter. People need to see the franchise completely rebooted to *believe* something is actually different a la the Commanders post-Daniel Snyder.
Texas hired an ex-pitcher with no experience for a GM. They just fired the hitting coach who was a genius two years ago when they were good. They signed a few pitchers who were good once but aren’t anymore. And this is the franchise that you think we should emulate?
Compared to the Doyers, no. Compared to us, yes.
I have a special disdain for Toronto and their awful music and goofy ass accent, let’s go Halos
Never trust Canadians. They are too quiet up there so I know they are plotting something. Plus they have a whole “province/state” of French Hillbillies.
Beiber.
F Canada right in the A. Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan sucks maple syrup
https://youtu.be/mp4xmayNpbM?si=e1_2fV9l46Ak0mN7
Hey, I liked Rush.
You Hoser!
The Tubes rule!!
Canada is okay, except for all the Canadians.
Today I’m on 62 wins on the season. 😥
👤 “I prefer third base side behind the dugout, if possible, hold? Yes, I can hold.”
Oh, good morning, Angels fans, GPB here just ordering my World Series tickets at a non-refundable deal and the girl on the other end of the line is checking availability for me. Arte has put a super deal, one hundred dollars for two seats behind third base dugout and I hopping on this deal now. 📞
“Why yes I’m still holding, you found 2 tickets for us, and you need my banking account numbers to withdraw the ticket cost because you don’t accept credit cards or Pay Pal, oh sure, are you ready, here it is…….”.
See you guys at the Big A in October 😃
Apparently Washington was publicly criticizing Adel’s defense so he’s starting to throw his players under the bus again.
Is it really throwing someone under the bus when you say the truth out loud?
I root hard for Jo. I also acknowledge that Jo has been awful at the plate and in the outfield this year.
Yes I believe it is if it’s not related to poor behavior or attitude. It’s unprofessional in my opinion. I agree with you about Joe, but I don’t think it’s appropriate for Wash to do it out loud. He could make the same comments about most of the players including Trout and it would be the truth.
That’s fair! I wouldn’t be mad at Wash openly criticizing the rest of the team because they suck haha.
Might as well turn this comedy into a dramady 🍿
But I demand transparency. I think stupid people with no ability to do anything productive like myself need to be told everything all the time. Sure, it may totally fk the pile of men who have to work together in the org, but I feel pretty good for a few seconds…. then I complain the same as if I knew nothing. Sam the Hat is my hero.
Forgot the meds today?
I don’t need meds. I have Sam the Hat.
I always say, follow your dreams, don’t let anybody tell you what to do. Unless your dumb. Then do what somebody smarter than you tells you.
The difference is that Jo has burned a lot of chances and is now officially on double-secret probation. Once that happens, public humiliation is about the only motivational tool left.
Why that’s big of you, since only three players are doing somewhat well so far. I acknowledge that this is the worst Angels team I have ever seen, by far. They can’t hit, can’t pitch, can’t field, and can’t dance and don’t have a chance. Right now, we can rule out World Series, rule out playoffs, rule out Trout with 500 AB’s, Rendone ever playing again, and who’s on second?
So, Wash is reading somewhere every day that he needs to be removed, bet the coaching staff are packing up as we speak. Folks that post here read something along the lines that PTP is losing his backers every day, and Artie is hiding in Scottsdale so he feels like no Angels fan will accidently run into him at Del Taco or Washington’s Monument. 😄
Jo’s troubles started why the Angels being the team to draft him, he should of been a Super Star and may be yet, just not with this team.
As for Washington, he and his staff are beyond frustrated, they work their collective asses off and you see the results. This team is a mess and only two people can fix it, but if you don’t know how to fix it, then the team is doomed.
I’ll never give up on Neto, he is very special, but like Trout and Ohtani before him he can’t do it alone and Perry is clueless.
It his hitting? Or lack of?
It was about his defense in this case, throwing to the wrong base. I wonder sometimes what this organization actually teaches.
Good question. They drafted Adell as an athlete, not a baseball player. They are trying to mold him into a baseball player. When I saw him in the minors play in Lake Elsinore against the Storm, my first impression was his feet were way too wide apart and taking too long of a step, with a long swing. He didn’t look ready for MLB pitching. His defense in centerfield was meh. What I can say is that this team has gotten demonstrably worse under Washington. Losing 99 games last year and on track for that same record does not bode well for.
I still don’t think this crap team is truly THIS crappy. They look like they are in a period of failure…. you know, like when you suck at your job, and then you suck at getting the printer to work, and then you leave your coat at a bar, and pretty soon you can’t tie your shoes or eat without getting food on your shirt?
We are seeing the baseball version of that. It will level out probably. We won’t be good then. But we won’t be THIS bad.
Hopefully.
Have you been watching me, Gitch? Cause I sometimes feel that I am that guy!
Soooo…. accountability? No now? Yes?
NBA Playoffs >>>>>>
Makes it easy to forget about how awful we are until mid-June.
2024 5th rounder, Dylan Jordan, was solid in his minor league debut yesterday (Rookie Ball).
4 innings
0 hits
0 runs
3 strikeouts
3 walks
Caden Dana gets the start today in AAA.
You don’t want to see this.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VgnajJcci24
Wait – I watched all that and Rendon and/or Trout didn’t come running out from the stands all “mock tough” and get in someone’s grill?
Damn. Wussies.
A Bowden trade proposal involving the Angels:
5. Royals acquire OF/DH Jorge Soler from Angels for RHP Ben Kudrna
“Soler played for the Kansas City Royals from 2017 to July 2021, a stretch that included leading the AL with 48 homers in 2019. Over a 12-year career, he has 162-game averages of 31 homers and 32 doubles. He’s maintained that this season with six homers and seven doubles in 131 plate appearances, though his .731 OPS is below his .792 career mark. A below-average defender in the outfield, Soler is best used as a designated hitter.
The Royals entered Saturday ranked last in the majors in home runs with 15. To put that in perspective, 28 teams had hit 25 homers, 18 teams had hit 30 and the Yankees led the league with 54. OK, so the Royals then proceeded to club three homers on Saturday and a franchise-record seven long balls on Sunday, but I think they need to acquire power to get back to the postseason and Soler would be a good trade target.
In return, the Angels would get Kudrna, who has a 5.23 ERA in five starts at Double A this season with 26 strikeouts in 20 2/3 innings. Kudrna was a second-round pick out of high school in 2021. Law ranked the 22-year-old as the No. 8 prospect in the Royals’ farm system while MLB Pipeline has him at No. 4.
This trade would give the Angels salary relief and more payroll flexibility, as Soler is signed for $16 million per year through 2026.”
Soler for a starter with upside would be great. Hope he stays healthy and rakes for a good return
Angels hoping to acquire pitchers with as many consonants in the middle of their names as possible. Silent R? Other than a salary dump, nothing on papers sounds great about this proposed deal. I’d hope they could get more from a team in the hunt. This guy basically sounds like a lottery ticket at this point.
Yeah, sure, would take that.
That would be an excellent trade for both teams and then Quero could be our DH. Oh wait!
Eh. Why not? MOAR KIDZ!