The Angels placed Jorge Soler on the ten day injured list with lower back inflammation. You and me both, Jorge. Meanwhile, Ron Washington will take an indefinite break from his managing duties due to his health issues.
Mark Gubicza versus the memory quiz.
The Blue Jays will activate Max Scherzer from the 60 day IL. The Red Sox placed right-hander Hunter Dobbins on the 15 day IL with elbow soreness. The Diamondbacks just signed James McCann to a major league deal.
Luke Voit signed with the Rakutan Golden Eagles.
Photo credit: Rex Fregosi
Damn, can’t wait for that A’ss stadium to open up. I’ll definitely be going to a few games out that way.
Am I the only one who first thought Washington might have had a Newport Beach flu relapse? Then I realized his age and thought – it’s probably something else. I pray he gets healthy whatever it is.
If it were that they would have whisked him out the back door to a facility over looking the ocean to”heal” not posting him on live Tv downing chicken wings
Neto currently 7th in All Star Voting. And here’s what’s wild. The position is so good right now – it’s not far off. Okay – I totally get Wilson being #1 and he’d have my vote. What a season he’s got going. Already with 102 hits. My point is – Neto could end up being the best shortstop in franchise history and might not ever make the All Star game. I love watching him play and I’d say he’s probably one of the most underrated guys in the league. He’s a coaches baseball player that has his head in the game and never takes pitches off. He’s like our Pedroia. I do think he has a good shot for a Gold Glove this year. Regardless, I love watching him play baseball.
Need confirmation. According to a site I was just at, the Angels have picks 2, 47, 84, 110, 114. I had thought it was 79, not 84 so there must be some comp picks happening
2, 47, 79, 105, 109.
Not sure what the other source was, but this is from the MLB official site.
Thanks. That’s really good. We should be able to get real talent
Coastal’s coach/manager Schnall continued to gripe and complain. He, maybe accidentally, admits to what he was ejected for. Part of his statement: “When I came out, I got told it was a warning issued for arguing balls and strikes, and I said it was because you missed three”. So yeah, he was warned. He says so. And then continued to argue. He says so. Got tossed. Then complained. Sore losers don’t have my respect.
didn’t he get tossed for “contact with the ump” only after the ump tripped and fell?
I thought he got tossed before that when he was still in the dugout.
I think the incident regarding contact would have garnered a 2 game suspension until reality showed otherwise
I thought he got a 2 game suspension, but it didn’t end up mattering since they lost that game. I watched a press conference with the CC coach and he basically said he got tossed for ump contact due to the ump tripping over the other ump’s foot.
Then why did he come out of the dugout loaded for bear in the first place? I believe he was reacting to hs ejection as It would not appear that “the lack of the Umpires athleticism” led to his ejection but arguing balls and strikes after repeated warnings :
I don’t know, I just saw what the coach said and then watched the clip of the ump falling.
Despite the jack ass umpiring in such an important game this whole thing kind of makes you wonder about the coaches credibility. It sucks for the kids more than anything
It was former MLB umpire Angel Campos who worked the game so he could have asked him what he had for lunch and been thrown out.
I’m sure umpire is really proud of himself today for showing up an otherwise great NCAA baseball tourney. He let everyone else know Omaha was HIS town.
Everyone knows know it’s Angel Campos World. And you’d better be on your best behavior.
What a complete ass throwing out a manager in the first inning of a championship game – pretty much taints it.
I’m not condoning Schnall but no umpire should do this, considering the extent of his actions and the circumstances.
Why does it matter if the first inning or the ninth inning? At some point you have to tell the coach the conversation is over. The coach has to shut and stop. If not you toss them in order to move on.
Okay….so is it possible that the Angels will finally, maybe, potentially get Bruce Bochy to manage them….Not saying he is on the hot seat but if Texas does not re-sign him after 2025 and Washington retires, maybe, just maybe?
That would assume Bochy would want to work for Arte and Arte would be smart enough to allow someone like Bochy to work for him. Bochy may just be to smart for this.
It’s Albert or Torii and my moneys on Albert since he really wants to manage in the Bigs and Arte still owes him $7 million for the next 7 years so theres probably a deal to be made.
That would be a disaster.
Bochy’s not coming back if he gets shitcanned. His wife is already pissed at him for taking the job in the first place. He had promised the family he wouldn’t manage anymore when he took the Rangers job.
My Buddy’s daughter is his next door neighbor in Tennessee so I think the source is pretty reliable.
Soler’s back was likely injured swinging at balls a foot off the plate. Dude simply can’t lay off a sweeper to save his life.
Hope Washington is able to enjoy life with family and friends. Health is far more important than baseball.
Zach Neto ranks amongst all MLB shortstops:
.270 BA = 11th
.312 OBP = 17th
.793 OPS = 9th
2.5 WAR = T-6th
Nolan Schanuel ranks amongst all MLB 1st baseman:
.283 BA = 6th
.372 OBP = 5th
.784 OPS = 13th
1.3 WAR = 9th
Jo Adell’s .777 OPS is 6th amongst all centerfielders.
Logan O’Hoppe’s 17 HRs are 2nd most amongst all catchers.
Please remember that the Angels’ farm system doesn’t produce talent. They never do and never will.
Those guys aren’t GREAT but they are what we have not had for forever…. a pile of solid players who do a good job. If we can add maybe two more guys like that to our every day line up we’d be a pretty solid team.
Add a goodish Trout. Even better.
At that point it maybe makes some sense to take some Arte bucks and trade prospects for an impending FA hitter who will need a big contract and make a big push.
Also, pure hopium, there is nothing that 100% prevents guys like this from getting better. Get a couple more OPS up towards .850 and you’re cooking with gas baby.
Are the “Core 4” great? Ok, maybe not. Are they pretty damn good? Me thinks so.
17 (qualified) hitters in the entire sport had an .850+ OPS in 2024. I cant fathom the amount of hopium I’d vomit on this site if we can 1 guy doing that, let alone multiple lol.
Trout and CMo make it 6. Until the draft happens, I will continue to bang the Arquette drum.
These guys are still young.
Just think of them with four more years experience and further strengthening and development of their bodies and bats.
I wonder about this – especially about someone like Schanuel. Progress doesn’t always move in a uniform direction.
Is Schanuel a Mark Grace or John Olerud type, who will have a long career into his late 30s? Or is he a Casey Kotchman type, whose impact years end in his late 20s, and who is out of baseball at 30? Or something in the middle, like Sean Casey, retiring in his early 30s?
They all seems like reasonable comps for a lefty hit-over-power guy limited to first base.
Carson Cistulli wrote a great article on this type of player about a decade ago that I share now and then when discussing Nolan S.
Looking at the debut age & time in pro ball prior to MLB debut, out of the guys you mentioned, Schanuels career path most resembles Oleruds. Not saying he’s gonna have the same career but that is peak outcome.
How do you (or would you need to) quantify learning to hit against the best players as opposed to learning in the minors where you have longer leashes to “work on stuff”?
This is an accurate assessment. They are good to very good, solid everyday major league players but they are not stars. They have great cost controlled value right now and as you say, if we can add 2-3 more players, we’ll have a team worth adding a star or 2 too.
The Angels at the moment do not have a single “star” on their club – to the extent that they are not in the top-three of All Star voting at any position. Neto is really the only homegrown player who comes close, in that he’s probably a 4 WAR player in multiple seasons – more above-average than elite.
I find it an extraordinary argument that the industry is underrating the Angels, MLB or MiLB.
It’s good to have a league average first baseman and above-average SS, given the team hasn’t always had those in the 2010s and 2020s.
It’s nice that Jo is seeing more pitches and hitting HRs at 30+ pace.
I also think it’s fine to hype the team you follow. But when the hype becomes a dismissal of all critics on the premise that the team deficits are not real or honestly evaluated, then the hype is a con.
All true.
The last two sentences in your comment are, to me, merely strawman trolling.
No one has said that no talent has ever emerged or will ever emerge from the Angels system (cf Trout). Just that relative to every other system, it has produced less value in the past fifteen years, whether the measure is aggregate WAR or other holistic measures of excess value.
Adell was drafted eight years ago, is in his sixth MLB season, and has just finally produced above-replacement value (since early May). He still has negative defensive value, an OBP south of .300 and a K% north of 25%.
O’Hoppe, drafted and developed by the Phillies, and promoted months after acquired, was not an Angels farm product, and is himself streaky, defense-challenged, with a 33.5% K rate and a .268 OBP and 0.2 fWAR. He’d be unplayable on many first division teams.
So basically, the taunt here against all those naysayers (articulated in a rather dishonest way) is based on two first round draft picks who’ve produced solid but unexceptional results in the past year or two, both of whom spent a few months total in the Angels’ “farm system”. They were developed in college programs and graduated almost immediately after drafting.
I think the critics are still correct, and as a fan who cares about achieving sustainable success, it makes sense (to me) to highlight chronic but addressable deficits in the Angels’ system, when the MLB team is in Year 11 of sub-.500 play.
Nicely stated and accurate. Just remember, Pineapple is the self stated fan on the positive side of the spectrum.
Known, understood, appreciated. And often encouraged.
I just offer rebuttals when the hype verges on trolling or unjustifiable mockery. Also, as a pointy-headed data nerd who spent decades in a statistical / quantitative field, I get annoyed when statistics are mobilized in a deceptive way that obfuscates instead of clarifies.
Turk out here saving lives with more of that Narcan
The Angels had two super-stars from 2018 to 2023 and the team never played .500 baseball.
We need big league hitters at 9 positions.
These are the 2002 WAR for the 2002 Angels:
B. Molina 0.4
Spiezo 2.5
Kennedy 4.5
Eckstein 5.2
Glaus 4.4
GA 5.1
Erstad 6.3
Salmon 4
Fullmer 2.9
Then some solid bench pieces: OP (1.1) and Gil (0.8).
I am hoping that we can have good players in nine positions (pitching is another story).
I am hoping that Adell, Neto, O’Hoppe, Schaneul, Moore and Trout can be in the 3 to 6 WAR range (I am assuming that Ward and Rengifo will be traded before the Angels are ready to compete). Then you can plug holes with 1 or 2 free agents.
For 2002 heaven:
Schanuel stats: 3 for 5, 3-run homer, a double, single, 4 rbi’s, and scored a run
https://x.com/TJStats/status/1937151207241371732
Nice. Schanny looking good.
Washington’s health concerns are his private business and I wish him well.
In terms of the team, if he is truly done, I wish they would begin a search for a real manager to replace him and the bottom end of his staff.
Wait. You want to replace Washington? I had no idea.
Trout assesses his game yesterday:
Antsy and jumpy. You would think antsy and jumpy would have had him swinging at those two meatballs pitched to him in dead center instead of just watching it pass by. Then compounded with the horrible decision of swinging outside the zone because he had to protect since he’s behind.
If there was anyone that needed rest yesterday, it should have been Trout, considering his aversion to day games also. DH Neto and you would still have him at lead-off, (instead of Aybar Jr.,) and his bat on the lineup, while giving his body a rest from the field.
That at bat by Trout earlier in the game with RISP was huge. He got two pitches in his preferred swing path and just didn’t swing. It was hard to watch for me.
Bad game plan and scouting. Most of the players hit hr or look completely lost striking out. One is happening alot more than the other.
Bad Game Plan Man. Bad F’n Plan.
It’s not just Trout, either. Schanuel is one of the few players who actually performs as a situational hitter anymore. Coaches and Managers may preach situational hitting, but chicks and GM’s dig the long ball to the exclusion of good baseball. I miss well-played baseball!
We all know he has degraded physically. Now we are seeing it mentally as well.
Day games at the Big A can be explosive because of the heat makes baseballs look like missile shots. Trout has always said that he dislikes day games at the Big A, why was he in the line up? Why no Neato? Just resting him to PH? He said he feels great at 24 and told the team he wants to play. He and Schanny propel the team, not Renny and Schanny. The young guys need to play, not the cast offs or older guys who take up space.
I’m asking because maybe you read something that I haven’t seen….
So after the game Neto stated he felt great and didn’t know why he wasn’t in the starting lineup?
TrAdition
He said he felt great during an in-game interview.
I’m still waiting for the day that players who aren’t on the 60 Day come out and say “I’m beat to shit and exhausted.”. I derman tranparentcee
What I saw was that he told the coaching staff he wanted to play and was feeling great, but he was told to take it easy and then you saw what we all saw-his PH HR.
So he got rest and he hit a home run… why am I mad again?
You are making a big deal out of one game.
Guys are going to get a day off here and there. Turn the page and move on.
Especially when the player in getting a break has a stat line of
.195/.267/.268/.535 over the prior 10 games.
Who has been taking a beating with HBPs, foul balls off his body and I’m pretty sure something else from fielding/running lol.
Of course Neto will say he can play. His bat is heating back up a little and he got a some rest.
Poor Neto, a 24 year old is to beat up to play.
“You are making a big deal out of one game.”
Someone please launch the whole thing about how CtPG isn’t full of huffing mouth breathers but is in fact full of real baseball guys who are FANS which is short for fanatic and thus they actually own a .0001% stake in the team and should thus be expected to not use any common sense or keep their emotional briefs clean and it’s because they care more and Arte owes them an apology here.
Yes, P12. Neto’s played a lot lately. He got a HBP yesterday. He probably said he’s fine, which is what players say even when their brain is showing through a headwound. It made perfect sense to rest him. Why aren’t you mad? This was, after all, a game against the first place Astros in June for none of the marbles.
It is your opinion that I’m making a big deal, that is not how I see it and who are you to inform me that I wrong and making a big deal. Have you ever seen where one game makes a difference in the standings? ’62 Dodgers, ’67 Tigers and Twins. So please don’t think by sitting on a hilltop of hopeium that you are the guy that can judge anyone else here.
I have seen 7 million games with my eyes. I have also judged several pie eating contests and turtle races. You’re over reacting. You have been judged.
Rengifo leading off makes all the baseball sense in the world, what was I thinking. Newman has a lot of range at SS, damn good back up there. I have been judged; I’ll walk to the gallows only after I fight for my last meal in the pit. Pizza and ice-cold beer would make me fight harder, any chance of that?
This is what we have been talking about at my house all morning. Player’s are coddled way too much these days. No one expects them to strive for Cal Ripkin Jr.’s record, but come on…..and like you said, Neto is only 24 years old
When I was growing up, Players regularly played 150+ games a year as long as they were healthy.
In my village, when I was a kid, we put all the children in a pit and made them fight for food. In the snow. Both ways. It’s not there anymore. Turns out a village that is 97% men and a couple women who are able to fight off enough boys to eat their food isn’t sustainable.
You really do lose your mind sometimes and make absolutely no logical sense but we still love you.
We only dreamed of having actual food to fight over!
yes this sounds exactly the horror I faced growing up in my village in both 1970 and 1971.
Yet Sandy F’n Alomar played every inning of every game and led the League in at-bats two straight years.
Comment of the day Rex
I wuz too busy watching Jaws the first summer 🌞 blockbuster movie evuh!
https://x.com/TJStats/status/1937151207241371732
Seeing as Jaws was four years after the time frame that Rex mentioned…
A BAT! Luxury. In my village they made us hit with a lit stick of dynamite. Talk about developing a sense of grit and urgency. Players today have all their limbs and everything. Soft cheese all of em.
I’ll bet you swung at the 1st pitch a lot
Pitches!?!?! SOFT! Our ball was an angry chicken wrapped in tape and we had to chase it down with our dynamite stick! Kids today!
and the season was only 154 games long!
The 154 game season went when the Angels came into being, but get you, I’m not sure that made them better or have shorter careers
Did you forget he had shoulder surgery in the offseason?
This was his 2nd “off day” (he PH both days he didn’t start) since he returned in the teams 19th game. He would be on pace for 150+ starts if it wasn’t for the late start.
Late start and still needs days off, Ok he’s tired.
So you’re of the opinion that players are disposable assets and we should burn though them like they’re college pitchers.
Yet ironically this year Trout has been much better in Days than night games ( .820 OPS in Day games vs .738 in Night Games) then again Trouts OPS at Home this year (.709) is much worse than his road OPS (.798)
None the less, he has said that he prefers not to play day games and especially at home.
When did he say that?
Neto had fouled several balls off his shins and feet in the previous games. They probably wanted him to get a day off playing SS.
Does this mean the Angles are SCREWING Neto? 😁