LA Angels Thursday News Crash: AZ Fall League

If you haven’t seen them yet, here are the 2025 Arizona Fall League rosters.

The Dodgers activated Tommy Edman from the injured list.

The Rangers signed both Donovan Solano and Cal Quantrill to minor league contracts.

Anthony Rizzo retired. They will celebrate his career at Wrigley Field on Saturday. Jameson Taillon returned to the Cubs and bumped Javier Assad to the bullpen.

Cardinals shortstop Masyn Winn has a torn meniscus but he is playing through it anyway. Luis Garcia of the Astros is on the injured list with elbow discomfort.

The White Sox designated Dan Altavilla for assignment.

Here is Fangraphs look at the opt-out candidates for this off season.

Photo credit: Rex Fregosi

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MarineLayer
Legend
17 minutes ago

Anyone heard an update on Reid Detmers?

FungoAle
Legend
12 minutes ago
Reply to  MarineLayer

Dead arm?? They should just shut him down. He’s a tradable asset.

Jeff Joiner
Editor
Legend
31 minutes ago

This day still hurts. 24 years no longer feels like yesterday.

When I look at how much life I’ve enjoyed the last 24 years (my wedding, my son, nieces and nephews, etc) the true magnitude of what was taken from those innocent people hits hard.

MarineLayer
Legend
19 minutes ago
Reply to  Jeff Joiner

I agree.

FungoAle
Legend
10 minutes ago
Reply to  Jeff Joiner

I flew international out of LAX 4-days after this horror happened. Security was lock down tight and eye contact with the flight crew was meaningful and with a purpose.

Last edited 9 minutes ago by FungoAle
Mikeal1st
Trusted Member
3 minutes ago
Reply to  Jeff Joiner

I was teaching. We didn’t have internet or television so we listened to AM radio all day in math class and talked about it. Bill Handel told me the buildings were falling. Piggy backed on yesterday’s news, (Kirk and school shooting) makes it hard to think about baseball, but I was hoping for a distraction. I can’t help but think his daughter is never going to run into his arms again. I didn’t agree with Charlie Kirk completely, but I think we could have enjoyed a game together, maybe the left and right should see a Banana game together.

CAoldskoll
Trusted Member
56 minutes ago

Here is a random question, are any members of the CTPG actual season ticket owners? If so how long. I attended a lot of games but my tix r thru Stub Hub

Jeff Joiner
Editor
Legend
34 minutes ago
Reply to  CAoldskoll

I had the flex plan for years. No longer. I’m also StubHub until Arte sells.

Mikeal1st
Trusted Member
6 seconds ago
Reply to  CAoldskoll

A close family member is a season ticket holder of probably 16 seats. I used to buy ten games a year from him but have been going to only 2-3 a year through stub hub (When I wanted to see Ohtani pitch) or friends. They give away a lot of tickets.

Angelz4ever
Super Member
2 hours ago

The Halos should send Silent C to Fall ball, to maybe reinvent him as a reliever.

cookmeister
Trusted Member
1 hour ago
Reply to  Angelz4ever

while he isn’t ineligible, sending a guy with experience in parts of 4 big league seasons would be unprecedented

grichmanpoorman
Trusted Member
2 hours ago

Sheesh… quiet around here today. Guess I’ll amuse myself with one of my favorite talking points: Nelson Rada!

> Currently the youngest player in AAA, at 20 years/17 days… about 10 months younger than Giants 1B mega-prospect Bryce Eldridge.
> Has reached base safely in 31 of 32 games since his promotion from AA. Hasn’t gone hitless more than two game in a row.
> Currently fifth in OBP (.435) in the PCL among batters with at least 100 ABs… behind three 26-year-olds and a 23-year-old.
> Already has five assist put-outs in CF, which pro-rates to about 20 for a full season. For context: Steve Kwan currently leads MLB with 12.
> Has swiped 17 bags in his 32 AA games… tying him for 22nd among and behind players that generally have played three times as many games.

Nelson Rada!

Trout_is_my_Bestie
Member
1 hour ago

Genuine question. Is it safe to assume he can/will perform in the big leagues as a Steven Kwan type? What is his floor and ceiling?

gitchogritchoffmypettis
Legend

No. It is not safe to assume that about 97% of prospects will perform like Steven Kwan. Or even Denard Span. He is playing in the PCL against tired pitching staffs. Doesn’t mean he won’t be good. But it also doesn’t remotely mean he’s sure to be anything more than Stephanic, who also kills it at SLC.

Trout_is_my_Bestie
Member
56 minutes ago

97% failure rate… So you’re telling me there’s a chance!

gitchogritchoffmypettis
Legend
49 minutes ago

Exactly. Steven Kwan will be a hobo compared to Rada. 100%

grichmanpoorman
Trusted Member
43 minutes ago

97 percent of prospects do not bat .320 in AAA over 120 ABs. But yes to your point… no guarantees in this life, sunshine.

gitchogritchoffmypettis
Legend

I dig me some Rada. OBP. Speed, to an extent. Defense. Nice. I am still glad they didn’t bring him up and I hope they leave him in SLC a little longer. My issue is 32 games. Those are a great 32 games to be sure. But I’d really actually like to see him struggle. If he stays in AAA it will be a fresh lot of pitchers he faces, etc. If he logs say 70 games total at SLC and just never struggles, well I guess that’s that. But he WILL struggle in the MLB. There will be a book on him after about ten games just like there was for Paris, etc. I’d feel better about hanging our hat on him as a useful CF if I knew he was mentally ready to get punched in the face and then sort it out. He’s so young, and the team is so crap, I don’t see any reason to rush him other than CtPG Guy is bored.

It’s also not the end of the world if he starts the season with the club after a hot spring and then falls on his face, as long as he can go back to SLC with a solid plan to make it back to the Halos. But again, I’d feel better about that with a 24 year old than a 20 year old.

But hey, maybe we’ll luck out and he will just be a crazy good contact god from March 1st onward. Maybe we can complain about his lack of power while he gets a .360 OBP. That’d be fine too.

Born_in_59
Trusted Member
4 hours ago

I read a few comments yesterday about Moniak, and while I agree that he’s hitting better this year, he’s only a little better than average and his fielding is atrocious by both Total Zone and DRS. Not sure we should bemoan releasing him and not getting anything in return.

Angelz4ever
Super Member
2 hours ago
Reply to  Born_in_59

BI59, everyone knows that all players thrive once they leave the Halos, right…?

Bueller…..Bueller…..Bueller…..Bueller…..?

Born_in_59
Trusted Member
1 hour ago
Reply to  Angelz4ever

Chone Figgins would like to talk with you.

Turk's Teeth
Editor
Super Member
1 hour ago
Reply to  Born_in_59

I don’t bemoan releasing Moniak at all (and don’t believe at 27 he’s a prospect), and Chone Figgins was post-30 when he left the Angels and began his decline.

I do stand by my comments that the Angels have had a weak track record of developing prep bats since the Trout draft, though, and the five drafts between ’15-19 particularly stand out, as guys like Marsh, Jones and Jackson have become impact players in other orgs, and Adell took 8 years (and 5 years in the MLB) to find his rhythm. All high draftees, and Kyren is the next of that group – obviously with lots of talent himself.

Some combination of pacing, coaching, swing modifications, park factors, resources etc is making it difficult for young bats to thrive in the Angels system, whereas many find their ceilings elsewhere.

FungoAle
Legend
1 hour ago
Reply to  Turk's Teeth

You can’t develop a a prep bat when you won’t draft them.

Turk's Teeth
Editor
Super Member
43 minutes ago
Reply to  FungoAle

But they drafted plenty of them last decade – and prominently in early rounds. Only under Minasian did they stop. From 2010-2019, they used many top three round picks on high school bats, and really struggled to get them across the finish line.

It’s notable, because in contrast to prep arms, prep bats have at least an average or better hit rate in the draft – they’re not an overly risky archetype. And a number of East Coast clubs have been pretty effective systemically in getting high picks to the show in the past decade.

gitchogritchoffmypettis
Legend
13 minutes ago
Reply to  Turk's Teeth

Also notable. Who is still involved with developing high school bats in our system now that was around in say 2012? Or 2015? Or even 2019?

I think the Angels have managed to both be consistently shitty AND they have also managed to have consistently bad luck with the picks they make. This blind squirrel has totally failed to find a nut.

gitchogritchoffmypettis
Legend
17 minutes ago
Reply to  Turk's Teeth

We certainly HAVE NOT seen it yet, but maybe we will see some uptick in developing hitters. I don’t care if they are high school bats. I just want some bats.

I know they are moving A Ball to Rancho Cockroach. A+ Ball is supposedly getting improved facility blah blah. Tempe is getting used more by players at all levels. Madison is a new park, SLC is SLC. I have no idea if the scouting and coaching are also getting upgrades, but I assume if they are baby stepping up in one area they aren’t against doing the same in others.

It seems like the Angels are at least paying more attention to their farm. Especially compared to the Dipoto/Eppler era. Not the grandiose flood of investment I hope for, but far more than Jam Jones era prospects were getting. So maybe we’ll see some improvement in the future.

But it’s a little silly to work hard at decrying the emergence of Jam Jones or ex-prospects and their “ceiling” as some major issue with the Angels. I mean Jones…. which of these top farm systems fixed him? Was it the Brewers? The Mets? The Dodgers? The Yankees? The Orioles? Oh wait, he finally made it to the top system in baseball, the Tigers…. now he’s survived all those shitty systems and can finally blossom for 100ABs at age 28.

Clearly the Angels did not select high school players very well and develops them poorly. But Marsh was not developed by the Phillies at all and is still a platoon bat for them. With A TON of line up protection. He is the best out of the bunch, other than Adell, I guess. The other guys? Am I supposed to work that hard at frowning at this?

All I’m saying is that 28 year old highly athletic guys finally stringing together a few useful innings of play is something I don’t really care about. Just like a Brewers fan isn’t gonna cry about the loss of Lucas Erceg. These things happen, they are a fact of baseball life. If we had a “Jam Jones” right now we’d all be pooh poohing how he’s old and not a real prospect and has insane BABIP luck and we didn’t develop him anyway or what ever.

A separate fact is that the post 2010 Angels farm system friggin sucks in almost every way and needs fixing. Even if we’d lucked into a super prospect like Jackson Churio over that time period we’d still have a crap farm and crap drafts over all.

Unfortunately we probably won’t even be able to tell if things are getting better. We’d have to draft some position players or, GASP!, trade a player like Jansen for prospects for that to happen.

gitchogritchoffmypettis
Legend
50 minutes ago
Reply to  Born_in_59

But this is CtPG. If we all researched cancer as hard as we research things to bemoan around here we’d have saved millions of lives by now.

The JuJu is real. The daddy issues are strong. We are literally the “smart, informed and engaged” element of the Angels fan base and we are focusing on things like Moniak having a Wonder Bread level season in Colorado. Fanbases that aren’t a pile of sad sacks who focus as hard as they can on their sad feelz look at something like the The Moniak Situation and shrug their shoulders because this is something that happens in baseball sometimes.

These are the same people who hear the Jam Jones Deprivation speaking to them since he’s finally had a good 100 ABs…. for his 5th team….. four years after we cut him…. as a failed IF who is a DH/OF now.

It’s not anything that doesn’t happen to every team just about as often as it happens to us. We are just really good at hunting these things down and being sad about them. Which is why the baseball gods will likely keep giving us what we seem to enjoy.

The JuJu is real.

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