With the Angels posting yet another losing record and watching the playoffs, those in charge of the failure are looking to make a managerial change.
The guy who has been team president since 2009? He’s safe and will be part of the search committee.
How about the guy who has been chairman of the team since 2009? Also safe and part of the committee.
Their extensive backgrounds in being Arte Moreno’s friends combined with experience in the billboard industry clearly outweigh the results on the field. They might have screwed the pooch for 16 years, but this time they’ll right the ship.
Consider this, at the time they were promoted to their current positions the Angels had just lost in the ALCS to a very roided up Alex Rodriguez and the incredibly short porch in the Bronx right field. The team was coming off 3 consecutive division championships and had reached October in 5 of the previous 6 years; all AL West champions.
Now the team is 11 seasons removed from the lone playoff appearance of the Carpino/Kuhl era. It has been a decade of consecutive losing seasons despite having a prime Mike Trout, six seasons of Shohei Ohtani, and consistently high payrolls.
The solution, in their eyes, is to yet again replace the field manager. Ron Washington was officially canned as the Angels skipper with the team citing performance, not his health, as the reason for the move.
In typical Wash fashion, he dropped a great comment on his way out of the door.
Yes, team Arte/Carpino/Kuhl expects the field manager to make chicken salad out of chicken bleep.
The next chef to attempt to make chicken salad very well could be Albert Pujols. His playing career worked out so well here, why not?
I kid a bit, but this isn’t as outlandish as it seem. Pujols has been managing in the Dominican Republic since his retirement from baseball in 2022. He was long seen as an idol of Latin American players and carries a high level of respect from many in the game.
There are also reports of Pujols being a selfish player at times and nearly coming to blows with Torii Hunter at one point. That was a dozen years ago and involves two big egos.
Ironically, Torii Hunter is also being considered for the job and was spotted in the Angels dugout many times towards the end of the season.
I’ve also seen Torii at Spring Training the last couple of years. His trademark smile still lights up his surroundings.
From around baseball:
The Angels are far from the only team making a manager change. Bruce Bochy is one of my all time favorites but I have no illusions we are a match.
We should be lucky we aren’t Colorado Rockies fans. After posting a franchise worst record, their GM stepped down.
We have wall to wall MLB playoff games this weekend. They could not have timed this better for me. I have no open houses to host, no fights to watch or attend, even my Steelers are on a bye week.
Enjoy the playoffs and link what I missed. There will be storylines aplenty during the off season so I kept this one pretty much focused. I will spend the weekend with my family and catch games when I can.
I will post this. I was at this game and loved every second of it. Hope we can get back to life like this.
I love how Perry says the team is messed up because of roster construction and he’s the one who constructed the roster but assumes no responsibility for it. He honestly sounds like a clown. Whether he’s doing Arte’s bidding or not, he comes off sounding like a complete idiot with no credibility. I realize he can’t be honest but he’s just publicly embarrassing himself. They are likely finishing last in the division next year again with 70 plus wins.
Sorry for venting, I don’t understand the article with Dave Roberts supposedly jabbing the Angels about Ohtani, saying he chose the right organization to showcase his talents. Article goes onto say Angels had their chance to sign him, but failed by not matching Dodgers 70mil offer, so now they reap the rewards for it. Yes, Ohtani asked if they would match, but that was just to save image and look like a good guy, not the guy who cleared out his locker with a month left.
No way was he going to stay (on a losing team) even if Arte matched. I think he already wanted to join the Dodgers at the WBC and had the plan to recruit Japan’s best to join him. It’s just upsetting Dodgers media trying to fuel fire over him playing for them now. Guess that’s what’s expected when your superstar team gets swept by the last place territory enemy.
Perry had his EOY presser – here’s a snippet
https://youtu.be/nssSIKOrSNk?si=OPLHV3-qhY2pkXZp
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Perry is now committed to Detmers in the starting rotation next year. He should be at a 6 + ERA by mid May.
Watching college football…. because its 😊
sounds like a great recipe for sleep.
Weren’t there a bunch of people lamenting about UCLA football last week?
LOLZ.
They beat Pedophile State University today. Shocker.
Yes, it was amazing.
It was great, although it wouldn’t surprise me if that were their only win this year.
https://twitter.com/SamBlum3/status/1974572949412975072
Yeah, no accountability.
Tyler Bremner, the No. 2 overall pick, isn’t pitching in Angels instructs due to elbow soreness, per sources.
Sam reports the above. Here we go again.
At least he drafted a relief pitcher in the second round.
If this is real… lol
https://x.com/katierose84/status/1974277329301213613?s=46
Where you been? That’s already about a week plus old news. It came out right prior to #400.
If you are watching the 8 runs the Brewers have scored in two innings (with the bases loaded still in the second), such refutes Perry’s idea of how to be good. Brewers are the anti-Perry team. The make contact, they don’t hit HRs, etc.
If they were not all solo shots it might even work…
Alas, you need runners on base to hit 3 run HR’s.
Does that mean our 1B who doesn’t hit hrs, steal bases or smoke frozen rope doubles with men on base?
And they are pretty much unique in modern baseball. I would love to clone the Brewers!
Perry to hold a media day today. Gonna be full of thrills!
“We’re gonna compete”
I think at this point, Arte is only keeping the team for real estate development purposes.
Drink!
Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like he’s going anywhere.
Looks like he’ll get to keep his job. We’re going to be hearing a lot of, “I gotta do better”. Same shit we’ve heard from him the past 4 years.
I believe the timing of this coincides with the first payments for season ticket holders being due for ‘26. So he is undoubtedly being rolled out there to pass along the yearly ‘competitive’ message as a reason for suckers to buy season tickets.
Can someone tell him that selecting relief pitchers in the second round of the draft is NOT doing better, and is actually doing worse!
Four fun playoff series with good teams. Looking forward to a sports filled weekend. Not even thinking about that shit team in Anaheim.
9-1 is fun? Seems like the Angels are wearing Cubbie Blue today.
The “Three Horsemen of the Apocalypse” requires “El Hombre Malo” to drive the franchise to new depths.
Do it. Do it NOW!
Framber 2026!!
Not convinced any of these first time celebrity-player-manager types will have any real impact on a team with the current ownership/executive and roster issues.
So if it’s just vibes and feelz, I’d rather have Hunter vibes for 162 games than Pujols vibes.
Just like Washington, that salty dawg, and Maddon, the gentleman poet with natural wine in his knapsack, were both more enjoyable to watch than Ausmus, Nevin, Montgomery et al.
I think any highly qualified field manager (or GM for that matter) will quarrel with Moreno, Carpino and their FO puppet peeps, and be quickly shown the door. Celeb players are just temporary distractions, so I’d rather an entertaining selection that reminds us of the good days, than one that just reminds us that quicksand is all around us, and the breathing’s tough.
The “quicksand” is an excellent analogy. And every year we step right into it.
Ward cost 8M dollars this year. With 35 HRs and a 100 RBIs, what do you think he will cost next year? Adel only cost 2M but he also had similar numbers. What cost 10M this year will likely cost 25M – 30M next year for the two of them.
My guess would be Ward gets $12-13M in arbitration, and Adell gets $5-6M, but we’ll see.
I’ve come around on the idea of hiring Pujols. Who better to manage the team that is living in the deepest depths of a hole that was created when they first signed a likely roided up player who had lied about his age to a quarter billion dollar contract and then felt required to “make good” on all that “opportunity” than the man who got that contract?
The team’s a pile of shit. The cycle started when we signed Pujols. Let’s just bring this human centipede to completion by letting Pujols manage the team while we sit through a labor dispute, get a new TV contract sorted and hell, maybe sell the team. Burn it all down. Lose 100 games. Then take a leaf blower to the ashes and start again with new fking uniforms. Perhaps in Nashville.
If you want the team to be bad and dysfunctional, this is a great take. I do agree with you that the Pujols signing was the beginning of this current downhill run. I thought you and I were on opposite sides of that.
Clearly I have said over and over again that I love Angels Pujols. You got it.
They ARE dysfunctional and bad. Want it or not. Might as well let Albert carry some of the water. The only way through is…. through. All these quarter measures trying to keep Joe Fan a little bit happy while still maintaining basically the same team both physically and spiritually is never gonna work. Death is a good part of a healthy life. Let’s live baby!
The dumpster fire could be incredibly entertaining and you wouldn’t need to feel bad for Albert because he’d be one of the contributors.
yeah I agree- get Albert – go Halos!
https://youtu.be/ZwspyQxIPeM
Warning: Watered down Hopium inbound!
Maybe it took Trout an entire season to adjust to being a DH. We’ll see in 2026.
That 38.5% K rate the second half of the season shows his adjustment went well.
Yes, but we all know that math isn’t really a science.
Sure, it seems to be a team philosophy to throw out the maths.
Yes – lets rely on FEELZ and emotion
THIS is how all the best choices are made. I follow my heart all the time. It may have lead to me leaving a trail of firings, empty bank accounts, fatherless children, divorced women, dead bodies, unreturned DVDs and crashed cars in my wake, but I feel it’s been important to be true to myself and my felt needs whenever I can be. Never lie to yourself, and when it comes to your feelings, you are the expert my friend.
Did that adjustment issue lead to suddenly being overpowered by average fastballs? I am not totally hopeless on Trout. He’s a very good baseball player with a lot of talent and skill even if both are a bit diminished. Maybe there are some things he can do over the next six months to get better.
Sure, his knees. But he doesn’t recognize pitches with his knees and he’s late on everything now. His back? Maybe. His eyes? Maybe he gets them checked and magic happens. But he can also change his approach, and he has the mind and skills to do it. He can become more of a contact hitter. BUT that’d mean he can’t spend all off season going to Eagles games and playing with his kids. He’d have to have a hungry off season. He’d also have to risk getting to 500 home runs. He could still do it, but the change in focus would be a serious sacrifice of ego for any player.
There’s a semi-solid chance Trout could switch things up and actually hit instead of being a weak sauce Rob Deer. We’ll just have to see….
It could happen, but he needs to change his approach. It’s not working now. It could happen. Mike is a dedicated guy and we know he doesn’t want to suck.
Trout did lead the team in walks (87 to Ward in second with 75). Trout might not have been hitting as much, but he still got on base.
I think Wash should have him playing much more DH when the season started. With all of the issues that Trout has had, why keep him in the field until he gets injured again?
Perry getting Soler was a mistake. Should have gotten a RF/DH that could play a little defense, so Trout and the other player could rotate and keep Trout healthier.
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 Ummmm, nope.
Perry Minasian had apparently announced a media availability for this week but now it is not happening.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VY9t7TTQHiE
This may be related to shifts in the tides at Newport Harbor or maybe some elephant graveyard in Africa has opened up a gift shop. I’m just spit balling here.
Let’s get Amazing Larry to be our General Manager!!!!
For a dose of cold reality, the sad thing about the Halos this season is many of their off-season moves and players they needed to work out actually happened positively. Neto came back from injury quicker than expected and was good. Adell emerged (who saw that coming). Trout basically played a full season albeit at DH. Anderson was good early and not terrible after. Hendricks was a cheap throw-in who was extremely solid. Garcia came in off the scrap heap to throw good innings in relief. Ward played well. Rengifo was, well, himself and played most of the season. Soriano was good. Detmers was also. And Kenley was lights out.
And they still finished last. Again, this is just the glass is half empty part but it is sobering. What happens if/when various parts of the above don’t happen? Sure O’Hoppe had a down year, Joyce was lost, but c’mon. Things went pretty well and still nothing.
It’s almost like baseball isn’t a plug and play sport. If only there was a way, a system perhaps, where you develop a lot of players, like waves of talent climbing the ranks, ready to fill and upgrade roster spots. I don’t know, like five or six spots where you grow baseball players, almost like a nursey or a farm.
Of course, this isn’t exciting. And how do you get these seedlings and develop them? You have to get people to find and cultivate them. You have to spend money and trade away what you have to get more opportunity to grow a huge pumpkin. But that’s boring. Who would we watch?
I think history has shown that when you make money it’s best to spend it on a couple very expensive luxury items that will depreciate in value but catch the eyes of every moron who looks your way rather than making a bunch of small boring investments you can’t high five guys about at the quarterly meetings. This way the people know you are serious about this shit as you reload again and again.
Go Clippers.
I’ve never thought we shouldn’t buy luxury items, I just think we should get better ones. Given team construction and overall crappiness, I think we need to wait a few years because Kyle Tucker and Bellinger aren’t going to turn us into contenders, even if they perform at their highest level.
Kyle Tucker is not even available is he? You are correct though. But in addition to adding two players like that we also added two starting pitchers who were as good as Kikuchi and Soriano, and re-signed Jansen and Moncada, we would have a shot at a wild card. It would cost a lot and we would still have a lousy Farm and no depth, but it would allow us to trade Adel, and Ward for other resources, possibly prospects. We would have Paris, Teodosio, Moore, and Guzman on the bench. They would be far more interesting to watch than this years team, and you could have 5 years to rebuild the farm while still being decent. Except that over the last 5 years, Perry has accumulated very minor league little talent.
And at least two of those four major signings, all being over 30 accept Bellinger who will be 29 (hurr durr), will be hurt each year. Plus Trout & Moncada. Rendon was 29 with a normal injury history. Even if we had the cash to buy all six of those guys I wouldn’t do it.
I don’t think I would either but it just sort of demonstrates the size of the mess.
When I look at other competitive teams and play the “would I take their guy or my guy” game, I am always surprised by how little real difference there is among most MLB players. Very thin layer of true stars exists, but mostly teams are filled with journeymen. With a couple of smart moves and a commitment to Brewer-type baseball, this thing can be turned around.
Jeff – we are Colorado Rockies fans. The Angels are the Rockies but actually with worse ownership. And the Rockies have a better farm system. Oh – and the Rockies are truly committed to trying to get better.
According to you their GM fired himself. We should be so lucky, regardless of how he no longer has duties.