Let’s take a trip down Memory Lane for a bit. Let’s go all the way back to October of 2009. Our 3 time defending AL West champion Angels finally took down the hated Roid Sux in the playoffs and came within 2 games of reaching the World Series. The team lost to eventual champion New York.
The team was stacked with talent, the farm was considered good, and things never looked brighter as Angels fans. Scouting director Eddie Bane added Mike Trout, Randal Grichuk, Tyler Skaggs, Garret Richards, and Patrick Corbin in the draft that summer, setting the team up for sustained success.
Over the next two months, Arte Moreno would install his unqualified cronies as President and Chairman of the organization. They installed Tony Reagins as GM, fired Eddie Bane, and have now posted 11 consecutive losings seasons following their 1 playoff appearance. The farm has consistently rated at the bottom of the league and the off field scandals are even worse than the on field product.
The GMs and field managers change, but John Carpino and Dennis Kuhl remain. But, alas, a new manager has been named. Welcome aboard, Kurt Suzuki.
Kurt will be tasked with taking a team low on talent and somehow making them compete. Perhaps Suzuki can fix the air conditioning in the weight room. That might help, although Perry Minasian disagrees.
I’m sure it is just a coincidence, but the Angels now have a job listing for a part time HVAC technician. Here’s your chance to be in the bigs, AC guys. Actually, the full account is so much better.
So, from October of 2009 to today: we don’t win, our farm sucks, and the team can’t even keep the AC working in the weight room. Arte’s Angels are basically this, minus the playoff appearance at the end.
Exactly how Perry and Suzuki will improve the team remains to be seen. MLBTR did a great look at the organization this week.
Meanwhile, cookmeister is a doing a great series on players who might help the Angels. This week he looked at the third base market and tried to find a match. I’d like to say thanks for the great content.
Four guys will not be part of the team next year. Or at least they aren’t part of the team now. Add in free agents Kenley Jansen, Luis Rengifo, Tyler Anderson, and Yoan Moncada and there will be plenty of change throughout the roster.
While our neighbors to the north march to another World Series, Arte and Co. are in court defending a wrongful death lawsuit brought by the Skaggs family. Stories of an obvious addict eating a pimple of Mike Trout’s back, a dead insect off the clubhouse floor, and taking pitching machine fastballs for cash to feed his habit have been repeated throughout the trial.
Mike Trout took the stand this week and confirmed the stories. His testimony was succinct and believable. Tim Mead’s testimony was a lot less believable, but he did admit to searching Eric Kay’s office for drugs at one point.
So, the question is now what to do as fans. Many of us have stopped buying tickets from the team site, some have boycotted altogether. For me, I’ll keep using StubHub and realizing that time at the ballpark with family and friends is more important to me than making a point to a billionaire who doesn’t care about me or anybody else.
This is about as much fun as I can take for this column. Probably one more Weekend Links of angst as the boys in blue march to another ring and people act like this is Ohtani’s second year in MLB, then we’ll get into our off season stuff.
We now have 2 interns as Landon Olberg joined the staff and will split time writing articles and running social media. We used to have followers and get interviews and I’d like to get back to that.
Enjoy your weekend and link what I missed. I’m at home this weekend and couldn’t be happier about it. Family and chill time are on tap, with a nice heavyweight scrap between Joseph Parker (who I’ve met) and Fabio Wardley on tap for Saturday. I actually did a face to face stare down with Parker in Vegas once. He’d destroy me but it was fun and we both had a laugh.
