Good morning Angels fans,, have some links!
Angels News
The Angels actually won last night! I know, right? And Ryan Johnson had himself a quality start! And here I was, making fun of him in his last start for the last Jedi…
Which means the Angels are now at 33-48 and a .407 winning percentage EXACTLY halfway through the season. 66-96 pace, which is horrific, but somehow not the worst in Angels history. Or even the worst in the past 3 years.
Around Baseball
Since MLB is halfway through the season, it is time to see what teams are good at pitching. Not looking good for the AL West. Except Seattle.
White Sox with their bad owner somehow turned it around. So why can’t the Angels? Is this the power of the Pope?
Pitchers keep getting injured. Cole Ragans, already on the 60 day IL, is likely to have elbow surgery.
And Edward Cabrera has a hamstring injury placing him on the IL. Yikes.
Padres put “one of the worst trades in Angels history” Lucas Giolito on the IL as well. That STILL angers me.
Healthy pitcher Logan Webb won’t be traded. Giants prez Buster Posey doesn’t seem like he is selling
Buxton won’t be traded either. By the Twins, not the Giants.
Anything I missed? Post below for upvotes!
Trade Soler now!
Go Halos. Wearing my Pazuzu shirt. Hope it wipes away Soriano’s aversion for pitching well when I’m in attendance.
Was discharged from the hospital this morning after surgery earlier in the week only to find Soler is still in the lineup.
I’m going back to be readmitted.
Hope you have a smooth recovery, Senator!
Thanks very much.
I see that Kurt is rolling with the “we don’t need no stinking defense” lineup today. LMFAO
I am utterly disgusted that I have to watch Lowe and Soler in the same lineup.
Perry hates Halo fans, especially me.
Just root for Guzman & Moore to play well.
the words crazy and insane have lost a bit of their meaning because we overuse them to describe everything but this lineup is INSANE 😂😂😂😂😂😂
They’re straight up mocking us at this point.
He tried to time it for Sunday, but I guess the baby came 24 hrs+ later. Jose Siri is on the paternity list. Thus more Joshing in CF.
Joe, Phil, Ron and now Kurt
The problem with Soler is that he has 2 RBI over 2 games. Kurt is going to pencil him on the regular.
If anyone sees me at the game (I’ll be wearing this), feel free to say, “Hi.”
Haha. I like it.
We were there last night and the late in the game – probably 7th-8th inning a large group gathered in the upper right field bleachers, removed their shirts and alternated “USA, USA” chants with “Sell The Team” chants. It was awesome.
The ushers eventually dispersed most of the group, I presume by verifying their seat locations and asking them to return.
Lastly, I’ve been fairly critical of Nolan Schanuel, but he was REALLY good last night. Obviously. When you look at him and his bat skills, it would seem that .280 should be an easy bar to reach and even surpass, but, he never does for reasons that I can’t figure out.
Probably due to bat speed. He probably has a below average BABIP because he can’t hit balls through the infield or over the fence.
Contact skills are great but when everything is hit softly, it’s fieldable.
He doesn’t average high bat speed, but Schanuel has a slightly above average BABIP. He’s at .296 this year and the league average is .289. For his career, he’s at .291.
Angels Twitter has finally discovered Juan Flores. Tried to convince some dudes who were rating Flores at 16-20 in their lists that they had it all wrong earlier this season. Now they’re coming ’round.
Just for the love of it:
https://x.com/i/status/2069562378518179949
It sure does seem that if he can hit at all, that Flores will be a worthwhile catcher at least for awhile. The fact that he’s only 20 and was a pretty good hitter at high A is nice. I’d love to see him finish the season strong and be in a good position to take over at Catcher in 2027 or 2028.
The Angels sent him to the Arizona Fall League at age 19 and have already promoted him to AA at 20, so it’s clearly in their plans to promote him quickly.
He’s made significant progress on in-zone contact rate since last year, the bat speed is good, and he’s getting the ball into the air more pull side, which explains the XBHs and the doubling of his HR rate.
He still chases a lot, and is a free swinger – tendencies we’ll hopefully see tamed as he meets very advanced pitchers in the Southern League. If he can perform there, he can perform in the MLB. Defense-wise, he’s been MLB ready since age 18. All the guys in ST that worked with him loved him.
Everyone is posting about his first AB homerun last night, but he also picked a guy off first (just as impressive).
@TurksAI did the Angels draft Flores or was he an international sign?
{please remain patient as I search the web}
1/15/23 — Los Angeles Angels signed free agent C Juan Flores to a minor league contract. Flores received a $280,000 bonus.
Was part of the Felix Morrobel / Ubaldo Soto group. I still really like Soto, a guy they should be patient with, but otherwise there haven’t been many others from that Angels class beyond Flores who have separated themselves yet. We’ll get to see more of Dishmey and Victor Rodriguez this summer.
Let’s trade him to the White Sox for a rental for the playoff push at the end.
Post-Quero, if the Angels are within five games of the third wild card at the ASB, can’t put it past Moreno to demand it.
We could lose 100 games this season and this team is a ton of fun to watch. This team is like a box of See’s candy, you never know what you’re going to get. 😃 😀 😋
Please, no mas Soler. Please trade him now for anything including paying him his dough. He is really holding others back that have more value. If you were PTP would you want him out there? Smith, Meck, Grissom, Guzman all need more at bats so win can win, dumb Perry, your gig is on the line.
I agree on Soler. Realistically, the only way to get him off the roster is to DFA/release him. If he were a free agent, he’d be looking at minor league deals.
My guess is that the team is hoping that Soler gets hot so that some team might be willing to pick up a million or two that is owed to him. A well run team would have recognized him as a sunk cost and released him instead of Madrigal (or Mancini or someone else).
Since before the season started I have been calling for Soler to be jettisoned. It was a really stupid signing in the first place, for this team. A strike out prone DH who is an error in the field, just didn’t fit this team.
Sounds like it fits this team perfectly, actually
That Johnson is a Bird Dog, allowing only one walk and those dead birds asking themselves, “Who was that?” 💯
Y’all ain’t ready for this one… Ryan Zeferjahn in June —
11 innings
0.82 ERA
1.09 WHIP (2 hits, 10 BB)
18 K
Zef has pure dominant high-octane stuff.
Can you imagine if he learned how to throw strikes?
He has improved, but I notice you did not list his 10 walks.
He did, its right next to the WHIP number
Oh hell yeah! THE ZEFERNATOR. Probably one of his biggest supporters on this site.
You and me both. Can’t teach what Zef has and that’s a rocket for an arm. Zef, Bachman, Silseth is a nice starting point for the ‘pen
Gosh I just don’t hate watching this team. Win or lose we still play a fun game. I’m feeling a bit of hopium this morning and I’m going on a limb that we finish the season with 70 wins. I think we have enough GRIT and these youth want to play hard and win on the way out.
Million dollar question is, who can we trade away to continue to help the rebuild? My pick:
Adell, Soler (for a hot dog and a bag of balls), and Detmers.
I would trade Soriano and not Detmers
Some strong pitching performances yesterday on the farm —
Joel Hurtado (AA) 🍍
6 innings
1 ER
3 hits
2 BB
2 K
Ubaldo Soto (Low A) 🍍
5.1 innings
2 ER
6 hits
3 BB
5 K
Mikey Cascino (ACL) 🍍🍍🍍
5 innings
1 ER
1 hit
1 BB
9 K
Ryan Johnson in his 3rd career start:
6 innings, 0 ER, 1 hit, 1 BB, 8 K, 63 strikes – 27 balls
Where can we sign up for more of this?
Soriano, Detmers, Urena, Rodriguez, Johnson with Dana and Klassen as next men up gets me a little hot and bothered.
Why mention GrayRod? I’d rather have Herget back on the roster.
Even more so, I’d rather have Ward back. We know he likes hitting homeruns at Anaheim Stadium.
Ward is a 32 year old impending FA at the end of his prime. I refuse to believe anyone actually misses him that dearly.
I definitely don’t
Not really as we have LF covered. In defense of FIH though, it was a shitty trade by the PTP.
Too early to judge this trade. Rodriguez has 3 more years of control after this season. Sounds like he will actually return this season and pitch more as well.
The problem with this trade isn’t GRod, it’s the fact that the salary savings wasn’t turned around and invested in another player to keep payroll the same for this year, it was essentially a salary dump.
I saw one noodle-armed throw on Grissom’s 2-RBI single last night and thought “I sure as hell don’t miss that”
How Ward was ever a catcher is beyond comprehension
Moore in LF makes me cringe and feel deep sadness for the Halo pitcher.
He really doesn’t have a spot on the team in less he hits the daylights out of the ball and plays LF. They should have kept him in AAA and then traded him with his great stats for someone they need going forward like a C, a RF, or a 1B.
I, for one, miss him dearly……him and Wash.
Can he pitch? 😆
Nolan Schanuel
March/April
126 PA
.239 / .302 / .372
15.1% K rate
7.9% BB rate
May/June
133 PA
.292 / .361 / .425
15.8% K rate
6.8% BB rate
We disagreed when that draft choice was made, I still think it was poorly thought-out first rd choice that was wasted, on the hand I believe he would improve this season and he still might, but his shining star is fading. I don’t know why I like and pull for him, but I hope he puts it all together yet.
He has amassed 1.1 bWAR already. He only did 1.2 bWAR in all of 2024. It seems like he is trending upward.
As you or someone else said, Nolan (first base) is the least of our worries.
So nothing has changed other than he is luckier now? His BABIP has skyrocketed.
His BABIP was really low in March/April. It was high in May and is about at his career norm in June. On the season, it’s at about his career norm which makes sense since his overall line is about the same as his career averages.