As you may know, Mike Trout met with the fan who took the ball out of his glove and everything is hunky dory now. The hottest start of 2025 belongs to your Los Angeles Angels. They lost yesterday, though.
Cubs southpaw Justin Steele will be having Tommy John surgery. The Cubs also released right-hander Caleb Kilian.
Former Rookie of the Year Tommy Helms passed away at the age of 83.
Photo credit Rex Fregosi
Caden Dana looks strong, like bull.
Too band all that iron pumping isn’t adding any new MPH’s on his 94 to 95 MPH fastball.
“You have balls. I like balls.”
So maybe It is us.
https://www.mlb.com/gameday/astros-vs-cardinals/2025/04/14/778325/live
-I’ll take Cities that own the Angels for $1000 Alex.
-NASA uses this city as Mission Control for Space travel and baseballs frequently travel into space when the Angels visit this city.
-What is Houston?
However, the Cards have their best SP on the hill in this first game (Sonny Gray). I am not so sure they will dominate the next two games the way they are tonight…
Yeah, but we beat the Cardinals, so it’s a rock paper scissors situation
No new info on Joyce…..goes on the IL and by now they have done some imaging, right?
But its just the flu.
…with a flesh wound.
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Tagline, from RotoBaller online source: “Phillies Giving Brandon Marsh A Mental Break, Could Be Out Next Three Days”
OMG, really!?
Now is the time for a haircut and a shave. Come out swinging…
Kikuchi facing the dreaded TBD tonight. Cy Nobody premonitions anyone?
I show Patrick Corbin tomorrow night against kikuchi in the first game of the series. I am not showing them playing tonight
If it’s a kid from Orange County making his debut, he will shut us out for 5 2/3 with a group of 50 family and friends cheering wildly while Gubi tells us he was an Angel fan growing up
Yep. This is a huge series and the Rangers are a well run org. We probably get the secret young flame thrower that they have stashed away in AA.
Sorry but Monday is a Dark Angel Night throughout the organization.
Of course I was talking about tomorrow night (Game 1 of Rangers series).
Jessica Alba……
Every night is Jessica Alba night……
Indeed.
Rocking and rolling here. Solid quake on a Monday morning.
Got the alert but didn’t feel a thing on the 2nd floor in a super secret location in the IE.
Nice little rolling action here on the second floor of my home in HB.
Shocked the alert actually worked. Got about 10 seconds to just stare at my phone to see if its real or not.
Same here. My phone warned me before the actual shock wave arrived. I have to say I didn’t feel much in Orange, although I could hear my house creaking a little bit.
Probably wouldn’t have noticed anything if not for my phone lighting up. But glad to see that finally in 2025 there is a little bit of a legit warning system in place.
I was on a conference call and immediately dismissed the alert. When the house started rocking, I figured out why the alert was issued.
The Angels now appear to be funding Eric Kay’s defense per The Athletic.
Apparently both the Angels and Kay stand to benefit by proving the chain of custody of Skaggs phone was compromised and that the forensic audit of the phone was not performed by the officer credited with doing that audit.
Kay has a pending appeal and the wrongful death case against the Angels starts September 22nd.
Yayyyy…. the legal system rules! Those have to be some fun meetings.
It would be cool if I could sue the companies my family members who died from los drogas were working for when they shuffled off. Deep revelation here…. they had co-workers doing drugs too and they passed the shit around….
Here’s hoping we solve this by creating a massive state agency that mandates drug testing for all employees everywhere otherwise the company can’t get insurance etc. That should solve nothing but cost a ton and annoy everyone. The GOLDAN STATE! LEAD THE WAY ALL WAY THE DAY!
The irony in drug testing is the more important your job the less likely you are to be tested.
To be a cashier at Home Depot where I could potentially get away with a few dollars: tested.
As a real estate and mortgage broker? None.
Seems like a bad look for the Halos to be paying for Kay’s defense to me. The optics don’t sit right.
Yep. But having to pay Skaggs mom and wife a huge pile of money because, while they had no idea Tyler and Eric were on the drugs, Arte was supposed to be all over it, is also a bad look. And expensive.
Also true. I think their ire is rightfully more aimed at Kay (as an angels employee) for playing Pusha T, which implicates Arte’s money by proxy. This is the classic all options sucks situation. Wish none of this happened.
2. Angels — Jamie Arnold, LHP, Florida State
This could be a great scenario for the Angels if they want to continue taking fast-track college players. Many scouts have mentioned that Arnold could pitch in the majors as soon as next year. He has one of the safest profiles in the class while also offering solid middle-of-the-rotation upside. He scuffled a bit in his starts against Miami (4 IP, 7 H, 6 ER, 3 BB, 2 K) and Notre Dame (4.2 IP, 4 H, 2 ER, 4 BB, 4 K) but has been rock solid in each of the last two weekends against Wake Forest and Virginia Tech. In total, he owns a 2.40 ERA over eight starts and 41.1 innings with a 34.1% strikeout rate and 9.0% walk rate.
There are already rumblings about the Angels preferring to cut a deal at this pick. That would be unsurprising. In each of the last two years picking inside the top 10, the team has signed players to under slot deals. There are plenty of deal-seeking rumors throughout the first round at this time, though, and it’s not something exclusive to Los Angeles.
Bah. Best case we are drafting something like 12th next year. We can cut deals and take a “mid-rotation arm” then. I say swing for the fences and take Hernandez with pick 2 just cause this is the year we can do it. We’re not gonna be in a place to take a super talented pitcher again any time soon (we hope) so I say drive the Ferrari while we’ve been handed the keys. Then the next two picks go with college position players. Find those hitters who won’t stick at short but can move to 3B/OF.
Also. Please trade for a comp pick.
Agree on all fronts here. We need to nail this pick. I can see adding the safe bet in Arnold as nailing it. I can see adding the huge upside of Hernandez as nailing it.
But going cheap here won’t be nailing it.
But we Still need to acquire Turks Comp Pick though to reach Nirvana.
Yup…. if any of those teams will give us one. So who has needs we can fill?
D Backs
Orioles
Brewers
Red Sox
Mariners
Tigers
Rays
Twins
Marlins
Dodgers
Red Sox and Dodgers aren’t among those with tradeable picks (they already traded for them from other teams). There are only five picks left in the first CBA round between round one and two:
34 – Detroit
35 – Seattle
36 – Minnesota
37 – Tampa
43 – Miami
or less satisfying, but still potentially useful, CBA 2, between rounds two and three:
66 – Cleveland
69 – Baltimore
71 – Kansas City
72 – St Louis
73 – Pittsburgh
74 – Colorado
Detroit and Seattle are definitely competitive, both with holes, so I think those are potential trade partners. Depends where Tampa and Miami sit mid-season, but I don’t think the Twins are likely to be contenders this year.
Cleveland and Baltimore are larded up with compensation picks this draft, so I could see prying those loose in the second CBA round. Kansas City also has an extra pick from the Bobby Witt MVP balloting, so that’s a possibility.
Ohhhh… didn’t realize you can’t trade a pick that you trade for…. ahhhh
I will be ok with just taking the most likely to be a star type guy at two. I understand that there’s still a really good chance the kid busts, so I won’t be pissed if it happens. But I really want to swing for the best chance at a star player while we have it…. even if it’s a high school kid. It doesn’t look like there is a college player who is Crazy good this year, so I”ll be happy to take Holliday or Hernandez….
I’ve not seen any reports on how well Holiday is doing this year, must not be too prolific
Well not sure what is considered Prolific but Oklahoma High School baseball is probably not near Country’s top prep region. I did find this from last week:
Not bad at all. To your point, hard to assess given the region.
So Jamie Arnold is essentially Reid Detmers if Detmers would ever grow up?
Similar in that they are both polished college lefties that throw a lot of strikes.
Arnold’s fastball sits about 93-94 MPH and sometimes hits the high 90s. Reid sat closer to 90-91 and sometimes his 94.
Detmers curveball was a highly rated pitch but Arnold’s overall arsenal is probably better than Reid’s was at the time.
So, Arnold is probably a better prospect than Detmers was but not by a huge margin.
Better FB and SL at time of drafting than Detmers.
Question is if Hernandez will be available. In the Baseball America mock draft (2.0) that Pineapple is referencing, Hernandez goes #1 to Washington this time. Emerging consensus is his upside is highest of everyone on the board.
I worry that the Angels, in search of discounts, go with a guy like Aiva Arquette, who to my mind, is higher-floor Will Wilson. You hope he’s a shortstop, but he’s probably a 2B who hits for solid average and gives you 20 HRs a year. You might be stoked to get that in the middle of the first round, but at #2, that’s underwhelming. But feels like the Angels.
Or maybe, by discount, they still go college pitcher and sign Liam Doyle or Kyson Witherspoon, and shave $1.5M-2M off the signing price. That would be a better result, as either of those two could end up being just as successful a pitcher as Arnold, though Doyle still radiates Bachman vibes a bit, with that harsh delivery and FB-heavy repertoire.
I could be sold on Witherspoon at #2. 96-97 mph average FB, four pitch repertoire, polished righty. 2.08 ERA, 1.83 FIP in the SEC.
He’s at #13 in BA’s mock draft, with helium to move into the top ten:
Like Doyle, Witherspoon has pitched well all season with real swing-and-miss stuff. He began the year as a first-round talent and has only improved his profile with a more diverse pitch mix, much better control and fastball that is averaging 96.4 mph. His last three outings haven’t been high-strikeout games, but he has also lowered his ERA to 2.08 in that stretch and limited Alabama, LSU and Vanderbilt to a combined five earned runs in 17 innings. If teams inside the top 10 picks aren’t inspired with their hitting options, I could easily Witherspoon in that range.
Damn, I want Hernandez. It’s just not going to happen with the Nats and if they pass, it will be Perry to prevent it from happening. I can see Perry taking Doyle. The team he comes from and his penchant for 2-pitch relievers.
Not sure that’s a given. This is a guy who selected Bachman, Neto, Schanuel, and Moore. There’s almost nothing connecting those players except that they were college performers viewed as quick to the MLB, and chosen a few ticks ahead of their consensus rankings, enough to extract some savings upon signing.
Meanwhile, however, he also has shown a marked tendency to reallocate that pool savings to prep pitchers, with no reticence in offering 7-figure deals to high schoolers far rawer than Hernandez.
What if he suddenly has the best pitcher in the class available at #2?
I don’t think any of us can reliably predict what he’ll do.
yet the scouting director that drafted Bachman and the 18 other flunkies is no longer with the organization . We have had a different scouting director starting with the 2022 draft .
https://www.mlb.com/news/angels-hire-tim-mcilvaine-as-scouting-director
I Noticed that many times the new GM’s keep the existing scouting director and scouts but then systematically make changes shortly after their first draft. I know Perry scouted Bachman I don’t know about the other pitchers in that draft but Ihas there been a different philosophy in the last 3 drafts versus his first one? Then again hasn’t the 2021 draft been kind of weak overall? ( Which doesn’t seem logical considering it was the first 20 round draft after the COVID induced 2020 5 round draft so you think there would have been a larger talent pool to mine.)
The MLB draft would be even better if they allowed them to trade draft picks like the other leagues. The collusion part of the draft is cool where teams can cut side deals with players, but it would be even more fun to see some draft swaps on draft day.
Agreed. And if you could trade players for draft picks, that could also mean more early season trades.
If the Yankees want to trade us the 39th pick for Rengifo, let them do it in June.
Mike Trout’s baseball savant page.
Trout has the league’s 5th lowest BABIP (LOL) at .132. He’ll be fine
I think they should just put him in the Hall of Fame today.
It’s a good day for it since there is a day off.
Let’s go BASEBALLS! Fall in there fellas!
I’m more concerned with the strikeouts.
Think backside of career when Mike comes to the plate. Holding on tightly to remain relevant.
Jo Adell’s baseball savant page would seem to indicate a breakout is bound to happen eventually.
He’s sporting the 31st lowest BAPIP in the league at .214.
Do you know what the average BABIP is in the league P12? I’m curious how Schanuel is doing versus the rest of the league with his new found Ex Velo
Let me get some work done and I’ll see what I can do haha.
Out of qualified hitters Nolan’s BABIP is 52nd (out of 177) at .326.
Looking at team average BABIP, Nolan’s .326 would be the 2nd highest this year and 1st in 2024.
An elevated BABIP combined with slower footspeed can also herald regression more than future increase, fwiw. Given his underlying statcast metrics – suggesting elevated BABIP is probably more luck than a significant change in profile – there could be a lot of small sample mirage here.
Better discussion to be had at 200 PAs, methinks.
Yes so if he is currently at .326 and league average is .300 that aint necessarily elevated going forward.
Not following – given his footspeed, bat speed and exit velocities are all well under league averages, one would expect a BABIP lower than league BABIP. AL BABIP is currently at .279. (In range of Nolan’s BABIP of .285 last year – roughly equivalent to 2024’s league average of .286.)
If his BA is currently being driven by frequent soft contact (which statcast would seem to corroborate), that’s likely to come down, absent further improvement, in a larger sample.
Yet Schanuel’s BABIP this year matches his BABIP from his late season callup from 2023 ( .326) AND virtually matches his BABIP from June 12 last year thru season’s end when he had a BABIP of .327 in 372 Plate Appearances . So other than a horrendous start to the season last year where his BABIP was an anemic .222 in the first 2-1/2 months, Schanuel’s BABIP has been pretty consistent over 500 MLB Plate appearances. So I would think that despite him being slow afoot his current batting numbers are extremely sustainable going forward with his slight increase in bat speed and exit velo.
So it aint like he all of the sudden has got crazy lucky. if anything, last year was a long stretch of bad luck central.
So That is my point.
I think that is the case with almost anyone at this point whether it’s Schanuel, Paris, Trout or Adell. You need to see how it goes over the long hall. As you point out, there are things you can look at that might help with predicting sustainability but ultimately we just need to let things play out over time. Paris was obviously not going to maintain a 450/550/1000 slash line. It’s been a really nice almost 3 weeks, we’ll see where it goes. I know it’s a long wait, but I’m really interested in seeing where everyone sits at the end of the year including the minor leaguers, so we have some idea about next year and going forward.
It’s hard for me to believe we will sustain the starting pitching that got us off to the hot start.
Right. One of the first lessons Bill James taught us in the late 70s and early 80s was to be very skeptical of sudden changes in BABIP (a metric he popularized, of course). I just assume this a commonly accepted principle now, and am surprised when folks begin to talk about BABIP shifts in samples of <100 PAs, w/o saying: this is fun, but let’s wait a couple months
With half a century of sabermetrics over our shoulder, we know that it takes 200-400 PAs in a season for batting average to stabilize, and 800+ PAs for true talent BABIP at a player level to stabilize. We have exactly that for Schanuel, for example – his BABIP in his very short career of 800ish PAs is .295 and it was .285 last year (basically league average).
I have to remain skeptical about a 30-40 pt divergence in BABIP from recent norms until half a season of plate appearances roll in to suggest something has changed.
MS Copilot references mlb.com and reports league average as .298. I’d need to download a CSV from Baseball Savant and plug into Excel to see if that is correct.
Logan’s BABIP is .440.
Yet BBref has Nolan’s BABIP listed this year to date at .326. (which was identical to his SSS first year BABIP) Last year it was only .285. Obviously if he strikeouts more but hits more dingers then that will have no bearing on his BABIP but if he is close or slightly above league average that seems to me that these new found increases in Batting Average and Slugging due to an increase EVO are probably sustainable.
Fangraphs data seems to show that Nolan’s average exit velo, hard hit, barreled, K’s, walks, etc. are equivalent to the last two years. That isn’t bad to me, though I hope the launch angel gets back to previous two years, only 4.1 now. But to me, Nolan is the least of the teams issues. I think he is doing well for being so young and no real minor experience.
This is the thing: the bullish articles that MLB and OCR are publishing at the moment are awfully selective in how they speak about Nolan’s improvements.
Great to see that he has increased his average bat speed by 3mph, but the articles don’t put that in context – his 68mph bat speed is still well under the league average of 72, and in the bottom 10% of all MLB hitters. Similarly, his average exit velo is in the bottom 20% still.
It’s nice to see improvement – he’s pacing to 20 HRs at the moment – but there’s a bit of sample bias here in highlighting just the, well, highlights, and not looking at averages and league context.
At least if the discussion is chiefly one of sustainability.
I’m more encouraged by the doubles to date than the HR’s. he obviously likes hitting in Enron Minute Maid er Daikin Park but to expect any great HR power developing at the Big A (where hes has severe power droughts in his Home vs Road splits) maybe a little wishful thinking unless if he can start stroking doubles to the gaps
The batting average for him is more important than launch angle or power numbers… I mean, he is never gonna be a guy to hit you 30 HR a year… and he doesnt need to be.
We need him to hit .290 and get on base from the 2 hole so the big boys can drive him in.
Generally league average is about .300.
Come on BALLS! Do your job and avoid fielders!
Don’t look now but Schanny is hitting .298 with 2 HRs. Maybe, just maybe……
.298 / .365 / .491
147 OPS+
14.3% strikeout rate
7.9% walk rate
Schanuel is the most well-rounded hitter on the team. Give it a couple more seasons and he’ll be in a hitting class all by himself amongst our young guys.
Yeah, when he gets locked in, he’s hard to strike out.
I am actually curious to see if “locked in hot Nolan” sticks around more. Cause he’d lock in last year, then they’d pitch him different and he’d flail, then he’d lock in again. Did that a couple times last season. If his adjustments happen faster AND he’s hitting the ball harder I’ll be pretty keen on old “cheap horrible Nolan”.
Wash had the entire starting INF for Atlanta starting for the NL All-Star team.
Those remain my expectations in Anaheim and I’d say it is tracking well for likewise, Angels provide the starting INF soon enough for the American League.
Fletch on Schanuel
His average is up but walks are down and strikeouts are about the same versus career norms. If this is the result of the new Ex Velo I can live with that.
Still just a kid, with a long runway to get better, I’m putting some of my hard-earned Ippei Bucks that his numbers in another 2 or 3 years will be studly. To go with his solid glove, that will also get more solid’ier.
Free Nolan!
He’s also calm. Which some guys hate cause they need a guy to spazz out when they are spazzing out. But teams love the guy who you can’t tell if he’s hitting .400 or .040 for the week.
Agree. Calmness might be one of his superpowers. Not as sexy as Paris the Donkey riding Messiah, or Neto with his flashy high energy Neto’ness. Or our Catcher in Rye, Ol’ Abercrombie and Fitch underwear model, that likes to Jack long balls……unfortunately won’t include J. Adell here with a super power….. his super power right now is to go down 0-2 in the count, work it back, but not seal the deal with much production…….yet. Fingers crossed he heats up to a hot temp soon. Might be one of those yearly slooooooow starters, which ain’t a deal killer, it’s not even mid April
Free the Zen, free Nolan
Plus he’s super fast. That’s why they call him FALSH!
But 2002 told me he was the next david eckstein
RIP Tommy Helms, who played 2b in Cincinnati and was traded and replaced by HOF’er Joe Morgan.
Yeah, I have watched that Trout play about 20 times now, and that guy definitely ripped the ball out of Trout’s glove and should have been ejected from the stadium. Not surprised that the blind umpires didn’t see it, or ignored it.
I agree with you, need a rule change/addition to address going after a ball hit into the stands. BTW the guy who took that ball from Trouty looked a lot like the guy that took a ball away from the Dodgers Mookie Betts last season.
Trout outclassed that Bozo though. BTW, no offense meant to Bozo.
No offense to Bozo but what about his little pal Butch?
I watched that play live. Knew he had taken it out of Trout’s glove. Said “oh poop!” and then let it go on the wind like a tea lantern with a candle in it….. it was very soulful and zen.
Should have been tossed, but a very different situation from the Betts play. The dude here grabbed the ball. Period. Yes, it should have been fan interference, and yes the umpired screwed up, but in the end, there was no lasting damage to either Trout or the Halos.
The Betts guys grabbed the glove and would not let go, with the potential to injure Betts. Very different situation.
The Trout play is almost a Bartman thing (without the whole playoffs/century of frustration issue). Toss him for this game, and give him a warning about future interference.
