Jack Kochanowitz says he was very comfortable last night with his new changeup grip. No it wasn’t the most unusual grip of the day.
The Dodgers reinstated Emmet Sheehan from the injured list.
Nineteen year old Orioles prospect Luis Guevara died in a jet ski accident off Lido Key.
It was the Samsung Lions who signed Gerson Garabito Jose Azocar elected free agency.. Left-hander Richard Lovelady just opted out of his minor league deal with the Twins.
Photo credit: Rex Fregosi
LAT and OCR says ICE agents denied entry to Dodger Stadium by team.
Interesting because the Dodgers are being heavily criticized for ignoring and ignorance about the situation
They were not being noble there…. that was strictly a business decision on their part… having fans dragged away in cuffs from inside the stadium would not be a good look and it would be VERY bad for business…
Yep. How else would anyone expect this to go? What business anywhere is gonna let anyone in with the intention of dragging people away. ICE can catch plenty of “Documentationally Disabled” people with criminal records just hanging out in the parking lot. Probably prevent a few violent crimes too. They don’t need to gain entry.
Watching how Silent C is working out. IFYWPM – would you consider doing an under slot deal with Wade to go get an over slot HS player that could easily misdirect other teams with all the NIL deals? Our first round slot is $10,000,000 – where Wade is projected is now around 15 to16 – which is slotted at $5mm. (Imagine $6 million for him and an extra $4 million for someone else. I think it’s always a crapshoot on pitchers. Regardless – I think come draft day – we’re mostly going to have optimism that we will pull a frontline starter over the next few years – but could we double down. I’d be seeing if Hernandez would like to be an Angel for sure.
Definitely an interesting idea… but I don’t think you get 1:1 “value” from underslotting a pick like that. When they negotiate the bonus pre-draft, the player/agent will presumably demand some kind of pick-based sweetener, unless they’re really, really convinced that no pick will pick them before their projected number. So yeah to your point… it would probably be more like $6 or $7 million.
And then you’re using the savings to again overpay (per industry consensus) for a high schooler… it makes you wonder how much cumulative $ talent you might be losing in your attempt to snatch up undervalued players.
I like the arbitrage approach… Perry seems to do it fairly well… but sometimes I just wish they grab the best player for once and pay him. Thinking of Andrew Painter.
Hernandez evidently being this year’s Painter.
Yup
Wait… who? I don’t see any Wade in MLB’s Top 200. You mean Kade? Or Jace?
Koch signed for about $600k over slot in the 3rd round, after Will Wilson took about a $500k discount in the first, so this sort of pool shifting has been pretty much the norm in recent years.
Given the size of the Angels bonus pool this year (they have an extra $1M+ to work with just with a 10% overage alone), I don’t think they need to get too clever with a first round haircut to coax in a couple prep players anyhow.
And if by Wade you mean Kade, as a draft eligible sophomore who is being regularly mocked into the top two picks of late, I don’t think he has a ton of incentive to take a big discount. I could imagine the Angels getting one of the college lefties or Arquette into the $8M range, but more than that seems unlikely (and unnecessary).
Some minor league movement of note:
Werner Blakeley, one of the Angels’ four selections in the 2020 draft, was released this week.
As mentioned below, David Calabrese, the third rounder from the same draft was demoted from AA, along with Cole Fontanelle.
Alberto Rios, third rounder from the 2023 draft was demoted to low-A, where he may get some reps at catcher (though not sure that’s going to improve his hitting woes – he’s 23 and had a .097 batting average at Tri-City).
Randy Flores, the Angels’ eighth rounder from last year’s draft, was released.
Baseball America devoted a segment to the Angels minor league system yesterday in their farm roundup – BA has recently updated all their Top 30s so have a holistic view of the minors. The segment was called “It’s been bleak for a while for the Angels, but it’s getting worse”, and the overriding theme was that it was awfully hard to assemble a Top 30 for the Angels system, and their Top 30 is not equivalent in talent to other top 30s. Not only is their farm the worst, the separation between 29 and 30 is significant.
Yup. Lot’s of useless goop on our squads. Need 9 positions filled…. insert warm body. We’ll have to see if things get better as kids move up from DSL/AZL etc. And then there this next draft….. dun dun duuuuuunnn!
The lack of positional talent is something. That’s five hitters from recent drafts demoted or released in a single week, and those drafts were already heavily biased toward pitching. The team needs a couple offense oriented drafts, and Minasian needs to do a better job of identifying talent beyond the first selection.
Rada was the only position player that Cooper and Pontes could highlight, and they’re both skeptical, suggesting his ISO and steal inefficiency limit his projection. Maybe, maybe not – but the more sobering observation was that all four full-season teams in the Angels system have both the lowest win-loss records and lowest run differentials in each division. And you just never see that.
Yes, those guys and Alexander Ramirez? He’s a big kid they signed for a million. Arol Vera?
im just happy all these guys still have jobs playing ball here.
We’re seven years in on Ramirez and he’s striking out in roughly half of his plate appearances at Tri City. He’s pretty toasted, as is Vera.
I don’t have a lot of concerns with the org’s Latin recruitment – would like to see more of it frankly, but there are real chronic struggles getting bats past AA.
I’m nominally curious what’s up with all 4 MiLB teams. We were VERY thin to begin with, but there was at least a list of guys I was interested to see if they took a step forwards. We’d still be thin, but there’d be four or five guys that we could keep a hopeful eye on.
Nope. Out of about ten names I found at least interesting, guys who need to make more contact etc, NOT ONE has been better and ALL of them have been remarkably worse this year. Crazy levels of shitty.
Rada, then nada.
I get the 1st 3 transactions but do you know the story with Flores release? 109 ab with decent pitch recognition doesn’t seem like enough to make a decision based on performance.
Did he get a coaching opportunity, health related or just a bad attitude?
Yeah. The Flores thing screams “killed someone in Venezuela” or something.
Don’t know the story behind it, but it surprised me. Even as a cheap senior sign, college guys usually get more rope. He was a real contact merchant at Alabama State, with a solid pedigree.
Now that Jeanie has some extra spending money, she should buy the Angels.
Pass.
Dr Buss didn’t pass his “Great Owner” genes to “Geanie” or any of his other offspring
I hate the Lakers. I hate the Busses. Fake Red Dodgers. Yay.
I seriously would not mind if Cuban were to try to buy the Halos.
I’m beginning to feel somewhat positive about the future potential of the club if they make the right moves. Not this year but starting next year. I think we could have solid cost controlled starting pitching and a bullpen. I’m for keeping Kikuchi. We struggle with scoring runs. As of now there will probably be little position player change next year. We have plenty of players in the organization for CF and 2B. What we need is a 3B and a LF. We need to figure out a way to improve our offense and then in 2027 we will have some money.
Goldschmidt is the only yankee who has hit Anderson well. Bellinger dies have 2 homeruns. Could be a 2-1 or 3-2 or 4-3 game today
Angels starting lineup vs rodon is 10-47 with 17 k’s 1 hr 2 rbi
I predict 15 k’s today
Trout 0-8 vs Rodon
The Angels are going for their first ever 4-game sweep of the Yankees ever at any time in history since the start of time.
No Soler. No Rengiblow. Kingery in Centerfield. Considering we’re facing Rodon and TA has a 7.28 ERA and a 1.80 WHIP in his last 6 starts this one may take a Murracle to win.
“…. since the start of time.” Ha ha.
The Vegas Oddsmakers agree with you that the first ever 4 game sweep is very unlikely
Yankees (-278) are huge favorites in this one….
It should be noted that the Yankees were also -200+ favs in the other three games, but nothing close to todays number. They were in the -240 range yesterday for example…
Umpire Ben May missed 16 calls in the Yankees Angels game and 14 went against the Angels.
How much longer will this go on. Maybe Ron Washington can wake up and at least try to do something about that.
Wash should at least give him a good yelling, but if he really wants to show me he has the balls I wish I had he should probably fight the ump. What this team needs now is every umpire in baseball hating them, plus some suspensions. Sure, we know that the rest of the world already knows the umps suck and the numbers slump towards helping certain teams. We also know the umps know that. We know the press knows it, hell, they’ve asked Wash about it. What is obviously missing here is a good old fashioned red assed temper tantrum. That should fix it. And a team with the experience and mental stability of the 2025 Angels is in a perfect spot to stay the course and not let the drama of the situation warp how they take their at bats.
This is just one more way post cocaine Ron Washington is a total disappointment. He’s basically Robin Williams.
Unfortunately, they suck the most against us according to the official ump scorecards. What other options do we have? One of a manager’s jobs is to stand up for his players.
The amazing thing is that we managed to win the last three games/nights DESPITE the horrible and obviously biased umpiring which favored the Yankees.
The game on Tuesday favored the Angels, slightly. The other two were pretty pro-Yankees though.
Umpscorecards is not a sacred text to me…. but at least they saw that there was some pretty bad umpiring against the Angels….
Yeah, I was a bit surprised that Wash bit his tongue on all of those, some of which were truly egregious…. The Judge AB in the 7th was like that… The first pitch was a clear strike and called a ball which prompted Pineapple to say “What are we doing here???”
I laughed at that… or cried. Because I was incredulous.
Someone in our dugout was doing some yelling several times. It was likely not a player since managers will always squash that to avoid losing a guy.
that catcher the Yankees had is amazing in his ability to create strikes – he is a maestro at it- the dude knew his craft and was so smooth.
Yankee pitchers love him.
Nothing to do with the catcher….not sure if you are being sarcastic Rex.
I’m watching the Yankees broadcast and they rave about him. Seriously watch the kid. He stole a few that were inches too low but he was like a magician and the ball appeared to go right down the middle.
JC Escara google him.
https://www.sportingnews.com/us/mlb/new-york-yankees/news/yankees-jc-escarra-cool-story-secretly-best-catchers-mlb/c309443c81e7b4af6d122724
Of course the Yankees broadcast is gonna say that ! They are not going to admit the umpires are intentionally calling balls strikes to help their pitchers !!
Where does your data come from? umpscorecard.com only show 9 missed taken pitches out of 158. May was actually better than average that game. Looks like he had a rough 6th inning when Silent C was pitching missing 3 calls during that inning. And the one bad call with Logan at bat in the ninth.
I’m not trying to challenge you. If there is another source I don’t know about I’d like to learn about it.
Even after yesterday’s game, Angels are 20th in all of baseball in how much umpiring has benefitted them (meaning 10 teams have been screwed worse than us).
About a week ago when I last checked, the Angels were right in the middle of the league. It’s been bad at times, but we tend to forget all the calls that went the other way and overrate how much it has really impacted us.
Another nominee for an alternate location for our AAA club instead of SLC: Honolulu.
That was our AAA site back in the day or five years up to 1970. The 1970 club in particular was outstanding.
Like the late great Dr. Buss and coach Phil Jackson said, “You gotta earn Hawaii.”
Probably not applicable here, but I feel ornery this morning.
That’s an interesting take Rex. With air travel the way it is and teams spending a week now at each AAA Opponents facility The scheduling would fit right in. (even though our guys would travel way more than any other team. The park factors would be close to neutral which is a bonus.
The trade winds in Hawaii could make it interesting.
Cost of living for those guys would be interesting…… for Arte’s cheap per diem. I know they like Spam over there, that’s affordable.
UH plays a Big West schedule in a lot of sports, and also as an NCAA football team.
If they did it in the 1960s, it seems so much easier to do today. the franchise left in 1988 to Colorado Springs.
That…. not a fun commute.
Going for the sweep and getting back to .500 with this lineup:
Neto SS
Schanuel 1B
Trout DH
Ward LF
D’Arnaud C
Adell RF
Kingery CF
Newman 3B
Moore 2B
Anderson
It is interesting that Soler is sitting for a second straight day.
I appreciate Soler’s veteran grit and attempts to play thru pain. There is no shame in taking a trip to the IL to get right.
Hopefully Taylor and Moncada aren’t too far away returning.
Sometimes you need a break/rest….. Two days is better than one.
He’s injured.
I was hoping some Yankee regulars would get a day off, but nope, they’re all in there again.
Boone should give their guys a rest, they are gassed.
If they really are gassed then I guess that’s good for us! Keep the slumpers in as far as I am concerned.
He managed last night like it was the 7th game of the World Series.
Kingery, Newman, Moore. Yikes. Two guys hanging on to MLB spots and one just called up and learning. Any games won with that trio in the lineup are a plus.
Let’s hope for one today.
I’m okay with Kingery and Moore.
Welp. Newman’s what? 5 for 16 in his last few games? So he’s hitting just about where I’d expected him to hit these days….
Gonna be a tall order against Rodon. Let’s see a Moore break out game!
Quality Start? some discussion on the Yankee broadcast yesterday and it went in a direction I whole-heartedly agree with:
I’d rather have my start go 5 innings and give up 2 or less runs.
To me that’s more a quality start than if he goes 6 innings and gives up 3 runs or less (standard definition). Especially with bull pens today.
and yes, my philosophy is based on seeing Angels starts give up 3 runs all the time for decades and lose the game.
Ryan Johnson yesterday in A+
7 innings
0 ER
2 hits
0 walks
7 strikeouts
2.30 ERA
1.09 WHIP
Yesssss. I didn’t even realize they stretched him out! Thanks for sharing.
Cautiously optimistic about his development. Wouldn’t be shocked to see him crack the rotation as early as next year if things go really well. 2027 more likely though.
Yessir! RJ is too good for A+.
How many MLB SPs can we squeeze out of:
Dana, Mederos, Silseth, Klassen, Aldegheri, Urena, Hurtado, Farris, Johnson, Cortez?
I’m thinking at least 2-3 to go along with Sori and Detmers in 2027. Possibly the #2 pick joins in the conversation too.
Legitimate staters? Maybe 2
Yep. Two. And I’m not saying that with an eye roll. That’s normal.
For example. The Holy and Most Powerful Doyers top pitching farm hands in 2019 were:
Dustin May
Tony Gonsolin
Josiah Gray
Dennis Santana
Mitch White
Michael Grove
Yadier Alvarez
Gerardo Carrillo
Edwin Uceta
You likely need 5 semi-OK pitching prospects to get one starter who even sticks in the rotation.
Silseth still MIA, probably best to remove him from the list…. And not a word as to what happened…forces me to speculate, “torn esophagus” and Tommy Esophageal surgery coming.
As of mid-June 2025, Chase Silseth is currently on the 7-day injured list for the Triple-A Salt Lake Bees due to an unspecified injury. He hasn’t pitched since May 3rd.
This is the latest in a series of injury setbacks for Silseth. He missed significant time in 2024 due to right elbow inflammation, which eventually required surgery in August 2024, ending his season. While it wasn’t Tommy John surgery, the exact nature of that procedure and his recovery timeline were somewhat vague.
He had been with the Triple-A affiliate all season in 2025 after not securing a spot in the Angels’ big league rotation during spring training.
The dreaded “Not Tommy John Surgery” which is another way of saying “get ready to need Tommy John Surgery but spend three years doing it and totally ruining your arm”. The Garret Richards method.
Fontenelle and Calabrese both demoted to High-A, it seems.
Deservedly so. Haven’t hit at all this year in AA
Yeah. That’s a bummer. I like both of them…. just not right now.
Unpossible. Fake news. Arte.
Wow, I thought Yankees would sweep the Angels, and here we are —- on the verge of possibly sweeping the Yankees, in NY no less!!
For Thursday:
In 8 games vs the Angels, Carlos Rodon is 4-4, 4.40 ERA, and 47 strikeouts.
Tyler is 1-2, 2.05 ERA, with 18 strikeouts in 4 games against the Yankees.
Angels have never swept the Yankees in a 4-game series at the Bronx.
Angels have never won 6 straight games against the Yankees.
So, 2 records can be set with just a measly win!
But, it won’t be easy.
While Rodon has lost his last 2 starts (both against the Red Sox), Tyler is 0-4, 5.40 ERA in his last 10 starts.
Praying for a sweep.
We never won 6 straight in the 2000’s when we owned them? Damn!
Didn’t see this linked yesterday or today.
SI has a “Trout to the Red Sox” trade proposal.
https://www.si.com/mlb/red-sox/boston-red-sox-news/red-sox-predicted-to-steal-11-time-all-star-from-angels-via-trade-colin3
Woof.
I don’t see why the Red Sox would want this trade.
First, they’ll be on the hook for about $186M for 5 more years (2026-2030).
Second, Trout would be 34-y/o to 38-y/o during those years.
All the Red Sox need to do is look at Albert Pujols’ last few years to project what Trout will do. And, Pujols is far better at driving in runs that Trout was, even in Trout’s prime years.
I would like to see Angels trade Trout if we can get some good prospects. It’s been a blast watching Trout play; but, life goes on.
Trout’s only going to get worse from here on out, especially since he’s honest and ethical, and won’t be using substances (“cream” and “clear”) for pain relieving balms, and having the lawyer-speak “….didn’t knowingly know that the cream and the clear was steroids….” — if you catch my drift.
Unless Trout requests a trade, you don’t trade him. You can’;t trade him. He’ll never fetch enough in return, and he’ll be the first HoF’er from the Angels that was drafted by the team.
His “no trade clause” in his contract kinds of means you can’t trade him, unless he wants and asks to be traded. That is probably not happening. If he did ask for a trade, it would be very unlikely that he would want to go to Boston. Phillies maybe.
I’ll also add that Trout’s son plays Little League ball now and he isn’t going to want to move him away from his friends.
Wouldn’t this apply to… dunno… 55% of players? At least?
The essence of the article is that the headline “predicts” the trade, but the article itself devolves into some guy from BR who was sitting on the toilet playing a game and had the “brain fart” (literally and figurately) that Trout to the Red Sox makes perfect sense.
Let’s see..the Sox do a salary dump on Devers who is younger and a more productive player than Trout, and then they would take on the salary of a player clearly in the twilight of an illustrious career?
SI used to be credible. BR never was credible. Thanks for the laugh!
That is exactly what happened and I did not see your comment until I made my mine.
Bingo !
SI once engaged in respected sports journalism. Now, they report an idea by someone at the Bleacher Report as if the Sox and Angels were really in discussions about this.
Plus, fat chicks and dudes in the swimsuit issue. They literally fked up “put hot women with very little clothing on in front of a bunch of guys in the dead of winter and make money”.
Trout isn’t going anywhere.
He’s retiring an Angel.
The focus now is on the young kids building a winner for Mike
Obviously the most popular opinion right now is that Trout is such a drag on this rebuilding process, and may be the sole reason why Arte can’t commit to a full rebuild, but I agree with you P12, Trout and the Angels are stuck with each other for better or worse.
At this point, I don’t care about his contract anymore. The guy gave his best years with the team for cheap, and unless he says something else, I think he deserves to finish his career with the same team.
The famous narrative now is that Trout fell off the cliff when he got his massive extension in 2019. Below are his non-injury shortened seasons since then:
2019 – .291/.438/.645, 7.8 WAR, wins his 3rd MVP
2020 – .281/.390/.603, 2.5 WAR, finishes 5th in MVP voting
2022 – .283/.369/.630, 6.0 WAR, finishes 8th in MVP voting.
The last two years did suck, and so did 2021 (which I still don’t think was a calf strain, but whatever). He’s back healthy again now and producing since he came back.
Well said. Trouty has stuck by this franchise and its fans his entire career. Why would we abandon him now?
He can DH in peace for the next six years while the new era of Angels baseball carries him to the World Series—a poetic ending for the greatest to ever do it in Halo red.
Trading Trout for prospects would be nice if it could actually happen. But he’s the best case if we are “stuck” with him. Yes. It’s true that he may not be totally washed. Probably not gonna ever see an 8 WAR season, but will likely be an OK DH/OF when healthy. He’s a team leader and a beloved icon and that’s good for the team. AND his salary isn’t a huge impediment to a rebuild. He draws people. He will likely be out of the top 10 in salary soon. And he’s one contract. Paying him, Rendon, Pujols and Ohtani (people forget he made up to 30M with us) plus ancillary FAs was a tall order. But carrying his contract alone isn’t a big deal.
It would help if the FO looked at extending some kids early. Keep their AAV under 30M long term.
F_ SI.. Just the same as the Eastern rags trying to take Detmers, Ward and Kenley from us …
What the Sox need is an outfielder who is worse than three of the OF they already have who will also block top 50 prospects AND clog up the DH spot to limit flexibility. GET IT DONE PERRY! DO THE RIGHT THING!
