Victor Mederos is having some growing pains. At least he’s growing. The Angels designated Connor Brogdon for assignment over the weekend, Shaun Anderson signed a minor league deal with the Angels.
The Royals designated Mark Canha for assignment.
Tommy Pham is still out there making friends. This time he wanted to fight with Tyler Heineman of the Blue Jays.
Brendan Donovan is on the injured list with a left groin strain.
Photo credit: Rex Fregosi
memo to Marine Layer: I would have had to have gotten the T-Mobile offer in March. Oh well. Next year maybe.
Top Angel Rookie in 2025:
Grant Brisbee at the Athletic suggested it is Teo. Paris has been just as good as anyone. I’d pick CMo for the mojo and future potential. Not sure there is a pitcher that warrants it. Recency bias will say Teo, but there are meaningful games to be played – we will see.
Too soon. Teo is already dropping in average and OPS.
fun fact of the day
There are only four position players on this roster with a high bWAR than Kyren as of today (Neto, Ward, Nolan, Trout).
Wow…that’s something wild
Wow. That’s a play off team.
oh yeah…position players. We’ve got a lot of 1 point something players. Newman and Wade Jr had the lowest, -0.8, -0.7. Soler at -0.4.
Meanwhile Mickey Moniak is at -0.5 with his .920 home OPS and .665 road OPS. He’s hitting .295 at home, .215 on the road
Top Angel Rookie… maybe that is a player we have yet seen to this point. To date, Teo for me. Has as displayed a high degree of defensive value.
Is noBody an option?
I’m good with a mulligan
The answer is “None Of The Above” as of August 19th but, we still have 6 weeks to go so one of these guys will hopefully perform well down the stretch. Heck, even Mederos could nab the honor.
Ward will be coming off a career year, this winter he should be traded, missed out on Rengifo after career year, but he’s got to go too. Mullins has been having issues since his big year 3 years ago. Bellinger will be way over the top expensive. Pkg Hendriks with Rengifo and Ward with Anderson on September first. Arturo’s keeping the gang together didn’t work out too well, so it time to tear it down and start ova.
Interesting trivia:
Hunter Greene threw 39 pitches at 100mph+ when he faced the Dodgers earlier this year.
For today:
Hunter Greene has not faced the Angels.
For the season, he’s 5-3, 2.47 ERA
Hendricks has faced the Reds 28 times (all while with the Cubs), going 9-6
For the season, he’s 6-8, ERA of 4.88
Given that Hunter Greene averages 99mph on his fastball, Trout could strike out in every AB against Greene tonight.
However, I would still put him in the lineup. Cuz I do not want to see Rengifo DH.
Com’ on, Trout! Let’s get HR #399!!
I haven’t seen Elly De La Cruz live. that will change tomorrow night.
I tried to see him in Goodyear in 2024 but got rained out.
that’s one good thing about interleage play is you get to see the “other league” – growing up I saw games at the Big A so I remember seeing all the big AL stars of the day (Killebrew, Mantle, Howard, Oakland A’s), but I never saw Hank Aaron play nor the Big Red Machine just for example. I did see Mays once in Spring training but that was it.
Guy throws so hard, get ready to feel for a 1B. Also swings very hard. Is also fast. You think, “yeah, I knew that” but if you see him up close…. there’s a reason they just threw up their hands and brought him up.
Dude, you know the rules. I get this is dark humor but we have to end this discussion now.
Yesterday, somebody suggested Cody Bellinger as a possible, free agent target. I had to double-check, but he has $25M player option that I’m sure he’ll turn down. While I’d definitely prefer him on the field and in the lineup over any other outfielder on the team, I don’t think there’s a chance the Angels will offer him the money/years he’s seeking.
He’s barely better than Ward. He’s gonna cost a lot because one time when he was off the huge doses of weed he won an MVP. He’ll be a good natured Hamilton as soon as he has a long deal. Sounds perfect for us.
I disagree that he’s barely better than Ward since Bellinger’s is a good fielding outfielder, takes extra bases at a better than average rate and strikes out about 15% of the time over the past 3 seasons. Hamilton had to have someone around to keep him out of trouble and I don’t think Cody’s been that bad yet. But yes, he’s going to cost a lot.
And I think comping him to Hamilton is a facile comparison, given Bellinger has only ever been known as a hard working leader and good teammate. While on the Dodgers, he was one of the guys most deeply involved in community and charitable efforts.
Just because the two are left-handed outfielders who each had an MVP season – one guy was an addict and flaky miscreant, and the other guy by all accounts has his shit together and is a good clubhouse guy.
He had three years where his performance declined, but those were clustered around a serious shoulder injury, and were’ 3+ years beyond that now.
No qualms about Bellinger. Chandler local hero.
but there are 3 better place to spend $25 million: pitchers, a 3b, and a manager.
give CF to Lugo, Paris, Teo, Rada for two months- adjust as necessary.
Generally, he’s been about 1 WAR better than Ward.
Per Fangraphs:
Bellinger: 3.3 WAR in 2025, wRC+ of 120, age 29, positive WAR for both offense and defense.
Ward: 2.9 WAR in 2025, 121 wRC+, age 31, negative value on defense.
Bellinger is capable of playing CF, walks at the same clip, strikes out less, and is 2 years younger.
If I had to sign 1 to a 3 or 4 year deal, Bellinger looks more likely to provide the best production. Of course, price factors heavily into this decision and he will also cost more.
Bellinger will sign for an AAV north of $20M and I think Ward will get more like $16M. Not sure I believe either of them will be worth that much.
For $4 million per year I take the younger guy with better defense all day every day.
That said, I’m far more interested in Trent Grisham playing CF or even a bounce back deal for Cedric Mullins if we trade Ward.
But I bet we go back to Ward, Adell, Trout/Soler for the OF next year.
Mullins just seems more like the typical Minasian hole-plugging hopium – cheap goods, looking for a bounce back but probably just getting the status quo.
As poor as Mullins’ season has been, it’s even more concerning when you look at his home park numbers. He’s batting .196/275/.344 away from Baltimore and would be moving to a far less fortunate offensive park.
Grisham has had a fine year, but I don’t think he’ll be as cheap as people think, and this year stands out as a bit of a one-off after three straight miserable campaigns ’22-24.
Surprised Angels fans aren’t asking for more – but I guess table scraps are what we expect these days, so we’re just sorting them into piles when thinking toward the future.
Those are the only two passable names on the free agent list. I’d love more but it just doesn’t exist on the free agent market.
So, barring a creative trade, that leaves Perry with the same OF in 2026 that he trotted out in 2025. The Trout/Soler combo really kills roster construction without a trade of Adell or Ward.
With Teo and Rada and Paris and Lugo all possessing the basic skill level to play CF, the outfield situation is set next year and it’d be surprising to add anything here.
Starting pitching and 3b must be invested in, and they should pay for a known winning manager too.
But roll the dice with that OF in 2026. Give those four above April and May at least.
I ask all of CtPG.
WHO IS THE 3B YOU THINK WE ARE SIGNING?
and, WHO IS THE WINNING MANAGER THAT WILL MAKE THIS TEAM BE GOOD?
WHO IS ON FIRST.
3B? I DONT KNOW.
In looking at the list there are only 2 guys worth signing.
Bregman will get majorly paid if/when he opts out. Plus he’s Bregman. But at least he’d be our Bregman.
Suarez is coming off a monster year he won’t repeat. But even meh Suarez is good for 25+ HR for a couple of years.
Suarez will get majorly paid because folks will try to pay him a little less than Bregman.
The rest of the list sucks. Seriously, Moncada is the third best option.
Harrison Bader might be worth a look. He’s an average hitter and above average CF.
Agreed. But that would require a trade of an OF to fill another need.
I definitely agree with your last sentence, it’s just so Perry.
I would also like a lower cost CF. The Ward, Adell, Trout/Soler outfield can’t cut it defensively. Adell is fine as a RF, but his CF marks are terrible (it probably doesn’t help that he’s been flanked often by Soler/Ward). If Teodosio could run out even a 90 OPS+, I think that would be ok, but I don’t think he can over a season.
Lower cost CF: Rada, with Teodosio in reserve.
But if you’re going all glove, light contact at CF, you want a longer term solution in LF. I don’t think Ward is that solution – one more year might be fine, but I think the team would regret holding him at a higher AAV into his mid-30s.
I agree on Ward. My comment was only about 2026. Ward is fine on a 1-year deal for 2026.
i don’t really want to rush Rada’s development. He’s off to a great start in AAA, but I wouldn’t want to force it since he’s still a teenager for a few more days. If Rada forces his way into the picture, I’m ok with that.
They could sign someone for CF who would move to LF when Rada is ready.
I also think that Soler might be a DFA candidate next spring.
If you had middle of the order bats at both 1B and 3B you could afford to have a defense first CF and 2B. It’s why I’ve always said that when you have fairly weak hitting guys at 1B and 3B like they do, you can’t live with guys at 2B and CF who don’t hit.
Will we then be all in for meaningful games is the question?
Comparing players to Ward’s career peak single season is a little unusual coming from you, gitch. You’re usually a little less Moreno-like, and a bit more data driven than that.
Absent injury, I would expect the younger Bellinger to outperform Ward by quite a bit in the next 3-4 years.
I think people are misunderstanding my “barely”. When he’s not getting his face smashed Wards a 2-3 WAR player and will beat that here at his peak. Cody averages 3.25ish WAR per year the last four? That’s far from worlds apart…. or barely.
Gotta pass on Belly. Ez one.
a good natured Hamilton…… sounds most like:
A. A Band
B. A health food brand, specializing in cereal bars and toothpaste
C. A sex act involving dressing up like one of our founding fathers
D. A shitty contract involving a POS, that is over 4 years and $149,000,000
For $25M, no on Bellinger.
Not for someone who averages 0.259 BA, 24 HR, 74 RBIs a year for the past 9 years, and will be 31-y/o for 2026 season.
We’ve got Ward under contract for 2026
He’ll be 30 next season, and would be age 30-34 over a five year contract.
Why use counting stats over context-neutral rate stats? Or career stats over three year splits, for instance? No one would get a sensible estimation of the present-day player Jo Adell is, for example, by using career batting average and RBIs.
Over the past three years, Bellinger has put up 10.3 WAR and a 124 OPS+ while delivering net positive defense, playing all three OF positions, and having strong baserunning/speed marks. His current OAA is 94th percentile playing LF for NYY.
I think Angels fans underrate Bellinger due to his tenure on two hated franchises, the Dodgers and the Yankees. But he’s been one of the most consistent players in baseball since age 27.
We just love our own guys too much to be objective.
Yeah, as I noted yesterday: survival bias. After 11 years of failing, fans hold close anything that doesn’t suck, even if it’s not that great relative to the market alternatives.
I don’t want either. Not next year. Not after next year. There will be a 3 WAR OF available in 2027 or 28 if we need it. Trade Ward. Have a shitty OF next year with Teo/Paris in CF and Soler crawling around. Get some more pitching with $$$ and kids with Ward.
I would not be against that although I think it’s highly inconsistent with the M&M way of operating.
Yep, that was me. And I don’t think $20-25M/yr is out of reach given how much money is coming off the books in one more year. It’s a single year spike in payroll, at a cost much lower than Rendon and Trout in AAV.
Maybe Perry could get creative with the payments, under pay the first year and then raise it up after Rendon is off the books, but I feel a Kikuchi level contract is about as high as they’ll go for next year.
Came across this last night and thought I’d share it.
How can you not be romantic about baseball?
Hope it’s not too political. LMK
The night Osama Bin Laden was killed and Phillies and Mets fans came together as one
I’ll let it pass. Baseball can bridge the political gap and it did on this night.
Thank you for your moderation
I’ve taught History and Government for about 15 years. No system of government has killed more than communist by far. Largely by starvation and to a slightly lessor extent purges of those who disagree, so I’m going to go with capitalism here. It’s worked for the MFY’s 27 times and has turned out pretty well for the Doyers for 15 years, while the Pirates and A’s… well… you know.
I was a history major. I actually joined the Comm party in Berkley to get access to free books. I was pretty interested in communism at one point and was looking into it in a positive way.
Holy shit. Yeah, it’s hard to spin that system as working at all, even with a police state. I had to write three different dissertation type papers in college. One involved the communism stuff. One was on the 3rd Crusade.
If anyone ever wants to get into the “religion has killed more peebles dan any thinks” shit they gotta work really hard at ignoring secular humanism as a belief system cause that shit’s the champ by miles and miles. And that’s even if you ignore the fact that the National Socialist Party was humanist as fk.
Any system that involves the government making everyone good people is scary as hell. Capitalism. Embrace the dark side.
It can be argued that it is easier for psychopaths to take over communist societies and that those psychos are themselves not communists but power grabbing nutjobs
Or, as one of my now dead teachers told me, the only good communist was Jesus.
The Reds are poor. The Reds have pretty lame owners that present a lot of obstacles for the team every year. The Reds have about half the raw power in our line up. The Reds are one game away from replacing the Mets in the play offs.
The Angels are apparently also “in it” and playing meaningful baseball.
The Reds rank 9th in baseball in team WHIP. The Angels are 28th. The Reds are 19th in team OPS. The Angels are…. 14th. But the Angels are 4th in baseball in HR while the Reds are 22nd. In a bandbox stadium.
I follow the Reds, not like I do the Angels, but I like em. Why are they goodish? Yes, it’s a stacked rotation. BUT it’s also a big pile of guys like Tony Santalin and Brent Suter. They have found value in meh bullpen arms and rotation failures like Ashscraft coming out of their pen.
They are also ranked 17th in OBP while we are 22nd. They have a fast team. So they are always pressuring the other team’s defense. They hit fewer HR but they matter more. They play solid defense. They are, in fact, the same as the Indians teams Francona managed.
Why am I saying this? We aren’t THAT far from being able to do this. It would have really helped to have traded for more prospects. But Pereza, for example, and Teodosio too, have the potential to help us fit this mold. Every guy in their starting 9 has a job that they do well, and they live with the limitations in trade for that. Like Hayes at 3B.
They don’t spend on the things people spend on. Who is their big time closer? Emelio Pagan. Wowie Zowie. We may be in the same boat soon, and it’s not a bad boat.
And there’s the LAB, and all the young arms in system. That shotgun blast of possible arms, in the pen and rotation, has real value if we are trying to be more Rays/Reds/Guardians.
PTP has a plan. I’m not sure I buy it. I’m not sure how often it will get preempted by the feels of CtPG Guy/Arte. There are 100 ways it can fail. But I can see it. And I see how it’s working in Cincy… and we have twice their payroll capacity.
The Reds are legitimately in the playoff hunt. They missed out on Eugenio Suarez but made a better cost control move to bolster their pitching…trading for defensive minded Ke’Bryan Hayes.
I’m not impressed with Peraza, sometimes an early defined label sticks whether warranted or not.
I doubt Pereza’s gonna be “the answer” at third. Long term I hope he’s semi-Rengifo with better defense. I think all in he can get a .700 OPS in a good year. But that’s cool. Let him play 3B for now, let him play all over later. Good teams have this guy. We can have him too.
But his plan is like only trying to work on one wing of an airplane. He could have dumped most of the roster at the trade deadline and picked up a lot of younger position players but he would rather “play meaningful games”. I’m not mad, It’s just very discouraging to watch him operate.
I still think Arte and CtPG Guy and Carpino wanted meaningful games. I just don’t buy that Perry was looking at this pile and thinking, “it will be worth more than some position prospects for these guys to all miss the play offs together, damn the facts let’s go for it.”
It makes more sense to draft college pitching, trade for advanced position prospects, and go into spring young with a couple FA additions. I doubt that I can see that a PTP can’t. But he doesn’t live in my bubble.
I don’t disagree, I’ll just believe it when I see it.
The Reds were the team I most wanted Perry to trade with at the deadline.
They have a number of prospects in the upper minors who would be ideal organizational fits (and who have only gotten better post-deadline), and Cincy was just on the edge of WC contention, with very little oomph in the corner OF or DH.
I know one individual that shouldn’t have a MLB entrusted to him to run…..
Is it me? It’s me.
Although you and I have had disagreements on your delivery, you and Jeff are the two people on here I would have running the team if I bought it. And, unlike some owners we know, I would listen to you.
then you would get…. PITCHING CHAOS! Plus I would choose 25 relief pitchers who all turn up on our roster with gas cans. Plus a farm full of guys who look like Bo Jackson and hit like Janet.
BUT! New uniforms.
So, the early 90s Angels? How nostalgic.
Is it McCourt?
I wonder if the angels will bring back Fulmer and chafing for the BP next year.
Chafin will be 36 next year, if he would accept a reasonable 1 year deal then I would support this as he has been good. It looks like he is at the end of a two year contract that paid him $4.75 million a year and it looks like that Detroit ended up paying the bulk of that contract. I wonder if he would sign for one year at something like $3 million?
Fulmer has some usefulness as a long reliever, the question is whether there is a spot on the roster for him or whether he is willing to go back and forth between SLC and Anaheim.
Both should be offered 1 year deals and nothing more so I agree.
I’m not disputing either one but I’m trying to follow the logic of if our BP isn’t very good this year, why do we want to bring everybody back?
Looks like Fulmer is arb eligible, so I think he’ll be in the team’s plans.
If I were a GM for a team that admits it has no position prospects on the farm and is rebuilding instead of just “reloading” I’d pick up Greg Allen since he just got cut from the Orioles in favor of their big Beaver of an OF prospect.
CF? We need all the candidates we can get. A defensive OF of this guy, Teo and Adell with Rada in the wings? Won’t hit a ton, but could be hell on wheels to play against. If we can coax his non-PCL offensive numbers out of him we’d be stoked. Makes me wish we had a hitting lab.
The poor situational hitting last night and failure to score more than one run was hard to watch. Mederos wasn’t terrible but actually had decent luck. Numerous hard hit balls that plays were made on.
Agree on poor situational hitting. First inning, Nolan is on first, one out. Trout strikes out, Nolan still on first. Taylor doubles, Nolan stops at third, because he got stranded on first by the Trout K.
I have been pleasantly surprised by how much movement, and the differences in shape, so many of Mederos pitches have. He’s still hittable, but I can see how, if he gets command, he could be a valuable arm. Two starts, it looks like he can hit the lower left and upper right corners of the strike zone well but everything else is kinda swervin and dippin within a hittable path in the zone right now. But, again, this winter he’s gonna have over 20 innings of video to watch of all this happening and a pitching lab to work in…
Listening to Terry and Mark on radio last night on the play Rengifo botched in centerpiece, they said he “jogged” after the ball after it went over his head. Why is any player on the field that jogs on a play like that? He should be benched or DFA’d.
Rengifo is not a very good defender in the infield, but he is horrible in the outfield. That’s on Monty for putting him out there. It was the 90% probability of putting him in centerfield.
I don’t care if Giffy plays or not but he shouldn’t be taking ANY at bats away from ANY of the kids, like CMo, Teo, Oswaldo.
Free Oswald.
Moncada and Heefo, waiver them both before the August deadline
Ward’s hustle is slower than rengifos jog. 😅😅
Amen brother! I just keep reminding myself that the long nightmare that is Luis Rengifo will soon disappear from my miserable life!
Now, if Trout had any leadership qualities, he would pull him aside and ripped him for that. But Trout is timid and does not want to offend. Someone should’ve confronted him. Ray couldn’t/wouldn’t do it because he himself made a mistake by inserting him in center.
Scioscia or a Weaver or an Erstad or Lackey or even Percy would have taken care of business. F-$#k, this organization. Get rid of Rengifo.
I wonder if Monty has come to the realization yet that his decision put Luis Rengifo in centerfield which instantly led to an egregious error and probably dented if not tanked his aspirations to be an MLB manager, well, at least for most teams, if Arte can get him cheap enough, he will hire him, incompetence and all.
Was there no better options? He should’ve atleast moved adell to cf and rengifo to rf if that was the case.
At a minimum, stick the worst defender in RF. Adell to CF and plop NiKKo in RF. Going forward, how about demoting NiKKo and bringing up Lugo or Gamel. As Trout now a DH, the Halo’s do not have a viable 4th OF currently and Luis is not a Swiss army knife.
Does it matter all that much since the Reds are, um, better than us?
Tommy Pham is a hot head and has some mental issues. I fully expect that he will once more make the news after his playing career is over, and not make the news in a good way.
He has to be a closet Dodger fan and will likely spend his retirement years hanging out in the outfield pavilion picking fights with drunks.
One good thing to me about Tommy, he is front and center during a confrontation with a dugout clearing melee with the opposition. But a player like Tommy would not be able to cohabitate with the young Angel players who continue the on the field bromance the opposition even though they are losing.
Pham is gonna die in the parking lot of a Casino in some unincorporated area.
Is the Strip Joint scenario no longer in play?
Last statement heard from Victor “I’ll be baak” and he will and soon. One time years ago I posted that Mark Canha really wasn’t that good of a player, well I still think that and it may be the end of the line for him. Tommy Pham is a well traveled big time nut job. Boring game last night. Like water this team is finding its own level
Everyone, have a great day and have fun.
