Tomorrow the Cactus League begins and the Angels take on the Dodgers. You’ll have to trust me on this because Angels Spring Training games will not be televised this year.
Not only is this a slap in the face and a new lowlight, consider the Angels touted their new streaming service, Angels.TV would carry the Cactus League games. So everybody who paid for it prior to this announcement got hosed under false pretenses.
Count me in that group. I received an email from MLB.TV about my auto renewal for the package and added the Angels component so I could cover the Cactus League here and On SI.
Side note, if you buy the bundle you do save $50. It was $149.99 for just MLB.TV, $99.99 for just the Angels or $199.99 for the bundle. The discount takes a little sting out of Arte blatantly treating his customers like suckers.
For actual baseball news.
Pitchers and catchers have been in camp for a week and position players reported this week.
The biggest news is Mike Trout planning on playing center. The job is wide open because the Angels don’t have a better option. They are risking Mike Trout to cover for their own failures.
This move does make roster construction more fluid and impacts many camp battles. Beyond the Trout news, bringing in versatile veteran Adam Frazier makes several roster battles a lot more interesting.
All that being said, I took a way too early shot at predicting the Opening Day roster and rotation. You may wants some Tums or something before you get to the bullpen.
Jose Soriano will get the start for the Angels tomorrow and I have high hopes for the pairing of Soriano and pitching coach Mike Maddux. This little video brings me joy.
Soriano has wicked stuff when he’s on but struggles with consistency and command. I think Maddux will use Spring Training to tweak some things. Soriano’s focus and development will be more important than his numbers this spring.
Beyond Soriano, we’re learning a lot about the Angels pitching staff, particularly on the health front. It is also quite apparent there isn’t a fifth starter on the roster. I have hopes for George Klassen but we shall see.
I really hope they don’t rush Bremner, but it is great to see him throwing in Tempe. All eyes will be on him for a multitude of reasons.
Rhett is really killing it on X this week. I’m going to post these just because they make me smile.
Soriano looks great as well.
The good news from camp is that so far players are healthy and the young core arrived early to make a statement.
Spring is the time of hopium and I think Angels fans are completely overlooking Jorge Soler. I tabbed him as my bounce back candidate nobody is talking about.
Give me a day or so and I’ll research Angels game we should be able to watch using opponent’s broadcasts.
From around baseball, nobody had a worse week than Tony Clark.
Yes, that guy got to call his wife and tell her he lost a highly paid job because he was banging a family member. I don’t have many hard rules in life, but I do not have friends who cheat on their wives. If they’ll break that bond they will break any other. It is no surprise Clark is also under federal investigation for fraud. Come to think of it, most high profile cases of fraud center around people who commit infidelity.
Bruce Meyer is the new head of the MLBPA. He recently helped Tarik Skubal win his arbitration hearing against the Detroit Tigers so he seems to be able to negotiate. The players also wanted him fired in 2024 so he might not be in charge for long.
Enjoy your weekend and link what I missed. Happy Year of the Horse everybody! And don’t worry, if you have the Dodgers channel you can watch the Angels tomorrow.
There are no comments on the Angels on SI page so please feel free to critique my work here. After years of getting immediate and often hilarious feedback here and HH it feels odd not to receive it there.
