Morning Angels fans. Have some links.
Angels News
The Angels won yesterday. Only their 8th win since the All Star Break.
But, they are 1-0 after firing their pitching coaches. Yes, they fired Mike Maddux, one of the most well respected pitching coaches in MLB, over “not using technology right” something the hitting coaches did. Uh… WHAT? I am still mad and the fact that the new GM did so and asked KURT SUZUKI about what he thought as advice has soured me on whatever plans are being planned right now.
Reminder, Jo Adell Bobblehead night will still happen. 9/16/26
Around Baseball
Blake Snell is back. And he did well. Dodgers able to get away with everything huh?
Well, Ippei has not. More info has been revealed and he impersonated Ohtani 24 different times to take money out. How the hell did none of this come out when he was with the Angels?
The AL West Sucks. Not only is exactly 1 team over .500, but 2 other teams are still in the race due to how bad it is, and that includes the Mariners who have lost 5 straight games for the 3rd time this year.
As the amount of games count down, what has been missing from the season has been complete games. Well, Nick Martinez threw one, despite giving up 4 runs. That seems double unheard of.
The Field of Dreams Game will be old timey. And that means to ABS system. You have to suffer the bad balls and strikes with NO challenges. I expect a manager to be tossed.
ALL MLB polling is being polled. Here are the leaders as voted by hopefully not the fans.
Anything I missed? Post below for upvotes!
Jeff, are you using your media perk to meet kiss this friday?
Our potentially aggravating game is delayed for this Yankee, Mariner, cr@p?
Jo Adell HR to give Cleveland the lead over Detroit. In the 6th
Score a point for our drafting and developing. Woot woot!
Tonight’s lineup. Probably as good as we could hope for. I assume the GM is attempting one more jumpstart on Josh Lowe. He’s basically playing every day of late.
at this point I’m more interested in that super girl Alabama pitcher in the LLWS.
Yes . What I’ve learned this year is I love baseball much more than the MLB franchise in Anaheim.
Fair.
I’m watching some afternoon ball. Our boy Jordan Romano locked down his 2nd save in as many nights to push Colorado 2 wins above us.
Padres Brewers tied going into the 9th. Rengifo 1/3 and a walk hitting from the leadoff spot. The Padres are sooo fun!
So cutting Romano is paying off dividends by helping Colorado stay “ahead” of the Angels by helping them win games.
We wish him well. Haha.
And we all thought our team was poorly run.
🤣
That “boy” is our 2026 team saves champion.
reading about the “problems” Skenes is having. Well I think he’ll be fine and his 1.12 whip is like, really good, man. Still, it reminds us that major league careers are iffy.
Why would Walter’s sell the lakers after only one year
$$$$$$$
Legal fees
the Lakers got sold to Bob Iger. This makes me laugh very hard. Here’s hoping he moves the Lakers into a modern era of modern greatness in a modern way like he did with the Star Wars and Indiana Jones franchises. A Lakers for todays modern audience. Let’s do it Bob!
I’m just glad they’re no longer tainted by felonious and odiferous doyers ownership
Because Kushner, the guy trying to sell out FIFA to private equity, is better? Good luck Laker Nation!
I don’t like the sale to these guys at all. But at the basketball operations level, should matter little. Iger is a Clipper fan, likely to covertly doom the Laker franchise.
Today I learned there are two Kushners. Crazy. One is brazenly corrupt and well known. The other is this guy.
There’s the dad too, and the President’s daughter who married one of them. That makes 4!
Politics? 🙁
Oh I’d expect that investigation to quietly disappear now that he sold to the right family.
Eh. I’ve just barely read about him, but according to at least some right wingers apparently he is the “evil liberal” Kushner who has not really made the most of his family connections.
I still can’t wait for everyone to spazz out about him…. while the Lakers simultaneously celebrate gay dolphin economists night at the not Staples.
Once everyone involved has made everyone involved sad for a while I’m gonna jump in there with some “They’re wasting Luca!”
Pixar’s Luca was a merman, not a dolphin
Whoops, he was a sea monster. Joke ruined.
That’s where the loans were connected to. I don’t think Walter will wiggle out unscathed. Fraud is what needs to be proven or is this a result of an ignorant reporting error. In either case, he’s been trying to raise money to payoff loans which is under investigation. The conspiracy rats will run loose with this one.
I’m not much of a conspiracy guy but him selling the Lakers to the brother of the son-in-law of the POTUS at the same time he’s going thru being federally investigated raised my antenna. I like your your thesis better, even tho the whole thing is ultra bizarre
You know how it is. All those brothers of sons in laws and their closeness to the pants of power….
Can’t tell you how many times I’ve told my dad to stop supporting my sister in laws brother what’s his name.
😂😂😂 I gotchu. If potus is anywhere close to a situation you can’t blame people for thinking corruption is happening
Other felons already found guilty of crimes have gotten pardons rather easily by providing Trump something he wants, which I assume is usually cold hard cash. So I’m having trouble accepting that this guy sold the Lakers to stay out of prison when a cool $5-$10M into the right hands could’ve handled his issues.
Dig a little deeper my friend. Arte is in there somewhere….
What is crazy is to realize that Arte is mega loaded but he’s nowhere near loaded enough to hang with our current oligarchs. Like he’s not even at the kids table when the real power players have a dinner. There is no kid’s table.
That’s how insanely rich the top of the top is now. To them, Arte might as well be us. The gap is now that large.
Some here have business experience. What would you do with an employee (even an old timey, well-respected guy who was brought in this year from another company) who refuses to follow the company’s directives? Yeah, I thought so.
The Angels decide to fire a coach who is obviously not on board with what the organization wants. So they are the “laughing stock of sports?” If they do nothing and keep losing with no clear direction, they are still a joke according to some. It’s hard to know what some of you want from this team.
You’ve been begging for change – and when the change comes, you aren’t happy.
Jeff – here is my original post. Can you please explain to me how and who I personally attacked? I am trying to understand this place, but it seems to be harder and harder to understand the “rules.”
The “laughing stock of sports” line in your post was a direct quote from my post this morning. Hence, the genesis of your message was on my comments regarding concerns with the process Moz used to fire the pitching coaches. You did the same thing (quoted part of my comments) in a post you made the other day as well.
Jeff called me out as well, which is fine, because for whatever reason the tone of your posts tend to get me frustrated. After Jeff’s feedback, I deleted all but one of my posts this morning. It was my choice, Jeff did not request it.
This season with the Angels has frustrated me more than the past 10+ losing seasons. I’ve got cancer, had surgery, and need to continue focusing on my recovery. I’ve been trying to stay more positive, and had been using CtPG as a distraction from the day to day. However, given the emotions this team creates for me, and my reaction to some of the comments on the board, I’m thinking it’s best to step away and comment less frequently for the remainder of the season. Less stress is best for me.
Paraphrasing Maddux, there’s a solid cast of characters here at CtPG.
Since Arte didn’t invest, in February I took a step back from both the team and CtPG and definitely better for my mental health.
Just go watch some birds. They’re nice. Maybe build a model airplane. Those are awesome.
Snakes are fun, especially diamond backs.
I just found a book on various paper airplanes I can make at a yard sale. Add some beer or strong tranquilizers to that, you don’t care about tonight’s line up at all.
It’s been about one year exactly since I last cared about an Angel lineup 😂
💙 Always protect your peace! Don’t let this dude get to you. You’d think he’s trolling but I really think he’s serious in his posts lol. Shoot, I deal with constant trolling from AngelsFanInHell. The dude trolls like 70% of my posts, or at least it feels that way lol.
Btw, I’ve def noticed your posts have gotten significantly more positive. You wanted to change and you did. One very reasonable snap at EHC doesn’t change anything
Do you always have a victim complex, or is it just on this forum?
Agree on your question … I challenged your comment below and definitely didn’t sense a “personal” attack.
This comment is what I replied to …
“It’s hard to know what some of you want from this team.”
“You’ve been begging for change – and when the change comes, you aren’t happy.“
Try the Facebook angel fan boards if you want more polarizing knee jerking comments. I think the knee jerking here is more comical than anything and i contribute to it as well even though i am in a DGAF mindset for anything the Angels do anymore. I gave up on being emotionally invested in the team several years ago.
The reactions here are chill compared to most out there. Have fun. This is the best community and I say that even to JF.
I see that Nelson Rada is batting .280 with a .377 OBP. He’ll be part of the September call ups, right?
As for Maddox? I’m ambivalent. The Winds Of Change are sweeping thru Anaheim and the positives should outweigh the negatives. At least we’ll have new things to banter about if nothing else.
Maybe?
In the PCL, those numbers are…not great. 13% worse than the league average in wRC+. Whereas last year in the same league he was 19% better than average.
We haven’t seen the progress this year we were hoping for from Nelson, and the league may have figured him out a little. A lot of the underlying batted ball and contact metrics are similar to last year, but just a touch less exceptional. The plate discipline is still largely there, but chase rate is a touch higher, and hard hit rate and average EV even lower.
He’s still only 20, but he’s in a league where offense is substantially exaggerated, and he’s still not seeing much impact when he puts bat to ball.
It is his first professional season in which he has not made an obvious, tangible stride forward, which is disappointing. Even just a slight uptick in power or exit velo would have been encouraging. That being said, it’s also the first season in which he hasn’t been promoted or elevated to a higher competition level. Maybe he needs that to unlock his own developmental levels.
I think we’re all getting tired of waiting. Time to see what he’s got.
Yep, I’m certainly not writing him off. Just saying that there are perfectly reasonable arguments for and against calling him up.
He’s very young and was pushed very far, very fast. There’d be no harm in waiting until next year to start his MLB clock running.
I’m in the “He’s only 20. Let him take those skills he has, work some stuff out, and show us he can REALLY handle AAA.” camp. It’s ok if it takes a while, he’s young and the team doesn’t need him for a play off push.
Agree, those numbers are not indicative of a guy deserving a call-up. Sure, Mo can do it but I wouldn’t. Rada stock is being downgraded.
.280 in AAA with a great glove is not worthy of a call-up? My friend, I can assure that players are routinely called up on the basis of much less.
🚨 Baseball America has moved us up to 14th!!!
14. Los Angeles Angels
Preseason Ranking: 28
Midseason Ranking: 23
Current Top 100 Prospects: SS Arjun Nimmala (No. 30), RHP Tyler Bremner (No. 68)
Key 2026 Graduations: 3B Denzer Guzman, RHP Walbert Urena, LHP Samy Natera Jr., RHP Ryan Johnson, LHP Samuel Aldegheri
2026 Prospects Traded Away: None
Key 2026 Additions: Nimmala, OF Jared Grindlinger, 2B Jarren Advincula, 1B Gavin Grahovac, OF Ryan Lujo, C Jacob Cozart, SS Jaxon Willits, C Garrett Wright, RHP Mason McGwire, RHP Angel Rivero, 3B Angel Arredondo
The Skinny: This is about as good as the Angels’ farm system has looked in years. Nimmala was a great addition, but there’s also a newfound patience in how players are being promoted through the minors.
https://www.baseballamerica.com/stories/mlb-farm-system-midseason-talent-rankings-for-july-2026/
Really cool to see the progress and positive strides we have gotten since the start of the year until now with the farm system.
That said, I can’t help but notice that Bremmer’s ranking keeps sliding in these various 2026 updates. Not a good sign from our #2 pick.
Was by no means the optimal first round pick. Slawinski, Snead, Munroe, Gray and Haley suggest the torso of the draft was quite promising though.
It’s more a case of what could have been. Had Minasian done the obvious and snagged Anderson and Eyanson in the top rounds, it might have arguably been the strongest draft since Bane in 2009.
They might have lost a couple bonus babies like Mitchell and LaCourse with lesser early round discounts to pull it off, but they could have drafted everyone else regardless.
I was very excited that Willits went first. Then my “yes yes yes!” turned into “what what what?”
Yep – and Willits turned out to be a really nice selection. You’d rather have Willits than Bremner right now.
I thought for certain that they’d scoop up Kade at #2, like many others, but Perry was outthinking the consensus again. Now he’s jobless, so….
With the Angels at #14 at BA, and at #18 at Fangraphs and Bleacher Report (fwiw), consensus is building that they now have a league-average farm.
Progress.
Plus the Winter Meetings to get better. Then the draft.
How much of this is other teams prospects have graduated (or traded) so they are descending?
Angels still lack blue chippers and there still are no players above FV50. Too early to feel victory in progress to me. I like the new direction but we’ll see..
Prospect graduation happens all the time, every season, to all 30 teams. Good systems will see new talents continually emerge as rookie status is elapsed on matriculating prospects.
There’s no smoke and mirrors here. If anything, the Angels system might be a little underranked, as guys like Moore, Johnson and Dana just barely have enough service time to no longer be considered prospects – yet all three are only 22-23 yo. In a typical system, they would not have been aggressively promoted, and might be top 100 guys.
I also think Alvarez, Jordan and Slawinski are underranked by some evaluators. All on the bubble of the top 100, and a couple should break through soon.
Urena, Guzman, and Natera just moved up to the MLB level too.
True – though ironically most publications were underrating those guys. (Fangraphs was hot on Natera and Guzman though.)
Two to pitch and one to watch from the bench.
Fangraphs is a little too kooky for me — TGA 5th, Hurtado 10th, Quintero 11th, Cortez 15th, Jordan 20th, Haley 30th.
I want to see what MLB Pipeline’s next update looks like.
IMO, in scouting, kooky is good.
They saw Hayden Alvarez’s talent before anyone else. Same with Guzman, Flores and Slawinski.
I find MLB Pipeline always well behind the curve, lagging forward indicators, and find BA and Fangraphs more out in front of it.
We have some projects lower on the list with some big ceilings. One example, Jeyson Horton only ranked 25th in Baseball America. He was a $2 million bonus baby who is doing decently at rookie ball for a 17 year old.
On an earlier comment someone mentioned Arte selling the team. Just something to think about.
When Drayton McLane was entertaining selling the Astros, Jim Crane came along. After the sale was announced, it became obvious the “rebuild” was started a few months/maybe a year earlier in order to meet the requirements of the next owner. Then Bud Light got involved and wanted the Astros to change leagues and gave Crane millions of discount to see that he didn’t complain. So MAYBE some of the deals and decisions being made are to facilitate either a Top Dollar Sale or someone is in the wings making requests.
Field of Dreams should have brought back CB Buckner and/or Angel Garcia with no ABS. That would have been epic.
White canes and dogs included?
Field of Screams
Angel Hernandez that is.
Off topic observation. I was thinking back to how and when the wheels feel off the Angels wagon and I came to this:
May 29, 2010, Kendrys Morales badly breaks his leg by jumping on home plate after a walk off grand slam. How many other moves and roster over-reaches would they have avoided had he stayed healthy?
That’s pretty much the last time they were good (2014 was an outlier, they weren’t that good)
2014 they had the best record in MLB. They definitely were good that year.
Truly a pivotal moment for the franchise. However, six months prior to that Arte replaced the qualified front office he inherited with Carpino and Kuhl so horrible decisions were going to be made regardless of Morales health.
Don’t forget hiring of Reagins as GM and firing of Bane
Agreed that play was pivotal.
Another play haunts me. 2009 ALCS First game, first inning in the Bronx when a pop-up landed between Figgy and Aybar. Deer-in-the-headlights.
They catch that and 2009 ends much differently.
I was at that game when it happened. Even without the broadcast for how long everyone stayed on the field it was such a sinking feeling. Like a black hole immediately erased the grand slam.
Time for everyone to learn the name Kendri Fana. Fana is a 17 year old pitcher from the DR who Angels signed during this year’s international signing period for $525,000.
The teenager had another great DSL outing today —
7 IP 7 hits 1 ER 1 BB 4 K
Brining his season numbers to
46 IP
2.74 ERA
1.11 WHIP
39 K
Insight from TBW — Angels prospect Kendri Faña was named a DSL All-Star just prior to taking the mound today where he sat 93-95 and popped a 96 — special fastball projection for Angels highest bonus int’l arm in 13 years
https://x.com/i/status/2077811553987149824
MOAR KEEEDZ!
I/we all bash Perry plenty but he is leaving Mozeliak some interesting arms. Mcllvaine is pretty high on the 2025 high school arms and wants to pair them with the college kids drafted this year.
16 games in a row scoring 4 runs or less. The lack of talent has really shown post TDL.
I think the lack of talent post-TDL is just coincidental unless you’re thinking Adell and O’Hoppe contributions are being missed
The new boss brought in a guy he’s known for 20 years. A guy who will do things the way he wants them done.
It’s a story that plays out in countless businesses every year.
On the plus side, it does indicate Mo has autonomy and is sticking around.
Mozeliak’s transparency is a thing of beauty. He won’t nail every trade but definitely has a plan on what he would like done and not afraid to explain with the fanbase.
Love that he cut bait on guys who were no longer working out; Adell, Silseth and O’Hoppe. At least he tried to get Trout to agree to a trade. For me, that is getting off on the right foot.
Mo has a short runway, better to bring people on that you know so you can keep running quickly.
Going to see Klassen pitch tonight. Have not seen him live yet.
Trying to line up a Joyce interview this week.
Dillon Dingler was outstanding as Brock Landers in that one movie.
I ❤ Dillon Dingler
“But the magic that is on the tapes, that f*cking heart and soul that we put into those tapes, that is ours, and you don’t own that. Now, I need to take that magic and get it to the record company”
LMFAO
I’d settle for being Chest Rockwell
You can’t grow until all the cancer is gone. It’s going to be a full reset. It will take time but this is the way.