Same winning lineup as last night with the exception of Adell for Upton! 

Let's face it, at this point of the offseason, none of us thought our biggest pitching acquisitions would be Bundy and Teheran. Knowing that not much else appears to be on the horizon any time soon, I started to dig in to Bundy a little bit more. For whatever reason, I kept thinking about a correlation between Bundy and Arrieta for the obvious reasons. Not only were they both Orioles pitching in Baltimore's bandbox, but they were also both promising young talents that never really materialized in Baltimore. On top of that they both ended up on a Joe Maddon coached team, which makes me think that Maddon could have been a reason for the Bundy trade (Maddon was hired by the Cubs in 2014 after the Cubs acquired Arrieta at the 2013 TDL).  

So, I started to look deeper and it seems the two have some similarities just based on their top level peripherals.

Bundy - Age 26 Season

4.79 ERA


4.73 FIP


1.355 WHIP


9.0 H/9


1.6 HR/9


3.2 BB/9


9.0 SO/9


Arrieta - Age 26 Season

6.20 ERA


4.05 FIP


1.369 WHIP


9.6 H/9


1.3 HR/9


2.7 BB/9


8.6 SO/9


Now, when looking into Bundy more, I came across this article from Going Deep: https://www.pitcherlist.com/going-deep-dylan-bundy-should-make-a-few-simple-changes/

To summarize, the article talks about a comparison between Bundy and Corbin and the desire for Bundy to adjust his pitch mix with increases in slider and changeup usage. The article also notes a change in Bundy's pitch mix starting at the end of 2019. Bundy significantly bumped up his sinker usage, which helped his HR/FB and HR/9 to come down to earth (and Bundy has always been killed by the long ball against his four seamer). Not only that, Bundy also saw improved changes to his ERA indicators as well as improvements to his fastball after the change, which has always been his worst pitch. The author wonders what a sinker, slider, changeup combination would look like for Bundy considering he began inducing many more groundballs instead of hard hit fly balls off his four seamer that resulted in HR's in Camden. 

Now I am not saying that Bundy is going to become Arrieta, far from it. Arrieta has always thrown his sinker pretty regularly and Bundy will probably never have the type of sinker that Arrieta uses. But I also think Bundy can be much better for a few reasons:

No longer pitching in Camden.


Callaway and Maddon


Increased usage of a sinker/slider/changeup combination


Time will tell. 

I will also add that if Fletcher continues his awesomeness, La Stella proves that his 2019 season was no fluke & Ohtani continues to hit the way he has recently and the way we know he can this is going to be one hell of an offensive force.

I mean, Castro and Stassi have what 6 home runs between them already. That would be a pace of nearly 40 HR in a regular season from the two.

Goodwin seems to have also shown that like La Stella his 2019 was no fluke as well.

Now if we can just get production out of one of Adell or Upton, this may become the best lineup in baseball. Even Pujols hasn't been too shabby! 

Gameday Thread: Angels vs. A's (8/10/2020)

Let's FUCKING go Angels! 

Quick pussyfooting around. Take this series and get on a roll.