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Enjoy some of the finest content on the internet from our talented writers at AngelsWin.com on our Blog here. From the Greatest Moments in Angels Baseball, our feature stories throughout the season & offseason, to our annual primer series by Robert Cunningham and to all of our player/prospect interviews, prospect hotlists and our annual top-30 prospects list. 

Entries in this blog

2019 Angelswin.com Primer Series: Shortstop

By Robert Cunningham, Angelswin.com Senior Writer Results 2018 was a banner year for Andrelton Simmons, who posted his best WAR season to-date in the Majors, at a sterling 5.5 WAR. Clearly a lot of that production was on the defensive side of the spectrum but he also turned in a 2nd consecutive above average offensive season too, begging the question of whether or not the Angels should consider extending him. You may agree or disagree but finding defensive-wizards at critical defensive posit

AngelsWin.com

AngelsWin.com

2019 Angelswin.com Primer Series: Right Field

By Robert Cunningham, Angelswin.com Senior Writer Results Let us start this conversation with a game of blind player comparison using information from FanGraphs. One of the names below is Kole Calhoun. Guess the other two without looking (answer in the Summary below): In order to better understand Kole’s 2018 season we need to break it up into the 1st and 2nd half numbers: It has been well documented that Calhoun made a significant change to his swing to start the season last year, which

AngelsWin.com

AngelsWin.com

2019 Angelswin.com Primer Series: Left Field

By Robert Cunningham, Angelswin.com Senior Writer Results For 2018, Justin turned in a typical offensive-oriented season, playing below-average defense out of the left field position. As he had done in the previous two years, he hit the 30-home run threshold while also exceeding 80 runs and runs batted in with a handful of stolen bases to boot. Although his strikeouts were elevated, his walk and on-base percentages hovered around his career averages. Wins Above Replacement (WAR) In 2018, U

AngelsWin.com

AngelsWin.com

2019 Angelswin.com Primer Series: Designated Hitter

By Robert Cunningham, Angelswin.com Senior Writer As can be seen in the graph above, batter’s box production out of the designated hitter (DH) position was not an issue in 2018. Clearly Albert thrived in the DH position (wRC+ of 115) in comparison to 1B (wRC+ of 74), so maybe he is not quite as crippled as some of us may tend to believe if he is hitting full-time. Perhaps more importantly Shohei Ohtani dominated in his at-bat’s from the DH spot, sporting a wicked 149 wRC+ with 20 HR’s (the ot

AngelsWin.com

AngelsWin.com

2019 Angelswin.com Primer Series: Center Field

By Robert Cunningham, Angelswin.com Senior Writer This is the point in the series where we try to answer the $500,000,000 question. Yes you read that right. No seriously go back and count up the zeroes, we will wait. The question of a Mike Trout extension is not so much when, but what it will constitute in terms of contract length and total payroll commitment. So, to be clear, it is the author’s firm opinion that #27 will ink an extension deal this off-season. He will most likely put pen to

AngelsWin.com

AngelsWin.com

2019 Angelswin.com Primer Series: First Base

By Robert Cunningham, Angelswin.com Senior Writer So you are probably not going to like what the author has to say here. The solution will not move around first base quickly. You the reader will not enjoy this. If you are not thinking about the movie “300” by this point, you have to think that Pujols might be thinking about how dangerously close he is to falling below a career .300 batting average heading into the 2019 season. Now of course it is just a number. However, his entire contract

AngelsWin.com

AngelsWin.com

2019 Angelswin.com Primer Series: Second Base

By Robert Cunningham, Angelswin.com Senior Writer The sinkhole. Quicksand. A miniature black hole on the left side of the Angels infield. No matter what label you want to place on it, a long-term solution at the keystone has been a source of concern since Howie Kendrick left after the 2014 season. This year there is some hope that Zack Cozart will enter the 2nd year of his contract in good health and able to play elite-level defense (as he did at shortstop for so many years) while providing

AngelsWin.com

AngelsWin.com

What 2019 Really Is (and why Angels GM Billy Eppler is taking the right course)

By Jonathan Northrop, AngelsWin.com Senior Writer There are some who are disappointed with Eppler’s relatively modest off-season so far: he didn’t sign any big name free agents, whether intentionally or because they simply wanted to play elsewhere. No Corbin, Ramos, Happ, Eovaldi, Morton, Donaldson, Familia, etc – all players that would have significantly improved the team. Instead we got a strange group of players in  Matt Harvey, Trevor Cahill, Justin Bour, Jonathan Lucroy, and Kevan Smith–no

AngelsWin.com

AngelsWin.com

2019 Angelswin.com Primer Series: Bullpen

By Robert Cunningham, Angelswin.com Senior Writer A good or bad bullpen can make or break a team’s season. Over the last handful of years the Angels really have not had either, they have milled around a bit, near average, with our 2017 relief corps being the best group and our 2016 our worst group in recent memory. Entering 2019, however, that may prove to be a different story. Billy Eppler and the front office staff have cobbled together what, on paper, appears to be an exciting group of ha

AngelsWin.com

AngelsWin.com

2019 Angelswin.com Primer Series: Third Base

By Robert Cunningham, Angelswin.com Senior Writer As you can see from the chart above the Angels received a dreadful amount of offense from the hot corner, for the 2018 season, split primarily between five players (Fletcher, Cowart, Ward, Valbuena, and Cozart). Most of that offensive production came from David Fletcher (1.4 WAR) who also played elite defense in a limited sample size. Near the end of the season, on August 14th, the Angels promoted young Taylor Ward, our top 3B prospect, to man

AngelsWin.com

AngelsWin.com

2019 Angelswin.com Primer Series: Catcher

By Robert Cunningham, Angelswin.com Senior Writer As you can see from the chart above Billy Eppler clearly emphasized team defense and run prevention over batter’s box production last year. Heading into the off-season, the Angels have parted ways (at least temporarily) with excellent defensive backstop Martin Maldonado and are now in the position of finding a replacement, primary catcher. Because Eppler clearly values defense behind the dish, controlling the running game, and pitch framing, o

AngelsWin.com

AngelsWin.com

2019 Angelswin.com Primer Series: Rotation

By Robert Cunningham, Angelswin.com Senior Writer Author’s Note: Immediately prior to publication Nathan Eovaldi signed with the Boston Red Sox on a 4-year, $67.5M deal ($17M AAV). Rather than re-write, the author has decided to publish the original. Two years. The nightmare of pitcher injuries for the Angels has been on-going now for two years. More really if you change the goal posts to include the beginning of Skaggs’ saga. However, 2018 was not a complete disaster in terms of production

AngelsWin.com

AngelsWin.com

2019 Angelswin.com Primer Series: Eppler's Strategy

By Robert Cunningham, Angelswin.com Senior Writer Options. The first years of Eppler’s tenure had a lack of them. However, in evaluating the Angels as they head into this off-season, it is clear that Billy has more of them with some upper limits to what he can do and achieve. So with the general understanding of what the likely team goals are as we discussed in the Introduction to this Primer Series let us take a stab at what Eppler might be up to in this current market. First we need to st

AngelsWin.com

AngelsWin.com

2019 Angelswin.com Primer Series: Team Depth

By Robert Cunningham, Angelswin.com Senior Writer Now that we have a better understanding of how the team performed overall in 2018, we need to take a brief look at total team depth so that we get a sense of the quantity and quality of available players at each position around the diamond. In order to do this we will project position player, rotation, and bullpen depth over the next five seasons utilizing the current 40-man roster (as of November 26th, 2018) and our very own Angelswin.com, ‘Lo

AngelsWin.com

AngelsWin.com

2019 Angelswin.com Primer Series: Production

By Robert Cunningham, Angelswin.com Senior Writer Before we can make educated guesses at what moves the Angels will make over the 2018-2019 off-season, we need to understand what they did produce in 2018. You cannot fix something if  you do not know what is broken or in need of repair. Below are two tables, that include all 30 MLB teams, with one sorted by ‘wRC+’ and the other by FanGraphs ‘DEF’: 2018 MLB Teams Sorted by Weighted Runs Created Plus (wRC+) 2018 MLB Teams Sorted by FanGraphs

AngelsWin.com

AngelsWin.com

2019 Angelswin.com Primer Series: Financials

By Robert Cunningham, Angelswin.com Senior Writer Now that we have established some of the Angels primary goals, restrictions, and needs we can take a deeper dive into the teams projected finances heading into the off-season. Below is the projected, 40-man roster, financial table that includes team benefits and all payouts (option buyouts, dead contracts, etc.) owed and is based on the assumption that the Angels bring back all of their guaranteed, contractually-controlled and current pre-arbit

AngelsWin.com

AngelsWin.com

Los Angeles Angels (2019) Top-30 Prospects

By Jonathan Northrop, AngelsWin.com Staff Writer Ranking prospects is an in-exact science, to say the least. Some like to focus more on raw talent, whether athleticism or acquired baseball skills, while others like to look at actual performance. The following list is based upon the subjective opinions of nine different AngelsWin writers and members. The benefit of such a composite list is that we both get a wide array of perspectives and approaches, but we also tend to even out each other’s bia

AngelsWin.com

AngelsWin.com

2019 Angelswin.com Primer Series: Introduction

By Robert Cunningham, Angelswin.com Senior Writer Author’s Note: The author does not have full access to complete team financial data so the numbers contained in this series represent either actual, published contractual details or best estimates. Great effort was made to provide factual evidence and details using reliable sources such as BaseballProspectus.com, Baseball-Reference.com, MLBTraderumors.com, BaseballSavant.com, MLB.com, FanGraphs.com, RosterResource.com, Brooksbaseball.net, StatCo

AngelsWin.com

AngelsWin.com

An inside pitch on Doug White

By Rob MacDonald, AngelsWin.com Contributor We learned that Doug White, the Astros bullpen coach in 2018, will replace Charles Nagy as pitching coach on Brad Ausmus staff.   I had mixed emotions about the news.  I liked Nagy’s knack for rehabilitating pitchers that other teams gave up on and I really liked the fact that a visit to the mound wasn’t going to pour gas on the fire like in the Butcher era.  Besides the note from Jeff Fletcher that Doug White may be a surf bro’ of Ausmus, a possible

AngelsWin.com

AngelsWin.com

Point/Counterpoint - Handicapping the Next Angels’ Manager

Point/Counterpoint – Handicapping the Next Angels’ Manager By Nate Trop and Glen McKee, Unprofessional Gamblers   For the first time since before I (Glen) started shaving my head, the Angels are looking for a new manager.  That’s a long time. Think about it: when Scioscia became manager of the Angels, Bill Clinton was still in office. Y2K was still a thing.  Pamela and Tommy divorced. “South Park: Bigger, Longer, Uncut” was released. You get the picture. Now, the Angels have to find a new

AngelsWin.com

AngelsWin.com

Mike Scioscia's former colleagues & players sound off

Mike Scioscia stepped down as manager after spending 19 seasons with the Angels Sunday at the conclusion of game-162 in walk-off fashion. Scioscia’s managerial record is: 1,650 – 1428)and he’s one of five managers all-time to lead a team for 19+ consecutive years. His 19 seasons with the Angels make him the longest tenured manager in the Majors. Fifth all-time in games managed with one franchise (3,078). Owns a (.536 winning .pct)  and his 1,650 wins rank 18th all-time and are second most (Walt

AngelsWin.com

AngelsWin.com

MLBN's Jim Thome Breaks Down Ohtani's Home Run Live

Hall of Famer and MLB Network analyst Jim Thome broke down Shohei Ohtani’s swing last night during a MLB Tonight live look-in of his eighth inning home run. Ohtani’s blast proved to be the game winner in last night’s 3-2 Angels victory against the Texas Rangers. In the clip (below), Thome said, “Ohtani’s kind of got his hands up, watch the front foot get down quick, so there is a little bit of pause there. When you pause and you get your front foot down quick you become an arm and hands hitter.

AngelsWin.com

AngelsWin.com

Shohei Ohtani sings 'Despacito' on team bus for rookie hazing (Video)

All eyes have been on Angels rookie sensation Shohei Ohtani this season, and he continues to amaze, both on and off the diamond. Ohtani continues to crush home runs, and he’s been doing this with UCL damage, which will cause him to undergo Tommy John Surgery in the offseason. Most players would have called it quits during that time, but not Ohtani, who continues to amaze. Speaking of amazing, you need to see this video of him signing “Despacito” on the team bus, which his teammates talked him

AngelsWin.com

AngelsWin.com

Here's how ridiculous Shohei Ohtani's recent offensive rampage has been

We all love it when there’s an opportunity to use the #PitchersWhoRake hashtag, but Los Angeles Angels two-way player Shohei Ohtani has brought a whole other meaning to it during the 2018 season. Sure, he’s only appeared as a pitcher once since the beginning of June and is now potentially facing a long road back to the mound via Tommy John surgery, but that hasn’t stopped him from raking at the plate. He showed us the kind of focus he has on the day it was announced he may need to go under the

AngelsWin.com

AngelsWin.com

Look: Mike Trout poses with Lombardi trophy before Falcons game

Angels slugger Mike Trout was born and raised in New Jersey, but he’s always been an Eagles fan. Trout has made it very clear during interviews, and has also been spotted at a few Eagles games. He apparently attended Thursday’s season-opener at Lincoln Financial Field between the Falcons and Eagles, as he was able to snap a photo holding the Lombardi Trophy. His squad earned it after defeating the Patriots in Super Bowl LII, and Trout reaped the benefits. Given the mediocrity that surrou

AngelsWin.com

AngelsWin.com

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