Way to go Matt Shoemaker

[Docwaukee]

anyone who thinks that Shoe is better than Richards need to check themselves.  Shoe has been great for several games. Richards had a sub 3 era for almost an entire season.  

[Troll Daddy]

Richards is jinxed for whatever reason. There's a small chance he will never pitch in a Angels uniform again. 

That being said, I rooting for him not to have TJ surgery and pitch in 2017.

Richards

Shoemaker

Santiago

Tropeano

Skaggs

nice!

 

[Second Base]

For me, I'm saying to hell with selling. Yeah, I get it, we need to rebuild the farm, but this club just has a heck of a draft. If they do that a couple more times and start getting involved in Dominican Republic/Cuba, then we do t have to sell.

What if the Angels simply came back next year improved via free agency and health?

Richards, Shoe, Skaggs, Tropeano and Santiago can win some ball games.

Maybe Eppler brings in three legitimate RP's and lands a premier LF or Choi grows into it. I dunno, all I know is I freakin' love Escobar at lead off, and think we have some good, young options in the rotation.

[ukyah]

shortsightedness is the quickest path to losing your way. 

the dream of richards leading a rotation is over. i have a feeling that he's made a tremendous error in judgement with foregoing tj surgery. here's hoping he's able to pitch innings in the next two years.

[Vegas Halo Fan]

24 minutes ago, ScottyA_MWAH said:

What if the Angels simply came back next year improved via free agency and health?

Health is a much better bet. This free agent class looks pretty weak.

[yk9001]

Shoe's turnaround has been nothing short of incredible. 

[tdawg87]

Shoemaker since May 21 (11 starts):

2.36 ERA, 10.38 K/9, 9.78 K/BB

[bloodbrother]

9 hours ago, tdawg87 said:

He may not have the stuff Richards has but he has balls bigger than planets. 

Richards has pebbles. And no pubes. Apparently.

Eh, the main difference is that RIchards mechanics are a mess so it's hard for him to maintain his release point. His command wavers all the time because of his herky jerky delivery. Add in the crazy movement on his pitches and it's just a perfect disaster for him. Shoemaker has simple, repeatable mechanics so it's no surprise that he's able to command his stuff at a much better rate

 

[Blarg]

13 strikeouts for Shoemaker,  not sure anyone noticed. He was pretty efficient all game and forced batters to be aggressive with two strikes,  chasing pitches they would have sat on if he hadn't shown so much control. 

[arch stanton]

No walks. No home runs. It's tough to score runs at the Big A if you can't string together some baserunners. Great job handling Frazier and Mourneau to strand the few runners they got. I almost wish I had listened to the White Sox broadcast just to hear the Hawk. Almost

[Second Base]

Seems like folks are down on Richards but I think mostly, many of you have a short memory. Before the knee injury, Richards' ERA was at 2.61, k'ing as many hitters as innings pitched. Shoe is a good pitcher, but has never been as dominant as Richards was. 

Now if we compare last year's numbers, Richards was still not 100% and was still pretty good. Shoe was a disaster.

This year, Garrett was back to his dominant self before the injury, when Shoe was still getting shelled. Shoe made the adjustments and is back at the top of his game, and the end result is still a 4 ERA.

Richards is still the ace of this staff when he's healthy. When Shoe is settled, he's still a VERY good pitcher, but let's not go overboard with Shoemaker is the ace that Richards never was because that's crap.

[totdprods]

I would have to be completely overwhelmed to deal Shoe right now. Some team would have to be buying his recent success hook, line, and sinker and offer two or three players, with at least two being top 100 prospects.

Crazy thing, in this market, someone might. 

I'm all for holding onto him and seeing what happens this year and start of next. If he keeps this up, he will have enormous, farm-altering trade value this time next year, and we may need to 'rebuild/retool' just as badly then, but maybe with a new set of needs. No need to sell everyone off at once.

I'd deal Smith and Soto for just about anything. I'd move Escobar and Santiago if we got a legit prospect or player back, which I think is realistic, but would also be totally fine holding onto them. They could still be trade bait this offseason or next. Street fits in that group too.

Shoe, Calhoun, and Simmons I would hold onto unless some team went all 'D'Backs for Shelby' on them. They'll be valuable trade bait down the line if we find ourselves still needing to 'retool'

[tdawg87]

I think the only person who compared Shoe to Richards was Chuck and I believe he did it half tongue-in-cheek. There's no question Richards is a better overall pitcher with the best stuff on the team. 

But, his career has been slightly disappointing. He's got a golden arm but keeps getting injured, and seems to have a head full of mush. Shoemaker on the other hand has greatly outperformed any expectations one could have had for him, given his minor league career. 

[tdawg87]

1 minute ago, calscuf said:

I also heard Richards doesn't have pubes.

He says he waxes but that entire area is smoother than Billy Dee Williams at a Princess Leia cosplay party. 

[Chuck]

I never said Shoemaker has better stuff than Richards, nor has he put together a season like Richards had two years ago. 

What I did say is that the way Shoemaker has pitched in the past couple months is far superior in terms of shut down, ace-like performances with a very good strikeouts to innings pitched ratio...something Richards has not been able to string together in a long time. Also, Shoemaker's rookie season was pretty fantastic too. 

If you rule out a bad stretch last year and the opening to this season from Shoe, he's been a very good top of the rotation type pitcher. 

You do not need to throw 98 MPH to be classified as an ACE. Max Scherzer in his 19 K performance this season was throwing 91-95 MPH, sitting mostly at 92-93 the entire game. It was his wipe out slider and pinpoint control that led to that dominating start -- something that GR too has not been able to do on a consistent basis. There's more times than not that Richards' high octane fastball has so much movement that he doesn't know how to locate it and he finds himself walking batters, hitting batters and throwing a ton of wild pitches, which also led to just 5-6 inning outings which tax the bullpen. 

[DMVol]

12 hours ago, tdawg87 said:

They pretty much have to sign a starter this offseason. Unfortunately there aren't really any decent options.

Doesn't have to be a top of the rotation guy if Santiago, Tropeano, Shoe and Skaggs all stay healthy and continue to pitch well.....and you'll have money to spend with Weaver, CJ, Joe Smith, maybe Escobar, maybe Street off the books.....

[AngelsLakersFan]

14 hours ago, fan_since79 said:

You can't trade him. No way. He's turning into a legit ace before our very eyes.

That took guts to hang in there at the end and get those two strikeouts. He's finally coming into his own.

 

 

Honestly, I don't want to be the pessimist here but I don't think he's going to be able to keep this up. He is doing this almost entirely based on the effectiveness of one great pitch, and that is a pitch that has historically burned through arms. 

Right now he is all splitter/fastball. And it's working because they can't hit the splitter and can't tell the difference between it and the fastball. Hitters are seeing the splitter so often that I can't help but believe that eventually they will make an adjustment. Very few starters can work effectively with just two pitches. It reminds me very much of Francisco Rodriguez's slider when he came up in '02. Eventually hitters adjusted to the pitch and KRod had to learn to get guys out with his fastball.

[Blarg]

He threw basically the same amount of fastballs (73% strikes) as sliders (63% strikes) to set up his dominant splitters. When hitter see most of his fastballs and secondary pitch the slider being called as strikes they are more apt to react to a spilt as if it will stay in the zone and look pretty foolish like the last two batter yesterday, swinging at air. His success is a product of the split fingered pitch but it is set up by two pitches, not one. He needs only enough control of the fastball as a show me to take advantage of the other pitches.

You are right about splitters being the death of pitchers. It puts far more strain on the elbow and shoulder which is harder to recover from if you end up with labrum tears. I can only think this is not the 70-80's splitter that made and wrecked Donnie Moore's career.

[AngelsLongBall]

2 hours ago, tdawg87 said:

He says he waxes but that entire area is smoother than Billy Dee Williams at a Princess Leia cosplay party. 

Dolphin smooth?

[Revad]

Perfectly shaved?

[AngelsFanSince86]

All I have to say is that every time some East coast pitcher throws a complete game with 12+ SO he gets tons of articles.  Shoemaker has been downright dominant since he came back and just pitched a 13 SO complete game shutout walking nobody with 115 pitches and the only articles are about how the Whitesox got shutout for the third time in a row.

 

Wainwright got tons of articles on his 3 hit shutout where he struck out 5 and walked 2 in 120 pitches.

[AngelsLakersFan]

1 hour ago, Blarg said:

He threw basically the same amount of fastballs (73% strikes) as sliders (63% strikes) to set up his dominant splitters. When hitter see most of his fastballs and secondary pitch the slider being called as strikes they are more apt to react to a spilt as if it will stay in the zone and look pretty foolish like the last two batter yesterday, swinging at air. His success is a product of the split fingered pitch but it is set up by two pitches, not one. He needs only enough control of the fastball as a show me to take advantage of the other pitches.

You are right about splitters being the death of pitchers. It puts far more strain on the elbow and shoulder which is harder to recover from if you end up with labrum tears. I can only think this is not the 70-80's splitter that made and wrecked Donnie Moore's career.

I think some of his splitters might be misclassified as a slider. They say he is throwing two types of splitters, one that drops and another that fades. I'm not sure if there is any practical difference though.

[Oz27]

26 minutes ago, AngelsFanSince86 said:

All I have to say is that every time some East coast pitcher throws a complete game with 12+ SO he gets tons of articles.  Shoemaker has been downright dominant since he came back and just pitched a 13 SO complete game shutout walking nobody with 115 pitches and the only articles are about how the Whitesox got shutout for the third time in a row.

 

Wainwright got tons of articles on his 3 hit shutout where he struck out 5 and walked 2 in 120 pitches.

Shoemaker's resurgence has earned him a lot of coverage. If he didn't play on a team that is going to lose 95 or more, he would have got more coverage - wherever that team was located.

[daygloman]

17 hours ago, Chuckster70 said:

Hell of a performance. 

I'm both excited  that we have our own version of a Corey Kluber type ACE, or getting a nice haul as far as prospects if we were to trade him.

Honestly, I'm more excited about the former than the latter. 

 

I was at the game. 

I was actually surprised at how low the attendance was. 

He warmed up right in front of me, quickly progressing into long toss. Section 106.

He pitched a gem, getting out of a couple of spots. He was nails!

The fireworks after, were spectacular as well!

A nice day at the park last night!

[Chuck]

2 hours ago, daygloman said:

I was at the game. 

I was actually surprised at how low the attendance was. 

Orange County has casual Angels fans which a good handful are fairweather. 

That said, even if I still lived in So. Cal I wouldn't go as much. I mean when I was living there, I only attended 10-12 games a season. Honestly I prefer watching at home.

The Angels play the M's at least 9 times up here at Safeco Field and I go to about 6-8 of the games.