Tommy La Stella

[Angel Oracle]

How soon before Rengifo is ready?

Meantime, we all could use some Stella Artois to numb the frustration over watching him try to hit.

[Stradling]

22 minutes ago, RBM said:

@Stradling do you think Tommy La Stella should be our starting second baseman right now? Yes or no.

 

No

[TroutField]

9 minutes ago, Angel Oracle said:

How soon before Rengifo is ready?

Meantime, we all could use some Stella Artois to numb the frustration over watching him try to hit.

I don’t see how Rengifo and Ward could have done any worse so far than La Stella and Cozart. At least they are young with upside and we could have seen what we had with them, Fletch could have been the utility guy. 

[HaloWay94]

51 minutes ago, Stradling said:

Ok, so math won’t tell you if a player will perform but your eyes will, got it.  We have seen that Fletcher doesn’t like taking a walk, we have seen that in the majors during his short time and we saw it in the minors.  

 

Yes.  Numbers are valuable, but when you have two similar players, you gotta trust what you see.  You have to look at small details of the game, their mental makeup, and if they bring something to the table. La Stella's ridiculous cutoff the other night wont show up in anyone's stats.  It's not an error.  But it's a huge indicator that shouldn't be ignored. On the other hand Fletch beating the shift against the dodgers in the freeway series is a positive that shouldn't be ignored.  But you won't find it in the stats.

The walk thing is a fair point. And that's probably Fletch's weakest point outside of his obvious lack in power.  But becoming more patient as a hitter is something that he can develop.  We're acting like he's stuck at a 5% walk rate. But even with his lack of patience, La Stella doesn't have the upside to justify him getting a platoon job.  

 

And no this switch wouldn't fix us being 1-3.  But it's something that bugs me as a fan of the team and fan of Fletcher.  Any way you slice it, we just have to try to stay alive until Ohtani's back. 

[AngelsFaninGA]

It's pretty much written into the league rules at this point that every year the Angels are required to give 200+ PA's to at least one horrifyingly awful player for no reason (Espinosa, Joyce, Valbuena, La Stella, etc). 

[Inside Pitch]

39 minutes ago, OCAngelsNotLAA said:

We had 3 hits opening day and La Stella had one of them.  To sit him the very next game might send the wrong message.  I would rather reward the players that perform than to stick to a strick platoon.  But then again, interupting that r throw from Kole to second could have garnered a benching on its own.

These are professional baseball players -- those sorts of messages exist more in the heads of fans than they do in the clubhouse.   If anything, given the fact that the organization claims to be trying to be moving more towards an analytics based process, then they are undermining their self proclaimed intent by ignoring data to try to give a player what amounts to an "atta-boy".

[Hubs]

I never understood this signing. Especially after they signed Justin Bour.

There are now 5 lefties on the team in LaStella, Bour, Goodwin, and Calhoun. Ohtani will be five when he comes back.

[Angel Oracle]

It's like they over compensated for the lack of lefty hitters in 2018?

[stormngt]

31 minutes ago, AngelsFaninGA said:

It's pretty much written into the league rules at this point that every year the Angels are required to give 200+ PA's to at least one horrifyingly awful player for no reason (Espinosa, Joyce, Valbuena, La Stella, etc). 

F'n Scioscia

[Inside Pitch]

25 minutes ago, Hubs said:

I never understood this signing. Especially after they signed Justin Bour.

There are now 5 lefties on the team in LaStella, Bour, Goodwin, and Calhoun. Ohtani will be five when he comes back.

Bour and Goodwin both came on AFTER the Angels had traded for La Stella.

[Angel Oracle]

Is the plan to give Rengifo all of April in AAA, and if he dominates at SLC, then call him up to take over 2B?

[Angel Oracle]

2 hours ago, OCAngelsNotLAA said:

We had 3 hits opening day and La Stella had one of them.  To sit him the very next game might send the wrong message.  I would rather reward the players that perform than to stick to a strick platoon.  But then again, interupting that r throw from Kole to second could have garnered a benching on its own.

That was his only hit in the three games he played in.

[Hubs]

Offense is clearly the problem, and no one is really producing this series. Yet they still scored 9 runs and allowed only 12.

I hope they get a bit better this week.

 

[Jeff Fletcher]

3 hours ago, RBM said:

But Eppler already made a move. The wrong move IMO. He replaced Fletcher with La Stella. Fletcher was proficient last year. La Stella is a career bench player but Eppler decided he was suddenly a starting second baseman. Fletcher is probably more suited as a utility guy but he is much more capable than La Stella.

They are both going to play. They didn’t send Fletcher to Siberia. 

[Dick Enberg]

11 minutes ago, Jeff Fletcher said:

They are both going to play. They didn’t send Fletcher to Siberia. 

Might has well have. Its Felix pitching tonight, correct? if so, Tommy be starting....

[Jeff Fletcher]

2 minutes ago, RBM said:

I said this on another post. It appears the decision Eppler made is to platoon them with La Stella getting most of the starts. I believe that is wrong. La Stella is a bench player/spot starter. He’s has had 96 starts in the last four years so about one per week. Now he’ll get 4-6 per week? Not good. 

I wouldn’t make that assumption based on 4 games. Ausmus said clearly that Fletcher would play against some RHs too. Let it play out and see what happens. 

The bottom line, for me, is the players are similar and it appears both will get significant playing time, so let’s see what happens. 

[Dick Enberg]

a few of my co-workers who are novice fans at best, asked me this morning "where the hell did that idiot LaStella come from?"

[mulwin444]

6 pages on Tommy LaStella after 4 games...I forgot how exhausting the regular season can be around here

[Jeff Fletcher]

2 minutes ago, RBM said:

Jeff, this thread was started by Doc discussing La Stella not looking like an MLB starter. I agree and don't think he should be starting or in a platoon. He would have been fine as a Lefty bench guy and a spot starter. There are/were other options. My hope is that Rengifo kills it in SLC and takes the job in May.

There are a lot of guys who start in the majors but aren’t ideal starters.

If you have one or two below average starters, you’re still pretty good. If you have four or five, you’re in trouble. 

I think the Angels were hoping that some combination of La Stella-Fletcher-Ward-Rengifo could make an average MLB starter at 2B/3B. At the moment that seems optimistic, but there’s a long way to go. 

[Roy Hobbs]

I predict we'll see La Stella at 2nd and Fletcher at 3rd tonight.No Cozart.

[Jay]

59 minutes ago, Roy Hobbs said:

I predict we'll see La Stella at 2nd and Fletcher at 3rd tonight.No Cozart.

You are correct, sir.

[arch stanton]

It seems like what you have here are two players neither of whom you see as  140 start 2Bman. So maybe we give management more than 4 games to decide their optimum usage while keeping in mind that hindsight can’t be part of the process 

[Taylor]

bump

[Broad Street]

Here comes Bump Clause, here comes Bump Clause right down Angels win laaaaane!

[Lou]

I miss HaloWay94