Why are fans like this??

[thebloob]

1 hour ago, SoPas Angel said:

 

The Angels have not seen the postseason in five years despite having a once-in-a-generation player in Trout, and possibly a once-in-a-century player in Ohtani. This is the unhappiness unique to our family and it provides another level of fanaticism. 

If you have two once in a generation players on your roster at the same time, are they still once in a generation?

[Justin]

6 minutes ago, thebloob said:

If you have two once in a generation players on your roster at the same time, are they still once in a generation?

I had that same thought. But it's Sunday and I didn't feel like straining my brain. 

[Angelsjunky]

[Angelsjunky]

Baseball players are human beings, and I'm sure every one of them has days where it is hard to muster the energy to give it their all - especially when the team is playing so poorly. Everyone has off days. But for the most part? Absolutely, they care. They are professional, competitive athletes - they love baseball, they love competing, they want to win, whether it is a given game in September when they're out of the race or game 7 of the World Series. 

As for fans, let's face it: this is sports. The average sports fan is probably a bit below the curve in self-awareness. Add in the nature of Twitter and you're going to get the lowest common denominator.

[Tank]

Jeff,fans equate effort with emotion. If they see players yelling and screaming or the manager getting thrown out for arguing, that “looks” like they’re trying. Less than that comes across as a bunch ass-slapping goof offs who can’t wait to hit the golf course.

Theres another discussion on twitter right with angels fans who think Sosh would have gotten more out of this team this year than Ausmus. Unprovable, of course, but born out of frustration because fans just simply aren’t very logical.

 

[ScottT]

I dont think most fans are like that. Those fans are just louder. It's like anything else... people are more likely to post/voice complaints than praise.  Frustration causes people to say even more ridiculous things.

I always laugh when people say a team looks flat... or something similar. Especially when it comes to baseball.  

[Blarg]

Pujols stole 3rd base today.

[John Taylor]

I think motivation plays a big factor in it. There are different reasons why different players care. Some players continue to hustle out every ground ball because that's how they were coached, or how they are wired, or honestly its second nature to them. Some players care because they are free agents at the end of the season and are looking for that sweet payday, some players (specifically on this team) care because they don't want to let down their friend Tyler Skaggs. Some players may care more about leaving a legacy and racking up HoF numbers towards the end of the career, but when they started out they cared more about winning a World Series title.

A million motivations, and a million different levels of effort. It's not reasonable to assume every player can give 110 percent during every inning of ever game over 162 game span + Spring Training. Nobody would ever dare to question how much Mike Trout cares about baseball if he popped up a foul ball and didn't run full speed to first, we all know the guy cares as much, if not more, than anyone in baseball. I agree with @Jeff Fletcher here that even now, after this team has 0 chance of making the playoffs, they players still care, and they still do their best to put out as much effort as their bodies will allow this late in the season.

Players who don't care are the exception, not the rule, and tend to be out of baseball fairly quickly because the level at which they have to perform at to stay successful in baseball precludes those who don't give a shit. 

[John Taylor]

Also the fact that Jeff had to come here of all places to speak to a "reasonable" audience scares the crap out of me and has me worried about the future of humanity...

[eligrba]

6 hours ago, Calzone 2 said:

When you miss the playoffs for five years in a row despite having the best player in baseball and a very respectable payroll this stuff can happen. Arte sells 3 million tickets per season and we’re told that the Cardinals are the best fans in baseball. Yeah the fans are pissed off and rightly so. 

He was talking about fans not understanding reality. 

[m0nkey]

Fletcher hates idiots

[eligrba]

5 hours ago, Sherlock31 said:

Jeff sorry I disagree, if my team went 13-33 for their last 46 games, of course I'd want to know if they still care or not....

Why?

It's easier to becone a Yankee fan. There was an appreciation thread started for such "fans."

[tdawg87]

3 hours ago, thebloob said:

If you have two once in a generation players on your roster at the same time, are they still once in a generation?

[eligrba]

56 minutes ago, tdawg87 said:

This is what I imagine is happening in Ausmus’s head before he makes a stupid decision.

Edited September 15, 2019 by eligrba

[Stradling]

6 minutes ago, eligrba said:

This is what I imagine is happening in Ausmus’s head before he makes a stupid decision.

I’m almost positive that it’s the mathematical equation for altering a narrative. 

[ten ocho recon scout]

Its the same as fans wanting someone to blame.

First it was sosh. Now its ausmus. Or arte.

Sosh did well until the rosters got thin. Ausmus inherited that. Arte signed trout to the biggest deal in history. With pujols still on the books. After paying hamilton 5 years to get 2. After eating the wells money. Etc etc.

In short, this team is bad for a variety of reasons. Poor planning, and poor players.

I still think the future looks bright, though.

[Docwaukee]

First of all, Twitter isn't formatted to promote thoughtful discussion.  It's the ultimate drive by of emotional expression.  

Emotion is the currency of a fan.  They spend time and money for good feelings.  

There are a ton of Angel fans out there right now who probably feel like they've been sold a bill of goods.  Most here know more than the casual fan so we can rationalize a whole bunch of stuff.  Those casual fans don't care why Eppler signed who he did and what his restrictions were there and what he's done behind the scenes to make things better for the future.  They only see what's right in front of them and they're pissed because they wasted their time and money on it.  

There is also a tipping point for most people and it's likely different for everyone.  Yet, when a team goes 14-33 over a long stretch when they were initially supposed to be competitive, I think that's enough to pull almost everyone who bought into this team over the edge in terms of realizing that their money and time is being poorly spent and that they're not getting the return they expected.  

And let's be honest.  14-33 is an absolute shit show.  That's a 48 win pace over the course of a season.  Not very many fans are going to be able to rationalize that.  Especially the general fan who takes to twitter to express their frustration.  Even I'm having a hard time with it frankly.  It's really hard for me to believe that the players are 100% focused on winning baseball games right now.   They are human beings and while they may feel like they are giving their best effort, it's totally reasonable why their heart is not totally in it.  

Maybe it's because people perceive what they want to justify their response, and maybe I am guilty of that as well, but when if I watch the games of late, I totally see that bad body language and get a sense that they just want the year to be over.  That doesn't mean they aren't trying, but the focus just doesn't seem to be there to me.  Granted, I completely understand in lieu of what's happened and totally think it's reasonable.  We all go through stretches where extenuating circumstances cause this sort of thing.  But the general fan isn't going to think that much about it.  They're just gonna be upset that they're not getting what they expected in return and when they express that through twitter, it's gonna be exactly what you'd expect to see.  

Just like the players deserve the benefit of the doubt, so do the fans.  I would like to think that people could be better at expressing their frustrations in a reasonable way but most just don't want to take the time to think it through when they've already invested what they think is enough of their time and money on this team with nothing in return.  

[red321]

While I haven't watched a game in weeks, and couldn't tell you who is on the roster or not...pretty sure most of the guys out on the field right now are guys trying to show they belong with either the Angels or someone else. Of course they're trying, they just aren't very good.

if folks are still getting that worked up about the Angels losing at this point, they probably need to spend some time doing some soul searching. 

[Homebrewer]

The laziness is in the front office...or is that just plain old stupidity?

Who looked at that pitching staff and thought "yes sir...all set here, ready to go" ? 

[Jeff Fletcher]

The other thing is they literally can’t fix it now. After July 31, that’s it. You can do virtually nothing till November. No amount of screaming will make November come any sooner. 

A lot of bad stuff happened to get the Angels here but right now we’re in a three-month limbo between when it happened and when it can be fixed. 

So it seems like a waste of time to just keep getting angrier and angrier about it. It is the ultimate beating a dead horse. It’s like a kid sitting in the back seat every 5 minutes saying “are we there yet?” 

If really upsets you that much, and you can’t find little bits of encouragement (Patrick Sandoval?) to get you through, you ought to stop watching, because it’s going to be ugly for two more weeks.

(Crossthread: imagine playing multiple seasons in a row that all looked like the last month, and then decide if you’d rather the Angels “blow it up.”)

I guess I should be happy that people are so emotionally invested because those are my readers. Lol

[red321]

24 minutes ago, Jeff Fletcher said:

The other thing is they literally can’t fix it now. After July 31, that’s it. You can do virtually nothing till November. No amount of screaming will make November come any sooner. 

A lot of bad stuff happened to get the Angels here but right now we’re in a three-month limbo between when it happened and when it can be fixed. 

So it seems like a waste of time to just keep getting angrier and angrier about it. It is the ultimate beating a dead horse. It’s like a kid sitting in the back seat every 5 minutes saying “are we there yet?” 

If really upsets you that much, and you can’t find little bits of encouragement (Patrick Sandoval?) to get you through, you ought to stop watching, because it’s going to be ugly for two more weeks.

(Crossthread: imagine playing multiple seasons in a row that all looked like the last month, and then decide if you’d rather the Angels “blow it up.”)

I guess I should be happy that people are so emotionally invested because those are my readers. Lol

They should have fixed it last offseason when they bought multiple lottery tickets and hoped they'd turn up winners (Allen, Cahill, Harvey). A true contending team can't count on scratching off multiple winners in order to compete. Even with Skaggs, reality was the organization wasn't honest with itself if it thought it had a contending pitching staff. If folks want to beat a dead horse, there's a bit of that tail left.

Other than that...go enjoy other things...if you have to watch the Halos treat it like a spring training game (which, I'm guessing the Halo roster looks a lot like right now)

[tdawg87]

30 minutes ago, Jeff Fletcher said:

The other thing is they literally can’t fix it now. After July 31, that’s it. You can do virtually nothing till November. No amount of screaming will make November come any sooner. 

A lot of bad stuff happened to get the Angels here but right now we’re in a three-month limbo between when it happened and when it can be fixed. 

So it seems like a waste of time to just keep getting angrier and angrier about it. It is the ultimate beating a dead horse. It’s like a kid sitting in the back seat every 5 minutes saying “are we there yet?” 

If really upsets you that much, and you can’t find little bits of encouragement (Patrick Sandoval?) to get you through, you ought to stop watching, because it’s going to be ugly for two more weeks.

(Crossthread: imagine playing multiple seasons in a row that all looked like the last month, and then decide if you’d rather the Angels “blow it up.”)

I guess I should be happy that people are so emotionally invested because those are my readers. Lol

I don't get it either. Passion is one thing, but if winning or losing has that much of an impact on life, you should go follow whatever team is winning. 

[Jeff Fletcher]

48 minutes ago, red321 said:

A true contending team can't count on scratching off multiple winners in order to compete. Even with Skaggs, reality was the organization wasn't honest with itself if it thought it had a contending pitching staff.

I don’t think they expected to win 90 games with that pitching staff. 

I think they couldn’t get the guys they wanted, so they took what was left and hoped for the best, fully aware that it may not work, but if it didn’t work they could just try again in a year. 

[angelsnationtalk]

6 minutes ago, Jeff Fletcher said:

I don’t think they expected to win 90 games with that pitching staff. 

I think they couldn’t get the guys they wanted, so they took what was left and hoped for the best, fully aware that it may not work, but if it didn’t work they could just try again in a year. 

Basically to sum it up is 2020 could look a whole lot different than 2019 and our complaining asses could go from "boo" to "woo". 

[aznhockeyguy]

People and especially fans are unrealistic.  I'm sure these fans are always giving 100% effort in everything that they do and never dogging it even for one second.