Components of a Contender - and why the Angels are better than you might think

[Chuck]

2 hours ago, tdawg87 said:

AJ, why do you do this?

 

2 hours ago, Angelsjunky said:

Why do you think some random baseball nerd has this much power?

I'll take the L tonight. 

After my company left I turned on the game and it was 2-0 Angels. As soon as I turned the game Mike Trout grounded into a double play. The very next inning the Ohtani train derailed. The bullpen blew up. Game over! 

Had a couple over for dinner, he's from Chicago. Big Cubs fan.

Anyhow, when Frank found out I was an Angels fan after showing him my office, he asked me how I liked Joe Maddon. Before I could get one word out he said "he's pretty awful, isn't he?". "He makes the dumbest on the field decisions. I don't know one Cubs fan that likes him. They were so happy when he left.".

[Docwaukee]

looking pretty .500 ish to me.  They've got some really good players and several others that play a fair amount who aren't very good.  The thing that disappoints me the most is that it didn't have to be like this.  

[WicketMaiden]

I'm going to reserve judgement until we're at the All-star break. This team has a lot of young and inexperienced players, players who will likely be better in the last 60 games than the first 60, so I fully expect the team to have it's ups and downs to begin with. Trout and Rendon must be rusty as hell after playing so little baseball in 2020 and 2021; and with a shortened Spring Training Shohei is clearly behind the curve with his timing and fitness, he always looks poor in the first few weeks of Spring. 

If the team is around .500 at the break I'll be happy and hoping for a strong run down the stretch in a similar vein to the Braves' run last year. In the meantime, I'm just going to enjoy the developmental ups and downs of these young and exciting players and not give in to Maddon's trolling. (His logic is so abstruse that trolling has become my best explanation for his running of the team.)

[Lou]

@Tank

Jeff Fletcher like my Ohio State post. 

[Torridd]

10 hours ago, Dochalo said:

looking pretty .500 ish to me.  They've got some really good players and several others that play a fair amount who aren't very good.  The thing that disappoints me the most is that it didn't have to be like this.  

What do you mean? Picking up a free agent pitcher?

[Angelsjunky]

22 hours ago, Angelsjunky said:

This is a good team. How good remains to be determined. But I see a team that, barring utter disaster still wins at least 85 games - something they haven't done since 2015. If more goes right than wrong, we could be looking at 90+ games. This isn't the Astros or the Dodgers, but it is a team that is going to play competitive baseball this year. After the last six seasons, what more could we ask for?

Nothing has changed in 24 hours - the above holds true, imo.

But let me clarify something, as some seem to have missed the point of this thread. I did not say that the Angels are a contender, I said that they are a good team and could be good enough to contend. 

Furthermore, I said they are going to play competitive baseball. That means they aren't going to be a roll-over team and, I think--again, barring disaster--aren't simply going to be a .500 team. I set 85 wins as a baseline for a reasonable expectation, but that's really plus or minus 2 or 3 wins - so if they go 83-79, it is basically the same.

But a key point of my original post is that the Angels have the components to win 90 games, which is why I predicted 91-71 before the season started. But I wouldn't be surprised by anything within the 82-92 range, which I suppose places my over/under at 87 wins, so 91 is on the optimistic side of what I reasonably expect. But why the fuck not?

 

 

[HanfordGuy]

15 hours ago, tdawg87 said:

Magical.

Moxie + Magical = Moxical! This team is “Moxical!”

[HanfordGuy]

19 hours ago, Bronson said: