What could have been.

[Blarg]

Can anyone name the last SS we had that produced 17 home runs in a season?

Try Jim Fregosi in 1970. 

[BTH]

2 hours ago, Torridd said:

I really think the outfield isn't a big issue. Let Moniak/Adell fight it out. We need to concentrate more on SS and pitching. I like what Rengifo has done but I don't think he's necessarily ready for prime time. Thoughts? 

Team ranks by position:

LF: 0.1 fWAR (27th)

SS: 1.5 fWAR (23rd)

SP: 14.6 fWAR (7th)

RP: 1.6 fWAR (24th)

 

LF is the most drastic need, imo.

[Torridd]

2 hours ago, Blarg said:

He is playing in prime time. It's not as though he has been platooned for pitching match ups the last two months. He has played in almost the same amount of games as Erick Aybar at the same age and has put up an near identical OPS+. The Angels would have to find a much greater upside free agent to move Rengifo off a starting role and its possible he would still push Fletcher to the bench as a super sub. 

So you really think he has turned the corner, like Ward? He's "official"?

[Torridd]

6 hours ago, Dtwncbad said:

Given that I am not very excited about Walsh being part of the plan going forward. . . I wouldn’t complete dismiss the idea of Rendon just being the full time 1B.  Yes he is a great defensive 3B when healthy, but maybe the Angels should just do whatever is necessary to minimize his injury risk.  And Rengifo looks like he can handle the job at 3rd.

Still need a SS that can hit though.

Am I the only one willing to give Walsh another shot? I love his defense and I wonder how much of this injury messed up this season. Can a new pitching coach do magic with he and Adell?

[Blarg]

56 minutes ago, Torridd said:

So you really think he has turned the corner, like Ward? He's "official"?

Yes. Why would you ignore what he has done? It's not a fluke, it was hard work and adaptation to the competition. 

[Blarg]

56 minutes ago, Torridd said:

Am I the only one willing to give Walsh another shot? I love his defense and I wonder how much of this injury messed up this season. Can a new pitching coach do magic with he and Adell?

I have no problem with Walsh picking up where he left off before injury. Someone posted a graph of hard hit balls and you could see how after mid June his numbers fell off the chart. It wasn't he forgot how to swing, it was he couldn't due to injury. They had no replacement player so they kept putting him out there and it just fell apart.

That was no indicator of future results. It was simply a lost season to injury. I expect he will return healthy and with the shift ban his hitting should be better than previous seasons. 

[BTH]

4 hours ago, Torridd said:

Am I the only one willing to give Walsh another shot? I love his defense and I wonder how much of this injury messed up this season. Can a new pitching coach do magic with he and Adell?

 

3 hours ago, Blarg said:

I have no problem with Walsh picking up where he left off before injury. Someone posted a graph of hard hit balls and you could see how after mid June his numbers fell off the chart. It wasn't he forgot how to swing, it was he couldn't due to injury. They had no replacement player so they kept putting him out there and it just fell apart.

That was no indicator of future results. It was simply a lost season to injury. I expect he will return healthy and with the shift ban his hitting should be better than previous seasons. 

Ideally, I'd prefer that the Angels get a quality 1B and push Walsh down the depth chart so that they don't have to count on him as the 1B. But I recognize that's probably unlikely considering the budget will be limited and there are other areas of need and I'm OK with giving Walsh another shot if you have a competent backup plan.

I think his injury affected his performance this season, but I don't expect a return to his 2020 and 2021 performance levels (especially when he'll be coming back from surgery).

[Blarg]

You do realize he has 6 months of recovery time before spring training starts? He has been doing PT for the last 3 weeks. 

[Tank]

5 hours ago, Torridd said:

Am I the only one willing to give Walsh another shot? I love his defense and I wonder how much of this injury messed up this season. Can a new pitching coach do magic with he and Adell?

No you’re not, not at all. I think it’s still his job to lose. 
 

Hopefully he returns to his 2021 form. He was fun to watch last year.

[HaloBronco]

I wouldn’t give up on Walsh.

If healthy, Walsh should be the starting first baseman. 

He’s proven he can hit well when healthy and he’s definitely a gold glove caliber first baseman.

[stormngt]

9 hours ago, Torridd said:

I really think the outfield isn't a big issue. Let Moniak/Adell fight it out. We need to concentrate more on SS and pitching. I like what Rengifo has done but I don't think he's necessarily ready for prime time. Thoughts? 

What would convince you that ge us ready?   He can't do more than what ge has done this year.

We have a lot of cheap depth at middle infielder:  Fletch, Rengifo, and Soto.  I can see bringing in a middle infielder and keeping Soto in minors.  But his performance can't be any better. 

Rendon is injury prone.  That's why I advocate bringing in a back up offensive threat for 3b and 1b.

[Docwaukee]

1 hour ago, stormngt said:

That's why I advocate bringing in a back up offensive threat for 3b and 1b.

Preferably 1b, 3b, and LF without giving away anything on the prevention side.  The problem is finding that guy and whether they're willing to pay the asking price.  They should have done it for 2022 instead of wasting 18m mil on a trio of relievers who functioned like...well...relievers.  14.5 mil still committed to 2023.  I would salary dump that crap decision in a heartbeat and take my chances on finding a couple clean peanuts for the pen if it meant Improving MIF, corner IF and LF depth.  But there likely ain't a team out there willing to pay the full freight on either of those guys even if we gave them away for a bag of balls.  The only thing worse that paying decent sums of money for middle relief is doing it for more than one year.  

Now you're almost half obligated to giving these two a chance in high leverage next year with your fingers crossed and then do a mid season card trick of shuffling guys around until you find adequate replacements.  By that time they've already cost the team several games.  

[Docwaukee]

14 hours ago, Trendon said:

I really hope the Angels hire a new hitting coach because I think Adell (among others) needs to hear a different voice.

Reed has been his minor league hitting coordinator or his major league hitting coach for the majority of Adell’s professional career.

Adell is either ultra stubborn or thick or both.  My guess is it's more the former than the latter.  OR he's just being given bad advice.  Like 'keep doing what you're doing', 'plugging away and it'll get better'.  

There are a couple of fundamental flaws with his game both offensively and defensively.   Both he, and maybe the Angels as well keep thinking his quick twitch athleticism will eventually take over and turn him into a baseball player.  I've said this before and I'll say it again.  He's not a baseball player.  In my opinion, they've either been approaching his development all wrong or he's just not listening.  

He's a great athlete.  He's not a great baseball athlete.  I would argue that his eye hand coordination isn't all that great as it relates to his peers.  In fact, both at the plate and on defense it's very often looked awkward as shit.  

His 'athleticism' isn't going to come through if they don't almost kinda go back to the fundamentals with him in some ways.  And I say in some ways because it would really take him much time if they did it right.  I don't know if this is the greatest example, I look at a guy like Josh Allen and his development on the football field.  He's a freak when it comes to tools but they either forced or he accepted taking a fundamental approach as a QB to go from that guy with tools into an actual QB.  

They seem to have done this on the defensive side with him because they recognized his lack of experience as a LFer and there's nuance to recognizing the way the bat comes off the ball and no amount of 'tools' would allow you to overcome poor technique and a lack of experience.  

How come they're not doing this with him at the plate?  To me, and maybe I'm wrong, players should be developing pitch recognition and over time you develop this 'bank' of stuff you know how to hit and hit hard.  Do you know why he's got a 4% bb rate, a 38% k rate, at .224 BA and a .336 BABIP?  Because he's never been taught or told or he's just not listening that he literally needs to make contact and his bat speed will do the rest.  But no.  It's see ball, swing as hard as you can at ball.  The other thought is that he has been working on this an he just sucks at it but I don't think so.  

And a couple of other things.  He's gotten worse this year at the major league level because now pitchers have seen him and they know how to approach him.  And no about of 'adjustments' to how they approach him etc. is going to help unless he spends some time actually working on making.  friggin. contact.  

The second thing, which correlates to the first, is that AAA is worthless for him.  The ball doesn't spin the same way it does any where else.  It's just a false sense of security.  

Do you know why I'm cautiously optimistic about a guy like Rengifo and what he's doing?  Because even though his walk rate is low, he's got 38 extra base hits and a 15% walk rate with a babip of .308 in his last 382 plate appearances.  and that 10% bb rate will show up when it needs to.  And if it doesn't need to, he'll just keep hitting the shit out of the ball if they keep throwing him pitches that he can hit the shit out of.  In other words, he's now got that data bank of pitches that he can hit hard and pitchers have to figure out how to work around that.  

Adell doesn't.  He's literally swiss cheese at the plate and all a pitcher has to do is hope they don't get unlucky that 3-5% of the time where he guesses right and the bat happens to meet the ball for that 450 foot hr over both bullpens.  

[Inside Pitch]

15 hours ago, Torridd said:

I really think the outfield isn't a big issue. Let Moniak/Adell fight it out. We need to concentrate more on SS and pitching. I like what Rengifo has done but I don't think he's necessarily ready for prime time. Thoughts? 

So, you think a corner OF spot where power and offense are common isn't a big issue but you have doubts about Rengifo being ready for prime time?  

Oh boy!

 

[Blarg]

The one thing I've seen about Adell's plate appearances is he pushes a lot of 2-2 and 3-2 counts even after startig 0-2. I don't think it's as much a pitch recognition problem as contact. He trys to not be caught looking on strike 3 and does foul off quite a few pitches. I haven't checked but I think you would find his last couple months he sees a lot of pitches as opposed to getting himself out early in counts.

Driveline from October through December then a tune up in February before Spring Training. 

[Revad]

2 hours ago, Blarg said:

The one thing I've seen about Adell's plate appearances is he pushes a lot of 2-2 and 3-2 counts even after startig 0-2. I don't think it's as much a pitch recognition problem as contact. He trys to not be caught looking on strike 3 and does foul off quite a few pitches. I haven't checked but I think you would find his last couple months he sees a lot of pitches as opposed to getting himself out early in counts.

Driveline from October through December then a tune up in February before Spring Training. 

How does that work exactly- the team wants him to go and do a particular task like driveline in the winter, can they just tell him to do it and he has to as part of his contract or does he need to agree?

[DCAngelsFan]

I've by no means watched Adell very much this season, but it feels like what @Blarg is saying, that he's not getting himself out early on bad pitches as often, and is getting more pitchers per AB (too lazy to prove that with stats, tho)

But I still see too many awkward swings with a big, looping upper-cut which have little chance of making contact.

He does need a full offseason of diligent work on mechanics of his swing to get more consistent contact - or maybe he needs a hypnotist.

Whatever he needs, hoping he fixes things isn't a solution to us competing - "hope" isn't a plan.

If we don't get a 800-ish LF'er next season, we're just not serious - thinking Nimmo, Benintindi (but will settle for Judge )

 

[Blarg]

2 hours ago, Revad said:

How does that work exactly- the team wants him to go and do a particular task like driveline in the winter, can they just tell him to do it and he has to as part of his contract or does he need to agree?

He needs to agree. The day the season ends so does his paychecks. 

[Revad]

11 minutes ago, Blarg said:

He needs to agree. The day the season ends so does his paychecks. 

And the cost, I imagine it would be pricey?

[Blarg]

He has to invest in his future otherwise he won't have one. His base MLB salary this year would easily cover the costs. He has been earning over $4,300 each game on the MLB roster whether he played or watched from the bench. 

[ukyah]

i think of scott rolen when i think of rendon. other than the fact that rendon is smaller than rolen, which could be to his health advantage, i think they're very similar players in many ways. i expect rendon to bounce back once he gets over this series of mid career injuries. what's done is done as far as dollars spent.

[Revad]

30 minutes ago, Blarg said:

He has to invest in his future otherwise he won't have one. His base MLB salary this year would easily cover the costs. He has been earning over $4,300 each game on the MLB roster whether he played or watched from the bench. 

I agree.  Don’t the Angels have a developmental camp with a guy they swiped from Driveline?  Maybe send him there for a month.  Whatever it is, something needs to be tried.

 

[Torridd]

14 hours ago, stormngt said:

What would convince you that ge us ready?   He can't do more than what ge has done this year.

We have a lot of cheap depth at middle infielder:  Fletch, Rengifo, and Soto.  I can see bringing in a middle infielder and keeping Soto in minors.  But his performance can't be any better. 

Rendon is injury prone.  That's why I advocate bringing in a back up offensive threat for 3b and 1b.

I hope he is. I'm just not sure.

[stormngt]

Just now, Torridd said:

I hope he is. I'm just not sure.

We are never sure.  Walsh was an All Star in 2021 and we still aren't sure.  We can sign Vlad Jr and still won't be sure if he doesn't get hurt or goes into a contract long slump.

[AngelsLakersFan]

1 hour ago, Blarg said:

He has to invest in his future otherwise he won't have one. His base MLB salary this year would easily cover the costs. He has been earning over $4,300 each game on the MLB roster whether he played or watched from the bench. 

I think it's silly that the Angels wouldn't cover something like this.