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https://blogs.fangraphs.com/patrick-sandovals-changeup-is-a-whiff-machine/

Always nice to read positive things about an Angels pitcher.

AngelsWin.com interview of GM of Los Angeles Angels - Tony Reagins


Interview conducted by @Lou - AngelsWin.com Contributor 

November 17th, 2007

Prior to joining the Commissioner’s Office as Chief Baseball Development Officer on August 20th, 2020, Reagins held several key roles with the Los Angeles Angels. His unique career path began with a marketing/advertising sales and baseball operations internship with the Angels before transitioning full-time to the baseball side. He served as the team’s Director of Player Development and then became the fifth African-American General Manager in baseball history. As General Manager of the Angels, Reagins amassed a record of 363-285 (.560), averaging nearly 91 wins per season. His highlights included the Club’s consecutive American League West crowns in 2008-09 and its first 100-win season in franchise history in ’08, which resulted in Reagins being named the Rube Foster American League Executive of the Year. Reagins is a native of Indio, California and graduated from California State University, Fullerton in 1991.

Here are the transcripts of those interviews below. 

Gameday Thread: Angels @ Yankees (6/30/2021): Ohtani pitching, leading off; Gosselin in LF, hitting cleanup

Gameday Thread: Angels @ Yankees (6/29/2021): Schebler back in LF, Ward in CF, Rengifo in RF

I am a little torn on this one. Iglesias is one of the few (if not only) valuable pieces to our bullpen. He also might be one of our only valuable trade chips if the team continues to fall further behind in the playoff race. Do we take a chance, trade him and try again to look for a closer via another trade or free agency? Or do we lock him up for the foreseeable future?

All of this is highly subjective, so feel free to tell me I'm an idoit. Very simply, a 50 FV prospect projects to be an average regular; everything above that is good or better (55 = good regular, 60 = all-star, etc), and everything below that is worse (45 = fringe regular/platoon, 40 = bench, etc).

LIKELY means I would be surprised if the player in question wasn't traded. MAYBE means there's at least a 50-50 chance. UNLIKELY means I would be surprised, but it could happen given the right set of circumstances.

Gameday Thread: Angels @ Yankees (6/28/2021): Schebler in LF, Rengifo in RF again

By Tres Hefter @totdprods AngelsWin.com Columnist

The pendulum shifted back towards the Angels pitching prospects over the last two weeks, as many arms posted some of their best games yet. With the Angels playoff hopes becoming increasingly cloudy and the trade deadline nearing, a significant number of pending promotions could begin to test some of the strong early results posted by the Angels minor league arms. 


--Pitchers--

1) Reid Detmers – LHP, Rocket City, AA:

It is becoming increasingly plausible that Reid Detmers will not be on these lists much longer. The Angels 2020 first round took his strong AA performance to an entirely new level over the last two weeks, striking out thirty hitters in 12 innings, including an immaculate inning to start one game. There were a couple blemishes as he allowed four HR and 7 ER in this span, leading to an uninspiring 5.25 ERA across these two starts, but that quickly pales in comparison to the 3 walks to 30 strikeouts amassed in that time, and could simply be a result of Detmers burning through the competition without much concern if he allowed a longball or two along the way. Simply put, Detmers struck out more than half of the hitters he faced in June while controlling the zone and limiting damage, meaning there might not be much more to gain in AA, and with AAA’s hitter-friendly confines and arguably lesser quality of opponent, Detmers could find himself in Anaheim perhaps as soon as the July 30th deadline passes.

2021 (RCT AA): 3.95 ERA, 1.24 WHIP, .237 BAA, 8 HR allowed, 14 BB, 76 K across 41 IP in 9 G/9 GS

Gameday Thread: Angels @ Rays (6/27/2021): Fletcher leading off, Gosselin in LF

... and the same questionable OF alignment as last night. 

Gameday Thread: Angels @ Rays (6/25/2021): Ohtani leading off, Rengifo in RF hitting 2nd

Gameday Thread: Giants @ Angels (6.23.2021) Ohtani on the mound & lineup, no Upton!

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/raisel-iglesias-lefty-and-righty-specialist/

Gameday Thread: Giants @ Angels (6/22/2021): Heaney on the mound, Rendon dropped to 5th

I wanted to start this thread about our opinions of baseball today versus how maybe we viewed it 20-30 years ago.  

I started thinking about how pitchers are used today, where the manager for most pitchers ask the average pitcher to give the team about 5 innings.  Obviously there are stud pitchers out there that give their team close to 7 innings per outing, but that is the outlier and not the expectation.  So if you think back to 20 or 30 years ago pitchers were often getting into and out of trouble in their outings.  You would see a pitcher allow a couple of base runners in the 5th or 6th inning and then get out of the jam or even give up a run or two, get out of it and then come back out the next inning to pitch.  It certainly feels like that doesn't happen anymore.  Sure for a lot of teams you will see a pitcher in the first 3 or so innings give up a couple of runs and they get to continue to pitch.  But almost never does a pitcher give up a couple in the 5th and they are given the 6th to go get outs. 

Maybe some of you disagree with this but it is just how I see the game.  So my question is this, 20 or 30 years ago when a pitcher got into trouble in the 5th or 6th innings were you pissed off that the manager didn't have someone warming up and clamoring to have the pitcher pulled?  I don't remember feeling that way.  I remember expecting the starter to go 7 innings.  Watching a game today it feels like I am EXPECTING a pitching warming up the minute a starter gets into trouble from the 4th inning on. 

I am wondering if that has changed our perceptions of good outings or bad outings.  Has that changed our expectation as a fan of what we expect from managers or pitchers?  Does it make us blame the manager more than we once did?  Does it make us think a starting pitcher is worse than we once did?  I am not saying this just as Angel fans, but throughout baseball.  Curious what people think.  

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/fangraphs-power-rankings-june-14-20/

They have the team listed in the "solid contenders" group, although don't comment on them in the blurb. Playoff odds are up to 14.8%.

(Pirates Closer Ricardo Rodriguez)

While the starting pitching has improved of late (4.11 ERA over the past 30 days) and with the prospects of moving Jose Suarez (1.88 ERA, 20 K, 20 IP) into the rotation if needed, in addition to having both Jaime Barria (AAA- 2.88 ERA) & Reid Detmers (AA - 3.34, 60 K's in 34 IP) doing well in the minors, the biggest need by far is relief pitching. 

If you look at the top teams in baseball (Giants, Cubs, Indians, White Sox, Padres, Dodgers, Red Sox, Yankees, Rays, their bullpen ranks near the top in ERA, WHIP and Save Chances. History has also shown us that teams with a solid bullpen not only make postseason play, but go deep into the playoffs and World Series. The Angels best bullpen in the history of their franchise was in 2002 and we all know how that ended.

Unfortunately the Angels bullpen this season ranks toward the bottom in most categories, including 6th worst in the league in ERA (4.83) and 5th worst in WHIP (1.44) so improvements are needed if the Angels want to have any chance at contending this season. 

Here are some teams that are either out of contention already or will be that could be selling their BP arms at or before the deadline.

Pirates: Richard Rodriguez (1.91 ERA, 8 Saves, 0.74 WHIP), Kyle Crick (2.95 ERA, 0.98 WHIP, 18 IP, 16 K's).

Colorado: Daniel Bard (4.20 ERA, 9 Saves, 1.57 WHIP), Mychal Givens (2.78 ERA, 1.28 WHIP, 22 2/3 IP, 25 K's) 

Baltimore: Tanner Scott (2.96 ERA, 27 IP, 40 K's, 1.46 WHIP), LHP Paul Fry (3.12 ERA, 2 Saves, 26 IP, 37 K's, 1.19 WHIP), Cole Sulser (2.49 ERA, 25 IP, 39 K's, 1.14 WHIP), Hunter Harvey (2.35 ERA, 0.91 WHIP)

Detroit: Michael Fulmer (3.55 ERA, 6 Saves, 1.26 WHIP, 38 IP, 40 K's), Jose Cisnero (3.19 ERA, 31 IP, 39 K's, 1.19 WHIP), LHP Gregory Soto (2.51 ERA, 6 Saves, 28 2/3 IP, 33 K's), Kyle Funkhouser (3.80 ERA, 21 IP, 17 K's)

Miami: Yimi Garcia (2.67 ERA, 1.04 WHIP, 11 Saves, 27 IP, 25 K's), Anthony Bender (0.00 ERA, 19 IP, 23 K's, 0.67 WHIP).

Texas: Ian Kennedy (2.59 ERA, 1.11 WHIP, 12 Saves, 24 IP, 27 K's).

Arizona: Humberto Castellanos (3.24 ERA, 8 IP, 8 K's, 1.08 WHIP).

The Angels are getting a stud back on offense before the trade deadline in Mike Trout and David Fletcher and Justin Upton have been hitting really well of late. Taylor Ward has done a great job in RF and in the lineup, Stassi who has been a stud both offensively & behind the dish. If Rendon can stay on the field and get consistent at bats we know the type of player he is, so things are looking up for the Angels -- but if they wish to compete in a against the likes of Oakland and the Astros in the AL West or have a chance at the Wild Card, they're going to need to bolster their bullpen before the deadline. 

Gameday Thread: Tigers @ Angels (6/20/2021): Bundy on the mound, Rengifo in RF & leading off

Do you guys see a pathway for Matt Thaiss? He's absolutely crushing the ball in AAA. 

Right now he's slashing .304/.413/.616 with a 1.029 OPS. He's also logged 9 HR's and 29 RBI in just 34 games mostly playing 1B (9 games) & the catching position (16). He's played three games at 3B as well. 

Question to the board?

Would you move Walsh back to RF (I thought he did a great job out there and his range and arm played out).

Then move Taylor Ward to CF as he exhibited good range, solid reads and a strong arm at the position. 

Finally, insert Matt Thaiss to 1B. He can also be the third catcher. 

Thoughts?

Gameday Thread: Tigers @ Angels (6/19/21): Rendon hitting 4th, Sandoval on the mound

Gameday Thread: Tigers @ Angels (6/18/2021): Rengifo in for Fletcher at 2B, still no Rendon

Reminder: today's game is on YouTube only.  You can access it at the following links:

https://www.mlb.com/live-stream-games/youtube or


 

For the Tigers, top pitching prospect Matt Manning is making his debut.  He's been hammered in AAA this season, but he's been on multiple top 100 lists basically since he was drafted in 2016.

Are you going to today's full capacity game?

Best picture to describe it.

(And Ive had this pic on my phone since 2013, and needed a reason to share it. No idea WTF is happening here. But thats the same feeling I get from the pen)

12:37pm start-time today.