axalar

California Baseball Team

So it was RAYsel Iglesias from the little birdie…

Baseball ops should be. But apparently they’re not being fully utilized.. something that will hopefully change next year.

Surprised Bundy wasn't covid related. He looked like he was sweating a gallon of water every 2 mins.

mmc angry. mmc smash.

This game is incredibly corny.

Mayfield at SS? Hmm

How much more time does Rengifo have before he’s considered a true bust?

I hope Upton breaks out of his funk and finds his timing again, but until he does, he needs to move out of the 4-hole. Every out he’s made in the last couple of games he looked like he was on the brink of a nervous breakdown - the anti-Rendon mindset.

We must have cashed in an IOU from the Giants stemming from the Will Wilson trade…

We got a mention finally!

This is pretty close to what I’ve heard from a couple friends in the org in regards to Heaney being the main push, and less motivation to move Cobb/Raisel.

Must not have noticed the 8 gold chains Barria was wearing today.

I’m good with this new guy. Good contrast to Gubi, and I like the more traditional approach to the game call. Cuts down on the corniness we’ve had to endure the rest of the season from Sutton.

Barria had a quick second, but his stuff is not looking that impressive right now. Hopefully, he finds a bit more for the top of the order.

A batting lineup with no Trout + Ohtani, while not having Ohtani on the mound sounds pretty much like forfeit at this point. Seems like a good time to test him getting some exposure to RF should the Angels ever miraculously make the playoffs one day.

At least the Twins are currently a bigger disappointment vs expectation than us

For the first part of the season, I was of the “give him time” opinion, and still think he’s been a little unlucky. But, at the same time, I now feel like his prime has passed. He tore it up at Angel stadium last year with an XBH every 7-8 PA. On the road though? An XBH only in every 32 PA w/ an OPS under .750. This year his road struggles have continued w/ an OPS under .750, but now he sucks in Anaheim, too (OPS .566). His XBH are coming every 22 PAs. I know that’s a bit one dimensional to look at, but to me it suggests he probably should not be batting 3rd anymore (or 4th when Trout returns).

Piling on to how deep this lineup is... After a slow start to the season, Jose Iglesias is now hitting .319/.333/.447 for an OPS of .780 over the last 12 games (batting .200 after the first 9 games of the season).

On Rojas.. 5 of his 7 hits are doubles now. Gap hitting ftw. He really legged it out today to get into scoring position for Bemboom to bring him around.

Your observations are correct. His fly ball % + pop up % are about 2x what they were last year (though not as drastic to ‘19 - 1.3x). Last year, his hard hit GB’s were unreal though.

He’s chasing at the same rate as prior years, but making contact more often, likely producing poorer solid contact. I was thinking this same exact thing yesterday, but figured it’d catch major ridicule here.. but really, who better to choose to get on base right now (not named Trout).

Looked into Fletcher's stats yesterday, and it was interesting to see that his launch angle has increased to last year (highest since 2018) along w/ a dropoff in exit velocity (80.5mph this year vs 83.8 career). With this, his flyballs / pop-ups have been 31.6% of his batted balls vs. 15.2% in '20 and 23% in '19. Granted, it's a small sample size for sure, but if its due to a swing change (haven't looked at video vs last year), it's not a great trend when the most success he had in prior years came off of hitting on top of the ball vs under it. Found this article that talked about his success stemming from his GB's last year: https://prospects365.com/2020/09/27/david-fletcher-has-refined-his-ground-balls/ Beyond the launch angle he could be having some recognition issues .. he's getting more balls in the zone, but swinging at them less often, and making slightly less contact when he does swing. Oddly, he's making more chase contact but with the same chase rate. His BA against fastballs has also been crap, but the XBA is there, so let's all pray it's just due to sample size and "Fletcher overrated" don't need to be a subject of conversation at all in a couple more weeks.

Sounds like we’ll see Ohtani pitch on Tuesday