krAbs

That thread is every thread.

One of the announcers just casually mentioned that we almost traded Ward to the Dodgers in that nixed trade...did we know that? I don't remember seeing it anywhere.

Funny choice - I would have only bitched about it in that thread. Now, instead of having one thread about it...EVERY thread is about that. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Such is life.

Stripling open the game and gets 2 k's in one inning. Woulda been nice to have him somewhere out there today.

Yeah, not moving on. Can we start a new threat every time either Pederson or Stripling do something good? As long as Arte isn't a dumbass, we shouldn't have many of those, right? I'm sure these guys are really just chumps.

https://www.ocregister.com/2020/02/15/angels-pitcher-jaime-barria-14-pounds-lighter-trying-to-rediscover-rookie-form/ ^^Here we go, that's what I was thinking of. But, I guess if you're 30 pounds overweight, you can lose 14 and still look heavy haha

This is a bit surprising - I could have sworn I saw someone posting about how he looked like he had lost a ton of weight heading into spring. I guess maybe "a lot of weight" - "a lot of weight" = "a still heavy dude".

Right - and if that's the case, I'll be very quick to give him credit for being prudent here. But based on what we know so far, its not a great look. Fangraphs has officially changed our projections back to where we were at the beginning of this. We went from being projected to be the 4th strongest team in the MLB (between the Yankees and the Twins) back to being the 10th strongest team (between the A's and the Indians). According to their projections, you should expect the Red Sox and the Rays to make the wild card, with the A's pushing to get in, and the Angels behind them. Frustrating...

Specifically Arte. The man child got his feelings hurt when he was told to wait, and he decided to nuke a deal that would have made the team much better. Even if there were other factors, the reporting clearly suggests that he wasn't willing to play ball to try to make it happen. His priorities are: 1. His ego; 2. The on-the-field performance of the Angels.

https://www.fangraphs.com/depthcharts.aspx?position=ALL&teamid=1 Worth noting: Fangraphs predicts that we will be the best "non big-3" team in baseball. This assumes basically no contribution from Adell.

Fool me once, shame on you; but teach a man to fool me, and I'll be fooled for the rest of my life.

Dipoto. He'll trade away all of their prospects for basically nothing, and they won't be adding any big names for the next 2 years (due to the cheating scandal). By the time he is done with the system, the Astros will have begun their downturn, and will be rendered irrelevant for years to come.

Seriously though, my bigger problem with the list is that they did it based on FA signings entirely and not on trades, so they could avoid showing Bundy (who would slot in around Lindblom on that list).

Yeah, the Ringer seems to have the obviously correct take here. Like, you're running a pro MLB team, and you have two options: option 1. understand pitcher value based on a complicated and time tested sabermetric systems which account for performance and peripheral stats along with aging trends from similar players, or option 2. mulwin's gut "how did this guy look last year, and how do I feel about his injury history" system. There are problems with projection system, but they aren't gonna miss 31 times like that.

I don't get this. Its like "hmm, you are doing more than any other player in baseball at the moment. Also, you keep getting injured. What if...hear me out. What if you did more?"

I've had it with your god damn batman fetish. This has to stop. Its fucking weird.

An outfield of Marsh-Trout-Adell with Ohtani and Upton splitting time at DH makes me feel all tingly.

Each team in the MLB can choose one Astros player (minors or majors), and take them (with their current contract).

Probably, yeah. This is just something I've been playing around with in my head - even if its a year-by-year change (as in, this year we are projecting to be shallow in pitching, so this year he is conditioned to pitch more; maybe in a different year, it looks different), then he could be a super valuable asset. I'm sure he wouldn't like even that - he wants to do both, as much as possible. But...IDK. There's real value to being able to be a top pitcher one year and a top hitter in the next year, depending on team need. You could just imagine what his free agency would look like - you got a hole? Doesn't matter where it is, Ohtani is the solution. He would be perfect for teams who need a full time bat, teams who need a full time arm, teams who have young kids and don't know who will hit and who will miss, and teams who have a solid team but could use some extra help on both offense and defense. Basically, everyone in baseball.

Idea though: What if we used Ohtani as a flexible piece? This year, we have plenty of hitting, but are struggling with pitching. So, we have him pitch once every five days, and only hit on occasion (some pinch hitting, maybe hit when he pitches, and maybe start as DH occasionally in very important games). In the future, maybe our pitching comes together and our offense looks like its struggling, then we shift him the other direction: DH on a regular basis, but start less (or even, god forbid, move him to the pen temporarily).

Not bad - it really helps having Trout and Rendon on the team. Before adding Castro, Fangraphs has us projected in a 3-way tie for second in batting (with the Dodgers and the Red Sox, behind the Astros). They have decent projections for Castro next year, so that should edge us up to #2 in these projections (assuming none of the other top 4 have made any recent moves I'm not aware of). And, that's assuming very little production from Adell, and that Upton doesn't bounce back much after last year. The exact position isn't super important - but its interesting that Fangraphs is so high on our offense overall. Feels like our path-to-the-postseason is: 1. stay healthy, 2. Teheran does his thing and plays above his metrics, 3. any two of the following pitchers live up to their potential: Canning, Sandoval, Suarez, Barria, 4. STAY HEALTHY. Adell living up to the hype would help as well.

They are probably referencing reports about him and Barria - I believe an athletic article talked about that more in depth (I cannot confirm this, since I am a garbage human who hasn't bought a subscription to the Athletic yet). But, it sounds like at least Barria felt like White kinda made some really bad changes, and ended up getting in his head in a bad way. As you mention earlier - when a pitcher is on the bump, its just him and the batter up there, and it is on the pitcher (not the catcher, and not the pitching coach) to get the job done. But...you still hate to see that kinda thing - a young pitcher who feels like our pitching coach is making him worse.

Yeah - I guess my point is that we need to get a little lucky to pass the Rays this year (or we need them to get a little unlucky). It should be close, but I can't help but feel that we will need a player or two to really step up. The kids seem natural for that. Something else to keep an eye on - they are projecting Ohtani to have a BUSY year. The projections have him doubling his innings pitched from 2018, and having over 100 more plate appearances than he did last year. I realize that he's been injured, but still - they are projecting him to hit in 80% of our games, and start 19 games. Its possible - that's only starting about once per week, but...that's a lot of plate appearances.

Adell is projected at 224 plate appearances for 0.1 WAR (note, we are projected to get 0.2 WAR out of right field in total), and Cannning is projected at 135 innings pitched for 1.7 WAR. Those two stepping up could be huge. Also, Teheran is interesting. Given his career WAR/IP, if he pitches 179 innings, you would project that he accumulates 1.8 WAR (though only 1.6 WAR if he produces the same rate that he did last year). Lets hope he can continue to confound pitching metrics....

IDK man, I'm pretty sure they will all get paid more than they are worth or not be interested in living near LA. Pretty sure we are better off just picking up Colon for a couple years - I'm sure we could get him nice and cheap!