Link

Well if Oakland's pitching coach can't help him out, I don't think Det's pitching coach can .

 

He probably can't, and Oakland's pitching coach is certainly *better* but sometimes collapses like this just need something/anything different.  

I don't know about that - sometimes a change of scenery/pitching coach is all some of these struggling relievers need to turn it around. Jason Grilli, despite his performance earlier this week, comes to mind.

 

It may or may not work out but taking a chance on him turning it around doesn't seem like a bad move to me.  He's a good pitcher with 3 consecutive sub-3.0 ERA seasons before this one.

Impressive performance from Richards on the road (sort of).

 

I just had to listen to 20 minutes of the ESPN talking heads describe why Corey Kluber is 3rd in Cy voting ahead of Garrett.  

 

Not really seeing the problem.  Richards has been a dream but they've got nearly identical stats, and Kluber is coming off two consecutive complete game shutouts and 7 1/3 innings of 1 run ball.  His shutout against the M's took only 85 pitches despite 8 strikeouts.

 

I wouldn't have an issue with either of them being being in front of the other.  Kluber strikes out (slightly) more batters per 9 and has been better than Richards lately so it's not all that surprising to see them ranked that way.  One bad start from Kluber and you'll likely see them switch places.

Bicycle horns.

Horrifying.

What... the hell...

This guy was our ace for about 5 years.

Guy was also a beast for about 5 years. People get older,declines happen (look at his velocity lol). How does now diminish or have any bearing on his past performance? Smh

Yes. He was our ace for 5 years and rightfully so. And now he isn't. Nolan Ryan is also no longer our ace.

Link, ill say this. If someone (the second shortstop in your example) has 100 hit to him and gets to 150...id say hes a beast

 

 

Oops!  >_>  

 

I changed my example from 100 to 200 plays to make it easier to illustrate my point and apparently forgot to change that part.

 

That or Donaldson is just THAT good.

A greater range causes him to collect many more balls that would have been hits against Freese than ones he made errors on that Freese would have made.

 

These numbers are arbitrary but let's just do it to make a point:

 

Shortstop A (Freese) has 200 balls hit at him.  He reaches 120, makes 1 error, and 79 go for a hit.  80 end up on base.

 

Shortstop B (Donaldson) also has 100 hit at him.  He reaches 150, makes 15 errors, and 35 go for a hit.  50 end up on base.  

 

Of course these are totally made up numbers (I was too lazy to actually check them) but here you can see how a player with MUCH worse fielding % can end up actually being a better defender than one who makes the routine plays but has less range.  Also remember that a lot of the errors he had Freese probably never would have come close to and would have been hits anyway.  So the number of plays Donaldson did not make that Freese would have is probably much lower than 15.

My brother went to school with CJ's brother and talks to him occasionally - he said that around the time CJ started sucking someone in their family had a health issue.  I'm not sure if it's public knowledge or not so I won't spell out what but from what I understand it corresponds pretty well time-wise with his recent decline.  I'm not saying this is what's wrong for sure but it could certainly be a contributing factor.

Considering there were what, 4-5 other teams lining up to give Pujols 8-10 year contracts and essentially every team wanted him, it's hard to fault anyone in the Halos organization for the signing.  They just happened to win the anti-lottery, so to speak ><.  A bunch of teams wanted him and he would have been a mistake for any of them, it just happened to be us.

 

 It's not like if we didn't offer him that deal he'd have signed some 5 year 100 mill contract - he was destined to be one of the worst contract in history, it was just a matter of which team he picked to handcuff.  They may have been a tad more stupid than the others, offering just a bit more, but this isn't like ... let's say Jason Werth for example, where one team was WAY outbidding everyone else.  

what would be jack clark's motivation for lying?

 

 

Publicity.  And he's getting it.  It (was) his first week hosting a TV show in St. Louis, what better way to get publicity and attention than by vilifying Albert Pujols in St. Louis?  Seems like some pretty strong motivation to me. 

Things sound disingenuous when they're brought up in a way that is out of character for the person, in an effort to frame themselves in a better light.  

 

Albert talks about God and his family all the time.  It's who he is.  It's who he's been for the entirety of his career.  It's anything but disingenuous. 

 

 

This.  I'm not a religious person at all but that statement is 100% in character for him, which adds some believability to it.  I was at barnes and noble recently (wait, there are still bookstores?) and grabbed a copy of his book.  Thought about buying it as his story was interesting but then noticed it had 239048290384 references to god on the back/front covers and the first 3 pages and decided I'd rather not be indoctrinated.

 

But with someone like this that truly is religious (he prayed to figure out which team he wanted to go to ><) I don't believe he would do steroids and a response like that sounds reasonable.  He also seems like a standup guy in general.  Steriods would be out of character for him.  That said, you never really know in today's day and age.  It wouldn't SHOCK me if he was juicing.

About once a month during the season would add up to around 100 at this point - a little disingenuous to say "hundreds" but I wouldn't doubt if it's around 100.  Also, it's pretty well known that it's easy to pass the drug tests even on PEDs.  I doubt he's lying about the number of tests, but the fact that he's passed hundreds means almost nothing - tons of people that were juicing passed tons of tests, you have to really screw up to get caught.

 

I happen to believe that he never juiced (call me an optimist lol) but the fact that he's passed a bunch of tests proves essentially nothing.

It is a little bit of a blessing in disguise. At least it happened at a time when the Angels are far away from contention.

I feel terrible for Howie though. He seems like a solid dude and he doesn't appear to make as many foolish decisions on the base paths as most of the other knuckleheads on this team do.

 

This.  Green is another one of those guys like Cowgill and (kind of) Calhoun who had monster minor league numbers but just weren't given legitimate chances at the major league level.  I know his defense sucks but he has bigtime potential and was a former first round pick (picked before Trout) who has just crushed the minors and has even shown a bit of speed.  I love Howie, but it will be nice to see what Green can really do.  

 

I love that we're giving people a chance lately, we put Shuck and Cowgill out there, who other teams had given up on, and they're thriving.  With us out of the race for all intents and purposes there's really no reason to not take a flyer on a few high ceiling guys.

y'all sound like you'd like to trade petey and trumbo and keep shuck and cowgill?

 

 

Personally, nope.  I love PB and Trumbo - they're both home grown, club controlled guys with great attitudes and character, so I would prefer to trade Cowgill and/or Shuck.  But realistically, Trumbo and Bourjos need to at least be explored as trade options.  Our bullpen (and staff in general) is a total joke.  We can survive with an outfield of Trout/Hamilton/Calhoun/Shuck/Cowgill if necessary, but I don't think we can survive with the current bullpen.

Both Calhoun and Cowgill look good.

 

We're loaded in the OF.

 

Bourjos may be trade bait -- hope not because I really like the guy........

 

but look to 2014 and we've got a log jam in the OF and a real need for starting pitching........

 

Trumbo/ Bourjos trade bait?

 

Yup, Cowgill is someone that 3 different teams gave up on way too early and it really baffles me.  Superb defender, good arm, speedy, and had a career minor league average over 290 and OPS over 840.  What were teams not seeing other than not getting results while giving him less than 100 at bats?

 

He's reminded me of a poor man's Peter Bourjos so far... except Cowgill actually knows how to run the bases >_<.

The biggest head scratcher to me is platooning Calhoun and Cowgill. I can't think of another manager who would do something that stupid. You are out of the race and you platoon a top prospect with a Rriple A "journey man." Really?

You play Ianneta over Conger. Really?

 

 

I've said it in another thread and I'll say it again.  Kole is great and deserves a chance but Cowgill is no journeyman and I don't get the hate.  He was drafted 3 rounds before Calhoun and it's not like he's been given a ton of chances and failed.  Over 6 minor league seasons his average is over .290, OPS over .840, and he's stolen as many as 30 bases in only 98 games (and was caught only 3 times).  He's had less than 300 at bats at the major league level, scattered between 4 different teams and 3 different seasons.  He hasn't really had the chance to prove if he's capable or not and he's playing above average defense with good speed and a solid average here in Anaheim.  I don't think he's going to be an all-star or anything but he certainly has the capability to be much more than a journeyman.  

wanted to see the guy come up to the bigs last year.

he was buried in the minors due to another outstanding organizational decision.

maybe at this point we can see how many different positions he can play, how many different places he can hit in the order  and how much inconsistency in playing time he can receive.

because, of course, he is a rookie and we have other quality tenured major leaugers to play

like cowgill and shuck.

 

 

Not that I think Calhoun didn't deserve a chance, but what's wrong with Cowgill or Shuck?  Both were reasonably early picks (5th and 6th rounds) that showed some promise in the minor leagues.  Their minor league numbers are all pretty similar until this year, except for Calhoun's power.  Cowgill hit .296 in the minors this year and .354 in 2011 (in nearly 400 at bats).  Shuck hasn't hit under .290 in 6 years in the minors.  Calhoun has been impressive and deserved a shot but why bash on those two?  They won't turn into superstars but they could both end up being capable major leaguers.

Hah, fair enough.  

Mattingly's job was questionable (by a few) for a couple months.

Scioscia has been hanging by a thread, and questioned by nearly everyone (short of a few people around here ....)

For 4 long miserable years...

Hardly a valid comparison.

 

 

Mattingly was not "questionable by a few," he was literally games away from being fired.  The Dodgers president even told this to Mattingly.

 

http://espn.go.com/los-angeles/mlb/story/_/id/9545374/don-mattingly-says-los-angeles-dodgers-poor-start-almost-cost-job

Calhoun = left-handed Trout

 

 

Woah there.  Let's scale it back a little bit.

Trout's kinda getting stuck up

 

I never got that impression, I don't know why so many people do

 

I remember being at a dodgers/angels game earlier this season and there was a kid with terminal cancer and the only Angel to walk up and talk to the guy was Trout.

 

Ah, found an article about it.  Apparently the guy died

 

http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20130808&content_id=56345344&vkey=news_mlb&c_id=mlb

Take a look at the free agent class of relief pitchers last year.

 

Rafael Soriano: $28M, 46.1IP, 2.91 ERA

Jonathan Broxton (DL): $21M, 27IP, 4.33 ERA

Jeremy Affeldt (DL): $18M, 33.1IP, 3.51 ERA

Mike Adams (DL): $12M, 25IP, 3.96 ERA (shoulder surgery)

Kyuji Fujikawa (DL); $9M, 12IP, 5.25 ERA (TJ surgery)

Sean Burnett (DL): $8M, 9.2IP, 0.93 ERA (elbow surgery)

 

So 5 out of the 6 top paid free agent relief pitchers are currently on the DL. None of those 5 have come close to earning their contracts falling short by either effectiveness or innings pitched. Soriano has pitched well but at $14M per season he's no bargain for his production. His K/9 is way down to 6.8 which doesn't bode well for next year either.

 

Good luck trying to buy a pen. The teams with the best pens built them from the farm or supplemented them by picking up "projects" and getting big production from them. Sometimes both. The sack of shit we have impersonating a pitching coach could try for 30 years without having the success of a Maddux, Young, Hickey, Price, Duncan etc. Tampa quickly saw that they had a lemon and let him go after one season. We're stuck with him for 7 years now. It might be hard to find a more apt name for a pitching coach than "Butcher". Why does a team that aspires to be the best have to settle for someone's "good buddy" with no track record (and now a terrible 8 year track record)?

 

Would any of the arms that Dipoto traded really be helping this pen right now? Pena (5.19 BB/9 in AA), Hellweg (13BB, 3k's in 10.2 IP with the Brewers) or Roach (5.24 K/9 in AA)? I doubt it. Would Chatwood be anything other than the erratic walk/hit machine he was with the Angels? He had almost as many walks (71) as strikeouts (74) with us. A strikeout rate of 4.69 K/9? Someone taught him how to pitch.

 

This problem wasn't created in a short time (and certainly not in the less than 2 years of the Dipoto GM) and it won't be fixed in a short time. Drafting almost exclusively pitchers in a pitching heavy draft seems smart and a good start. Bringing in pitching coaches with a long track record of success handling young pitching should be the next step. It's not as easy or quick as opening the checkbook and purchasing one or two decrepit old arms on the free agent market.

 

 

This sums it up and really should be getting more attention/discussion.  Dipoto hasn't failed, there just wasn't an out-of-house option that was reasonable.  Would we be any better off with any of the other massive failures on that list?  They're all being paid a ton of money, have performed poorly, and are all injured (with the exception of soriano who came at a HUGE price tag).  Honestly, Dipoto avoided a lot of extra damage by signing the relatively cheap Burnett and taking a flyer on Madsen.

 

It hurts right now, having a bad bullpen and having Madsen and Burnett both injured.  But if you look at that list, Affeldt, Adams, and Broxton all cost more than Burnett and Madsen combined and have all underperformed AND been injured, and Fujikawa is only a few million off.  

Didn't know about the salad. Where did you buy it?

 

 

Uh... >_>  I'm not quite sure haha. I have a dugout suite so the food gets delivered, but it has to come from SOMEWHERE so I'm pretty sure it's available elsewhere (the food isn't different there, is it?).  There's a reasonable Ceasar salad too, though it's nothing special.  

I'd rather pay a little more to get some half-decent food in that place.

 

 

There's actually some pretty decent stuff, there's a salad with blue cheese crumbles/dressing, avocado, chicken, green onions, olives that's quite good.  Some of the sandwiches aren't bad either and their chips with onion dip are actually delicious (tastes like the chips are made in-house?)

Didn't Wood almost throw a perfect game?  At least he's been dominant before =P