AngelsFaninGA

Nelson Mandela

So IE wins the Cal League and we fire the manager. Interesting. 

Jeff DaVanon

Geronimo Gil

The only thing this tells us fans is that after this season, if there still aren't any positive results, Arte will most likely clean house.

By firing the hitting coach and the equipment manager.

I'm not saying Butcher should not be fired, but you are saying he wasn't dealt a bad hand?

He was dealt a bad hand and, whether or not he was directly responsible for it, it became worse while he was the pitching coach. Frieri's ERA went from 2.32 to 3.80. Blanton's ERA went from 4.99 to 6.04. Hanson's ERA went from 4.48 to 5.42. Jepsen's ERA went from 3.02 to 4.50. Though Gutierrez already sucked, his ERA went from 3.38 to 5.19. Meanwhile, the only player who made any kind of meaningful improvement was De La Rosa. No one's expecting bad players to somehow magically become good, but we saw multiple players, good and bad, fail to maintain career norms and experience significant dropoff, and that could very well be a coaching issue. 

wow.  quite a few folks around here seem to know a lot about what was going on behind the scenes in the clubhouse and front office.  It would have been interesting to hear the specifics of what actually happened as it was happening. 

 

 

No one here thought the offense massively underachieved this year?  Just because they were good doesn't mean they were as good as they should have been.  I think it's pretty clear that eppard has taken the fall for Hamilton being a wreck, Trumbo taking a step back etc. 

 

All here thought the pitching staff should have performed better than they did?  I didn't see a bunch of guys underachieving, I saw a bunch of guys that lacked talent. 

 

Also, do we even know the responsibilities of the bench coach?  Maybe it was his job to give the manager information about matchups, or to process info regarding potential defensive alignments or to recommend an approach relative to info provided by advanced scouts.   It's funny how Maddon was a god and MS is worthless without him by his side yet Piccolo provided nothing.

 

Don't get me wrong, I have no freaking clue if these are the right moves, but neither does anyone else.   

That's a very biased analysis. It can easily be said that Blanton and Hanson underachieved, since they both had ERA's significantly higher than the year before. 

This is nothing new for this site.  Back when the Angels made the post-season every year (or so it seemed), the hate and anger was still present.  I used to post that if the Angels won the WS in 7 games, there would be a 10 page thread of how a better FO and management would have won it in 4, 5 or 6 games.

 Yeah because we totally won the world series this year. It's not like we missed the playoffs for the 4th straight year with a massive payroll and it's not like we have anything legitimate to complain about. The team is doing an excellent job. The pitching was fantastic, the defense was immaculate, and the team was vibrant and full of competitive spirit, especially during their season-ending sweep of the Rangers to knock them out of the playoffs and clinch a 110-win season. 

Tyler Chatwood is possibly someone else that is doing well with a new team.

All in all though, it doesn't make sense to get rid of the hitting coach when it's the pitching that has been struggling.

My guess is that Eppard was let go because he was with the Angels for one year and thus wasn't part of the good ole boys club. 

Now 2 full seasons are a sample size?

 

Hilarious

Sample size: n. As many games as I want to use to prove my point.

So without reading all 13 pages, they basically fired the two guys who were probably least responsible for the whole mess.  

I would prefer if Arte didn't care at all, or if he somehow magically forgot he owned a baseball team, because then our baseball people might finally be able to get us out of this mess. 

To be fair, if we had drafted them they'd still be in A+ ball averaging 4 walks per 9 innings. 

I'm a better fan than all you suckers. 

I'm hoping at least one of these guys becomes a reliable #4 starter or middle reliever, though even that might be asking for too much.

[Generic superfan post designed to troll for likes]

I'm here in Atlanta and the attitude surrounding the Braves is pretty passive. Not much discussion, little to no Braves attire, etc. Meanwhile, I travel to St. Louis on business every week and it's a stark difference. Lots of Cards gear all over the city and office, and the guys at the client site talk Cards all day. 

Ceiling fans

So if both the Rays and Rangers win, what happens? Is there a one-game playoff between them, or is there some sort of tiebreaker that decides who makes the playoffs?

Hopefully they get someone extra toolsy.

He better have control issues as well. 

So basically we're going to singlehandedly propel our biggest rival into the playoffs. 

Giants fans also tend to be 49er/Raider fans, so this isn't surprising.

Yes you're right, I haven't seen him get his wrist broken by a pitch yet.

Exactly. Prince has extra layers of fat around his wrist to cushion any impact. 

I wouldn't re-sign Vargas even as a #5. His trajectory is going the wrong way and I could see him putting up a 5+ ERA next year. 

we won't score

I wonder if he'll call me and apologize for ruining my fantasy season.