Don

Perhaps an unpopular opinion here, but I’d really like Rojas to get a bench spot. I just don’t think we can count on Rengifo or Barreto to hit at the major league level. Rojas is an unknown on that front too, but his minor league numbers are encouraging and I think he deserves a shot just as much as those two do.

I'll add that it seemed like he really wanted to work on breaking stuff today. He threw a lot more sliders and curves than I think he normally would in an actual game. Considering that those pitches didn't look great in his first start it makes sense. So take it for what it is. Dude looks healthy, his stuff is there, and he went out today pretty clearly looking to work on a few specific things. All signs right now are pointing to him being our best starter this year.

That was a pretty funny way to end it for Shohei. He seemed pretty happy in the dugout with everyone too. Honestly, the velo and the stuff were both there, and that’s all I care about right now.

It really seems like he has a hard time tracking balls. Most major league OFs do that pretty easily, and probably have since they were teenagers. My point is (agreeing with you) if that basic skill still hasn’t come through with the amount of pro games he’s played it’s probably not going to.

@Chuckster70 Thoughts on Jose Rojas? Nobody ever seems to talk about him as a decent prospect, which I’m guessing is because of his age? But dude has progressed through the minors nicely. Just looks like he’s been screwed by getting drafted at 23 and then not having a season last year.

I really couldn't have asked for two better hires. Super pleased with the way this worked out. Vasgersian has a great presence, and Sutton was by far and away my favorite Angel announcer ever.

Said like a true non-snow/ice person. There’s no worse feeling than trying to turn on the wipers only to discover they’re frozen solid to the windshield. I’m always a wipers up guy if there’s any potential for snow/ice. Also it’s considered common courtesy here to do that for others in a blizzard-ish situation.

Linklater is really one of my favorites. Dazed and Confused, despite its general popularity, is still way underrated. Change the clothes and the cars a bit for the era, and it pretty accurately describes everyone I met from rural Kansas in college. Everybody Wants Some is also a really great movie that kinda flew under the radar.

Just got scheduled for one next week in Missouri. There's a ton of confusion locally here, because KS is being real slow in their rollout/ability to sign up, whereas MO is going as fast as possible. So I signed up today as an essential worker in MO even though I technically live in KS. No clue how that'll go once I show up.

You seem to have a strong distaste for Hawaii. You've at least mentioned it once or twice before. I'm curious as to the backstory there. Is it possible we could get a synopsis of your historical relationship with Hawaii?

I remember my cousin in JUCO back in the late 90s went with a fastball that sat at 91-93, a legit change at about 82-84, and a knuckler that he would throw around 75. Got some draft attention, but blew out his UCL at 19 and had residual effects from there on out. It was super fun though watching those kids see a 93mph four seamer followed by a F-all knuckler. Was out on a ST vacation with him a couple years ago just messing around in a grass patch next to our AirBnB, and while the fastball wasn't really there anymore the dude could still dance that knuckler in a way that made it near impossible to catch.

That’s fair man. I guess my point is that there are tons of guys out there that are calling college or minor league games that are really good and deserve a legitimate shot at being major league broadcasters. Our vacancy is a giant hole that should be filled by one of those guys. Jose is probably a great dude with great relationships, but he’s so much less qualified to broadcast a game than so many others operating at levels below him. And that isn’t fair to those guys or us, the fans.

Definitely not doubting that Jose is a good dude. I've never heard anything otherwise. I'd love to have a beer with him and chat baseball. But the fact remains that he's just a crap announcer. It comes off as harsh saying it as one does on a message board. I consider myself a decent enough dude too, but that doesn't make me a good choice to perform a job function that I'm just not good at. And that's the way I view Mota. He's a nice guy with solid enough baseball knowledge, but he's just flat out bad at speaking on a broadcast.

It feels like there are hundreds of guys out there that would be young, cheap, and plenty qualified/knowledgeable to call a game. Why we continue to trot Mota out there, who still can’t form a coherent sentence after 20 years in the media, is beyond me. I can’t imagine there’s ever been a person who listened to him call a game in English (I can’t speak for his Spanish language broadcasts... maybe he’s great there) that walked away from that experience thinking “that guy’s pretty good”.

This made me actually lol. It might be your best work here yet.

I only support this idea if someone makes Jose take a different hallucinogen before every game.

I watch most games on MLB TV, so if it’s Jose I’ll probably just watch the other team’s broadcast.

It's like the deals we passed on back in the mid-aughts because there was no way we were letting go of Brandon Wood.

They said Ohtani took his off-season work and conditioning pretty freaking seriously this year, and it shows on the offensive side so far. Looks like he’s ready to go right now on that front. And that ball he hit today... just wow. The last time I can remember anyone crushing a ball like that to center was Trout when he hit that like 491’ bomb in KC a few years ago.

Lol. Bundy throws the exact same pitch in the exact same spot twice in a row. One ball, one strike.

Back in ‘04 I worked as a courier carrying loan docs and whatnot (presumably) all over SoCal. This was in that little bubble where you couldn’t throw a rock anywhere in SoCal without hitting a title company or a loan office. I just had one of those Nextel phones/walkie-talkies where I’d get a pick up address and drop off address. I got Thomas Guides for LA, Orange, Riverside, SB, and SD counties on day one. I got paid by the mile doing that gig, but obviously more runs/smarter runs in a day equaled more miles. Maximizing the money in that role really took careful planning and quick research through those TGs. It was one of those jobs in life that just taught me a ton of functional planning and organizational skills. It also showed me that I was really good with spatial reasoning and maps, which eventually led me to pursue a degree in Geography.

We used to do food trades all the time at the pizza place I worked at. We were in the bar district in town. Sort of like a 3x3 block area with probably 30-something bars and restaurants. On weeknights right after dinner rush we'd usually pick a place to call up and negotiate a food trade for both staffs. Some of the negotiations were freaking hilarious. "Dude, we are not throwing in five orders of cajun shrimp unless you hook it the f up with the pepperoni rolls.", etc...

I delivered in a town that was pretty much all college students or military. The military dudes were incredibly consistent in their tipping. Seemed like it was always $2 or $3 dollars per delivery, which for that time, was fine. Not great, but fine. Dorm deliveries were always prioritized the lowest by the drivers, because most of those kids were 18 or 19, poor AF, and often didn't even understand that tipping was a thing. Deliveries to frats/sororities were always interesting, because it was pretty rare that we would find the person that actually ordered the pizza. If there was some sort of party or event going on my move was always to just walk in and yell that I had pizza and the first person to give me x dollars got it (I'd usually go $5 over the order amount). That pretty much worked instantly every time. Also got a shitload of free beer and weed as tips doing that job. Eventually just started keeping a cooler in the trunk.

I think we're on the downswing of this as well. We've got about 28 million confirmed cases in the US so far I believe, which I'd guess means we're probably close to 50 million actual cases (people that had such mild symptoms they didn't get tested or were asympomatic). That's like 1 in 6 or 7 people that have already had it. So that's a pretty big chunk of the population that are extremely unlikely to get it again and extremely unlikely to pass it on. Combine that with the vaccine efforts, and it seems like the virus is kinda running out of people to spread it pretty quickly. I can tell you that at the peak here in December the KC metro was averaging about 1,200 new cases a day, and last week the daily average was about 160. That's a pretty big drop. I'm not sure what it's like elsewhere, but I'd guess similar things are happening to some degree. I'm still cool with masks inside and everything, simply because it's a super easy thing to do while some people still might be vulnerable, but it's about time to start opening everything up again all the way.

The thought of Jose Mota doing karaoke is somehow extremely funny to me.