LAA Road Tripper

Well, at least the only AL team. Colorado is the other.

No

Angels and Rockies, that's it. Of course, it helps to not have 115+ years under your belt as a franchise. But 55 is pretty good without hitting the century mark.

Great find. Oh, Valdez just went on the DL. Just kidding. Or am I?

Now that Tropeano is out, here are the remaining starters current ERAs. Santiago 5.26 Chacin 4.50 Weaver 5.18 Shoemaker 5.50 Stellar. Sure, they have depth. Quality depth? Not so much.

You guys probably don't remember this but there was someone with the same name on the Angels last season. He wasn't very good at baseball. Where's this Matt Joyce from? Is this the one who used to play for the Rays?

Look at it this way: We still have a handful of guys not on the DL. Like 7. Or maybe 5. Something like that. Stay positive.

That was no fun being right.

Really, Bedrosian is not a major league pitcher. 95 MPH, yes, but dude has no movement on his fastball and zero command. Salas looks like Mariano Rivera compared to him.

Trout with an amputated leg would still be the best player on the team. The gap might be a little smaller between him and the next guy, though.

Huh? I've re-read this a few times and maybe there's some context that I'm missing. Gotta be. WS titles are meaningless? Then why are we fans of a team? With that mentality there's nothing to worry about either way. Trout stays, Trout leaves. I can follow him to the Yankees, Phillies or wherever since I'm a Trout fan. Yeah, I'm not getting it.

Well, admittedly the analogy isn't perfect. On the other side you can point to the Cleveland Clinic's success in healthcare. Sports aside the cities are more similar than different. The focal point of my post was to illustrate how sports success translates into how a populace perceives itself.

I watched ESPN's 30 for 30 on Cleveland over the weekend. That's the only city in America with at least three major sports teams and no championships in the last 50 years. Somebody mentioned that it can be difficult to do business there since there's a prevailing sense of pessimism. It got me thinking. What's the real difference between Cleveland and Pittsburgh? Both are rust belt cities, losing jobs to the new economy, not too far apart. But the contrast in psyche of the residents is huge and as insignificant as the subject of pro sports really is it's not a stretch to map that back to how the Steelers, Penguins and to a lesser extent the Pirates have done over the years compared to the Browns, Cavs and Indians.

Wow, the moths. Haven't thought about that in a few years. I can still remember the pool of cash growing from an entire section willing to observe some crazy college kid perform and whatever was going on down on the field being a total afterthought. I was thinking the guy got a little too eager and left too much money on the table before munching down, though. Could've made 50 bucks turn into 150 by selling it the right way. Fun times.

Did Garrett check with this board first? He really should have done that before making any decision. He probably did since this was pretty big to him. Chuck, any word?

I, along with the rest of any breathing mammal, agree that the farm needs a complete overhaul. And even though I'd would love to be proven wrong, I don't think this team has enough talent to compete this year. That said, Lincecum is a low risk, high upside deal. But even so, MLB isn't the NBA or NFL. Tanking to gain better draft position probably won't mean a whole lot anyway. The trick is to just draft well from whatever position they're in and augment that with good international signings all supported by good scouting and analytics. After they do that, hope really well.

This franchise is in bad shape right now and a 6 game winning streak, which would be fun, isn't going to change the peripherals. Now here's the good news: Talent that is on the DL will get healthy however long that takes. And if Arte stays out of the way and the front office plays it well from here (certainly no guarantee on either although we have yet to see Eppler in action for any fair period of time) then the poor farm can be replenished in 2-4 years. After all, minor leaguers are either elevated, traded or discarded within that timeframe and everything is recycled over again. At that point, even if the Angels aren't consistent winners again, at least we'll all be armed with a little more hope.

Smart move by Trout whether he means it or not. Say this and then shut up.

MLB needs to change the rules so that the entire 40 man roster can be on the DL at the same time. Just thinking ahead.

Interesting. Combined with a much worse eye at the plate, my biggest concern with Pujols all along has been that he's been so off balance. I'm surprised I haven't heard more discussion about this point. I didn't see yesterday's game and I can't see the video since I'm on a plane but a good clue to Albert's challenges come by observing him after his swing. Right leg falling over the plate, left leg going another direction. Watch old footage of him in St. Louis. That didn't happen. Age takes way a lot but I would think general balance would be somewhat manageable for a super star. Maybe I'm wrong.

I know as well that this subject has been discussed ad nauseum over the last number of years but it really was "the" difference in what this franchise is and what it could have been in the 2010s, way more that I envisioned when I had hoped that they were all in when Beltre was available. At the time, I believed that if the Angels were ever going to overspend, this was the time primarily due to the fact that 3B was a black hole since Glaus and that Beltre was an elite defender and very good hitter. And he's exceeded expectations in both areas. But worse was the fallout after he got away. The reactionary Wells move, of course, is most notable but it seemed like the tone swayed too far both ways shortly after. Too win-now right away and then too cautious later on combined with a less-than-stellar approach to the draft. Maybe it's unfair to tag that all to that non-move but not signing Beltre when he seemed quite attainable certainly was a mile marker.

In retrospect, Cron should have probably let that ball hit him.

Ain't the smartest move in the world by Lowrie trying to score there.

I could see this with Upton but not with Cespedes. Dude could have a great year but even with a dry class next year he's another year older. He needs his money now.

Very sad. I, too was at Game 5 in '86. I was standing about 10 feet from the left field foul pole. It really seemed to me that Hendu would fly out to Brian Downing in LF. But then the ball kept going... and going...and then Downing put his head down and so did I. That was a hard loss to forget and, of course, it took 16 years for vindication. But baseball's baseball and real life is real life. Twenty years ago I was in Boston on a mid-November Sunday ready for a week of training. My buddy, Joel from Chicago was hired on with the same company and we headed down to Fanueil Hall to find a pub to watch his Bears. Joel had heard my Game 5 story so many times he could recite it verbatim. We found a booth and I came across a flyer that said that Dave Henderson would be signing lithographs of his ALCS home run all weekend long on behalf of, oddly enough, Angelman Syndrome. I believe he had a child that was afflicted. The flyer mentioned that Dave would appear at a separate restaurant each of Friday, Saturday and Sunday. I asked the waiter where the Sunday pub was. "This is it, " he said. Hendu would be signing from 12:30 to 2:30. I looked at my watch. 2:00. I peered over my left shoulder and ten feet away was Dave Henderson. I shook his hand, laughingly explained to him how he broke my heart nine years earlier and chatted with him for a couple of minutes until a young mother with with a daughter who suffered with the disorder grabbed his attention. To me, he was a gracious man. RIP Hendu.