ivdown

I was tempted to not even bring him up, but he's been good in the second half, lol.

Going by WAR isn't really the most accurate way to talk about the value gained. It will only be for 1/6 of the season, but it's when every single game is important and he lengthens the lineup quite a bit. Yes, Pujols is still there, but the Angels have 7 or 8 guys hitting quite well since the AS Break. That's big.

http://baselinetimes.com/angels-acquire-tigers-upton/ Adding Justin Upton to the Angels is huge in itself, but with good second halves from Cron, Calhoun, Valbuena, Revere, Pennington, and then obviously Trout and Simmons, the Angels are poised for a big month of September. Their starting pitching is still a huge problem, but they now have one of the better lineups in baseball going by second half production. In a year when I thought the Angels should sell nearly everything once Trout went down, they have done a great job clinging this close to the playoff race, and the Upton trade is something that I believe can get them a real shot at the playoffs. Bravo, Angels.

We should all realize it's kind of ridiculous at this point in the MLB to just say "Steroids" if someone becomes a better hitter than they used to be. The power for Judge is real. My problem is that I don't think he will ever hit for great average or be over a .400 OBP guy, so he should regress in BA and OBP going forward, and has already started.

http://baselinetimes.com/mike-trout-the-2017-al-mvp-and-barry-bonds/ For real fans of baseball, and not just petty ones worried about their own team, it was awful when Mike Trout went down with an injury in May. Baseball is just better when Mike Trout is playing. Despite having missed 40-plus games, Trout's offensive season is so historic that he should absolutely be in consideration for the AL MVP if he keeps it up. Currently, Trout's got a 208 wRC+, which is good for 20th in the post-Dead Ball Era going back to 1918. The only other player on the top 20 list in the past 60 years is Barry Bonds, who has done it 4 times overall. Only 12 players have had any season with a 200 or better wRC+ since 1918, and all but four of them are HOFers. Two of those are Bonds and McGwire, one played half a season in 1919 and only 1220 in his career, and then Trout. At the current pace, Judge, Trout, and Altuve will all finish with over 8 fWAR if they remain healthy. I'm certainly rooting for that as well as the crazy MVP cases for each player. One thing to consider is even with historic numbers, voters tend to overlook them in favor of players who played the whole season, like Kershaw in the NL Cy Young voting last year.

Was just looking up Wilson a few minutes ago. He retired in 2007 and is still only 42 now. His defense just fell off a cliff, though his offense was right behind him. He had some good potential early on in his career.

Dude, you're gettin Adell! Also: You are going to Skyfall, because you got Adell. While I am surprised the Angels didn't take another catcher (i'm sure that will be their second pick, lol), this seems like a very nice pick for them.

I believe Miggy will end between 550-575. In his career he has just two 40+ HR seasons. So basically Miggy is playing from behind. Pujols - 7 40+ HR seasons Sosa - 7 40+ HR seasons Thome - 6 40+ HR Seasons Griffey Jr - 7 40+ HR seasons Mays 6 - 40+ HR seasons Arod - 8 40+ HR seasons Ruth - 11 40+ HR seasons Aaron - 8 40+ HR seasons Bonds - 8 40+ HR seasons Miggy is much more of a pure hitter than a power hitter. He still has the ability to hit really well, as shown by last season, but he is likely to finish much closer to 550 than 600 IMO.

There's so much that has to go into that situation, unfortunately. He is making such huge massive amounts of money, I wonder if the FO or ownership would push him out there even if he starts giving negative value some time in the future. With so much time left on his deal, there is very little precedent for a player making so much money getting the boot like that. Arod is a really good comp IMO. Even though he had a 2.7 fWAR season in 2015, his 2016 was just awful with -1.2 fWAR in only 65 games. Honestly Pujols could be falling off of that cliff at any time, I just hope we don't end up seeing it quite this early. So far this season Pujols has been worth -0.3 fWAR in 52 games, but if he starts hitting more HR that could start to look much better. I am in complete agreement that if the Angels are pushing for the playoffs and Pujols just isn't doing anything, they need to cut ties with him as a player. He's so slow at this point his one value is in his bat. If that value doesn't rebound, then he's just done.

Pujols has been one of my all-time favorite players since his rookie season, and I wanted to write a little bit about him joining the 600 HR club on Saturday. I wrote about his standing with the other 8 members of the group, as well as the players he can pass this year and the next 2-3 years. I'm still holding out hope for 700.

http://baselinetimes.com/albert-pujols-and-the-600-hr-club/

The last part is incredibly debatable. The NL has better pitching than the AL, so that really wouldn't matter much. The cost of his contract is definitely a concern to any team trading for him, but as with both deals he's been in so far, the team trading him has sent money to the other team to compensate for some of the contract, so I believe the same thing would happen with any future trade as well. I agree the Angels need as many prospects as they can afford, but since they are so bottom of the barrel in that regard right now anyway, it really likely wouldn't be that big of an issue for a team that needs MLB help. That's how I feel about it anyway. Thanks for the feedback.

I actually believe this as well, because I think the Angels should sell and rebuild, but I don't believe they will even consider it.

Is Pujols completely done with 1B? That would definitely be less of a plus in regards to adding Kemp, but even with the abysmal defense in LF, the Angels have had absolutely no value there in the last 3 seasos. They have had a 61, 73, and now 95 wRC+ out of the position from 2015 till now. They have had -1.5, 0.1, and now 0.5 fWAR in the same time. As I mentioned in the article Kemp has been worth 2.5 fWAR in the last 365 days, even with the defense. I'm not trying to convince anyone that he will be an MVP or a savior of a team, but there is certainly a good amount of value left in him because of his bat. The question for the Angels is who would they trade, and would it be worth it. Based on my article yesterday, my feelings are that they should sell. However, if they want to try to compete, Kemp would be very helpful in working towards that goal. I don't know the Angels farm all that well, onlya few names here and there, but I would be interested to see what you believe would be fair in a deal for Kemp, Brent. I also believe the Braves would have to eat money in any deal, probably 10-15 million, maybe as high as 20.

Man, you are saaaalty. Shockingly I've talked to Braves fans, Rangers fans, Red Sox fans, Blue Jays fans, Rockies Fans, Yankee fans, and others without the world exploding. Who would have thought?

haha. I didn't remember my log in so I just went through facebook, but apparently that was linked to my old account. Oops!

http://baselinetimes.com/your-favorite-american-league-team-should-trade-for-matt-kemp/ For this article, I wrote about Matt Kemp's offensive re-emergence offensively, as well as how his defense hasn't been as awful this year as the previous four years. I listed a number of teams that could be improved in LF or at DH by trading for Matt Kemp, and the Angels were one of them. Obviously, this wouldn't be a move to compete now, but by trading for Kemp it could help the Angels stay afloat with Trout gone, and then make for a deeper lineup once he returns. Since Kemp has 2.5 years left on his contract, they could even trade Kemp later if he continues to hit at a high level. I'd be interested to hear any feedback or thoughts on this. I actually believed the Angels should have traded for Kemp 2 years ago or even a year ago, since their LF situation has been rough for a while. But I'd be interested to see if Angels fans would even want him.

Thank you so much for the read as well as the in-depth response. Originally the article I wrote was going to be the first part of a 2 part series, with the second one being potential Mike Trout trades. But the more I thought about it and talked about it to other people, I realized more and more that there is no fair Mike Trout trade. Either you had people giving not nearly enough, even if it was a huge haul, or you had people saying that the Astros should trade Correa, Springer, and Bregman, or the Dodgers should trade Seager, Urias, and Bellinger, or other crazy things like that. A Mike Trout trade just might never be feasible, even the year before he's a free agent. Any Trout trade would have to be the Angels knowing that they aren't getting back fair value as far as Trout as a player, however I do believe there could still be a trade out there that gets them enough value to make it work. Still, he's the best player in baseball, I don't know if I'd ever seriously advocate a trade. The thing I am worried about for the Angels is their farm system. It seems as though it's gotten slightly better the last year or so, but it's still seriously lacking any high-end talent. Jones is your best prospect, and he was ranked 140 on John Sickels and minorleagueball.com before the season. I think I would feel ok if the Angels had actually gone after some good free agents the last couple of years, but there were some real missed opportunities IMO. I do hope you are right and that Eppler uses the FA market to improve the team, because it's no fun even from a non-Angel fan standpoint to see Trout on a .500 or worse team. Thanks again so much for reading it and your feedback, it means a lot!

The screenname is an old one from years ago, hopefully it doesn't draw too much ire from people here. For those that still frequent Angels Win and remember me, I am Bobby, Cory's friend. For those that don't, feel free to read the article and tell me if my conclusion is stupid (or not).

http://baselinetimes.com/the-angels-can-finally-sell-two-years-too-late/ "What really interests me about Trout is his overall percentage of value to the Angels. In 2014, Trout was worth 26.33% of the positional fWAR. That’s completely acceptable for a good team, even with a superstar player. Once you get into 2015 and beyond, that’s where things start to look very, very bad. In 2015 Trout was worth 50.5% of the Angels positional fWAR. In 2016, Trout was worth 43.5% of the Angels positional fWAR. So far in 2017, it’s been even more unbalanced with Trout accounting for a whopping 63.2% of the Angels total position fWAR." With the frustrating news of Mike Trout's thumb injury a couple of days ago and the news of his surgery, I wrote about how it's finally time for the Angels to rebuild and sell off any assets that can bring in new young talent. Above is a snippet from the article that shows just how important Trout really is to the Angels (duh).

Puig just hit a home run to straightaway CF. 3-4 with a double and home run

It's awesome to see Puig on the list, but Trout should win, hands down. A football player will win instead, because M'erca!

Eh, he's just a little reckless this so far. It just also means he's taking chances, and that's what this team has needed. His second hit would have been gone in any stadium not Coors or Camden with the high right field walls.

lmao, thanks Nick

Utley would be awesome to trade for, there's probably only 5-7 teams that shouldn't trade for him based on their current 2B situation, and the Angels are one. I saw Howie was in a bit of a slump, but he's have a really good year. It's nice to see after all of the promise he had shown when he was younger and of course 2 years ago.