Jeff Fletcher

If the same hitter faces Smith in the 8th and Street in the 9th, something has gone seriously wrong.

Another team. Point was he had no reason to side with Dipoto because he's his buddy. His objective opinion was it was a good deal for where the Angels are now.

Haven't even made it all the way through this thread but I'm surprised at how overwhelmingly negative you guys are. I talked to a scout about it last night, a guy who covers the Angels system and has scouted all of their players this year. He also hates Dipoto. Still he thought it was a good deal for the Angels because of what it does for them now. He doesn't think much of Lindsey at all. He likes Rondon but thinks he's a ways away. He's 20. Aybar is signed through 2016, so you're talking about losing a guy who is years away from being ready or needed. A lot can go wrong. As for Alvarez, he's probably the most sure thing to have a major league impact in the next 18 months. Oh by the way, let's not forget that he just missed a month with a bad elbow. But what's his best case scenario? That he becomes what Street is right now. My take: yes it's possible the Angels overpaid but i wouldn't worry about it. The Angels have a rotation that may be little vulnerable and short on innings and now they have the luxury of yanking a starter in the 5th and rolling out a string of Morin, Jepsen, Grilli, Smith and Street. That's a nasty bullpen with room for error if one of them falls apart, which is possible.

The Angels only planned to have Newcomb start 4-6 games because of the 100 innings he already pitched in college, so if he'd signed earlier he'd obviously have gotten some more instruction and indoctrination into the system, but he wouldn't have pitched any more.

Also, you have to understand Scioscia. If you asked him if today is Sunday he would hedge and you could write "Scioscia would not commit to today being Sunday."

I was there when the question was asked. Based on my knowledge of what Scioscia and Dipoto have said on the topic recently, I am pretty confident Huston Street is the only guy from outside they have a chance to get who would immediately unseat Smith. Obviously if Smith starts to pitch poorly, things change. But for now, as long as he's doing the job, and as long as Street doesn't show up, he's the closer.

That's an AP story written by a guy who didn't know the context behind what Scioscia said.

I think you guys are reading too much into what he said. He means he wants one more reliever. If it's Huston Street, I think Smith goes to the 8th. I don't believe there's anyone else out there the Angels are interested in who would pitch the 9th over the Smith. Any other reliever they get ( and I don't think they're going to get one) goes into the 7th or 8th.

He's not a rookie. Jose Abreu is.

Unless someone gets hurt in the next 3 weeks, the Angels are not getting a starter. Period.

I posted that stat to illustrate that Kendrick is more productive than people think he is in those situations. Yes, he hits into a lot of DPs. The reason he does that is because he 1. Bats with a lot of guys on base, because of where he hits in the lineup 2. Doesn't strike out much 3. Hits a lot of ground balls 4. Hits the ball hard 5. Isnt terribly fast Reasons 2-4 are also part of why he's a good hitter, and they are also part of the reason that when he's not hitting into DP's, he is very productive. His career average - career - in the DP situations is .312, which is 20 points higher than overall. Hitting into DP's is a negative side affect of a skill set that is mostly positive.

I remember going back and forth with Scott on twitter one night in May maybe about how Jepsen wasn't so bad and he wanted him shot out of a cannon and replaced immediately with Bedrosian.

Actually, the way it used to be was if a player who was voted by the players had to be replaced, it was by whoever was next on the players voting. The manager got to pick if one of his picks was out. Tanaka was a player vote. So either they changed it or someone is confused.

Ramirez made it over Aybar because the players voted for him over Aybar. The players also voted for Tanaka, Buehrle, Kazmir, Darvish and Felix over Richards. Farrell chose Lester (only Bos player), Price (only TB) and Scherzer (reigning Cy Young). Tanaka, by the way, is scheduled to pitch on Sunday. I bet whichever starter doesn't win the final 5 vote gets his spot. If Darvish really isn't pitching, that's another.

What? The roster you have is why you make a trade. Bourjos was considered surplus exactly because of Calhoun. Not sure I get your point.

FYI, I was told before the trade happened that the Cardinals did not view Bourjos as more than a fourth OF, which is how the Angels viewed him too, incidentally. That's why the Cards wouldn't do Bourjos-Freese straight up. The other thing about Bourjos is that his "value" in a WAR sense, which so many people like to mention, is not really relevant to the Angels because of the "replacement" they have in CF if he's not there. His value is all defense, and to the Angels there's not much value added having Bourjos over Trout in CF. You then improve your defense a lot in LF, but the cost is Bourjos bat in the lineup instead of, say, Calhoun. I don't know many teams that value defense over offense in the corner OF.

I would have loved to see a ruling on this protest. The A's clearly got screwed but I can't see any remedy. This is just one of those spots where's there's no right answer.

By the way, I don't know for sure but I'd say it's very likely the Angels did in fact get Hill for $1. When a player is traded for "cash considerations" that's generally what it means. Usually that doesn't get publicized because it's embarrassing for the player, but somehow it did with the Brad Mills thing. It's basically a way for GMs to arrange for players to go to specific teams rather than simply releasing them and making them free agents.

Pujols was fine to swing. And he run ok to handle 90 percent of the situations that would arise before they could pinch run for him.

Scioscia said he was fine to swing and he would have pinch run for him if he'd gotten on base. I believe this was a case of laziness (age-appropriate, as it were) and a medical condition. First he slowed down when he thought the ball wasn't coming to 2nd. That's no different than him slowing down on a routine grounder, which he and a lot of older guys do all the time. Call that laziness or lack of hustle but he does it all the time. He admitted he should have run through the bag. But then once he saw that he had to crank it up again, he couldn't. He said he slowed down first and then it grabbed it when he tried to speed up, and he couldn't. So it was bad all around.

It's actually pretty standard in that specific situation. A ball to the OF ends the game so having an extra OF doesn't help you.

It was explained to the media after the fact, but Scioscia said he knew about it before. That's why Pujols DH'd twice this weekend.

So let me get this straight.... You guys think that Frieri pitched a 1-2-3 inning with a one-run lead on Tuesday because it was the 8th, but when he came in the 9th, even though he had a 5-run lead, he melted down because it was the 9th? There are high leverage situations and there are low leverage situations. A 1-run lead in the eighth is obviously a much tougher spot than a 5-run lead in the ninth. I honestly don't think Frieri's issues have anything to do with the situation. He's not pitching well right now - not consistently anyway - so it doesn't matter when he pitches. You take him out as the closer because you can't have a closer who is pitching poorly, not because being the closer makes him pitch poorly. He's got about 70 saves that say otherwise. A 5-run lead in the ninth is actually the perfect time to pitch him. He gets the job done and he gets the confidence of finishing the game. If he doesn't, you have plenty of cushion to get him out of there and still win the game. Which is what happened.

Regarding the overall talent in the Angels farm system... The scout I talked to the other day about Cowart is a guy whose job it is to evaluate the entire Angels farm system for just this purpose, and his team is one that will be selling. He has seen every Angels farm team in the past month. He was not impressed. His opinion was the Angels best chances to make a deal are to take a bad contract because they have more money than talent to give. That's why I can't see them getting any of the top targets on the trade market.

Green only had one mildly tough play tonight and he almost got Howie Kendrick killed at 2B with a bad feed.