Jeff Fletcher

Some of you guys are clearly frustrated and I think exaggerating his issues. Yeah, his ERA looks terrible, but it's because he's a reliever who has a very small number of innings so one bad outing throws it all out of whack. For his career, he has a 3.05 ERA and opponents OBP of .301. He's converted 89 percent of his save opportunities. The Angels don't have a single reliever who hasn't had 3 bad outings, so if you're going to want perfection, you're going to be disappointed.

Want to add one thing... I get that Joe Blanton irritated a lot of fans by saying this sort of thing after he got lit up. However, that is not Frieri. If you look back at his other blowups, he almost always took the blame and accepted responsibility for failing to get the job done. Even in this interview he said his problems earlier in the season were entirely his fault for missing his locations. We are talking about 5 batters. Even if he only got unlucky on 2 of them, replace 2 hits with outs and were not having this conversation.

That's good. Because he never said it. Nor did anyone else with the Angels.

Pujols seems to get along fine with his teammates.

If they are 21 they can. Don't worry about this guys. He's going to sign. There is maybe one first round pick every other year who doesn't sign. Maybe 2 every 3 years. Not a big deal.

The Angels have never done it since Scioscia has been the manager. I wanna say the last time was around 1993. I know JB Shuck pitched in college so if it ever happens when he's on the team, he's the guy. He also did it in the minors. I thought for sure it was going to happen last April. (Remember the game Michael Roth started and got blown out after 2 innings, vs. Oakland?) As for who would do it now, my money is on McDonald. It has to be a bench guy because you can't have someone get hurt.

I think he should play against most lefties. Since he's been back he's been benched in 6 of 8 games vs LHPs. But 3 of those 6 were Pomeranz and Sale, so I'm ok with those. A couple of the early ones were also when he was really scuffling (remember that 1 for 19?). I'd wait for a bigger sample of games to call it a "platoon."

Pomeranz career splits .179 vs LHBs .276 vs RHBs Scioscia did the same thing vs Pomeranz in Oakland. Calhoun started vs Milone (another LH with more even splits)

That's what it means. I guess they really want to keep him if they jammed him through waivers so quickly instead of listening for trade offers. Or maybe they had already done that before DFAing him.

I silent quoted myself just to point out that someone was asking a question that I had answered on the previous page As for the consent thing with 5 years, that's to go to minors. Not to be DFA'd. If the DBacks have no interest in trading him and if Cahill would rather pitch in the minors with the DBacks than in the majors with another team, then that's what's going to happen. I'm sure teams are calling them to see what they want. If they believe they can fix him and get value out of him, probably they'd rather keep him than give him up for a nothing prospect and a few million bucks of salary relief.

Maybe they can hire someone good like Joe Maddon. Nothing could possibly go wrong with a guy like that managing your team.

You've got that backwards. I'm sure they want him to be claimed because then it saves them 16 million bucks. Which is why he won't be claimed.

You're confusing these waivers with the revocable waivers needed to make a trade after July 31. He won't be placed on waivers unless the DBacks find no one willing to make a trade. Once they put him on waivers, they are essentially losing control of him. He'll be claimed and the gone. Or else if he's unclaimed he then has the option of going to the minors. I assume he wouldn't because some team will offer him a big league opportunity. I think it's likely he's traded, but not for much. A little salary relief and a nothing prospect. That's more than the DBacks get if he's released. Of course they could gamble and hope he's claimed then they get relief of the whole contract. I doubt that though.

No one will claim him because then you have to take his whole salary. A team can work out a trade right now, giving up some player and taking some salary. If not, he'll clear waivers and then have the option of going to the minors or being released. Once he's released he can sign with a team of his choice for the minimum, with DBacks paying the rest. Angels best bet to get him is a trade.

This is my latest best guess... http://www.ocregister.com/angels/one-617189-green-ibanez.html Summary: Cron eventually becomes the full-time DH and Ibanez sticks around just to pinch-hit (see Jason Giambi's role with the Indians last year and this year). Green plays everyday at AAA. I think that maximizes the production at the major league level and the long-term development, as well as preserving all the depth.

Carlos Correa is the real stud. He's probably Manny Machado. I expect him to reach the majors late next year at 20-21.

The first series of the year they got swept by the mariners. They played badly. Didn't matter who they were playing, they'd have been swept. This weekend they got swept by the A's, who have the best record and run differential in the league. In between they are 5-2 vs houston, 3-3 vs Seattle, 1-2 V's Oakland (all 1-run games), 1-2 vs Texas. That's 10-9. Last year their problems vs the west were because 1. The west is good and 2. They had the bad timing to run into Houston at some of their lowest points. They also got swept in the last weekend of the season when Texas had to win to make the playoffs and the angels were out of it. I wouldn't read too much into it

My job is not to have an opinion. My job, in a nutshell, is to get information. In this case, your question is "why is Ibañez still playing?" So we ask Scioscia and Dipoto the question. They give their answer and we report it. If you don't like the answer, take it up with them, not us. A columnist's job is different. He has the freedom to write "the angels are wrong and Ibañez shouldn't play." If you want to see that written, take it up with Jeff Miller or TJ Simers or Bill Plaschke. Or, you could just have your own opinion without worrying if anyone in the media expresses it for you.

I have never covered a team that spent this much time on scouting meetings.

They do the relievers at the start of the series. Don't have to do them again every day. The daily meetings are just for the starter that night.

They go over the tendencies of all the opposing pitchers/hitters. The pre-series meetings are probably 20-25 minutes apiece. The daily hitters meetings are maybe 10-15.

Also, I don't think it's Scioscia. I think it's Dipoto.

He gave a bunch of reasons why he thought he was coming around, from watching his swing etc. What are we supposed to do? "Your opinion is wrong!" We report what Scioscia says. We report was Ibañez said. We report what the numbers say. Now if you're saying a columnist should come out and write "Ibañez stinks and the Angels should release him" then ok. They are free to write that. It's not for the beat writers.

They've been doing it a lot more this year than before. 2 or 3 meetings before each series. Then a hitters meeting every day.