Jeff Fletcher

@JeffFletcherOCR: Why does Mike Trout have 0 SB atts? Only been on 1B with 2B unoccupied 7 times, and 5 with LHP on mound. #Angels Talked to Trout today about this. Stay tuned.

Iannetta was much better offensively for the final two months of 2013 and had a very good spring. Scioscia gave him a little rope to see if he could play every day. Just when it seemed that rope might be running out, he had a couple decent games on Friday and Saturday. Think Iannetta gets a little more rope before it becomes a platoon again. It's going to be fluid all year.

Sorry, forgot to check the box to make it free. It is now. http://www.ocregister.com/angels/richards-609241-taken-garrett.html

This would have been a lot easier if they'd simply made the rule "you can't block the plate. Period." That would have been a more drastic change to the game but it would have been easier to understand and apply. Instead they added this qualifier "if you have the ball you can block the plate" which creates all the confusion. In this case he was blocking the plate without the ball, but the runner hadnt arrived yet. By the time the runner got there, he did have the ball. That's why it's grey.

Trout has only 5 singles and 3 walks, and I'm sure some of those a steal wasn't possible because there was a guy on 2b or else the game situation dictated he stay put. Also, 4 of those 8 times reaching first was against a LHP which makes it harder to steal. I'm sure there were a couple other FC's that got him on base, but you get the point.

I don't know if you guys noticed, but this was for you yesterday... @JeffFletcherOCR: To show how silly it was to judge Albert Pujols on his first 30 PAs, in his last 6 PAs he's raised his OPS from .559 to .883. #Angels

Regarding Richards and strikeouts... http://www.ocregister.com/angels/richards-609241-taken-garrett.html

This totally misses the point. I'm not saying you don't move him because the games aren't important. I'm saying you don't move him because you don't have enough information to know if that will solve anything.

If Pujols had a 6 for 30 streak in the middle of June and it dropped his OPS from 925 to 916 would this discussion be happening? Obviously if Pujols shows that's he's not a good enough hitter to be in the No 3 spot he should be moved, but I don't think 30 ABs says anything. About anyone. Do you think Josh Hamilton is going to hit .500?

He had one leg last year. And in 2012 he was pretty good for the last 5 months. Chuck, there's a difference between saying the sample is too small and the games don't count. We are talking about predicting the future with a lineup change, and you just don't have enough information to do that.

Mostly my point is that 7 games is too small a sample size to be making drastic decisions.

Albert Pujols has played 7 games this season. If he had 3 more hits he'd be hitting .300

To be clear, this story is not about teams using analytics for personnel decisions, which the A's semi-pioneered and every team (including the Angels) has done for at least the past 7-8 years. This is about advance scouting and game planning and having people in the clubhouse every day who are familiar with the stats and how they can be applied. I know of no other teams that do it exactly this way. Most do it the way the Angels used to, which is hand the coaches a big binder of data and let them do what they can with it.

My understanding is the game stories, notes, news stories and blogs will continue to be free, but the columns and special features will be for subscribers.

Yes there is room for another. Pena and Tracy also refused AAA assignment.

I believe Stewart took the 39th spot. They still have one empty.

I had such a frustrating twitter exchange with one of these guys yesterday that I had to block him, which I almost never do. So then I wrote this... http://www.ocregister.com/angels/deal-607558-mike-trout.html

I have Angels at 178 for next year if they keep everyone under control and re-sign no FAs or sign no new FAs https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/lv?key=0AqaE8E5tHZtndEZhbS0zbzMwWnVjRXo3T0VkMHNGd0E&usp=drive_web So if they needlessly went over in 2014, that's a 30 pct tax for 2015, 40 pct in 2016, etc

But it would have cost them $20M against the luxury tax this year for no reason since he was still a 0-3 and you don't have to pay him. As it is, they have a chance of not being over by much (if at all) next year, if they trade Howie.

Prediction: there will be a lot of debate and hand wringing about whatever 2 bench guys make it. And then those guys won't play for 2 weeks.

I honestly dont think this affects the AAV Trout will get now. He's 4 years from FA and Cabrera is 2. So you give up some money to avoid two extra years of risk. He was looking at 25M AAV before so that's still in line. My guess is he wasn't likely to sign a 7 or more year deal before and now he's certainly not. He's going to give up some AAV to get his guaranteed cash now, but he's going to want to get back on the market ASAP to get back any money he's lost. So it's 6 years (3 years of FA) at the most.

Green was never a serious candidate for the job McDonald got. He's just not good enough defensively. If Aybar gets hurt and can't play for 3 days do you want Green at SS? I believe the Angels want Green to keep playing and developing at different positions instead of sitting around doing nothing in the majors. Since the Angels don't pinch hit much, what you really need are bench guys who can play defense, run or who could start 3-4 days in a row to fill in for an injury.

He hit .429 in April before Bourjos got hurt. When he was barely playing. Granted, it's not a lot of at bats, but Scioscia specifically said a guy like him is good to come off the bench because he has a short quick swing and doesn't try to hit homers.As for "competition" in spring training, it's a myth that gives fans and media something to write about. You have much more meaningful information on players from what theyve done in real games in their careers than stupid spring training games. One Angels person when asked about Matt long a couple weeks ago said "it's spring training."

One thing also to remember is that the guy in this role isn't going to play much, so you need someone who can sit around for 5 days and then come up and get a hit. If you look back at last April, before Bourjos got hurt, Shuck proved (in the majors) that he can do this. It's not like Long is this great prospect either. He's older than Shuck. I'm sure Long will get called up at some point this year. But I think they give Shuck the first shot based on what he did last year. If he struggles and Long is doing well at triple-A they can switch them.

As opposed to "Hey JB all you did was hit close to .300 over a full major league season of games that count against other major league pitchers, but this kid was pretty hot over 40 at bats in spring training games against guys wearing No. 73."