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In which case, it’s Perry fault for building an inflexible pen that necessitates two long men and ends up costing them games when long relievers are forced into leverage roles.

ANAHEIM — Patrick Sandoval had another off night, with the only solace being that he made it through five innings with the Angels still having a chance to win the game.
They didn’t.
Sandoval, the Angels’ Opening Day starter, has lost two of his three starts this season, including allowing four runs in the Angels’ 6-4 loss to the Tampa Bay Rays on Tuesday night.
It was a disappointing night for the Angels after an encouraging start, with Mike Trout putting them on top with a two-run homer in the first inning.
It was Trout’s sixth homer in the first 11 games of the season, setting an Angels record. Trout’s homer was a two-run shot, the first of his homers that wasn’t a solo homer.
Otherwise, though, the Angels didn’t do much at the plate. They scored on an error in the fourth, and then didn’t even get another runner into scoring position until they were down to their last out and down by three in the ninth.
The Angels (6-5) couldn’t take Sandoval off the hook for the loss, even though it was a one-run game when he threw his final pitch. Sandoval didn’t make it out of the second inning in his Opening Day loss, but then he pitched well in a victory. This time he gave up four runs in five innings, lifting his ERA to 6.57.
The down side was his control, with three more walks.
It wasn’t entirely his fault, though.
Sandoval appeared to get squeezed at times by plate umpire Bill Miller, including on a pitch that could have been the third strike on Curtis Mead to lead off the second. Mead ended up walking, sparking a two-run inning. The first of those runs came on a play that was initially ruled an out at the plate, but overturned on review.
Sandoval was also called for a balk when he had José Siri picked off in the fourth. And he was a victim of a misplay when right fielder Mickey Moniak failed to catch a fly ball after a long run just inside the foul line, leading to another run.
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The hitters, though, couldn’t do anything else, and the bullpen allowed the lead to grow.
José Cisnero gave up a homer to Isaac Paredes in the seventh. His fly ball was barely inside the left field pole. Cisnero has allowed seven runs in 4⅓ innings so far this season.
In the eighth, Hunter Strickland gave up a run when José Caballero singled, stole second and scored on a two-out blooper into right.
Luis Rengifo drove in a run in the bottom of the ninth, and the Angels had the potential winning run at the plate when pinch-hitter Miguel Sanó was called out on strikes to end it.
More to come on this story.
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I agree with this. Completely speculative, but I think the seemingly unclear direction is based on Trout and Rendon still being on the roster and wanting to compete, as well as a manager like Ron Washington not signing on for a rebuild. Washington’s stated goal is to run down the AL West. They’re trying to win, and Wash has said he’ll stick with the players who are performing. That probably means Hicks and Sano until injuries force the issue. IP said in another thread that the team is “rebuilding… ish.” That’s a difficult needle to thread. Teams need a great baseball ops department as well as great minor league depth to make that work.

Loving what Wash is bringing, physically and mentally
A true teacher on and off the field 
I love the more aggressive baserunning, great way to disrupt the defense while taking advantage of the 2 pickoff moves per batter limit.
Hopefully seeing a total change on the field from the past 8 seasons, win or lose

But you need to bring your own helmet. 

And as for the Padres, it sounds like it's not a teardown as much as it was a scheduled retooling of the roster. They went for it, it failed. No shame. But they're going to keep their long-term pieces in place, which for better or worse, are Tatis, Cronenworth, Machado...
If reports are true about Jarren Duran, they're looking for controllable, upside options in return for their rental pieces and prospects. 
Ward's power probably doesn't play up much in SD and probably manifests in a very similar fashion to Wil Myers. And that's if he's healthy. I don't think the Angels and Padres match up really. Maybe they want Drury and Rengifo but they probably wouldn't pay a steep price. 

Believe it or not, I'm still on Team Rendon. The Angels record with him is way better than it is without him. I love that he hates the media because I too hate the media. I love that he internalizes his expressions. It's no one's business, particularly on the other team, to know if he's frustrated. Garrett Anderson was the same way. And I love that behind the poker face, he's got some serious fire in him. 

@Dave Saltzer's first attempt at writing since he was diagnosed with cancer some 18 months ago that affected his ability to use his hands and walk on his feet. He's had a breakthrough in his cancer treatment that has now allowed him to write again and even more importantly, get out for a walk and be active. 
Thank you for this, Dave. We'll continue to pray for you my friend. 🙏
I share your optimism and thoughts in this article. 

By David Saltzer, AngelsWin.com Senior Writer
I haven’t been writing much, but that doesn’t mean that I haven’t been watching Angels baseball. I’m a diehard Angels fan. Win or lose, I follow my team. And, when you are really not feeling well, there’s no better medicine than a good Angels game.
As I reflected on the Angels Spring Training so far, I came away very impressed! We had a very good spring. And, I’m not just talking about our Win-Loss Record (which at 18-11 led the Cactus League).
There was something more about our spring training that got me excited. Reflecting back on all the games, at bats, innings pitched, etc., we had a very good spring training.
Thinking over our Top-30 Prospects, we saw a lot of them take a moderate or large step forward in their game. Players came in a lot more hungry and were performing at in-season levels. More players in our organization took steps forward, and that made the games far more exciting to watch.
Looking over each game, it was easy to see how impressive many of the players were. While I won’t name all the players who made big impressions, Joyce and Neto are two examples of guys who really came into camp far more advanced than advertised. They opened some eyes, along with many others.
And then, it dawned on me: Maybe this is finally a true Perry Minassian team. We never got a full answer to that question, but it seems that the writing is clear as to what he wants: a mix of stars and depth.
All during the offseason, the narrative has been that the Angels were going to raise their “floor” by signing lots of depth pieces. The problem with the Angels in the past has been our over reliance on our stars to carry us through the season. If any of them got hurt, we were essentially eliminated.
So, rather than signing a star shortstop, such as Trea Turner (assuming that he would sign with us),  we traded for and signed players like Urshela, Renfroe, Drury, etc.
The whole offseason narrative came down to a focus on raising our floor for wins and to fill in depth rather than raise our high end performance. It was as if raising the floor came at the expense of raising the ceiling. That’s a false dichotomy. Raising the floor can and does raise the ceiling for the team.
When it comes to potential, there are at least two components to it. First, how high is one’s potential. Second, how likely is that person to hit his/her potential.
This offseason, Perry brought in many players, all of whom have playoff experience. We all know that the Angels, including Trout, haven’t been to the postseason since 2014. We have a young team, so bringing in some veteran leadership will go a long way towards helping our younger players succeed more on the field.
At the same time, all of the players that Perry brought in can play multiple positions. Flexibility is key to this team.
This is going to help us a lot with the balanced schedule. In the past, the Angels would use games up until June to see what was working and what wasn’t working. With a balanced schedule, and fewer games against divisional rivals to take matters into our own hands, every game counts—and counts a lot more than early games did in the past.
It also allows us to rest more players throughout the season to keep them fresh. Rather than pushing through minor injuries, our players can take a day or two off.
This means we need players to play with urgency to maintain their playing time. And that’s exactly what we saw this spring. With all of our Swiss Army knife players, we can mix and match whomever is hot or has the best record against an opponent. If a player is struggling, he will quickly lose playing time. Unlike last year, playing time is not guaranteed for many players. Performance will dictate their time.
And this is where the big step forward with our farm comes into play. Having more depth in the upper minors (unlike in the lower minors for so many years), we can quickly replace an arm or fielder. We don’t have to put up with sub-replacement level play. We can make a trade for a playoff drive.
So maybe this is the future of Angels baseball under Perry Minassian: a team with a lot of flexibility, good pitching, and a strong farm. Sadly, the person most likely to appreciate this team the most is Mike Scioscia—with all this flexibility, he could finally have a season with 162 different lineups!
The Angels team that I saw in Tempe this year reminded me of the teams I saw in 2004-2009—some of the best teams in franchise history. If that’s the case, I’m very excited for Angels baseball in 2023.
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When you're at the ballpark you talk to people about what's going on. If there's an injury or something, it is pretty hard to tell the listeners what's going if you weren't there to talk to the player, manager, trainer, etc. about what's going on. I think the broadcasters also get a lot of color about what's going on with the players by being there and talking to them.
What ends up happening is the radio guys get the audio file of the manager's session with the media, but there are things that don't necessarily come out in that setting. I can tell you that if I'm on a road trip and I find out something that not everyone else knows, I'm not going to ask about it in front of everyone else at the main scrum with the manager. 
Also, there are times when you don't see everything that's happening because the TV feed you're relying on doesn't show you. Did a player have a conversation with the umpire between innings? Did someone start throwing in the bullpen and then stop? This year there are going to be timer violations that may not be caught by the camera if it's not focused on the plate umpire.
Obviously, none of this or make or break. As they've shown, you can still do an acceptable broadcast without all that stuff, but it's definitely not as good. It's not what any broadcaster would want after doing it from the ballpark for so many years. And the amount of money is saved about 1/4 of what they're paying Andrew Wantz.

Swapped Andrew Velazquez, Matt Duffy, Tyler Wade, Jack Mayfield, Michael Stefanic, Jose Rojas, Jonathan Villar, Phil Gosselin and David MacKinnon (1099 PA, -3.3 WAR) for Gio Urshela and Brandon Drury (1119 PA, 5.4 WAR)  
That's a huge and impactful swing...

By Jonathan Northrop, AngelsWin.com Senior Writer
Introduction: It Can't Be Worse
While we just tipped over into the second half of January, which means we're still several weeks away from pitchers and catchers reporting (February 14) and two and a half months from Opening Day (March 30), it is still the new year, and it seems that the Angels are--barring a surprise move--mostly done in assembling their 2023 team.
How does the team look? What can we expect and reasonably hope for? One thing this post will not be is a Debby Downer rant about worst-case scenarios and the poor moves of past and present management. I will try to be as objective as possible, but err towards the side of how good the team can reasonably be, if more things go right than wrong.
Injuries happen. Players have bad years. But players also have good years, and it is unusual that a team suffers the almost uncanny combination of bad luck and injury that the 2022 team experienced, essentialized in their 14-game losing streak. Chances are, no matter how bad it gets in 2023, it won't get that bad. And GM Perry Minasian has put a lot of work--and fair amount of money--into preventing a repeat of that debacle.
 
1. The Angels vs. the World Champions
What has Minasian done this offseason? Well, he's lifted the floor on the team substantially. The Angels poor performance in 2022 can be visually expressed like so:


Now it might not be fair to compare the Angels to the World Champions, but on the other hand, if you're trying to build a contender, one important tactic is to look at successful teams and, most importantly, how they succeeded and, if possible, trying to emulate that. 
What are you looking at? The two charts compare the Angels and Astros, first in hitting as represented through wRC+, secondly in pitching as represented by FIP. The striking difference between the two teams in both charts is perhaps best characterized not by the best players, but by the worst - namely, the number of poor performers on the Angels, and the visual "real estate" they take up on the charts.
Perhaps the most glaring problem the Angels had is the huge number of plate appearances given to bad hitters: Their first four hitters by plate appearance were all plus performers, but the next seven were negative; and after the first four, only one out of the next seventeen was average or above.
Compare that to the Astros: six out of their first seven were average or above, and seven out of their first ten. The mass of below average performers on the ride side of the first graph make up a fraction of the Angels' comparable section.
We see a similar phenomena with the pitchers, although in some ways it is even more striking in that the Astros only had two pitchers with below average FIP that were given substantial playing time, and one of them--Jose Urquidy--still managed about a league average ERA of 3.94.
Meaning, the Astros weren't sending (almost) any poor pitchers to the mound, while the Angels were shuffling through a bunch of them.
If you're the GM of a baseball team, you look at ways to improve controllable outcomes, of which injuries are (for the most part) not. Meaning, Minasian has very little say in whether or not Anthony Rendon gets hurt or how Mike Trout ages, or even whether Taylor Ward decides to crash into a wall. But what he does have some control over, is how the roster is configured.
So Minasian's big task this offseason was to turn as much of the "purple" into "green." There are specific needs to be addressed, but in its most simply--yet still comprehensive form--that's what was required.
The big question, of course, is how successful was he? In mid January, we cannot know. We might now come May, but even then it might not be until about mid-season that we have a sense of whether the "Minasian Plan" (Or Minasian Gambit?) worked. What did he do?
2. Minasian's Moves
First, let's talk about what he did not do: He didn't sign any big free agents or make any huge trades. Everything he did was minor to moderate, in terms of resources. The total result was the equivalent of signing a big free agent and some scraps, but no single move did any of the following:
Give a player $20M+ per year* Sign a player for more than three years Give up any top 10 (or even top 20) prospects I asterisked the first, because he did give Ohtani a one-year deal worth $30M. Ohtani was due for a big arbitration pay day that would probably have earned him a bit less, but we can consider this as a bit of a good-will deed. 
What did Minasian do? Well, here's a list:
Signed Shohei Ohtani for 1/$30M Signed SP Tyler Anderson for 3/$39M Traded Janson Junk, Elvis Peguero, and Adam Seminaris to the Brewers for OF Hunter Renfroe Signed IF Brandon Drury for 2/$17M Traded Alejandro Hidalgo to the Twins for IF Gio Urshela Signed RP Carlos Estevez for 2/$13.5M Signed OF Brett Phillips for 1/$1.2M Plus a bunch of minor league acquisitions As you can see, other than Ohtani, there is not a true star in sight. What the above list includes are a handful of quality, major league regulars and solid bench/platoon players.
The Angels Opening Day 26-man payroll is estimated at $188M, $7M higher than last year; similarly, the CB Tax 40-man payroll is $207M, $8M higher than 2022.
3. 2022 vs. 2023: What Will Be Different?
A lot remains the same, but some significant factors have changed. Essentially what has happened is:
The Angels have swapped out Brandon Marsh and Jo Adell (608 PA, 0.7 WAR) for Hunter Renfroe (522 PA, 2.5 WAR) Swapped Andrew Velazquez, Matt Duffy, Tyler Wade, Jack Mayfield, Michael Stefanic, Jose Rojas, Jonathan Villar, Phil Gosselin and David MacKinnon (1099 PA, -3.3 WAR) for Gio Urshela and Brandon Drury (1119 PA, 5.4 WAR) Tyler Anderson (178.2 IP, 4.0 WAR in 2022) has replaced Noah Syndergaard/Michael Lorenzen (177.2 IP, 2.2 WAR). Carlos Estevez (57 IP, 0.4 WAR) is replacing a variety of pitchers, including half a year of Raisel Iglesias (35.2 IP, 0.7 WAR) Replaced Magneuris Sierra, Juan Lagares, and Mickey Moniak (220 PA, -0.9 WAR) with Brett Phillips (225 PA, 0.1 WAR) OK, before you protest, note that I am not saying that we can simply take last year's numbers and switch them out like that. But I am saying that this is essentially what is happening in terms of playing time, without even looking at injuries; I included some stats to give. For instance, we don't know how much players like Rendon, Trout, Ward, and Fletcher will play in 2023, or at what level. Catcher is also a big question mark: which version of Max Stassi will show up, and who will share catching duties with him?
But....if you do swap out those players, you get a +12.8 WAR swing, about two-thirds of which (+8.7 WAR) is coming from the infield. 
What does a +12.8 WAR swing look like for the Angels? Well, if we just take the raw numbers, that adds about 13 wins and the Angels go from 73-89 to 86-76.
Again, it isn't so simple as that - and things always turn out differently than planned. But that is still the basic idea behind these moves: replace sub-par performance with--at least--solid, league average performance.
Minasian's moves this offseason could pay huge dividends, especially in the infield, where the Angels gave about two full season's worth of playing time to -3.3 WAR performance, most of which was due to poor hitting. Even if the Angels can replace that -3.3 WAR with slightly above replacement level play, they add four or more wins.
4. Two (or Three) Factors for Success in 2023
The Angels 2023 season is mostly banking on two factors:
One, the above mentioned changes work out mostly as hoped. They don't have to work out completely, but just for the most part. 
Two, better health - and not just Trout and Rendon, but Fletcher, Ward, Canning, Rodriguez, etc. Last year the Angels got only 166 games from their two highest paid players, Trout and Rendon. In 2021, it was 94 games - so if we want to find a silver lining, at least we're trending in the right direction. But they really need more from these two, and while the farm system is on a positive trajectory, there simply isn't the offensive talent waiting in the wings to make up the difference.
I would add a third that is less necessary but could swing the team significantly:
Three, positive minor league developments, namely players graduating and performing in the majors. This could include better health and performance from guys like Canning and Rodriguez, a breakout performance from Logan O'Hoppe, some of the plethora of pitching prospects in the high minors graduating and performing well. Meaning, something, someone...anything!
Summing Up
The Angels team has a lot of talent. While it may be unlikely given recent track records, there's a scenario in which the very similar Renfroe (124 wRC+, 29 HR) and Drury (123 wRC+, 28 HR) aren't, even repeating last year's performances, among the top four or five hitters on the team. It requires Trout and Rendon to be healthy, Ohtani to stay healthy, and Ward to at least repeat something similar to last year's performance (137 wRC+). Add in a potential bounce back from Jared Walsh, and the Angels could have a lineup that features seven players hitting 20+ HR, with 120 wRC+ or better...and that isn't even considering continued improvement from Luis Rengifo (103 wRC+, 17 HR), a bounce-back from Stassi or breakout from O'Hoppe.
The rotation looks, at the very least, quite solid, with the potential to be very good. There are a wide range of outcomes for the bullpen, so it bears watching. But the Angels have a lot of minor league arms to draw from, as well as (hopefully) a healthy Chris Rodriguez and Griffin Canning.
There are no certainties in major league baseball (or life), but we can at least look at the Angels and say that this team has a chance to be very good - and maybe even better. But the risk is there; they're as likely to win 80 games as they are 90 but, I would say, more likely to win 95 than 75. The talent is there.

At minimum this replaces some of what we traded to  Brewers. 

I absolutely remember you posting about trying to find the boxscore from that game.  Happy to hear you found some information.
Dads and baseball - just wonderful.

tough call and good head to head.  They are so different.  Think I'll go Moniak because there's more upside there.  Not sure it would bother me if both end up on the bench next year.  
Also, now's the time to keep giving Stefanic at bats.  let him work it out.  Don't get playing Rojas or Gosselin at all.  

But really, good addition. I think everyone has liked his tweets for a while now.

Please welcome, @taylorblakeward.

Adams is quietly having a good year: .297/.387/.422. No HR yet, but I'm more interested in him developing a decent hit tool. If he can build up his walks even more, with his speed and defense he could be something.

Even if you played for the Savannah Bananas

I'm glad he was sent down.  Not because I think he's busted or can't play at the highest level.  I just don't think it's beneficial for either him or Marsh to be platooning.  They both need to play every day and in Adell's case, he needs as many defensive reps as possible.
 

Nobody here could walk more than once against MLB pitching because they would throw nothing but strikes. 

He needs to play everyday and become an average outfielder or sink. That has to happen in AAA.