nmh

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/sports/2017/12/25/baseball/mlb/new-angels-star-shohei-ohtani-bids-farewell-fighters-fans/#.WkEMsiSIahA

Shohei threw a pitch in his Angels jersey after his goodbye press conference.

https://www.theverge.com/2015/8/4/9090897/mlb-bam-live-streaming-internet-tv-nhl-hbo-now-espn

pretty good article on the rise of bamtech.  Best example they use is HBO planned to spend $900 million over 3 years to create HBO Now which is the standalone service, not HBO Go.  Bamtech did it for $50 million in less than 4 months.

I remember this.  He had a connection and weather delayed his 2nd flight.  Who could have predicted weather being an issue in December and going cross country.  His press interviews over that weekend were not impressive.  I want my GM to be the smartest guy in the room and he wasn’t.  The real blame is on Arte giving Scioscia tenure and strategic captain while promoting from within to be Mike’s get it done guy.  Stoneman at least was a competing voice.  Lost out on Crawford, so Arte demanded a bat and we wind up with Wells with some junk logic that we were avoiding paying for Napoli’s final arbitration year at $5m and Gary Matthews was coming off the books.  Perhaps Arte’s worst stretch.  Part of never rebuilding is making mistakes though.  So it goes.

Have to say, seems like Scioscia’s clubhouse vibe he brought to Ohtani meeting worked. Got to tip my cap to him.

Victor actually botched the team name.  Pretty sure they are the Fighters who are owned by Nippon Ham who play in Hokkaido.  Not people beating up pigs.

I have said "Holy shit. We got him" after Vlad, Pujols and now Ohtani.  Great day

Angels war room looking noticeably younger than I remember than in past years, which is fine by me. 

No Blackmon, Story, Desmond.  First baseball bet of the season placed.  Angels -106

Just watched his BP video.  Somewhat similar to Kole's swing, right?

http://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/ANA/2002-schedule-scores.shtml

The crazy thing was the overlap with the run the A's were on...

http://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/OAK/2002-schedule-scores.shtml

Eckstein leading 2002 baseball in Grand Slams (tied at 3) and Hit By Pitch (27) is one of my favorite stats.

I was a little surprised HK didn't accept the QO

I was shocked he didn't take it after missing a month during the season. To upgrade from 9.5 to 15.8 vs going on the free market with a first rounder attached. Really interested to see what he winds up getting.

He wasn't very effective his first month and his general awkwardness didn't necessarily lead to must sign feelings. While he was pitching for the Angels I thought he gave a general unhappy when pitching vibe. Free agency coincided with new Dodgers ownership, which was buy everything.

imgur.com/xHKWf5Y

Was driving by the Fox lot where they put up billboards for various shows. Thought using Cowgill was a random choice.

Ratings is just a percentage of the households watching.  There are much fewer households in Milwaukee and Cleveland, but a higher percent of those households are watching Brewers and Indians games.  So even though we have twice as many households watching as Milwaukee, we have 5.66 million households vs. their 914k.

This gets posted every now and again, but never have seen a list so complete as this.  Excludes Dodgers and Astros

http://blogs-images.forbes.com/maurybrown/files/2014/10/2014MLBRSNPrimeTime.jpg

- Impressed by Mariners ratings and shocked at how few people watch A's games.

- Midwest very strong

Will always be a fan of Howie, but like this deal. Best of luck to him and seems like a great situation for him in Chavez Ravine.

Man, just imagine the name jokes for the next ten years if the team moved to Tustin.  A bunch of idiots saying "The Tustin Angels of Anaheim of Los Angeles of California of the USA, herpa derpa haw haw."

 

****, that would drive me nuts.

Congratulations on the worst post in months.

This is going to be fun. Either a new stadium or a public fight filled with posturing. Anaheim can't afford to pay for the demolition of the Big A without money from developers. As an extreme example, Montreal Olympic Stadium would cost $500-700 million to take down because they used so much concrete they can't blast it down. Would love to see what Arte has planned for developing the site.

http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2014/09/baseball-is-boring-and-this-camera/379443/?single_page=true

Great article worth reading. To summarize, with cameras being used to judge every pitch called by umpires, the strike zone has changed over the last decade because calls are less subjective. The strike zone now is lower and these are tougher pitches to hit and have led to an increase in strikeouts. Imagine five baseballs side by side. That is the cumulative increase in the strike zone area vs a few years ago.

The author was on KCRW's To the Point show yesterday (the Scottish independence episode; starts around minute 44). You can find it as a podcast. Some really interesting points about how this has led to drop in tv ratings.

Read that although his contract is committed at league minimum for next year, he will say that he will sit the year out in order to force a new deal getting done. Never thought about that.

In 2016, Angels win pay $39 million more for Pujols, Hamilton, Weaver, Wilson and Trout than this year. $34 million if you take into consideration Trout's signing bonus. Who needs a farm system?

what ultimatum?

This is what Arte does. Happened with Reagan's and the Wells trade, happens every offseason with every free agent we go after. Not a big leap to think that's what happened here. His rule should be to prevent dumb trades from those with little job security, not encourage them. Really thought we had turned the corner on the mentality that we are just one guy away from winning it all. The playoffs are a crapshoot. Just get there and see what happens.

Arte is to blame 100%. Don't give your GM an ultimatum and then they make a dumb trade that costs you long term.

9 games above Royals and Blue Jays for the last wild card spot.  Not bad.

They need to change it to a fixed number of balls thrown and swings. 25 balls thrown and max 15 swings per round. Reduce it to two rounds. 8 then 3. Watching these guys wear out is painful.