jsnpritchett

I would argue that if they DO sign those two, they'll be mediocre at best for a long time.

Like I've said, no one should take anything Washington says seriously at this point, nor should they think what he says one day is in any way predictive of what will occur moving forward.

I think it's pretty clear now that Washington just kinda makes shit up as he goes. Says a lot of things that sound positive and upbeat in the moment, but don't really mean much in the long run. He's flip-flopped several times regarding his lineup decisions, whether the team is rebuilding or built to win, etc. I wouldn't put too much stock in anything he says at all at this point.

Matthew Liberatore on the mound for the Cardinals.

You know what he named his new venture? Halo Sports and Entertainment. No joke: https://www.forbes.com/sites/shaneyoung/2024/03/07/clippers-owner-steve-ballmer-launches-halo-sports-and-entertainment/?sh=ff11f237d0f7 That said, there's no reason to think he'd be interested in the Angels. EDIT: Side note: Ballmer was the major investor in the holding company that bought and still runs the last research firm I worked at. He was very hands-off and aside from one video conference call that he was on not long after I joined, I don't recall him having any direct interaction with any of the senior level execs. I think he was content to just let his money do the work and have the CEO of the holding company (Mark Penn, who some of you might be familiar with) deal with any issues.

"Any great team will have a great comeback story on its roster — a pleasant surprise helping a club achieve its goals unexpectedly. That is not where the Angels find themselves. Instead, they’re relying on those comeback stories. They’re in desperate need of a slew of miracles. And it isn’t just one player who happened to claw their way back. It’s a room full of players — some of whom were pleasantly surprised that a team still needed them. It speaks to the franchise’s inability to develop talent in its system. There’s no well of talent from which to plug holes. The Angels’ big-league team has been particularly injury-prone. But injuries are a part of the game. And many Angels players have a track record of being hurt. The need for depth should have come as no surprise. Yet, the Angels have been caught flat-footed. And now, they’re doing what they do best: cross their fingers and hope. Hope that somehow, this club can keep them afloat."

Neither Drury nor Sano are primary 1B, which is why they're not on that list.

MLB.com updated their top 100 prospect list. Still no Rada or Dana. https://www.mlb.com/news/updated-top-100-prospects-list-for-may-2024?t=mlb-pipeline-coverage

To me, O'Hearn is a classic guy who's good to have at a cheap price before he hits free agency, but he's not someone I'd want to pay much for. His numbers this year are wacky (more BB than K, which is a completely new pattern for him). If he keeps it up throughout the year, maybe he's worth a shot. I don't know, though. Something just seems a little odd about him to me, despite his good StatCast metrics so far.

No one has signed him. He's just sitting there. If he was a realistic option for the Angels (or any other team), don't you think he would have already signed? And a 36-year-old guy is not the answer to anything the Angels need this year, let alone '25 and beyond.

Arraez can get away with it because he's still good at hitting line drives and placing the ball well, even if he doesn't swing hard. His launch angle sweet spot % is very high and his line drive % has consistently been above league average throughout his career. If you look deeper into Schanuel's profile, he's not only swinging softly, he's also hitting an insane amount of groundballs (over 54%, 10 points higher than the MLB average) because he tops a lot of balls (41%, 8 points higher than the MLB average). So a slow guy swinging softly, swinging down and hitting the ball on the ground, is a recipe for disaster. EDIT: Just to add on to this, as I've said elsewhere, the Angels really have to hope Schanuel figures it out. They don't have anyone in the minors who is remotely ready to take over 1B if Schanuel can't hack it--and there aren't any great candidates on the major league roster to move there, either. I'll paste in the 1B free agent options after this season. It's not a great pool. I don't want to go near Alonso for what he'll probably want. Given Schanuel's uncertainty, the bad free agent options, and the absolute lack of other options in the system, it actually wouldn't surprise me at all to see the Angels draft another college 1B this year, especially since they have four picks in the first 100.

Yeah, his StatCast numbers are still ugly:

Yep, that was what they initially said about Sano--but we all know this is the Angels we're talking about, so we shouldn't be too surprised that it's taking longer than anticipated. And, yeah, as you know, I'm not a fan of Tucker, and Goodrum serves no purpose other than being a warm body who can fill a uniform. When Sano comes back, one of those two will be gone. Unfortunately, there's really no one else in the system to replace the other until Adrianza is back. Who the hell knows when Stefanic is coming back. Paris is already up. Unless they call up another space-filler like Hunter Dozier, Charles Leblanc, Drew Ellis (who they just signed), or Jack Lopez, what else can they do? I can't ever remember the options being this limited.

Joe Redfield came out of today's game after 2 AB. Once again, can't find out any info on what, if anything, happened to him. I really wish there was some way to get more consistent, detailed info about the minor league guys. There has still been no official report or even a brief article about what's going on with Cole Fontenelle (I know he broke his ankle, but haven't seen any updates aside from him being put on the 60-day IL...did he have surgery? What's the recovery time? Etc., etc.). Nothing about Nelson Rada. No info on why Alberto Rios hasn't played in over a week (and he hasn't been reassigned to the AZ Complex team or anything like that, at least that I can find). And now Redfield. Gimme some info!!

From Jeff Fletcher's column today: "Infielders Luis Rengifo (virus) and Miguel Sanó (knee inflammation) were both on the field doing drills before Sunday’s game. The Angels are hoping that Rengifo will be back sometime in the next week, and there’s no timetable for Sanó."

Anyone know why Alberto Rios has only played in 14 games so far at Tri-City? Has he been hurt, or is he just not getting time because he's been absolutely awful? He hasn't played since May 2, but there's nothing on his MILB.com page that indicates he was put on the IL.

Also, it's clear now that the reduced amount of posts in Friday's Gameday Thread wasn't due to the fact that the game was on Apple TV+: the last two days have had about the same amount of posts. People have definitely either already stopped watching on a regular basis or they don't feel the need to comment on these patchwork lineups and generally crappy play.

27,723 tickets sold for today's game. Once again didn't look like there were close to that many folks there, though.

Angels are gonna take two of three from the Cardinals, give fans some hope, and then get absolutely crushed on their next road trip.

He has definitely struggled so far in those ~50 ABs--but what's the alternative right now? You might as well give him some time and see what he can do. It's not like giving more time to the random dudes they've signed lately will help the team in '25 and beyond.

"How many chances?" He got 40 AB last year, he has 7 this year, and he's 22-years-old. Lol.

Bats are very quiet again today so far. 9 K, 0 BB. This is probably how it's going to be for as long as these scrubs are playing: mostly quiet, then random outbursts like last night. Just boring baseball. I'm curious to see how the series against the Cardinals goes. They're also struggling (dead-last in the NL in runs scored per game, 3rd-worst in runs given up per game). Could go either way: lots of 2-1-type games, or 9-7-type games.

Sandoval allowed 11 hits. I know some of them weren't hard contact, but still...jeez.

Doubles machine Calhoun does it again!