AngelsSurfer

She's absolutely right.

But that happens with every club, IMHO. It isn't an Angels thing. Sometimes a change of scenery and coaching staff can do wonders for a player. They're never going to do well for the team they left, for whatever reason, but they come into their own once they're in a new club. Take Jason Grilli last year. With the Pirates he was blowing saves and generally wasn't doing well, but he did a great job for the Angels. Change of scenery makes all the difference sometimes. Even if 2015-2016 Hamilton does well for the Rangers there's zero guarantee that he'd have yielded the same returns for the Angels.

Seconded. Legality and morality of drugs aside, the guy had a poor attitude from the get-go, and the Angels bent over backward to accomodate him. Can anyone name another player who a) had their accountability coach and babysitters on the team's payroll; b )was freely given time off during the 2014 season to get his head together; c) was placed on a post-season roster despite dismal production and being away for a month; d) was allowed to rehab off-site in a situation that didn't even require him to show up for spring training or report to team trainers and medical staff? If anything the Angels were too lenient with this guy over the past two years. The poor attitude is all on him.

Except that it's been widely reported that they had a rehab assignment set for him and he refused to go. Next.

The Angels actually DID give him another chance: They'd designed a plan to get him back on the field by June. All he had to do was show up to extended training in Arizona. He couldn't be bothered with that.

Exactly. Very well said.Compare this debacle to the Screen Actors Guild. SAG offers a lot of protections but if an actor doesnt come to set, or shows up drunk or high, you'd better believe they will support termination, and will levy their own fines on top of it. A good union supports their good workers by helping the employer maintain high standards. In this case, the fact that the Angels had no recourse when Hamilton didn't want to report to AZ training demonstrates all that is wrong with the current CBA and the way the players' union is operating.

No, I didn't. That's your opinion. Once again, if you can name a single denomination that would find Hamilton's actions acceptable, or Christian in nature, and would be happy about stealing money or screwing over one's employer, please do share. We are not going to agree on this, so end of discussion, at least on this end.

You're missing the point. Please show me where I said that I could pass judgment on how every other Christian should behave, or defined perfect. Right. I never did, especially since different denominations have very different values and principles. My denomination is extremely politically and socially liberal; some of our clergy wouldn't even be welcome in some other denominations. But do you think there's a single Christian pastor, priest, reverend or officiant out there who would think that Hamilton's actions are awesome? If you are a celebrity, the moment you make your religion a central part of your public face, you've become a representative of it. It's that simple, and it holds whether someone is Christian, Jewish, Muslim or whatever. You're an example to others, and however you act WILL reflect poorly. If you like the way people like Hamilton publicly represent your faith, that's fine. I don't. I'm tired of professed Christians acting like assholes and reflecting poorly on the rest of us. We'll have to agree to disagree on this one.

I'm not questioning his faith as a conviction. I'm questioning whether he's actually following it. By continually going on about how he's a "devout Christian" but acting this way, he a) looks like a complete hypocrite b ) makes other Christians look bad. If you're going to make Christianity a central part of your public persona, you need to make sure you're actually representing it. There's perhaps more accountability there than there would be for someone who doesn't choose to do that. And his "difficult period" is all his own doing, isn't it? Free will and all. He's the one who didn't use resources which were available to him that might have helped him keep from using (firing his accountability coach), doesn't seem to have any motivation to work, refused the Angels' offer to get him back on track, and has basically seemed to feel perfectly okay with taking a lot of money that he's not working for. I'm from a far more liberal denomination than Hamilton; I just have very little patience for this type of crap.

Born and baptized. You?

Christians aren't perfect any more than anyone else is, but since Josh has made a point of publicly declaring his religion at every opportunity and claiming that it's turned his life around, IMHO it's fair to point out that his actions do not in any way appear to be in line with the tenets of his professed faith. Especially when compared to other players who are Christian and do walk the walk.

you know, normally I am pro-union but the way the MLBPA has been standing up for Hamilton despite everything turns my stomach. If he refused to show up for AZ training the Angels should have been able to void his contract or discipline him, but no...and here's the union, making sure Hamilton gets every cent despite doing absolutely nothing to earn it. They should be insisting that Hamilton meets standards of behavior and they're not.

ITA. The refusal to go to Arizona for rehab and the overall situation made keeping him untenable...it was either trading him and eating the salary or releasing him and eating the salary. At least this way the Angels save a little money that they wouldn't have if they'd released him outright.

IIRC from reading what Jim Bouton said about it, Big League Chew was actually designed as an alternative to tobacco for both players and kids watching the game. They were hoping that if players started chewing gum they'd stop chewing tobacco. And a lot of places actually do serve "mocktails" so kids (and adults who don't drink) can have something that looks like a "real" drink alongside the adults. Shirley Temples, virgin mojitos, etc. Hell, you can even get an alcohol-free mint julep up the block at Disneyland, and kids certainly walk around drinking those. It's one of those things that is always open to debate: how much kids are influenced by what they see and hear from their "idols" in sports, music, etc. I would wager that it depends largely on the individual kid, how they're raised and how they process what they see. When I was growing up I had candy cigarettes, had mocktails when my family went out to eat, and liked bands that pretty openly did a lot of drugs and drank heavily...and I never had the desire to smoke, drink to excess or do drugs. And I never have, either as a teen or adult. For some kids that might be the opposite. There are a damn lot of adults out there who are impressionable, copy what they see and can be manipulated in their emotions and responses, too.

Seriously...middle of the school year, before work gets out for many people...were they really surprised?

*sigh* the whole thing sounds like middle school gossip..."he said something bad about you!"

Plus, he's not asking for a ridiculous salary or timespan. He's asking for four years at a reasonable salary well within the parameters they give to other long-term, steady players.

I agree with that. So the Hamilton debacle is such that it's all Dipoto and Moreno can think about all day, every day and they don't have time to negotiate with any of the other players on the roster? That's kind of insane.

If you stopped assuming I didn't read the story you might realize I'm asking what the holdup is despite that. Whatever's going on with Hamilton, it isn't a reason to drag out negotiations with a closer who has proven his worth. This org has no problem giving ridiculous contracts to players who aren't worth them and undervaluing the ones who are. Street is asking for between $9 - $11 million/year, basically. That's fair, and it's only a slight bump up from the $7 million he's getting. The front office really can't find a way to do that, regardless of Hamilton's salary black hole?

Yep. He was an old man when he changed his will. He had made his fortune. He didn't have to impress anyone at that point. Some people actually do act on their conscience.

Not really. He had serious misgivings about the dynamite he had invented after reading his own obituary, which had been erroneously published, which referred to him as a "merchant of death." His conscience actually ate at him, it wasn't posturing without substance.

Seconded. Why the holdup?

This is the best article, and solution, that has been offered. It's spot on, and Josh would do well to take this advice.

I wouldn't pick Perez over Ianetta; I'd pick him over Butera...I never mentioned Ianetta at all. But if Ianetta can't even get a day off because the backup catcher sucks so much --like what happened on Sunday -- it's certainly not going to help him succeed. And someone else originally brought up ST stats; I was responding to that.

There's no way to find out what he can do in MLB until someone gives him a chance to play. And while MiLB obviously isn't the big time, he's put up good numbers in his minor league career and appears to be doing everything one could ask him to do in Salt Lake City. And while his .208 average in spring training wasn't anything to write home about, it was better than Butera's .161 (and they had close to the same number of ABs to compare). As for the OPS, he wasn't that far off Butera's - .510 to .487. That's not that much of a gap.