Inside Pitch

Check out his numbers since June 1st... .169/.273/.254. Between his being a pending FA and his actual performance, Upton has completely torpedoed his value... AJ Preller's first year as GM has been a complete bust.

I've probably been the loudest critic of that trade from the moment it went down, I had been touting Grichuk to do exactly what he has done but Dipoto was quoted on more than one occasion that the Cards wouldn't do the deal unless the Angels added some sweetener -- they in turn added Salas to try to even out the inclusion of Grichuk. It's also been said in numerous places that Salas was a likely non-tender. So, no.. They couldnt get it done for Bourjos straight up.

Someone needs to catch him inhaling and then report him to Manfred.

A veritable cornucopia of page turning ...

http://www.valleybaynews.com/2015/07/24/josh-hamilton-returns-to-angel-stadium-how-will-he-be-received/ Joshy went douche level max with this.... "“I expect it. It’s funny because when I was playing with the Angels, when A.J. Pierzynski would come in they would boo him and a couple of the guys and coaches would say, ‘I’d wish they stop booing him because he’s killing us.’ So hopefully, same scenario.”" AJ as a role model... Never change Joshy -- never change.

Yup, lots of good reasons not to do it...

We can only hope he kept the HAMILTOWN boards and can get a can of spray paint and cardboard to make an S .... Claude would go straight to legend status if they flashed that during his at bats... Flat out LEGEND status.

That would be the funniest thing ever at Angel Stadium.

He just needs to have balls bounce off him at 3B til Freese gets back. The bonus is there is no concern about him putting added pressure on himself or risking him losing his confidence as there might be with a guy coming up from AAA. The only reason this deal was made was out of pure opportunity. He was there and they had nothing to lose.

Only thing I could imagine they could be clinging to is the idea that he would be a defensive upgrade -- but he's been awful there too. He was a great player -- but those legs finally appear to have given out.

It comes from reading this message board and watching as opinions that ignore all reality become facts.

Man -- he was such a beast until his legs went out on him.. 130 OPS+ and 42 WAR in what amounted to 5.5 full seasons between 2003 and 2009.

Year - Ave/OBP/SLG% OPS+ WAR 2014 - .270/.339/.407 - 110 - 3.7 2013 - .283/.348/.475 - 126 - 3.6 2012 - .256/.365/.429 - 114 - 3.0 2011 - .259/.344/.425 - 110 - 3.8 2010 - .275/.387/.445 - 123 - 5.8 I'm not saying this team should pick up Utley - he's cratered across the board, but your description of the type of player he's been in recent years is not in any way shape or form based on reality.

Stop with the reality -- the narrative is all that matters. Don't bring up the record post Dipoto, it means nothing. Jerry is the reason this team is doing well unless it's doing poorly then it's MS fault. Hope this helps and that your posts are more in line with the narrative moving forward. Best Regards, Narrative Police.

Where are you getting your numbers from? The -1.9 of off listed at FGs is not oWAR.

Yeah because Jerry never looked for any clean peanuts, right? Like... we never had a cast-off merry go round in the pen and we never traded for Joyce, never signed Ibanez, never pitched Wall.... For those of you that are missing Jerry, he basically made this same move last year only he gave up Yency Almonte for 6 weeks of Gordon Beckham.

So they got this guy for free basically. Cash considerations....

Good info -- the talk here is they werent happy with how he took the demotion, not sure if they are acting out of anger or not. But they would be smart to try to get as much as possible.

Had not seen your post, sorry. But yeah, he might never be cheaper to obtain.

I wish we had seen him called up yesterday -- play the hot hand. I get why they didn't, but I would have liked seeing it.

Locally here in Miami, word is the Marlins are open to trading Marcell Ozuna.... Dude can play defense, is under team control for four more years and could possibly be had for a lot less than would be the case under normal conditions. He might be a solid secondary buy low piece.

I firmly believe this team simply needs a league average bat that can play defense.. Getting better than that would be awesome, but just avoiding the black hole that has existed in LF all season would make for a massive gain.

I'm gonna take a page from the MS haters and suggest you ask Mike Scioscia.

I do feel bad for Grant Green. It seems like the team doesn't really have a long term plan for him, so he's become that guy they don't mind jerking back and forth between the minors and majors. I believe he's capable of carrying his own weight if not more offensively, but that lack of a glove is killing him.

You should probably go play the lotto right about now.