Inside Pitch

Verlander is pretty close - his extension kicked in this season and pays him 28 mil per through the 2019 season.

As long as they don't trade for Lester and Samwhataverzia, we should be fine. No way we could stay with a team that trades for those two aces.

He's basically a crooner up there - you won't see a lot of action and while he does at times go into some pseudo dance type motions, he mostly will walk around and at times play up to his audience. What he does do a really good job of involving the band behind him, something he didn't used to do.. If you like Morrissey, you'll love his shows... because he sounds exactly the same. But, nothing like the old Smith's shows. That's the one band I wish would patch crap up and do a reunion tour ala Bauhaus. Morrissey/Marr was perfect...

I dunno sports figures, but I know some movie and music types have either been kidnapped or seen their family members kidnapped including the sisters of that Thalia chick that was supposed to be like their Britney Spears or Mariah Carey.... It's been stated than fewer than 1 in 10 kidnappings are ever reported since they are purely for profit and the intent is always to get the person back to their family after payment has been made. Maybe it's played up in the Spanish media, but they do make a lot of references to it down here.

Cuba? An end to the current model of government. Prior to Castro, Cuba had a massive middle class and a standard of living on par with the US. Of course most of those people were off the Island by 1972.

A bigger issue might be getting players to the park without getting kidnapped -- that's a huge business down there.

I don't want Bowden here, I don't think he has any chance of coming here, but his track record as GM wasn't awful. He actually made a lot of trades, many of them very shrewd trades. He got Kevin Mitchell for what remained of Norm Charlton's arm -- a huge win. He got Bret Boone for Bobby Ayala and I think Dan Wilson, again a pretty solid win for him. He got Davis Wells, who he traded again for chump change. Sean Casey for Dave Burba has to be considered a stupidly good trade as was Konerko and a pitcher for Jeff Shaw. He was on the wrong end of the Paul O'Neill deal but, you have to figure that had Griffey been able to stay healthy, he would likely have been considered one of the better GMs of his era... But his articles at ESPN are awwwwwwful...

I think Bowden is trying to generate traffic and not really of the belief that trade makes sense for the Angels.. On a talent for talent basis -- that's a solid deal, but from an organizational POV it would be very foolish.

If only Padre were an English word.

http://www.baseballamerica.com/minors/2015-san-diego-padres-top-10-prospects/ They still have some talent, Hedges was up with the Padres as was Spangenberg. Looks like he moved the top two guys that survived the initial purge. But you have to wonder about the depth when a guy who failed to break into the Angels top ten in 2014 ended up ranking 9th in the Padres top ten this year. It all goes back to Rondon!

It takes a lot of effort, some squinting, and a dash of crazy to come up with a statement like this...

With flotation devices...

His ex-wife has a great quote about him "You have to give Pete credit for what he accomplished, he never went to college and the only book he ever read was The Pete Rose Story" He was also once asked what player in MLB History he would have wanted to be by saying "Me".

http://grantland.com/features/aj-preller-mlb-san-diego-padres-national-league-west/ Its a long long read but it hits on every step and misstep made by AJ Preller. I know a lot of people got sucked into the Pads hype based on their massive amount of activity but this article goes a long ways towards pointing out how absurd it was from the start... Bud Black may have caught a huge break being fired. "Less than a year ago, Preller inherited an organization with a promising future, a team with enough talent to finish near .500 last season, and potential franchise talents like Ross and Wisler and Turner in the minors. Today, the Padres are a bad team saddled with bad contracts and no farm system. It’s hard to do this much damage this quickly without the use of heavy artillery."

So..... a DH can't win because they never win it... presumably because they don't play any defense.... But a player who hurts his team defensively (like Cabrera), can.... Should just give the award to Rafael Palmiero and call it a day IMO.

Trout hasn't had a good interview since that one where he was sneaking a peek down the chick's shirt. That was the greatest interview in the history of interviewdom

Ohhhhh look, a frivolous lawsuit aimed at "protecting" Americans originating from the Bay Area..... I don't think that's EVER happened before...

Prolly costs too many butt darts.

Vladdy just went yard in the Celebrity Softball game -- sporting Angels cap....

Best derby ever! New format owns

Me too -- any told timers all star game stuff would be great instead of the HR derby IMO.

After hearing a few of Berman's "back back backs" I find I miss Yost's ''ummmmmms"

That team also had four former Cub starting pitchers -- my first taste of the too many ex-Cubs curse... Sanderson, Bielicki, Harkey and Boskie with Lee Smith thrown in as the closer just for giggles..

DeLoach is one of those weird Bats Right/Throws Left guys..

I'm not really limiting it to saber inclined teams -- but I think those teams would be more apt to take notice of what he's actually doing.. IMO, anytime there is a buzz in any MLB circle about a guy it tends to get around -- so while it may start with Oakland and SD and Chicago, TB.... It will get around. The dumber teams might hear the talk and then look at his ERA ans K totals.... He's holding his own in both departments. Mostly, I brought up what the perception of him might be to teams that value production because I've seen his upside be questioned here -- I get it... but, I don't really believe his stuff really needs to take an uptick more than it already has. He's working 92-93 pretty consistently -- he touched 94, 5 times .vs Cuba. Even if the gun was off, he's in a good place with his stuff. The thing I like about Smith goes beyond what I see him do... I like to watch what hitters are doing with a guy. Smith will hang stuff and I've seen hitters turn on his pitches, but they aren't doing a lot with it. Obviously, MLB hitters are better, and it's likely they WOULD do more damage, but I like where he's at, and I think he's becoming a better pitcher. IMO, the more he trusts that change up of his, the more likely he is to find greater success.