Inside Pitch

Have someone sit in the stands with a BB gun and have them shoot them in the ass anytime the radar says they threw harder than 95. You should totally ask me about how I'd end hunger and usher in world peace. Just need to find some dinosaur DNA and let me work.

Raise the mound.

Just refer them collectively as BK². Easy Peasy.

Not yet anyway. But we will!

I mean, how can you be or get mad at a dude who's very name makes you think about bunnies and rainbows and shit.

You may not be wrong or at least on to something. Canning's career ERA in March/April is 6.70. Dude has always been awful out of the gate.

Dodger fans, meet Sam Blum. Mr Blum, meet Dodger fans. At this point I'm wondering if Shohei thinks 4.5 million isn't too big a price to pay to avoid being misquoted for the next ten seasons. Go Dodgers Interpreter!

F is for fantastic right? People are silly.

I worry about drafts like this. The SEC/ACC has been so offense friendly that you almost have to wonder if it's a fluke or just an awful pitching crop -- meanwhile the Pac12 and Big West offenses seem pretty anemic. The numbers Smith is putting up given the offensive environment are kind of comical.

Youre correctly calling his defense elite and it still may be selling him short which is nuts. That guy does crazy things defensively.

"We can rebuild him"

There is a lot of cancer in my family history, my heart genuinely goes out to anyone waging that war. Cancer and Alzheimers are beyond brutal. Other than my work with Habitat with Humanity the bulk of my charitable efforts go to cancer and alzheimers research. St Jude's too but, not nearly at the level of the other three. I don't think speaking honestly about what happened is giving in to negativity or giving it power over me. Anyone that's read my feelings about the Angels going into this offseason knows I don't put any energy into things I have no control over. Nothing about the Daniel situation hinders my enjoyment of the Angels or baseball but again knowing a lot of what happened and how it's impacted the Angels means I'm not willing to wave it off as no big deal. Not sure I follow what you mean by being able to separate a crime from feeling bad for a victim since the victims here were the players and in reality the teams -- not Clay Daniel, not anyone who was caught being party to the shenanigans. So yes, I think waving it off by saying "oh it's not that bad worse things have happened look at what so and so did" is downplaying the situation -- if that's just me so be it. The reality that the Angels are still paying for what happened more than a decade later speaks volumes to me. Again, I'm likely more familiar with most on the amount of BS that used to happen in LA. I mentioned the human trafficking, the involvement of the Mexican Mafia as examples but there's a LOT of other BS -- the Adrian Beltre saga alone reads like spy-craft. I've already said that deals with buscones were commonplace, those deals were essentially bribes paid directly to them in order to funnel better talent to teams and that's what a lot of people think happened here. What actually happened was the people involved defrauded the buscones, the players, and the MLB organizations they worked for. That's the sole reason this came out, the sole reason Daniel was caught and the only reason Bowden was implicated, he had been everyone's boss in Cinci where they all cut their teeth and cut those deals with buscones. If the CWS don't go to the feds, none of this comes out. Any talk of "we were lucky we weren't caught" is silly because MLB did nothing to stop the practice of bribing buscones -- MLB viewed it as the cost of doing business -- it's possible they still do. The hard reality is that the biggest part of "scouting" in Latin America is the connections teams have with people in those places. I have no idea how there is any grey area with what Daniel did, he told his bosses the players needed XXX amount of money to sign, they signed off on the amount, he kept part of it for himself and then cut the deal with the player using a third party not associated with either the signing agent or the player to launder the money and pay the buscon/player. Basically the team thought the third party was the buscon, the buscon thought the money was coming from the Angels. Daniel was effing both sides. And I really don't know what you mean by selective prosecution, MLB didn't take action against ANY team, the only mention of it in media was the mentioning of the firings and later the legal issues involved with the CWS. The CWS took action against their people and the DOJ did the rest -- it's the path they chose, that is why anyone knows about any of this. Again, I've never been told why the Angels didn't choose to pursue Daniel like the CWS did their guys but I was told point blank by people directly involved with the front office and the farm system in particular that the impact it had on player acquisition did more to set the team back than anything else that followed save for possibly Dipoto's purge. More importantly ... I'm glad this is the best you've felt, I hope you continue to improve and the worst is behind you. Hopefully all Angel fans are excited about this season as there are actually things to be hopeful of for a change.

I just realized that's Rivera mid windup. He's filled out a lot, guessing he wasn't sitting around doing nothing while he wasn't pitching.

Mo Hanley sighting! Angels drafted him while he was coming back from TJ from a DivIII school (Adrian College). Supposedly has crazy good stuff.

Ha, not today. I was all work no play today. Looks like they played their best game of the season.

No need to explain yourself -- I get it, I see it the same way. I'm still very concerned his legs are shot. I don't know anything about what he did this offseason other than he said he was doing things differently in hopes of avoiding injury or to account for the wear and tear. My guess by looking at him is he did a ton of cardio and tried to be lighter to put less stress on his body. Hopefully he's learning how to play at his current size or ends up gradually putting weight on as the season goes and he gets a feel for what his body is telling him because he's expensive AF and they need to get production out of him.

I don't think we will need to wait very long to see if Rendon's washed. Player's can't really hide when they lose their lower bodies. He's not looking all upper body like last season, but he's also not loading up and letting it rip like he used to -- mostly he looks like he needs to get stronger.. I saw someone say that his bat looked slow either here or in the game thread, not sure what player they are looking at. The at bat where the kid on the baseline made the play on Rendon waited on the pitch forever and still almost got it. That wasn't a case of him getting started and the bat not cooperating he got to the ball really quick. Bat speed doesn't appear to be the issue, but I really want to see him start to load more. Side note and all small sample size comments apply -- Nolan may have spent the winter getting stronger but his exit velocity is down. I think people are going to need to be patient with him and allow for the power to come naturally and not wait for him to become a weight room junkie. Guys don't hit a certain way their entire lives then bam flip a switch and become power hitters.

Ive had homes on both coasts since 2010 or so. Miami is primary residence because of my Mom -- healthcare system in FL is world better than CA when it comes to the elderly. She's starting showing that mental decline that comes with old age and I don't want to be 3K miles away should something happen.

While I find the nickname some have given him of "Anabolis Garcia" to be hilarious, the pictures floating around of him showing crazy size gains and a huge head seem to be photoshopped -- unless the dude erased all his tats over the winter too. All I know is that eating congri and lechon asado will put some muscle on you.

I went to the game yesterday, he looks about 10-15+ pounds lighter than in the past. Also, not sure if it's because of the time he missed in ST and his timing is off still but he looked better swinging with each at bat. I came home to check the actual predictive stuff and his exit velocities increased as the night went on -- he's sitting at 88 MPH on the season now. Still want to see it get to his career norms but at least it's not sitting at 83 like it was after the first two games. Also there is this from yesterday's game And this... He's had four at bats where the expected batting average was .470 or higher the last two games. So there are at least signs of life there, hopefully. Personally since he's not walking a lot he's probably better served at the bottom of the lineup than the top, even if he is seeing a ton of pitches. His swing data is actually arguing that he's taking too many pitches and not swinging enough. His swings at pitches in the zone are down but his contacts rates are in line with his career norms, so leading off may be working against him. Hopefully getting as many at bats as possible will help if it's a timing thing. Also, being able to see directly into the Angels dugout, Rendon was one of the more animated guys in there, he was constantly up and hyping others --ditto Adell. So for those of you that have convinced yourself he's an awful teammate -- it didn't look like it from the way the other players interacted with him. I really hope Adell breaks through this year.

As soon as the Dodgers tell Manfred they can add the salary.

Wow... Erik Rivera lives. One time two way OF/SP lefty that touched 100. He had been MIA for two+ years but always showed up as still being in the organization. Hopefully he can stay upright.

"Consistency is key"

He was playing in the Aussie Baseball League .vs grown men and former MLB players at 15. Dude is kind of a legend.

NP! It really was a crazy sequence of events. Stoneman, steps aside in 07, Daniel gets popped in 09 and the infusion of LA talent that had been PUMPING completely stops. Then followed up one of the greatest drafts in MLB history in 2009, with one of the worst ever in 2010 and then Dipoto comes in after the 2011 season and gets rid of everyone that had basically built one of the best scouting departments in MLB. The Yankees and Red Sox wasted no time hoovering most of the people the Angels let go, most notably Abe Flores goes to the NYY, Eddie Bane and Tom Kotchman go to Boston but all told more than 30 former AngelS front office people went to those two teams.. They may have been able to weather the situation better had the purge not happened but all of those things in such quick succession between 08 and the end of 2011 ... RIP.