DCAngelsFan

They released an Adenhart patch, after the season, with proceeds to charity. Might be a decent way to fund any charities he cared about. I bought one for just to kind of acknowledge that, you know, his passing meant something to me, but could never actually put it on anything.

"The Martian" (drawing comps to Mike Trout) signed for $3m less than Baldoquin, whose signing may also have cost us the chance to sign Vlad Jr.

To "put it charitably" would have to say nothing at all, rather than to imply there was something tawdry in the manner of his passing, mocking someone who's upset about the way a sports network covered the story, and, diminishing the accomplishments of someone who just died, the team he played for, and the teammates he played with. There wasn't a molecule of "charity" in your response.

Oh, man, I just browsed over here as work ended to read this - those headlines bounced off of my eyes - they made no sense - "Tyler Skaggs, R.I.P.?" What does that mean? Finally, it sinks it - another Angel, taken shockingly, unfairly too soon. The horrible feeling in my gut is all-too-familiar - Bostock, Adenhart, and now Skaggs. Each of these losses hit me hard, and I can't say why - I didn't personally "know" any of them - yet I felt scarred by each of their losses. Guys who'd achieved the dreams we all shared - taken, tragically, cruelly, unfairly, in the primes of their lives. My heartfelt condolences to his friends, family, and loved ones. My loss isn't a drop in the ocean compared to them. Maybe if I refresh the screen, one more time, it won't have happened ...

I meant compared to other expansion city candidates, like Charlotte and Portland, it has a lower population - unlikely MLB is going to take away existing successful franchises. And using Combined Statistical Area, which is probably a better way to define the market, Nashville's is smaller than Charlotte, Portland, Las Vegas, as well as smaller than Cincinnati and Atlanta (only Milwaukee has a smaller CSA than Nashville.) Yet I think a team would do better in Nashville than Charlotte. Before expansion will come relocations - MLB wants to get back into Canada, and likely Montreal will get Miami - Tampa Bay should be next, but MLB won't take both FL teams at the same time. Oakland should move to Portland, but probably won't. I don't think baseball will expand as long as Miami and Tampa are moldering in the attendance basement - so, Miami moves to Montreal, and after that, Portland and Nashville get expansion teams. (an aside - will MLB step in and force Angelos to give up control of the Orioles? Or are they waiting for him to die and then they'll force a sale? That can't continue...)

Nashville continues to grow crazy-fast - the area has a strong sports (and baseball) culture - this looks like a strong candidate, despite its current low population.

Have seen more flying pigs than rising meteors ...

Given injury rates and free agency and the number of starting pitchers who convert to relief, (and of course, the majority who just aren't good enough), my sense is we should have a goal to draft (or sign) players with an eye to being able to promote a mid-rotation or better starting pitcher each and every year. That's easier said than done, but the way I see it, means we should have used one of our two first picks on a high-ceiling college pitcher (granted, it did look a pretty thin crop.) And do that pretty much every year. I'm usually a big fan of BPA - but starting pitching is too expensive a commodity - free agency isn't a great way to get pitching - we need to develop our own. Having saved some money on Wilson, perhaps we can land Kochanowicz? But he's years away even if we do sign him.

At a thrift store ... Coincidentally, when I searched for "matt harvey stats", I got this:

Oculus is, um, "interesting" - I dunno - not sure it really fit into the WTC plaza, but at certain angles, it looks cool. If you're there, might as well go inside. High Line is opening the "Spur" like this weekend? (runs thru the old USPS building) The landscaping and such are cool, but I went last weekend, and had to bail halfway thru, it was just too congested - catch it on weeknight.

Don't think that's gonna be a problem ...

Honestly, to my very untrained eye, while I see many definite improvements in the second version, there's a lot of noise in there, too. And his high school stats aren't overwhelming. OTOH, as a 17-year-old, you can see his evolving athleticism, so there's that. Of course, you just have to leave it to the scouting staff - and in a year, or 5, can say "that was a brilliant pick" (like Trout) or "oh my god, what a wasted pick" (like Clarke and Bolden, etc, ad nauseum), or "what a missed opportunity" (like draft, iirc, Amazega the spot before Pujols).

Better than my role as a mop-up guy ... ... who literally, uhhh ... ?

In the first case, I'd suggest you try a pulmonologist - thing is, most primary care doctors are really slow to escalate things, and always try the minimalist route. If you walked into an ER, you'd likely have a chest CT done in an hour (if it's not pneumonia and asthma treatment isn't helping - it might be something that needs a CT to see.) If you want the best, there are options - Mayo clinic, for example - but you have to pay - how much do you think that CT machine costs, anyway? My daughter is a doctor - you have no idea how much work that is, starting from high school, it takes to become a doctor, nor how much you owe when you're done, how many years of 100+ hour work weeks while sometimes not being able to afford rent, how her health insurance is probably worse than yours, and how often as a resident, ironically, she couldn't afford to see a doctor, nor how many hundreds of hours she donated to running clinics for the homeless and indigent. Nor do you hear the daily threats they get from drug-seeking patients, or people who want their kid labeled LD so they can collect benefits and when denied, go insane, or the daily threats of lawsuits, or the fact that half the beds in hospitals are often filled with psych patients who just want attention or pain meds, or the fact that she works 12 hours a day, 8 days straight then two off, with one or two night floats, and is often on call on her day(s) off, so can't go any further than 30 minutes from her hospital. How her maximum number of patients she's supposed to be attending on is supposed to be 12, but often is 20 or more. She and her husband spent their anniversary this year, with take-out sushi and both of them on their computers doing all the documentation on their patients they'd worked on that day. Yeah, it's a great life. A lot of doctors are truly burned out. It's not hard to see why, when most of their patients sound as grateful for their sacrifices as you do.

wow, that article isn't slanted at all ... So, basically, the Angels would give the Dodgers permission to install a minor league team into the shared territory if the Dodgers would do the same for the Angels if they ever wanted to do the same, that is, move a minor league team into the shared territory. Dodgers said "pass! - equitable treatment is for suckers" - and somehow Shaikan positions it so Arte is the bad guy? Typical of that Dodger air of entitlement ...

I've also recently read someone blaming Arte for the complete withdrawal from the international market after Daniel was fired (in 2009) - only re-surfacing once to sign Baldoquin in 2015 - when DiPoto hired Servais, I thought the idea was to rebuild our international scouting and development side - but at least from this distance, it looks like they did nothing at all (other than blow our chance to sign Vlad Jr.) We were minor players in the international draft, and didn't even bother looking at the Japanese and Cuban FA's (I recall when players like Cespedes and Chapman held workouts, and seemed like we were always the one club who didn't even bother showing up) - so, I think that's on DiPoto - but if Arte hamstrung him financially, then it's on Arte. So, what's the real story of those years?

Ugh, that's embarrassing. Looking at the steel mill next door, I bet the environmental impact studies and site remediation means almost 10 years to build and open it. I mean, it's Oakland - just move the team to Portland or Nashville already ...

Very cool - click on the ERA column, and you'll see "we're second best in the league!" Then you realize that's a reverse sort, and we're second worst. Take your victories where you can find them, even if they're imaginary and fleeting ... ?

This. A secondary effect of the current system is that the cost is "less" for successful teams to sign a FA with compensation attacked vs a less successful team - in theory, the opposite of what's intended. In signing a FA with comp attached, a team that gives up their #12 pick is yielding a valuable asset, what has a pretty good chance of being a MLB starter; while the team wins the World Series the previous year is giving up an end-of-round pick that is worth far less. The actual position of the compensation pick (picks) could be based on that players performance, and similarly, a re-evaluation of the Type A/B previous compensation system may be in order - perhaps a first round plus a sandwich pick for top tier departing FA's. There are lots of options - but it's dead easy to improve the obviously badly flawed current system.

Yes, "good shape" as in not being eliminated in August, but playing some meaningful games in September, with some of the kids you mentioned getting some game experience while still theoretically in the hunt, that's a good goal for this team. More than that - well, I don't expect it, but it's baseball, we always get to "hope"

aw, crap - I saw this and thought it was a bad joke. That sucks - I wanted to re-sign him, but more for sentimental reasons than thinking he was gonna bounce back. He seems a solid guy, his wife is a hoot, and he doesn't deserve this crappy luck. Sorry, Shoe

Ah - it's hard to estimate velocity in an animated gif - he was spotting the fb well, and at 96, that's gonna dominate minor leaguers. Does he throw both 4- and 2-seamers? Some showed some pretty heavy sink. What looked like a change looked like a really good out pitch - might want to see more of that. Again, the gifs make it a little hard - but the stuff and command in that little sample looked solid. He should get a call-up soon - if only for the experience - and maybe more than that.

Hope the Japan report is accurate, that'd be in time for the Baltimore series, (which I have tickets for), and Camden has that nice short porch in RF.

With wind gusts to 45 miles an hour - this is where pop-ups might land in the bleachers.