Dtwncbad

Fixed

Curry’s cuteness has consistently faded and her content contribution was always light. To be clear, there is nothing wrong with cute and light. But the reality is, it is not hard to beat fading cuteness and light.

Maybe somebody else can chime in with something more statistically concrete, but as a “looking judge” fan it seems he either doesn’t throw strikes or gets hammered when he does throw strikes. The dude is 6’5” and throws left handed and has a fastball in the mid 90s. How is this guy not an upper half of the rotation starter by now, unless maybe he just doesn’t know how to pitch? Honest question: Is he dumb?

The Bichette for Parker trade infuriated me at a level I had never experienced as a fan before. I basically mentally broke up with the Angels for about six months over that trade. I “got over it” but in the coming years it was always a knife jab in my belly to see Bichette crushing it in Colorado in his prime.

The worst trade was Dante Bichette for Dave Parker. That one was simply inexcusable.

I went to Angels baseball camp as a kid. The vast majority of kids were infielders, pitchers and catchers. I think there were only like three of us outfielders. Tom Brunansky was the OF coach. With so few outfielders we got to spend a bunch of time with Brunansky that week personally and the guy was just very cool. The next Spring Training in Palm Springs, Brunansky pulled into the parking lot of the Gene Autry Hotel, got out of his car with a bunch of fans and he instantly recognized me from the baseball camp and called me by first name, with very genuine warm interaction with me in front of all the other fans, as if we were really long time friends. He was just being a really nice guy to a kid. That was a pretty fun moment for a kid. So I was always a Brunansky fan.

I understand the “I was fine with Greinke as long as the Angels made the playoffs.” But if that’s the case why not the same standard for wishing the Angels had Segura from 2016 -2018? The Angels were 20+ games out every year over that span, so what difference would Segura have made?

No reason. Bored.

Yes and they also “could have really used” a potential postseason-changing ace starter that appeared to be a reasonable play to take a run at it. I am not at all saying Segura is garbage. Just saying I can’t see how, especially now that we see a larger sample of who Segura is, this trade was a loss for the Angels. They paid a fair price for the ace rental. And for a long time it seemed the consensus complaint was that “Segura was a real gem that was foolishly traded away . . . If only the Angels still had the previous Segura!” This what I am disagreeing with. He’s just not that big of a deal.

That was a much more stupid move than trading Segura.

All fair. No argument. I am strictly saying I think Segura isn’t the great player many people thought he would be when he showed some pretty hot pockets. I personally don’t think grabbing Greinke was a bad idea and I have no hindsight regrets over trading Segura.

Fair point but my context is he would be playing 2B for the Angels.

The point is it is a little silly to believe you could have had the benefit of the hot streaks and not have also suffered the cold streaks. Overall matters. Segura is a decent major league player. I don’t see any elevated reason to regret not having Segura (as we have regularly witnessed from fans).

I think the complaint that “big free agent” deals was a big contributor to the Angels having a poor farm system is way overplayed. The Angels have had a couple of big free agent deals, not many. It FEELS lousy because the Pujols contract from almost a decade ago still lingers, and the Hamilton contract was a complete disaster. Free agency absolutely did not prevent the Angels from having enough draft picks to have a decent farm system. They just made some really lousy picks and have not well developed some of the players they did pick. I would put the number of free agent signings pretty close to the bottom of reason the Angels farms system sucked.

Remember when the common cry was how miserable it was to not have Jean Segura? The Angels were so stupid to trade this budding superstar. . . Well a quick revisit shows he is no big deal. He is 30 now with a lifetime OPS of .732. How are the Angels filling that massive hole at 2B without Segura? Well just to put things in perspective, Tommy LaStella is 31 with a lifetime OPS of .747. The “loss” of Jean Segura is a myth. It’s nothing.