jchalos89

Hiring Ausmus was a wrong choice in the first place. I don't understand why they picked Ausmus after seeing what he did in Detroit

Agreed. I don't want to see the Angels signing bunch of "lottery tickets" and miserably fail. Like how they signed Harvey, Cahill, and Stratton prior to this season and every single one of them were horrible.

For 5th straight seasons, the Angels did not make the Post Season. Sadly, us Angel fans have not been able to see the team's W in PS for a decade at this point, which is very depressing considering how great this team was back in 2000's. If I'm not mistaken, we want this team to win the World Series. Angels are not a small market club that spends like $70M and make Post Season couple of times and sell all good players to big market for future picks and tank. This team has money to spend and has been spending a lot of money (mostly on wrong players though). More than that, we have one of the all time greats and without a doubt the greatest player in franchise history Mike Trout in his prime. Even in this 72-90 season, they spent $177.3M which ranks 6th in the league and that is more than championship contenders like Dodgers (7th) and Astros (8th). Kinda makes sense when your team paid $46M on Upton and Pujols (-0.5 WAR combined) + wasted $34M on disasters like Cahill, Cozart, and Harvey. (-1.8 WAR combined). Just FYI, there are 6 ML teams that spent less than what the Angels spent on those 5 players, including TB Rays that made the Post Season. I am following all Angels social media channels and I've been seeing a lot of mad and sad fans demanding for pitching. They are right about this team's need of pitching of course, when your team is ranked 25th in team ERA and dead last 30th in Quality Starts provided by starters. The lowest ERA from any regular starting pitcher that the Angels used this season is 4.29, and that is from Tyler Skaggs (Rest in Peace, Tyler) and he won't be in the rotation next season. Next up are Pena and Canning (4.58) but both are in 60 day IL due to injuries and we don't even know how they will perform when they comeback. Nothing personal, but our best starting pitchers (Pena, Canning, and Heaney probably) won't even make it to the bottom of rotation in championship contenders and that says it all. This team needs pitching (I know a lot of fans want SoCal native and Angel fan grown Gerrit Cole) but not just a couple, but at least 3 or 4 guys that are better than any starter we have now. Angels bullpen is decent (at least better than starting rotation..) and looking at how Middleton pitched when he came back, I'd say Robles-Buttrey-Middleton makes strong case for our bullpen. Buttrey fell apart in the 2nd half of the season but he was overused in the 1st half due to inability of starters going deep and I am hopeful he can perform like he did in the 1st half when he doesn't have to pitch 1+ innings every 2-3 games. Cam Bedrosian is a beast when he is used in low leverage situations (as an opener he possesses 2.57 ERA and 0.179 opposing batting avg and he was also solid in 7th inning) but he can't be a set up guy since he had 0.244 oppo batting avg, 0.324 oppo OBP in the 8th and has 0.269 oppo batting avg with RISP. This team has average offense. Angels ranked 15th in runs scored, 18th in HRs, 18th in team batting avg, 14th in OBP, and 18th in OPS. Maybe that is little below average but close enough I guess. But all these "average" numbers come with Mike Trout's MVP numbers. If you replace Mike Trout's numbers with a imaginary Center Fielder who has 0.280 avg, 0.340 obp, 20 HRs, 80 RBIs and 80 Runs (which is still very solid and he'll be one of the fine CFs in the league), the Angels rank 22nd in runs scored, 24th in HRs, 21st in OBP, and 23rd in OPS. Mike Trout will be an Angel for another decade so I'm not saying "We have to build a strong team even without Trout" but this suggests the presence of Mike Trout buffed up this team's entire offensive lines and often make ppl to forget that this team also needs to add more bats to the lineup. Also, we are talking about MLB, in which you have to be in top 8 to make the PS, and at least top 10 to play 1 game WC. We are not talking about NBA, where 16 of 30 teams make Play-offs and being average means you make it to the knock out stage. Hence if you want to see your team competing for the title, you have to have a good, or great team, not an average one. Just to make it work, I am making very hopeful assumptions here so the reality next season will probably be worse than what I say here. 1. J-Up stays healthy and bounces back. 2. Pujols doesn't decline further and at least produces positive WAR like he did this year. 3. La Stella gets his form back and plays like he did before injury. 4. Ohtani-san stays healthy and bats as a DH 3 times a week. 5. Jo Adell immediately plays like a top prospect and takes 1 spot in the Outfield Now we have Upton-Trout-Adell + Goodwin in the rotation in the OF. Fletcher-Simba-TLS-Pujols in the IF. Still nobody productive in C position and everybody in the bench are batting around or below Mendoza line, means this team needs to bring a C and bunch of productive field players in the bench. We probably won't see guys like Cozart, Bour, Tovar, Cowart, Stassi, Bemboom, etc in the Angels roster next yr. (They will probably keep Thaiss since he is one of the valued prospects and he started picking things up in September after having disasterous August) Now here are what the Angels need to do this off season (even with all those positive assumptions I made above) 1. Sign 3-5 starters including an ace (We need more starters cuz we will use 6 men rotation with Ohtani + this team has been sending entire pitching crew to DL 4 seasons in a row and now it is dangerous to just say we will all be healthy next year) 2. Sign a starting catcher (Kevan Smith as a back up) 3. Sign an utility man who can rotate in the infield 4. If fails to do 3, sign a starting 2B or 3B and make Fletcher as a super utility (Just like how Gleyber Torres are covering multiple positions for Yankees and Chris Taylor, Kike Hernandez doing similar things for Dodgers) Yes, that is a lot of work. That is (even if everybody stays healthy and performs well) like 7-8 starting level players to sign + building solid bench out of nothing. No GM in the league can do all these immediately and bring the team up to the championship contender level. If J-Up does not bounce back or Adell needs time to develop to perform in the Majors, then we need additional outfielders too and given past seasons' injury history, we don't even know how many players we will lose in upcoming season as well. Since you cannot just hope to sign Cole, Rendon, Strasburg, Ryu, Grandal, Wheeler, Will Smith, etc in the market (just impossible + even if that is possible, the team might need to spend $800M to do so lol), you have to prioritize positions to fill/replace and players to sign. What are your thoughts? Which positions do you guys think the Angels should fill in first and who do you want to see in the Big A next season? What are your expectations for the Angels next season?

They have the biggest fan base in the US (maybe in the world as well) and one of the strongest ones in the league (with Red Sox, Cubs, Cardinals, Giants, and Dodgers) Angels fan base isn't as strong as theirs + Yankee is a good team shooting for a WS title while Angels have been failing to make PS 4 straight seasons and they are already pretty much out of race this season. When Angels become a contender, more fans will go to games and hopefully Angels fans can take over our home stadium

David Fletcher 0.302 batting avg, 0.371 against RHPs, 0.313 with RISP, 0.333 in Late &Close games, and 0.500 in high leverage situations this season TLS 0.222 batting avg, 0.239 against RHPs, 0.158 with RISP, 0.143 in late & close games, and 0.091 in high leverage situations this season. Take Fletcher out to put in TLS just because he had a walk in 1 AB? or just because he hits left handed makes 0 sense idgaf about fanboy crush or whatever reason ppl love Fletcher I just know that pinch hit made no sense at all no matter how you look at it. There is no guarantee that Fletcher would have come through in the situation (and of course there's no such player you can guarantee a hit in any AB) but teams take the best chance you have in a given situation to win, not a brain-dead non sense decision like Ausmus

Put Bour in there as well. When the league is getting smarter with advanced stats and sabermatrix, this team is getting dumber and dumber trying to push their feelings against numbers and statistics. Sign injury prones, has-beens, or players who had a low year that can't get any long term offer and just wish they outperform expectations. Of course it doesn't happen and you end up wasting money and roster spot (+Mike Trout's prime year) leading to 5 straight seasons with no Post Season Appearance and 0 wins in PS for 10th season this year. This team pushed Pujols in 3rd or 4th spot for years and years when it was obvious he is not a clean up guy anymore and wished for a bounce back, never happened. Rest in peace Valbuena but this team gave him a starting job for 2 seasons while he was batting .199 both seasons and never got anything going in Anaheim. Now they are pushing on Cozart, Bour, Bourjos, and Harvey as well and none of em are doing any good for this team.

This must be a joke. You leave Bourjos with 0.103 avg in for bases loaded to get struck out and pinch hit Fletcher with La Shitella in the next inning? Consistently having 3-4 starters batting below .200 is already a joke but how Ausmus manages makes me think he is already losing games intentionally smh

At least Hinske is gone. I'm good with it

According to Fangraph, he is a Fastball, Slider 2 pitch right hander. 26 year old guy who's turning 27 next June, throws 94mph fastball and 83mph slider with 87mph changeup which he only throws at 2% of his total pitches. Pitched 37 innings for Reds, posted 5.79 ERA. He allowed 39 hits, in which 9 of them were HRs, walked 13 guys, plunked 3 guys, while striking out 32 batters. His K/9 number looks pretty decent but obviously he has problem with his command (allowing 16 free passes in 37 innings?) and he gets hit. I mean hit hard. 43% of his balls were hard hit balls (17.5% were softly hit), causing his BABIP skyrocket up to 0.286 and that clearly explains why his H/9 and HR/9 numbers are so awful. I don't know what this move is. Honestly. I knew this guy was not gonna be anywhere near being "good" since that doormat Reds let him go, but I tried to look up hoping that I can find at least some positive note about him. He pitched in hitters ballpark in Cincinnati and is coming to Angel stadium, which is one of the pitcher friendly ballparks in the league so his numbers could improve a bit if he had the right stuff. But that doesn't look like the case here. His numbers are way too awful no matter what ballparks he pitched in, and he is turning 27 next season so he won't have much space for improvement anymore. I'd say we just got a AAA pitcher who can come up in September for roster expansion and kill some garbage innings when the team is winning big or getting destroyed

FoSho

actually has been even worse than what was already very bad

I hope they keep him out. Seriously

He's playing 3B,1B,and DH primarily for the Angels now. 0.202avg, 0.250OBP, 0.339SLG, 9HRs and 31RBis, -0.7bWAR, -0.6fWAR horrible hitter, no place discipline, good power, bad base runner, low baseball IQ, average defender as a 3B, bad defender as a 1B. How is he still in starting lineup after batting 0.199 last season and is batting 0.202 this season? 2-2-3 slashline is unacceptable by any means. He's hitting .150 in June and July, walked 7 times while striking out 47 times. He doesn't belong to the Major League, and in any other team in the league he would have been DFA'd long ago. I don't understand how the Angels are still keeping him (I mean his salary is $8M but now only 1/3 of this season is left so you don't waste too much money dumping him anyways -and you waste money + roster spot by keeping him) and how they are still starting him regularly is just non sense to me. If he is just a below average guy, I would at least understand cuz Cozart is injured and we only have Marte at 1B so we are short of men power but his classic stats + saber stats + on field performance indicate that any AAA level minor league player is worth a chance over him. It's not like Valbuena is a young prospect that the Angels are trying to develop lol Is he holding something against this team or Scioscia or he has that "some sort of invisible presense" that us casual fans don't see but helps the team a lot somehow?

His current numbers are too bad to afford no matter how good his defense is, especially when he is a corner outfielder (if he is a SS or CF, I'd say yes) But Kole has been fine as a hitter since he returned from DL with different batting stance. He's batting .270 since returning from DL and .293 with 7 HRs in July. He had his worst ML run in April and May but he is going back to his usual self pretty quickly so at this point, I would say Angels has to keep Kole in RF

Damn that Foul HR

So umpire made up for his mistake before and Trout cashed it in lol

And our offense has been plain dead after first couple of weeks. (except for Trout, of course) Little more offense plz

Our pitching has been incredibly great (except for Morin, Yates, and Pounders) after first couple of weeks of the season. I hope pitchers can keep this pace up

How the f is that a ball?

Damn 2-1 lead doesnt look too safe

My memory can be little off, but if I remember correctly, he was batting over 0.300 before that. Or at least around there

Cuz he was batting over 0.300 before that moment, and he's like what 0-20 since then? Doesn't look right

I think it was after Yunel had a sheer dizziness after dodging the pitch in front of his face that he started struggling hitting the ball. I'm bit concerned if he's okay to play now. Maybe it's safe to check his health condition and rest him for few days

Very creative way to get yourself shot down on base

This team's baserunning is actually very interesting to watch