Justin

Merry Christmas to the AW community!!!🎄✨🎅

Pikichin✈︎workcation everyday next Niseko☃️
(Link) Niseko is a town located in Hokkaido, Japan

Love y’all. From mine to yours, cheers & Merry Christmas. 
 

Homer was right that it’s a wonderful, magical animal. 

I was torn between cochinita pibil and lasagna for dinner but now you've helped me decide. 
 
 
Cochinita. 

Whoa! That sounds pretty good 

Sounds like how Mike Scioscia might describe the Angels' problems of the last decade.

That part made me laugh out loud

Lol

According to FanGraphs, we have added length AND girth!

If Trout and Rendon are healthy, and Loup and Iglesias are close to their career norms, all we need is a mediocre pitching staff. 
Now, I may be getting ahead of my self here... 

I remember in 3rd grade our P.E. teacher had everyone rotate positions each inning. I have not seen that at the Major-League level but I'm down for trying it out. 

Hell ya dude this is the shit I look for on AW

I saw him in the minors at two different levels and I was absolutely sure of it. 
I really hope he doesn't turn into the next Heaney, i.e. the guy about whom I say at the start of every season "Well, maybe this is the year he figures it out."

That’s what they have been doing. It’s failed miserably.

One time our relative Mario came into town and we took him to the horse races.  He was really excited and was all over the racing form.  At the end of the first race, he was all smiles because he had bet on the winning horse and was holding a winning ticket.  We all congratulated him for his skills in picking the right horse.
Then he revealed his “system.”  He said it didn’t seem all that hard.  He bet on all the horses.
This is a true story.  It is endearing because Mario was just an innocent, sweet old man.
If he was an obnoxious know-it-all he would have been a ridiculously unimpressive douche.
Jon Heyman and Mario have the same system.  One is a sweet old man and one is a ridiculously unimpressive douche.

I can't believe how far he's fallen.  I thought the Angels got THE steal of the draft when they drafted him in the 2nd round when he fell due to arm concerns.  Hopefully he figures it out. 

I totally disagree.  I don't know if it's worth qualifying my opinion but I will anyway.  Much of it is based on speculation and hearsay but some of it on inside info.  So take it for what it's worth.  
The direction of this franchise from a leadership standpoint has been broken for a long time.  Stoneman and his influence has been helping to partially hold it together.  
First off, the balance of power within the org isn't 'conventional'.  You need to empower one person to call the shots and that hasn't been the case with any Angel GM during his tenure.  
Secondly, his willingness to spend has entitled him to the above as well to influence baseball decisions he should really not be a part of.  Yes, he owns the team and it's absolutely his right to do whatever the F he wants with it.  But if he's going to be that big of an influence on player personnel decisions, he better be good at it and he's not.  
The distribution of resources is backward relative to what creates sustainability.  There are several very successful orgs out there that are well run mostly because someone has been empowered to guide the org from the top down.  It actually surprises me that so few orgs seem to do it the right way.  So the Angels aren't alone in that regard.  I really do envy teams like the Dogs and A's.  There is no question who is running the baseball ops components of those orgs and how obvious it seems to me as to what works and what doesn't.  
From the word go, Arte has put pretty much every GM in an unwinnable situation.  He completely undid everything that was working well when he first acquired the team.  He's had years to correct the problem yet we keep seeing the same mistakes being made.  
In my opinion, an owner should hand money and responsibility to the right people and then let them do their job.  They create a specific type of culture and environment for success or failure.  
Can we honestly say he's done that?  To me, his biggest weakness is that he doesn't recognize his weaknesses.  That he keeps repeating his mistakes.   And that there isn't a single person in a position to hold him accountable.  That might sound odd considering that he's the owner but true leadership is surrounding yourself with people who can do that.  
Until this franchise starts thinking beyond the major league team they'll continue to run in place.  

"You don't wanna go to Anaheim, Robbie. Those fans make fun of you when you quit on them mid-season."

I will never, ever stop loving baseball. But my love for the Angels isn't what it used to be. 
I'm fine with the team not overpaying for free agent pitching. But if you won't acquire pitching in that manner, you have two options: develop your own or trade for someone else's. They are unable to do the former. If they refuse to do the latter... what is their plan? The same as it's been the last few seasons? 

No. 

"You don't wanna go to Anaheim, Robbie. Those fans make fun of you when you quit on them mid-season."

That, for me, is the big letdown. Again, I want stroman over ray. But if ray was their target, and minasian had time to fly to nyc to take syndegaard to dinner, had time to waste offering scherzer a ton of money, etc etc, and we never even made an offer to our supposed top target...
 
It is not only ridiculous, but it leaves me with zero hope stroman is even in play.
Who knows how far the talks with the reds have gone, but if you cant even reach out to the easiest option (the wide open free agent), then wtf, over

Lets not go too far here.
Dipoto is still a complete asshat. 

So it’s November 29th and the guy they apparently had at the top of their list they hadn’t even met with yet?
Good lord these guys just don’t get it