Justin

Pounds?

Those four plus Fowler are about $135 million. Total bWAR: 0.3 Trout put up 1.8 bWAR in his 36 games. Everyone else ranges from Zero (Rendon) down to -0.7 (which Pujols somehow managed to accomplish in only 24 games). (Disclosure: I am terrible with numbers.)

Yes, I believe it is. I have not watched a complete game in over two months except for the Padres game when Snell was perfect for several innings. (Which I kept watching just in case it turned out to be a perfect game - for the Angels opponent.) I spend far more time reading AW than watching the team. There have been more frustrating years for me (1999, 2012, 2018) but never a year in which I have cared less about Angels baseball.

It will be angry and irrational and people will say some stupid shit. So... same as normal.

Don't go down the rabbit hole of analyzing Maddon's statements.

So that's what Maddon meant. Maybe he was a genius all along.

I was at that point several months ago. Now, I just don't care.

If Vladito stays hot in September and carries his team to the postseason, I have zero issue with him winning MVP. I remember another player doing that 17 years ago, in fact.

Two answers. First, Howie Kendrick's success made me furious, but not at him - at the organization for giving up one last year of him for several years of Heaney. I was happy for Howie, as I had followed him since Rancho Cuc. He was and remains one of my three favorite Angels ever, and he should have played his whole career in Anaheim. Second, Matt Joyce. I could not stand him. In the first decade of his career, he only had one year of negative bWAR - with the Angels in 2015. He put up -.9 bWAR and the Angels missed the postseason (or at least a one-game tiebreaker) by one game. If Joyce had put up the 1.5 bWAR he had the year before (in Tampa) or the 1.8 bWAR he did the year after (in Pittsburgh), the Angels may well have been in the postseason. And then two years after leaving the Angels, he went to Oakland and put up 2.0 bWAR, because of course. Plus, his face looks like a vagina.

Perhaps this is me being a prisoner-of-the-moment, but I like Adell more and more each week. That was a hell of an at bat, especially the take on 0-2.

In 1995, he pitched 9 perfect innings and gave up a leadoff double in the top of the 10th after the Expos had gotten him a run. (If that's the game of which you are thinking.)

It doesn't look like Snell is going to allow a baserunner. But the Padres have to score a run for it to be a perfect game. I doubt Padres fans are enjoying this at the moment, either.

My white whale. When I still lived in California, I bought tickets four times and something came up each time that precluded me from going. And I'm not talking about a flat tire or hangover; I mean major things - two of the occasions involved deaths. Hopefully one day I will make it because it looks awesome.

It's fun to see, especially if it makes it less likely I ever again have to watch Justin Upton in an Angels uniform.

Ji-man Choi. When he made a few great plays in the World Series last year, I looked up his career and saw that he played 54 games for the Angels in 2016 after they selected him in the Rule 5 Draft. I have no memory of his time with the Angels.

Holy crap, that's actually true. What a world.

I would have assumed Trout was hurt yet again.

The Unit

For all of us who liked Darren Sutton but wished he were just a little bit more inane.

I like Ohtani more.

It's in the CBA: When it's the last game in a series and the visiting team has a flight more than 2.5 hours - even if the next day is an off day, as the Yankees have tomorrow - it has to be an earlier start time.

Packy Naughton outpitching Gerrit Cole is the kind of thing about which they used to write folk songs.

It would make me really, really happy to beat the Yankees again. Fuck the Yankees.

Trout has had season-ending injuries in each of the last two full seasons. He has not played more than 140 games in a season since 2016. It would be bizarre if I were still as much of a fan of him as I used to be.

No, not at all. I genuinely believe he wants to play and he is bummed out about missing so much time. I respect him. BUT... every season that passes, I am less a fan, less excited about the prospect of watching him play, always wondering "I wonder how many game he will miss this season." And that's sad.