WeaverFever

1 hour ago, Inside Pitch said:

The great thing about this thread is that it shows that Astros and douchebaggery goes back  a long ways..   Is anyone ever surprised anymore when something amoral and Astros hits the news?

It was once considered moral to offer people forgiveness.

28 minutes ago, floplag said:

Yeah a bit of an overpay for sure... kinda not liking where these dollar values are going with out situation, this could get ugly really fast.

Common Arte, pay up will ya. 

Right on. 

11 minutes ago, Dtwncbad said:

To me, the fact that the Angels need multiple pitchers isn’t a “problem” in pursuing Cole but rather increases the likelihood they will aggressively pursue Cole.

The Angels really need him.

The Angels shopped at Salvation Army long enough and settled for things because they were on sale. The Angels need to shop at a department store and get that timeless piece that is fashionable for a while. I hope we get him. 

4 minutes ago, Dtwncbad said:

Are we at the point where free agent pitchers may question whether they want to come to Angels, being spooked by this horrible pattern of every pitcher getting hurt here?

I am not saying that would be rational or reasonable, but could this actually end up being a factor?

Do GMs do any dirty campaigning asking agents if they really want to put their client into certain organizations that have an inexplicable volume of arm problems?

I don’t think it’s rational. Yet when was the last time we signed a marquee free agent pitcher? CJ? 

31 minutes ago, Calzone 2 said:

Gone are the Ricky Henderson’s and the Lou Brock’s of baseball. The DH position is kinda cheesy when some slow fat toad fills it. 

I wonder if the game would be better without the DH.... 

39 minutes ago, ten ocho recon scout said:

Sounds about right.

Torii was by far and away one of the coolest people this org ever had. Not just a great player, but a for real "good guy".

Killed me once the team started to slip from its decade of dominance that some on here made him the target. "Hes not a leader" was the most common.

The hamilton fiasco was a two fold disaster. Aside from the waste of money, we lost torii in the move. And not in a professional way.

Yeah, its a business. But we kind of shit on him in the end.

And amen 

59 minutes ago, Troll Daddy said:

The fact that Hamilton did voluntarily self report his relapse during the off season with a apology is a form of accountability. The FO viewed this as a opportunity to relieve themselves (partially)of a bad contract with a player who was injury prone and in decline. That strategy back fired on them when MLB declined to suspend him under the current drug program. 

The FO could of handled this differently by providing help for Hamilton and setting a example to the players and fans that the Angels do care for their own. I would bet money if Hamilton was putting up big offensive numbers ... the Angels would of gone that direction. 

We all know that drug addiction never ends for the addict. The Angels knew this but still rolled the dice. Both Hamilton and the Angels FO are accountable for a bad ending. Thank god this is now ancient history!

Amen 

The personal hate for the guy is sad. 

5 minutes ago, Taylor said:

Wouldn't Cole rather stay with/go to a winning team?

I would argue that we would be a winning team with Cole. 

1 hour ago, Blarg said:

Or the Tigers but who in hell would go to a Tigers VS White Sox game? 

The Yankees are there for the TV market. 

That’s what the 8,000 capacity is for... lol

I don’t know how I feel about this. On one hand it’s pretty cool but another hand it feels like the “Mystery Alaska” made for TV vibe that takes all the charm out of the real “Field of Dreams” in the first place. 

Thoughts? 

36 minutes ago, totdprods said:

I'd actually say the Twins followed a pretty similar plan to the Angels. Relied on a lot of middling/rebound vets (Schoop, Cron, Odorizzi, Gonzalez,  Perez) on top of a good core, but they stayed healthy, and it doesn't hurt that the AL Central is also pretty weak.

Their signings worked out... ours didn’t. It happens. I just hope next year is our year. 

1 hour ago, totdprods said:

I’d still like to think that Eppler’s FA signings were less about the players ability to be good at a safe level, and more about the possibility of them turning into high-value deadline trade pieces, and from the optics side, to prop up pre-season casual fan interest.

Signing Matt Harvey gives off a much better impression to Joe Schmo than Wade Miley. Cody Allen returned to form brings back a much better July haul than Daniel Hudson.

Now, I’m not saying Eppler specifically targeted these FA for just those reasons alone, just simply that potential trade value and name recognition had weight in the calculus, especially if the internal plan is all about the rebuild, developing the youth, and sticking to a 2020+ timeline. If they’re deadset on a specific date and a specific plan and have $35m to burn on FAs in the meantime, why not go after guys like Cahill, Harvey, Allen, and Lucroy? It’d be like finding a $20 outside a gas station and dropping it on one of those insane $20 scratch-offs with horrible odds on a huge payout. The odds of making back that $20 are pretty much nil, but it’s not your money and if you do win, you win big.

Now, I can see how that approach to FA could be a bit lazy or reckless or a missed opportunity, but we don’t know the internal workings or plans of the org. They’re not working with infinite time and resources. All of that might be focused on bettering the minor league coaching staffs and scouting. It might be the reason they found Jo Adell, or traded for Adrian Rondon, or got the solid results from almost all guys on the A/A+ pitching staffs. It might be figuring out who else they could apply Reed’s Calhoun voodoo too (La Stella) instead of figuring out which $6m-$11m vet arm is going to be best, when they know that asset will be here only briefly anyways. Maybe it’s focusing intently on players who might be available one or two years out in trade, free agency, or waivers, and gathering info and recommendations on prime talent that could become available when the real window of contention has kicked in.

Or maybe they’ve just had bad luck. Either way, to me, it’s been crystal clear for a couple seasons now that we’re been in an intense rebuild that the FO has tried to mask as a WC contender, and that there would be a focus on building a good, sustainable, young, cheap team for the length of Trout’s next contract. Those marks seem to be getting met, so 80% and two years.

I think this is a relatively thought out assumption. There were many posters on here that thought the same when these guys were signed. To get these guys traded in July. I for one am just getting impatient. To me, it doesn’t matter what guys we sign as long as we win. Why can’t we go the Twins model? Where a slight retool/rebuild puts them into first place in less than a year. I know, I know, you can’t target Nelson Cruz when you already have Albert Pujols... Bummer!!! 

35 minutes ago, eligrba said:

F'n Eppler should have traded Lucroy to the Cubs knowing they would need a catcher after the deadline.  If he was a good GM he would have.

 

 

 

The amount of ignorant stuff posted here is ridiculous. It has gotten to a point where I don’t know if people are simply uneducated or just do an annoyingly good job of trolling. 

5 hours ago, Dochalo said:

I wonder what the ratio of bad calls would look like if the eliminated obvious strikes and balls from the denominator.  Say those appropriately called and more than a ball or so from the edge.  

Exactly. How many of these pitches are subjective? There isn’t really an excuse for missing a “true” ball. But a ball on the outer edge of the plate where half of us see as a ball and half of us see as a strike is part of the beauty of the game. 

8 hours ago, NJHalo said:

Is he already on the IL ?

LOL. What we are looking to acquire not the mold we already have!! 

12 minutes ago, tdawg87 said:

We do not need pitching

We do need pitching. 

12 minutes ago, UndertheHalo said:

Love to see it

I hate to see it... 

44 minutes ago, Lou said:

Statues are dumb 

Why?

2 hours ago, mulwin444 said:

Come on, dude.  We gave up nothing (a minor leaguer that never pitched again) and he put up 1 oWAR in 27 games with us.  There was a reason the Angels wanted to lock him up before he exercised his op out at the end of 2017 and, if he was never traded, he would have opted out anyway because Detroit was a dumpster fire.  Truth was, the Angels had no one offensively besides Trout.  Take a look at the line-up before the trade:

This was pre-Ohtani, Adell and Marsh were still in Orem, and we had no discernible offensive certainties so we went with the surest thing and signed Upton to an extension.  It made sense at the time but I think we have to consider Upton more of a neutral going forward...someone that put up near a "soft" 3.5-4 WAR per season and someone we will have to work around in the next couple of years.

I can’t believe we competed for a playoff spot that year. 

*** I still remember Cliff Pennington’s grand slam against the A’s. I thought that year was going to be something special. 

I’ll tip my cap on how Marisnick responded to the play. Now let’s try and catch them.

12 hours ago, John Taylor said:

Adell should be untouchable

I would actually trade him for Buehler in a heartbeat. 

*** I should add this isn’t fantasy baseball however. 

What a blessing it is for this to be even up for debate. 

Tragic 

3 hours ago, Billy_Ball said:

Damn.  Trout currently ranks - 

 

 

Sometimes you just have to tip your cap.