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houstoncali

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Everything posted by houstoncali

  1. Very well done. I was hoping for an upswing recently, in light of our young pitching staff and knowing we practically played the AL East twice in both April and May. I am also hoping our aggressive promoting of players like Neto and O'Hoppe and the emergence of our young staff, this trend will continue.
  2. I am not sure when we should start taking this seriously, but he's absolutely erupted. He started off hot and hasn't stopped. I wasn't sure if the position move would make him a better prospect or worse (catchers are just hard to come by), but damn, this guy is knocking the cover off the ball. Furthermore, he only has four errors 33 games. While that may be just OK (it could be worse) if I am not mistaken most of his errors came towards the beginning of the year. And the reason I would state that Ward is doing better than Fletcher (although he's having a monster year too) is that Ward is playing in the pitcher friendly Southern League and Fletcher is in Salt Lake (i.e. Blash's 10 homeruns in 24 games). Although, I think Fletcher's stats are a bit inflated, they are more legitimate than some others in the PCL (Fletcher has more triples than walks for example), but nevertheless it's hard for me to trust offensive performances in Salt Lake overall. Will Ward see the majors next year? If Kinsler continues to suck it up, do we bring in Fletcher, or Ward to cover third and move Cozart over to 2nd? I really believe Ward and Fletcher give us a tone of options later this year and next year.
  3. I agree ... I think the best Richards could get is a 3 year 45 million deal. In addition, Richard's mechanics are just awful. He throws across his body and a violent delivery. I think he's going to throw his arm out in a couple of years if he doesn't re-injure himself. Anytime Richards cranks it up and throws 97 or 98 I completely hold my breath. With his effective slider I wish he'd take a little off and keep his fastball between the 93-95 range and go a bit easier on his arm. At one time, I thought Richards was a true ace. I no longer believe that. Outside of his slider and fastball he doesn't throw a lot more. He's afraid to throw his change-up (I think he attributes his change up to his arm injury), and his curveball is still a work in progress. In addition, Richards allows his psyche to get the better of him. That's why yesterdays game was a real big deal because he didn't have a meltdown after his early struggles. If Richards puts together a complete season then I hope the Angels offer him a nice contract. Something that is front loaded with an option in year 4. Also, correct me if I am wrong, but Richards has avoided arbitration every year and I think we should reward him for that on the front end. I figure a three year worth 50-55 million with a team option for year four. Again, that's assuming he stays healthy all year.
  4. I was always a fan of the angels but not a die hard until the early to mid 90's. I just remember the Chad Curtis was the centerfielder when I started watching them almost every night on TV. My fandom went into a new gear in 1995. This was after the players strike so the stadium was practically empty, and the ownership were practically giving tickets away. So, about once a week or so my buddy and I would drive down the stadium after school (I had just got my license) and throughout the year we probably hit up about 20-25 games in person. I remember one time we got tickets right behind home plate for next to nothing! Now, considering I went lived in San Bernardino we put a lot of miles on our car. My folks were completely cool with that because as some as you know, the 909 is am armpit and if my folks new that I was at Angels Stadium every other night then I wasn't local getting myself into trouble so they not only were OK with it they encouraged it. Of course that was the year we completely went to shit and a couple of years later Disney bought the team and gave us the single ugliest uniforms in the history of sports ... but that's neither here nor there. For those who were devastated in the 95 collapse ... the feeling of the 2002 World Series was that much sweater. The Angels in the late 90's were the single biggest laughing stock in all of professional sports. In fact, I would say we were worse off than how the Cleveland Browns are viewed now or how the New Orleans Saints were viewed in the 60's and 70's. In fact, what people tend to forget was (and correct me if I am wrong) but after 20 games we had the worse record in baseball ... and then the magic happened.
  5. All of the young talented pitchers who were supposed to make up our next great rotation (Richards, Heaney, and Skaggs), and not to mention back of the line-up arms Tropeano and Shoemaker are finally back and healthy. Unless they all go down immediately again, we'll be better by default. If most of them remain healthy all year, we could be looking at 95 win year. On paper this is an overall better team than the 2014 Angels. We have a better hitting line-up in 2017 than 2014, and although we don't have a dominate ace like we did in 2014, we have a much much deeper rotation with more quality arms.
  6. Above: 1. Heaney ... I don't understand why so many have written him off. He wasn't ready to come back last year. I think he'll into a great starter, and a legit #3 guy. I predict around 25-28 starts with 160-170 innings. He'll have an ERA in the mid to low 3.00's and a WHIP below 1.25. 2. JC Ramirez ... I am not just basing this on his Spring performance, but before he got hurt last year, I was starting to think we had found the next great reliever turned starter. He was a bit inconsistent last year and was working in a brand new pitch, but I am expecting another great year from him with a little more consistency. I predict he'll have very similar numbers to Heaney. 3. Cam Bedrosian ... He finally turns into our closer. He'll post 30+ saves this year. Below: Ohtani ... This is easy because anything short of Babe Ruth will be a disappointment considering the hype. He probably bellows in AAA for half the year to get used to the elevated opposition and it is obvious he's shell shocked. I hope throwing him immediately into the fire doesn't do more damage to his psyche. We'll see how his start tomorrow goes, but if anyone needs a good outing it is him. Simmons ... I think he'll have a very good year, but he won't perform to the level he did last year. His fielding will not change, but he he'll regress to what his mean is from the plate. Middleton ... He'll struggle again like he did last year. Two games he looks like K-Rod, and then the next two games he looks like Mitch Williams after he signed with the angels.
  7. Justin Upton is one of my favorite players, but I have absolutely no sympathy for the players what so ever. In many cases they have held the league hostage, and I am a good capitalist, and know the league would give two farts about them unless they were a superstar. But I believe there is a continuum and constant balance between the league and owners and players and their salaries (and the fans are in there someplace but they have been more or less left out). And quite honestly, I am glad the owners are fighting back with the players. After all, where were the players when Josh Hamilton held our program hostage for three years. That POS completely didn't fulfill his end of the bargain and walked out on the team. In any other industry he would have been given a severance package and told to hit the door or be just fired out right. You can't tell me the owners didn't watch that situation closely and see exactly what these massive contracts can give you if things go south. I would absolutely love it if some reporter would respond to a player lamenting about the state of baseball and say "Do you think how Arte Moreno was forced to pay the remaining amount of the Josh Hamilton deal when he walked out on the program and how all the players went to Hamilton's defense has something to do with the hesitancy the owners have in giving these massive long term deals?"
  8. Thanks Chuckster and Scotty for the welcome and well wishes. Yes, I am pretty familiar with many of the blogs you provided. I think Halos Heaven is just OK ... but there interface isn't user friendly and they don't have a true message board. Monkey with a Halo is non existent and Halo Hangout doesn't do much anymore. And the Keith Law's and Baseball America's of the world have good info, but you are right they are very selective and tend to be biased (especially when it comes to ranking our fringe players with other organizations fringe players). Last time I checked, scout wasn't very good. I visit other scout/247 sites but not baseball. A while back I used to write for scout and they were always much better being a college insider pub than pro. I'll take another look. And I am not just saying this, but I do think AW is the best site around. If I didn't believe that I wouldn't have joined and started posting. But nevertheless, I have always worked off of the assumption (and could be wrong of course) that MLB at the very least has access to scouts at every organization and therefore there rankings probably more closely reflect what people in the organization feel. But again, that assumption could be wrong. I will say, the top 30 this year was solid. Not because we were given better grades, but like I said earlier, they started rating some of our international signees which they have been avoiding doing for a while.
  9. I hear ya on Thaiss, and feel he is a bit overrated. But, he isn't the worst prospect. And there has been years where I would have loved to have a consistent first baseman who bated .270Ave/.350OBP with average power (15 HR's a year) where I think he projects. I also like the fact he's a lefty, which will make him a valuable situational hitter, and ultimately think he'll platoon with Pujos in 2019 at first base. Now, oddly enough, lowering the right field wall I believe will benefit him when he makes it to the show next season. But you are absolutely right about DiPoto. Some of that I blame on Moreno for letting him destroy our minors as much as he did. And yes, he's doing the exact same thing to the Mariners ... trying to cash in every chip to win now. You can't win that way in today's league with the inflated contracts, the seven year control a team has over a player not to mention the depth required to win a 162 game season. Now that we are fully beyond the steroid era, the days of having 4-5 200 inning pitchers a year are over (not every pitcher during that era was on steroids, but I am sure many where on various supplementals to help with recovery that are classified in today's league as a PED). The Dodgers have the new model, and it is one that I hope the Angels will follow. You have to plan to use 8-10 starters thorough out the year and have none of your top guys go over 180 innings. In order to do that you need to have a couple of valuable swing guys in the pen, and a few guys in AAA who can give you valuable innings. Personally I am quite happy Eppler has been as stingy as he has with our minor league players. But with that said, I also like that Eppler is willing to make the right deal (unlike Stoneman who was overtly miserly with our prospects). Don't forget Eppler this past year traded Long, Elvin Rodriguez, and Troy Montgomery; and of course we all remember the Newcomb/Ellis trade.
  10. You are a bit higher on Gatto than I am, but I hope you're right. I recall at one time some considered him our top prospect, and then he totally went the way of Hunter Green. But Green of course was destroyed by injuries but Gatto just seamed to have a meltdown. I always assumed that from a maturity point of view, he struggled immensely living the minor league player life and it carried over into his play. Well, last year was quite the comeback for him, and he show steady consistent progress throughout the year. So is it possible for him to pick up where we left off last year and absolutely explode? Sure, in the mean time I am just hoping for a better change-up and much better K-BB ratio.
  11. That's a good question Warfarin, outside the obvious answers. The Dipoto era draft seemed to focus on high floor - low ceiling types of picks whereas the Eppler era drafts seem to higher ceiling - younger types. But the drafts haven't been all sunshine and roses. Thaiss has been just OK (but drafting him allowed us to pay more money to Marsh, William, and Rodriguez). And someone correct me if I am wrong on this one also, but not signing our 5th round pick last year (his name escapes me) allowed us to over pay for Rivera and a few others. We'll see but I would love to see an in depth article about the changes too. I've read we have added more resources in the international scouting department, and are basically one of the only teams scouting certain territories and oddly enough we have the inside track on all those players (it's how we got Deveraux). I am curious if we have also changed our analytics in the minor leagues like we have at the major league level (for example I believe we threw significantly less fastballs last year than we did before).
  12. Hey guys, this is my first post, but I've been reading this site for a while. I've been closely following the farm system for the past couple of years, and needless to say, the improvement has been striking. But I also have to say our scouting department under Eppler has dramatically improved as well. Now, we have quite a few players who aren't rated as major league average prospect yet (they are rated a 45 instead of a 50). But we have quite a few pitchers who are close and just need one more quality pitch to pass that threshold. The positive is they are all young and most still in rookie ball. Take Stiward Aquino who has a massive fastball and curve, but just needs time to work more on his change up and control (which will undoubtedly when he becomes more consistent with his delivery). If I am not mistaken we got him for less than $200,000. The point I am making there are a hand full of pitchers who seem to be one pitch away, or refining what they already have, from being a top MLB prospect. We got Aquino, Soriano, and Suarez all on the cheap. And I am not including position players who are equally as impressive in their own right (Divas). And when you take a look at a later round steals in the draft like Rivera and Hunter (who isn't ranked in our top 30 surprisingly) its pretty clear our scouting department has improved dramatically since Eppler took over and have been consistently finding diamonds in the rough. And this was the first full year they had our full allotment of international money, and look at what we did! And I am not including Ohtani in that evaluation because he was a special circumstance in his own right. If some of these guys (Rivera, Aquino, Suarez, Divas, Deveaux, Soto, Duensing, etc.) just simply develop on the trajectory they are expected (of course, not all of them will pan out, but if half to two-thirds do) then next year we'll have one of the top rated farm systems in baseball. In fact, it will look much like what the Astros system looks like now. But, let's take a look at the top 30 and I'll discuss some initial observations ... http://m.mlb.com/prospects/2018/?list=ana Here is my take on some of those listed (or not). 1. I think Hunter should be in our top 30. He has a way to go, but he has good speed and strong plate discipline. Last year was his first full year in baseball since high school and IMHO he showed great plate maturity. Now, he'll hit a brick wall once he gets to high single A, but with his athleticism and speed I don't see how he's not rated higher. 2. Joey Gatto is also underrated. Now, I think he projects as a #5 and although he's fallen off the face of the earth he made a pretty good comeback last year. Of course his lack of third pitch makes one think bullpen. I would like to see how he builds off his comeback year first before I'd relegate him to the bullpen. 3. Jake Jewell shouldn't be on the list. I think of a lot of other prospects not on the list I'd rather have than Jewell. 4. Castillo is still not getting the love I think he deserves. He's much like Barria. He gets average to above average grades on everything he does but he's still rated as an below average prospect. Furthermore, he's already put together back to back excellent minor league seasons. I expected he'll put together a similar year that Barria did last year and the scouts at MLB will begrudgingly give him a higher grade next year. I also believe he has the frame to fill out more and add more velocity to his pitches (whereas I think Barria may have already his ceiling). 5. I am a bit surprised Aquino is getting the love this early, and I wasn't aware how quickly his fastball developed. This guy could be a monster prospect soon. 6. This may annoy people, but I think Ward is a bit underrated. In fact, I'd rather have him than Hermosillo and am undecided about Thaiss. Now, he quietly puts together good (but not great) years every level he plays in the minors. But that's only as a batter. Behind the plate he is fantastic. He has a great arm and is a solid defender. Now, I have no clue how well he frames pitches or if he has the ability to manage a game. Nevertheless I see him being an average batter at the major league level and a potential gold glove catcher. And minus a couple of teams who have all star catchers, just about every team in baseball would love to have a starting catcher that fits that criteria. 7. This will equally annoy people, but I believe Chris Rodriguez is a bit overrated at this point. I know he has all the tools, and I know he has a wide range of pitches that are above average and even a couple of plus pitches. But until he puts it all together and gets better production on the mound, I am in a wait and see - holding pattern. Anyways, I'd love to hear some of your thoughts, so go check out the list ....
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