maestro

8 minutes ago, Scioscia4MVP said:

AL ERA was much higher back then. Only 1 pitcher (Johan Santana) had an ERA below 3.00 in 2006, only 2 including Johan in 2005 & in 2007 Lackey's 3.01 led the AL.

He had a top 5 ERA in 2006 & 6th best ERA in 2005 ahead of Bartolo Colon who was 8th https://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/AL/2005-standard-pitching.shtml somehow Colon won the CY Award.

He was definitely an Ace type pitcher in those 3 years of 2005 to 2007 when steroids were still quite common among hitters.

Lackey was one of the ones who complained about A-Rod still being in the game after testing positive for roids.

Thanks for the reply man, I stand corrected

Lackey was awesome! Even though he may not have been a "true" ace (outside of maybe his 2007 season), he was our ace for those great seasons. 

I've only gotten to see highlights of him pitch so someone else obviously can better answer this, but is Lackey a good comp for Griffin Canning? From what I've been lucky to read from everyone on here, Canning has stuff that any day can be "ace/#1" type stuff but might settle into a career as a really good #2 type pitcher. Sounds like they have perhaps similar pitch repertoires? For some reason whenever I read about Canning and what he is likely to be, Lackey pops in my mind

21 minutes ago, Blarg said:

There was only one game in which they held the lead in the 9th and lost and that was a 11 inning game. They made a comeback in the 9th inning in Houston to tie, again that game went 10 innings. 

In the end your Dodger friends had their team in the World Series for 7 games. Scoreboard still says the Angels didn't even sniff the playoffs. 

You give Angels fans a bad rep being a pompus stupid guy. 

Thank you for your reply even if you don’t like what I did or said. All the banter with my friends of course came after fully acknowledging they have a great team better than mine right now, guess I should have clarified that. Maybe they did only blow it once in the actual 9th but there were many back and forth lead changes in the series and they didn’t close it which I guess is what I meant when I said “loved when it happened.”

i am a pompous stupid guy

I would say Adell is the only untouchable. Gonna need cost controlled multiyear contracts and he seems most likely to be an everyday player.

Canning is close to being untouchable just because of our need for pitching, and yeah trading him for an established ace straight up makes sense obviously but that doesn’t happen. And so trading him plus any other pieces I feel would only be worth it for a position player, as trading him for another pitcher kind of defeats the purpose of getting a pitcher imo. 

Maitan I’m also gonna say here. For anyone who golfs, Maitan has kind of a Freddy couples smooth swing when things are clicking for him. I think he might be the only other position player who could really be a star besides Adell. Too early to trade someone like that, we aren’t in a place to make moves like that. 

Anyone else can go haha. 

He f*****g sucks

6 minutes ago, Dtwncbad said:

Ward has not shown enough promise to potentially waste an entire year evaluating him.

Looks like maybe maybe he can be David Freese light.  That's not the kind of player I burn a year on when you can have a superstar dropped into that spot.

This is exactly what free agency is for.  Surgical additions that fit and instantly improve your team.

For the record I like Arenado more than Machado.  But considering you can get Machado now for CASH only and keep the prospects and have a solution starting in 2019 instead of a year later. . . No brainer.

100% agree

1 hour ago, WeatherWonk said:

The A's lost almost that. What did they do?

They went out and got replacements from outside the organization. On a shoestring budget.

They PRODUCED pitching depth, when they were faced with adversity.

Even if you’re totally correct about how Oakland made some trades to bolster their roster, I don’t think it’s fair to 100% blame Eppler for not doing the same. Our system finally has some talent that could become major leaguers, probably for the first time in about 7-8 years, and there wasn’t a move worth gutting the first crop of young cheap controllable players that this team has had in almost a decade. At least not for this season, where literally every position player of ours and nearly every pitcher got hurt. Or significantly played below their career norm. 

This offseason, however, is a different story. We’ve seen what some of our young guys can do and where we should focus to improve the team. If the FO doesn’t make some additions then I will agree with you for sure 

I think Trout means what he says when he says he likes being here and wants to be an Angel. I don't think it's like a Dwight Howard thing in Orlando when he was saying he wanted to be on the Magic more as a leverage thing when everyone knew he was a b***h and he wanted out. I think Trout stays and Eppler is going to do a great job conveying how he's set the team up to be the next dynasty in the league

34 minutes ago, ten ocho recon scout said:

Heres the problem with you guys continually bringing this up. First, the idea the yanks and phillies will outbid is silly. This isnt a grienke situation, tex, etc. This isnt a guy who played here for half a season. The team and trout have become synonymous.

Second, more importantly, quit thinking the yanks and phillies are the only players in this. This is stupid east coast fan conjecture. 

If money is going to be the issue, and trout and his fam still dig on their newport coast life, how come the dodgers arent in this debate?

There was another LA star from philly, who was the best in the game, who played through some bad teams while he was out here, too. Hes also good friends with mike, and a neighbor (in terms of rich people). Hes also close to one of the dodgers owners....

KB's mansion in Newport looks like a hotel haha. Didn't know he and Mike were friends

Terry has a good voice and can be kinda fun to listen to but he's terrible at telling the score on the radio. Always have to check my phone when I'm in traffic to even know what's going on. Also, when he does TV and they show him in the broadcast booth is when I remember why he's a radio guy haha

Rojas has grown on me, I used to find him a little annoying but he's solid. Gubi is terrible. Phys and Hud were bad. Although I think the greatest idiotic call came with them in a game against Toronto I believe, perhaps around 2008-2009. Aybar hits a ball in the gap and stretches it into a double. Hudler goes: "Wow Aybar is always in action doing good things out there," and Phys goes "You know Hud I think you may have just come up with a new nickname: Action Aybar!" Hudler: "Nahh I think we can come up with something better.' Phys: "Hmm okay. How about... AybARRGHH he's a pirate." *awkward silence* Hudler: "No I don't think that's very good." 

16 hours ago, happybat4 said:

Cherry pick all the stats you want. Kinsler had an OPS over 700 with the Angels. Sure he struggled, but who doesn't. Fletcher has a sub 700 ops. We need better than that at 2nd base.

You're agreeing with me but arguing at the same time haha. If he and others listed didn't have those prolonged struggles then we probably win more games, all I'm saying brutha, glad we're in agreement.

34 minutes ago, happybat4 said:

Kinsler had an OPS over 700. Hardly a black hole. You guys act like he was dog shit when he was here.

He had a .654 OPS through his first 3 months/70 games of the season. And that's including his .744 OPS in June. Pretty bad man, that would have him as the 19th ranked 2B in MLB by OPS

Like I said, replace those 70 games with what Fletcher is doing or I guess with what Kinsler did his last few weeks here, however you want to look at it, and a lot of those runners stranded in scoring position/weak flyball outs are hits/more runs instead and we probably win some of those ones that got away.

And to be fair I was thinking of Valbuena/Maldonando/1st half Kole as the blackholes and Kinsler as the "bad" production you can tolerate because of his defense, if he's pretty much the only one you're having to do so with.

Nice lineup!

I fully believe simply replacing horrible offensive production from Valbuena/Kinsler/Maldonando/Marte/1st half Kole with what we see now gives us at LEAST 5-6 more wins. Probably more. It seems to contend you need to have at least 7 players hitting at a average rate, or only have at the most 2 easy outs in the lineup (given that you're sacrificing those outs for some great defense). I think this lineup next year gets us there if we get decent production from Ward/Cozart. Trout/Ohtani/Upton/Simmons/2nd half Kole is legit if they're not surrounded by like 3 blackholes.

After about 6 interviews, over the phone and in person, I once didn't get a position at nickelodeon because I was "too enthusiastic" about getting the position.

Point is, if you suck at a position or aren't qualified, the fact if someone is nice or fun to be around doesn't even belong in the conversation. Dipoto wrecked the Angels. That's not even an opinion, look at how hard it has been to be relevant in September since he put his fingerprints on the team. He brought nothing to this team that will be a part of any championship success, unless Ward or Jam Jones somehow pan out, but even so. If you're just talking about baseball, I don't see any way people can defend him and the job he did.

Scioscia should be gone at seasons end and Eppler should finally have the chance to put in his guy and get his vision of the team an actual shot of happening. Would love to see a a younger guy like Chavez or Paul (ugh, tag Pierzynski dammit) get a chance and see how our team responds.

he held the super bowl trophy, he's going to the Phillies. This article was probably written before that though so they couldn't have taken that into account

21 minutes ago, Vegas Halo Fan said:

Might as well just have the full 200,000 mile overhaul done all at once.

The quote in your sig cracks me up. Classic Mota

1 minute ago, totdprods said:

What a Facking beast. This is just crazy. He may actually be as good a hitter as Trout if he had come up focusing on just hitting. 

Seriously. On a team without Trout he is easily their best hitter and their best pitcher. Love this guy

14 minutes ago, 70runner said:

Someone explain plz...why the Angels are risking the Ohtani elbow at this point in a dreadful season?  Nothing much to gain, a hell of a lot to lose it would seem.

Because he's as healthy now as he would be at the start of the spring. Might as well try out the elbow and see how it holds up. If he hurts it in the next month he can have the TJ surgery in October and be ready to hit in the spring and pitch for start of 2020. 

If we didn't have him pitch now and he hurts his elbow in March/April then all of a sudden we lose his bat in 2019 and dont get him back until late 2020/ early 2021.

I like the lineup, I just wish Ohtani would bat after Trout but nbd

Love seeing Shohei bat behind Trout. Always thought he should have been behind him the entire year

oof

Fletcher stepping in perfectly at 2nd with simmons. Love this guy

.wrong thread 

39 minutes ago, Blarg said:

I have yet to understand how he came to have a job with the Angels broadcasts. 

...Because of the forehead wrinkles?

Kent French has some intense forehead wrinkles man