Griffey's Corner

Yeah I don't get why professional ballplayers cannot hustle for 90 feet. There is at least one person watching who will never see you play again..... and that's the impression you want to leave them. What if Bedrosian had blown that lead in the 9th. If you do not want to hustle for yourself or your pride, or for the obscene amount of money you are being paid.... than hustle for your team.

Even if the bunt is not successful teams will start playing him more honest. I just do not get it. We were all taught to bunt in Little League. I can only chalk it up to some stubborn manliness pride. You can tell by the way he walks that he has a little bit of Lat Syndrome Disease. I don't know that was mean. I hope he does not read this message board.... if he does well I have the same disease.... sometimes.

Totally agree. Simmons is the best defender in baseball at a position where defense is huge. The offense is just a bonus. Simmons has the best defense in baseball & offense is a plus. I cannot think of another SS who has the reverse who is the best offensive player in the game & is also a plus defender. We already have the best offensive player in baseball on the same team in Mike Trout.

If Trout keeps heating up and puts up a season of .340 BA & 50 HR's I cannot help think that makes us the favorite in the AL West & a real shot at the WS.

Too funny. Truthfully I think you guys are all great. We all are big Angel fans and being from the Pacific Northwest I get a lot of Mariner fans in my ear. So as Angel fans we have to stick together.

the numbers are only part of the picture. It's the quality we lost. If Blanton or Nolasco needed TJ surgery we would have been looking around thinking addition by subtraction.

I totally agree with you. I never liked Dipoto as a GM..... maybe he is a great guy? But to trade Randal Grichuk straight up for Fernando Salas. The Card were probably going to cut Salas.

yeah. I did not understand the Chris Young signing at the time. I still don't. But In Eppler we trust. he has done so much right.... it's hard to fathom him even making a mistake.

I appreciate the heads up. It seems like the angel fans on here are more astute than most fans out there. Hence they seem to not be as happy with Scioscia as most fans. lately I have tried to be more patient & tolerant of his approach and write it off to my ignorance and lack of seeing everything that he does. And try to trust him more. Although I never understood benching Mike Napoli & I still do not understand the contact play.

Truthfully if push came to shove I would rather play a Shohei with no batting practice vs. playing Calhoun or Valbuena with all the BP they could handle.

LOL. Thank you for all the kind reponses. To be honest this makes me sound kind of bad but I do enjoy reading when people are really going at it and the attacks get a little personal. Lately there was some this weekend that were pretty funny to read. But when I am feeling more mature I do like to read Fletcher. He seems like a real nice guy, he keeps his cool, and does not take things personally. He knows a lot about baseball & he is great inside source for information.... in a way he is kind of a celebrity. He also rises above a lot and keeps his professionalism intact.

Just curious on everyone's thoughts. As manager i would make Calhoun the 4th outfielder I would try Blash.... but probably at some point I would start Eric Young Jr. I would very rarely play Pujols. I would be interested in playing Fletcher at some point soon. And I would have Shohei hit every day except on days he pitches.... even than if he wanted to I would forego the DH and let him do it. I might have every pitcher pitch 2-3 innings every 3rd day, get rid of bullpen sessions. Throw a little harder and hitters cannot see you a 2nd time through the lineup. As GM I would jettison Chris Young. Try to find some taker to take on Valbuena's salary. Trade for some RP. Have a long difficult talk with Pujols. Call up Eric Young Jr. Look at trading for Moustakas and have him play 1B.

I just cannot imagine it being that difficult on the human body to swing a bat 4 times. And than take the rest of the day to recover and get a good nights sleep and than pitch the next day or night. It's not like MLB players have a day job or do a whole lot of physically taxing things on there body when they are not playing. If it is so tiring to swing a bat from one day to the next than we should only play Mike Trout every other day..... I am totally kidding.

We have all seen Simmons play on a daily basis. If we can all agree that defensively Simmons at shortstop vs. a average fielding SS is the difference between negating a couple of singles every week. If you extrapolate that back into offensive numbers than the difference between Simmons and most shortstops is an extra 2 hits a week which over the course of a whole season would make his .285 batting average = a .385 batting average. So if Simmons was just average defensively but hitting at a .385 clip than the national media would be proclaiming what we already know and that is he is one of the best players in the game. The fact that he is hitting .350 so far this year is just a bonus. It is why Eppler was so high on him in the first place. And this really does not factor it helps pitchers get out of tight jams, lessens there pitch counts and gives them more confidence to attack the strike zone with an all world SS behind you. We cannot even quantify all of that.

If he keeps hitting .350 than yes. He is the best defensive SS in the game. He plays in a pitchers park with not a lot of offensive support.

I am not as familiar with the Angels farm system as most. But is there any AA or AAA hard throwing RP's that we can bring up? Kind of like Anderson. Bedrosian, Paredes, and a few others maybe we can package in a trade..... and maybe throw in Calhoun & Valbuena?

I wish he would hit every game that he is not pitching. How tiring is it DH'ing and going up to bat 4 times and swinging. If he hits a HR he can just jog around the bases. They need his bat in the lineup as much as possible. It gives so much more depth to the lineup. If he pitches the next day just tell him to get a couple extra more hours of sleep the night before. The human body can withstand quite a bit.

Just wanted to say I am very happy to be a part of angelswin.com. I think Eppler has done an amazing job. Trout is having a great year & the Angels are in 1st place. In the baseball world what more could you ask for? I look forward to having great conversations with all the members. Since 2005 I have been reading angelswin.com & the members on here know a lot about baseball & seem to have great sense of humors. Thank you for letting me be part of the team! Go Angels!!!!