Duren, Duren

I'm out at the moment half way through my daily morning walk. And a little coffee break at Tim Horton's. I'm recording the game and should catch up to real time before too long. Hopefully a series won and a smidgen of positivity going forward. 
Cheers😊

I'm out at the moment half way through my daily morning walk. And a little coffee break at Tim Horton's. I'm recording the game and should catch up to real time before too long. Hopefully a series won and a smidgen of positivity going forward. 
Cheers😊

I'm out at the moment half way through my daily morning walk. And a little coffee break at Tim Horton's. I'm recording the game and should catch up to real time before too long. Hopefully a series won and a smidgen of positivity going forward. 
Cheers😊

I'm out at the moment half way through my daily morning walk. And a little coffee break at Tim Horton's. I'm recording the game and should catch up to real time before too long. Hopefully a series won and a smidgen of positivity going forward. 
Cheers😊

After two exciting overtime NHL playoff games it was a nice casual nightcap seeing an Angel blowout win. 
Funny with the Pirate announcers interjecting constantly on balls in play. Yelling "go foul" on Pillar's first homer and muttering with resignation as the game progressed. 
The hot corner sure was that for both teams. Embarrassingly so. And hardly up to major league standards.
But bad defense is to be expected in a battle of bottom dwellers. 
Sandoval pitched one of his best games. Hope it propels him to more success. 
I guess Pillar will be a regular starter now. He certainly earned it with a career game. And Calhoun continues to scald the ball and have good at bats. 
A very good chance to finally win a series and give Soriano more confidence. 
 

The Angels had three first ballot HOF players on the same team for a bit.  Pujols, Ohtani, Trout. Yet they couldn't come close to contending. Plus quickly added a defending MVP in Rendon. 
It's so transparently clear that Arte's vision of a baseball team doesn't work. It's a team game. Yet he always has prioritized the big names. And subsequently spent the payroll disproportionately. 
Not enough organic growth and development. Or patience.  And probably not the best teachers in the system.
And even some of the young players have failed because they were rushed, not schooled enough or were over hyped. Quick fixes rarely work with prospects expected to be starters or have major roles. It's the exception when they do, and a bad managerial philosophy. 
The last half decade or so has been this pattern. Gambling on big names to carry the load, rushing prospects and filling the rest of the roster with journeymen, retreads or guys recovering from serious injuries. As well as playing constantly for the long ball while neglecting pitching, contact hitting,  speed and defense. With multiple managers who seem paralyzed and unable to make a difference. 
 
 

The Angels had three first ballot HOF players on the same team for a bit.  Pujols, Ohtani, Trout. Yet they couldn't come close to contending. Plus quickly added a defending MVP in Rendon. 
It's so transparently clear that Arte's vision of a baseball team doesn't work. It's a team game. Yet he always has prioritized the big names. And subsequently spent the payroll disproportionately. 
Not enough organic growth and development. Or patience.  And probably not the best teachers in the system.
And even some of the young players have failed because they were rushed, not schooled enough or were over hyped. Quick fixes rarely work with prospects expected to be starters or have major roles. It's the exception when they do, and a bad managerial philosophy. 
The last half decade or so has been this pattern. Gambling on big names to carry the load, rushing prospects and filling the rest of the roster with journeymen, retreads or guys recovering from serious injuries. As well as playing constantly for the long ball while neglecting pitching, contact hitting,  speed and defense. With multiple managers who seem paralyzed and unable to make a difference. 
 
 

Yep, but...that's part of why he's no longer one of the best players. It all adds up. Consider his WAR ranges:
2023-24: 3.9 WAR, #61
2022-24: 9.9, #28
2021-24: 12.2, #34
2020-24: 14.5, #28
2019-24: 22.4, #12
2018-24: 31.8, #6
You have to go all the way back to 2015-24 to get him to #1, and Betts is only 0.1 behind him, so will pass him in the next week. In other words, even taking the last full decade into account--half of which was vintage Trout--and he's no longer the best player of the last decade. That would be Mookie.
Meaning, Trout hasn't even been top 20 in any span over the last five seasons - except for 2022 alone, when he was #15. In terms of overall accumulative value, he's roughly the 30th best position player in baseball over the last half decade. 
 

This should have been everyone's expectations from the start of the season. 

yeah, i don't care too much about what their record will look like this year. any trades this year should be for next year and beyond. 

I've recently been trying to look at each game just by itself. No thoughts about the standings. That way each game is an isolated self contained piece of baseball entertainment. Cheering for the Angel underdog, but resigned to the fact that they likely will lose. Then groundhog day over again for the next game. 
But it's almost impossible to do. You can't help recognizing the trends and the big picture. So I just try to keep an objective approach and focus on the young guys. And hope that there are more competitive games making the time spent entertaining enough. 

Are Angel radio games accessible anywhere beyond their local outlets? Just curious because I never sought them out. I don't want to pay for streaming since I'm already paying for the MLB Extra Innings TV package. 
When I lived in Montreal I was a fanatic radio listener to Expos games through the seventies/early eighties. My student days.  Haven't lived there since. Nor listened to radio broadcasts since then. 
It was great, but you have to realize that everything comes through the filter of the broadcasters. Some were/are more objective. Others consciously or subconsciously are less objective, being paid by the team. 
Dave Van Horn was really solid Expos play by play guy. "Up up and away" was his home run call. Maybe his best game ( available somewhere on the Internet) was the perfect game of Dennis Martinez against the Dodgers. "El Presidente (his nickname) El perfecto" Duke Snider was his long time color guy. Followed by Ken Singleton. I learned a lot about'inside baseball' from them.
Historically there are many iconic team and network broadcasters from mostly radio. I bought about thirty classic baseball games on audio cassette years ago. Complete world series, all star  games and some others, like Maris'61st homer game. From the thirties through sixties. Now you can find so many of those and more on a cd disk sold on eBay. 
I really recommend seeking some out. You get the feel of being there, and relive the mindset of how teams, players, and the overall baseball culture was like. 

It's a shame that this seems to be the direction teams are taking. Baseball is the perfect sport for radio and when you're listening in to a TV broadcast you just miss certain details cause you don't have the visuals.

Everything really goes back to an organizational plan. Trading the veterans mentioned here for younger players/prospects  is fine. But that acknowledges the team is in full rebuild mode. Which I am not sure Arte would endorse. Even though the results on the field reveal that need as a priority. 
It's possible Perry will still try and look for stop gap players rather than more raw potentially high ceiling prospects. In other words, he'll still look for somewhat younger guys with some major league experience, but with a lower ceiling. Or more veteran guys who have stagnated like the ones he's added mostly in recent years. The best deal he's made was the O'Hoppe trade. And he was lucky that Philly wanted Marsh. And that they still placed faith in Realmuto for their contention window. 
A big factor as well is what the Angel scouts are doing. Have they identified and targeted possible higher ceiling prospects who may take a few more years of development. And may be expendable for an Angel veteran who can help their current situation? 
I actually look forward to watching the current young Angels each game. Adell, Neto, Schanuel, O'Hoppe, some of the pitchers. Looking at their overall play and trying to project forward their possible ceiling. Currently playing on a weak team can actually build character and mental toughness. Going through a long losing grind while still trying to be positive and improving their individual play. 
I think Washington should prioritize their development more than anything else. Veterans can't really change much, and most won't be around longer term. 

So, if the Angels get nothing of higher value than what you've listed, how does this make them better for the future? I don't follow the farm system as many of you here do but how many of these fringe prospects outside the top 100 actually become good major league players? I also think part of the organization's problems is their inability to develop such talent. Until Arte sells and the culture is completely flipped, they will have little success. 

It's not even mediocre at this point really.  And there aren't many teams that have some sort of secret sauce in terms of development.  For the most part it's about volume.  Drafting 20 pitchers isn't desperation.  It's just a mathematical oddity.  My guess is that they didn't skip over 9 position players higher on their board to take Ky Bush.  How does adding a sprinkling of position players in that draft really change things all that much.  
By and large, there's no magic to keeping your farm system decent.  The angel's biggest problem has come from self evaluation.  They either don't know who they are or are unwilling to accept it.  For about the last 15 years they have not moved some players when they had an opportunity, they've prioritized proximity to the majors over talent, and they've traded away org currency where the return, while fair, wasn't close to moving the needle (making these efforts wasted). 
On top of that, their starting point was scorched earth so there was an entire infrastructure that needed to be repaired.  Even putting a solid foundation in place doesn't do anything when you don't have building materials.   
Another thing that's hurt is taking that year to year win now philosophy to free agency.  Instead of turning 1-2 years contracts into prospects at the deadline with good players, it was making multi year commitments to high priced players that became immediately un moveable.  Which in turn limited your financial resources.  And because that need to field a competitive team was pervasive, any extra money was spent on 'lightning in a bottle' types with low odds of having any value that could turn into futures. 
Finally, the recent emphasis on getting your highest value picks to the major as soon as possible contributes. 
Teams do each of these things sparingly based on the situation, and while none of them are individually catastrophic, doing them all, across the board, every time, over a period of 15 years, has resulted in exactly where they are now.  
the next problem is that now there is a solid core of young players at the major league level with zero support elsewhere in the org.  In order to take advantage of that, they'll justify their deadline deals of, again, taking talent close to the majors over more worthwhile players who would take time to develop.  And while the FA market was pretty thin this last year, a decrease in payroll was favored over adding some mid range talent that could be swapped for future talent at the deadline.  
The bottom line is that they're still doing it the same way.  A general unwillingness to accept a plan that requires 5+ years instead of less than 3.  

What happened to all the pitchers we drafted a couple years ago? That was supposed to solve our problems.
 

Unless someone offers you a deal you can’t say no to then you will get a higher return at the deadline. 

It is all about pitching. If we traded all our pitchers for all the Mariners pitchers we have a great team.We'll, OK, a good team. It is impossible to have a playoff team without better pitching. How do the Atlanta Braves produce good pitching year after year and the Angels seem to never have a good staff? Until the Angels figure out how to scout, develope and trade better pitchers it will more of the same mediocrity at best. 

Yep, like Baltimore, like Houston. Maybe we have to lose 105 games for a few years to stock our farm with prize prospects who will star in the near future.
It's a 5-year rebuild (or thereabouts). With a new owner, new management, and baseball people who want championships, not silly promotions and fluff.

Why is the farm system so mediocre?
Scouting and player development are the keys to producing good prospects. 
In the past scouts would physically 'beat the bushes' as the saying goes. Now it's computers, video and analytics that seem prioritized. And often over rule what was seen by scouts first hand. 
The 2012 Clint Eastwood movie 'Trouble with the Curve' dramatizes this contrast though it wasn't the greatest movie. 
As well, player development with these prospects is critical. 
Seems the Angels just have no long term plan or dependable infrastructure in place for finding and  growing young talent. That draft a few years ago of only pitchers was a sign of pure desperation and a panic reaction. 
A true rebuild ideally starts with a new owner, head of baseball ops and an organization of the best available scouts, coaches and managers. All on the same page with a master plan. And the patience to grow it. 
Just year after year of stagnation and reflex moves remind me of the Bob Dylan line.
"If you don't start swimming you'll sink like a stone because the times they are a changin." 
 

Why is the farm system so mediocre?
Scouting and player development are the keys to producing good prospects. 
In the past scouts would physically 'beat the bushes' as the saying goes. Now it's computers, video and analytics that seem prioritized. And often over rule what was seen by scouts first hand. 
The 2012 Clint Eastwood movie 'Trouble with the Curve' dramatizes this contrast though it wasn't the greatest movie. 
As well, player development with these prospects is critical. 
Seems the Angels just have no long term plan or dependable infrastructure in place for finding and  growing young talent. That draft a few years ago of only pitchers was a sign of pure desperation and a panic reaction. 
A true rebuild ideally starts with a new owner, head of baseball ops and an organization of the best available scouts, coaches and managers. All on the same page with a master plan. And the patience to grow it. 
Just year after year of stagnation and reflex moves remind me of the Bob Dylan line.
"If you don't start swimming you'll sink like a stone because the times they are a changin." 
 

Here's a chart:

Angels history, games above or below .500. Green is over, purple below. Darker green means playoffs, the really dark with a star is World Series champs. Light green or light purple are pro-rated to 162 games, for seasons shortened due to strike, covid, or this year's pro-rated record.
Now I don't expect the Angels to continue at a 12-22 pace all year - that's 57-105 for the season. If they don't markedly improve, though, they could lose 100 - and seem likely to lose 95 or so.
Looks like rock-bottom to me. They had seven losing seasons in a row from 1971-77, but this would be the ninth (2016-24). Crazy to think that the 2010-15 period was actually pretty good, historically speaking.
I think the real "dark age" began in 2021 - Trout injured for most of the year, the feeling of hope for something better beginning to face. In 2016-20, there was still a feeling that they could turn it around. 21's horribleness was masked by Ohtani's first great year, but that was it. It has been just awful since.
Of course rock-bottom is the point at which things start to improve. This might be more of a long slow curve, though, than a sharp rise.

I think what gets me most, and what makes me feel like it is just a terrible organization, is that they've now had almost a decade of mediocrity-to-crapitude, and still have one of the worst farm systems in all of baseball. It is frankly mind-boggling.

Just in the last couple weeks:
Anthony Rendon out indefinitely (again) Trout out for 4-8 weeks (at least) Breakout prospect Cole Fontenelle has major leg injury, out for year After seemingly breaking out, "staff ace" Reid Detmers has given up 16 ER in last three starts (12 in last two) Also after seemingly breaking out, Jo Adell is back to sucking Probably more that I can't be bothered typing The team is 12-22, ten games below .500 on May 5, with no signs of improvement. Meaning, it is going to be a long season, most likely. Not sure, but it is probably one of their worst starts in years (and yes, I know about 6-14...but they were 18-16 at this point in 2002).
What's worse is that it is hard to imagine a path out of this morass. Except for a few kinda bright spots, the farm system still sucks, and there's just not enough talent between the major league team and the best of the farm to put together a contender in the foreseeable future. And at this point, let's be honest: nothing Perry Minasian has done in the last few years earns confidence in whatever his path forward is (most likely out of a job before 2025).
I suppose the silver lining is that, ironically, the last two years feels like the streak of mediocrity has ended, as the team is legitimately bad. Actually, they've been pretty bad for a few years, but this year could be really bad. But I'm sure the Angels will find a way to even fuck that up, and play better in the second half, and scramble for 70ish wins somehow. 
But who knows, maybe 2024 is for the Angels what 2011 was for the Astros. The Astros then had three years in a row in which they lost at least 106 games, a better but still really bad year in 2014, but then started getting good in 2015 and were a powerhouse from 2017-23. 
We can dream, right? 
Right now I feel more apathetic about the Angels than I have in...well, ever. I just don't really care all that much and can't muster up my usual angle towards optimism (aka "spin"). I suppose this is what happens when a perennially mediocre team loses its top-end talent--Trout to injury and decline, Ohtani to fresher waters. Trout and Ohtani were masking what has been the case since 2016 or so: a bad franchise and bad team.