Duren, Duren

Bobby Shantz. 5'6", 139 pounds. That's why all references to him were about "little Bobby Shantz " 
But looking at the record books, he was quite an effective left handed pitcher. 16 years MLB career, 1949-1964. 1952 A.L. MVP. Went 24-7 with a 2.48 ERA on the Philly A's. Later on he was a useful reliever on some pennant winning Yankee teams. 
From what I've read in old magazines and seen in a few videos clips he relied on slow breaking stuff and was best against left handed hitters.
Good luck finding many pitchers today who can play 16 years. Of course the financial incentives was important in the old days while many  current pitchers can retire comfortably in half a dozen years or so. 
 

I you want to blame Perry, there’s plenty of things to blame him for.
Blaming him for not trading a generational player when ownership prevented it is not one of those things.

Baseball pitchers are the new football players.  Pitchers know that throwing max effort every single pitch is going to blow out their arms/elbows/shoulders, much like football players know that playing football is going to cost them later in life.  GMs only want pitchers that throw 95+ with a 88+ slider.  Velocity is the name of the game.  Back then pitchers would conserve their stuff and not throw max effort every single pitch due to it being a long season and the expectation of going the full game.  Pitchers were taught to "pitch" and not "throw," meaning mixing up pitches, changing speeds, changing arm slots, hitting your spots.  All of that is out the window now with the max velo approach.  I really miss the days that the starters throws 120+ pitches and goes more than 6 innings. 

Both are correct. 
Wash should have used someone else. But Suarez was expected to simply not give up 4 runs.
That said, if the score is still 2-0, the Angels don't score 5 runs, at least not in the manner they did. Being up 6 runs, Baltimore is going to have an entirely different approach than if they're only up 2 runs. Trout probably gets pitched differently. Ward the same. 
I'm not excusing the decision to bring in Suarez. I'm just saying it's easy to say the exact scenario would have played out on offense when there's no way you could possibly know that.

Gotta protect the established system and the people in it and with vested interests. At all costs. Politics by any other name.
Look at the Reggie Bush stupidity. I don't even want to go deep into that 'protect the establishment' scenario. And irony of ironies. When the system breaks down because of it's own internal hypocrisies they revise history a couple of decades later. After all the damage and humiliation. It wasn't just an ethical decision, but one to avoid even more derision. 
Baseball protecting the umps has been common forever. But with technologies available now for proof checking  they've crossed the line from judgment fallibility to pure reflex systemic protection. 
 

4 runs on 3 homers. Not the greatest value per homer.
It would be nice to actually see runs scored in other ways than the long ball. And it would add some excitement too. 

Why would they be anti-Halos? We haven't been relevant in a decade. 
The umpires on the field sometimes make bad calls and the replay umpires in New York then do everything they possibly can to uphold the bad call. 
It's a shitty system. There is no conspiracy. 

Washington lost this game, not the umpires. There is zero reason to use Suarez in a 2 run game with a day off tomorrow.

Oh well. No big Suarez surprise. Batting practice for Baltimore . Another series on the verge of being lost. 

And now the bullpen circus begins ...
Against a weaker team maybe Anderson was good enough to be in position for a win but the O's are so deep and patient. 
But with lethargic bats hard to beat anyone. 

Anderson not sharp but hanging in. 
Sano getting more impressive in the field than at bat. 
Bats seem cold again. 

Anderson not sharp but hanging in. 
Sano getting more impressive in the field than at bat. 
Bats seem cold again. 

Nice game against a good team. Canning making steady progress. Garcia effective in his inning plus. Surprising power  production from 6 - 9. Hope it's a sign of more hitting depth coming around. 
First Rendon. Now Trout. Talk about non traditional leadoff hitters. Hardly the Fletcher  model or the typical prototypes. I don't see this lasting long, but more a wakeup call to break the slump. A bit of desperation maybe, but why not? At least short term. But what happens when Rendon returns?
Adell needs to start consecutive games for a couple of weeks at least. I think that more everyday play will sharpen his read on pitchers and help his steal percentage. It's about more than speed. Getting a good jump is mostly about timing the  pitching delivery and knowing their pickoff moves for an optimum lead. He's still raw with that. 
A win tomorrow could start some positive momentum. 
 

Adrianza is a good call as a late-inning defensive replacement, but in that type of situation in the 9th inning, two on base with no outs, he needs to be pinch hit for. Thaiss or Drury have had plenty of at-bats this season; Adrianza has not. The biggest disappointment is Trout again not coming through when it counts the most. People keep harping about how we should trade him for a cache of young, blue-chip talent from a playoff-caliber team. Sorry to spill the beans, but none of those teams are going to give up any young talent for him -- Oh, they would take Mike Trout in a heartbeat, who wouldn't -- but not for the return that the Angels would need. That ship sailed at least four years ago. The reality is, at this point in his career, he is still a very good player, but he is no longer a franchise-type player. Playoff-caliber teams typically don't make big trades during the season for players like Mike Trout. They already have talented players, and they don't want to give up the talent that it would take to land him, not to mention taking over that huge salary. Look, like many people, I would love to see Trout and the Angels go to the World Series before his career ends. I sincerely hope that happens.  But Arte and company decided to let our best player walk on over to the next county northwest of us and sign with the Dodgers, and now we are screwed for the near future as we got nothing in return but a "What could've been."

I'm mildly disappointed at how Washington is handling things. But we don't know what expectations Perry/Arte had in hiring him. Presiding over a rebuild or hoping that new leadership in the dugout would somehow create better chemistry and get the team in sync. 
So far it seems obvious that there is no magic. The roster is just too problematic. But a rebuild mindset doesn't seem to be in effect either. 
Still, it's really early in the season. This homestand will be a chance to reset somewhat. 
If July last year was a key turning point then indirectly it goes back to prioritizing pleasing/impressing  Ohtani to re-sign more than anything else. Grabbing a handful of discards and declining players hoping that somehow everything would fall into place. And giving up potential future assets. As if Ohtani hadn't likely already made up his mind to leave. 
That entire scenario was embarrassing. Everyone knew the odds were slim at best. Yet Perry (likely at Arte's direction) presided over a situation that will go down in franchise history as one of their biggest blunders. 
 

You are correct, this is early but establishes a starting point for discussion and crowd sourcing.   I plan to officially update again at approx 60 games, but team Tier placement will be fluid through the next 40 games.

Interesting metric format. But still too early to call these more than a very early sample size of 1/8th of the season. A couple of good or bad series can distort a team's status as much as show an established performance level. Early in a season team's often experiment, trying to find the best everyday lineup and rotation. 
I'd do these maybe quarterly, after each forty games. By then teams have played more evenly road/home and against a wider spectrum of teams. The first twenty are somewhat indicative, but not enough to think things can't change over a longer time frame. 

It never was really.  For that to happen EVERYTHING had to break right, and that never happens. 
I thought they would be close, but Rendon down again, Neto and Schanuel not hitting, and too many journeymen in the daily lineup with no real options coming from a bottom 5 farm.
This could be the worst shape the org has ever been in.
Sidenote; Yes i know Sano is hitting now but hes not keeping 300 thru Aug

Feels like a lame duck hire. Go through the motions for 2 years and act like you give a shit.  Then let the draft build, get free agents and bring in a new skipper.  

I'm mildly disappointed at how Washington is handling things. But we don't know what expectations Perry/Arte had in hiring him. Presiding over a rebuild or hoping that new leadership in the dugout would somehow create better chemistry and get the team in sync. 
So far it seems obvious that there is no magic. The roster is just too problematic. But a rebuild mindset doesn't seem to be in effect either. 
Still, it's really early in the season. This homestand will be a chance to reset somewhat. 
If July last year was a key turning point then indirectly it goes back to prioritizing pleasing/impressing  Ohtani to re-sign more than anything else. Grabbing a handful of discards and declining players hoping that somehow everything would fall into place. And giving up potential future assets. As if Ohtani hadn't likely already made up his mind to leave. 
That entire scenario was embarrassing. Everyone knew the odds were slim at best. Yet Perry (likely at Arte's direction) presided over a situation that will go down in franchise history as one of their biggest blunders. 
 

I'm mildly disappointed at how Washington is handling things. But we don't know what expectations Perry/Arte had in hiring him. Presiding over a rebuild or hoping that new leadership in the dugout would somehow create better chemistry and get the team in sync. 
So far it seems obvious that there is no magic. The roster is just too problematic. But a rebuild mindset doesn't seem to be in effect either. 
Still, it's really early in the season. This homestand will be a chance to reset somewhat. 
If July last year was a key turning point then indirectly it goes back to prioritizing pleasing/impressing  Ohtani to re-sign more than anything else. Grabbing a handful of discards and declining players hoping that somehow everything would fall into place. And giving up potential future assets. As if Ohtani hadn't likely already made up his mind to leave. 
That entire scenario was embarrassing. Everyone knew the odds were slim at best. Yet Perry (likely at Arte's direction) presided over a situation that will go down in franchise history as one of their biggest blunders. 
 

this year was never going to be a success with the record. success for this team for this year was always going to be about the kids improving.
it would be a pretty amazing season for this team to finish .500, but i'd rather see the kids make forward progress as preparation for next year and beyond.

Think of it this way: He hasn't done any more damage. That's one of the things I like about this year - no more albatross contracts, no more prospects given away. The worst of it is probably Stephenson, but even that might prove somewhat useful next year. And guys like Paris and Adams are still around. If the Angels fall deep into a hole, there's no real loss to releasing Hicks and calling Adams up (for example). And it isn't like Adams (and Paris) can't use more seasoning in AAA.
The real damage, of course, was done in July of last year. That was a debacle that will likely haunt us for year's to come (look at Edgar Quero's numbers this year). I know, hindsight and all, but the end result was still devastating.
And we can give Perry and the Angels credit for getting Soriano back.

Perry is in the last year of his deal. I think he would have spent $1bn on free agents if he were allowed to. This is purely speculation, but I think Arte looked at his track record with free agents and last year's trade deadline deals, and said, "Perry, you're cut off". 
To answer your question regarding what they could have done -- they needed to be highly active in the trade and waiver market to find players under team control to fill in on depth. A guy like Oliver Dunn would have been perfect. Raked in AAA but not a top prospect, Phillies couldn't find a roster spot for him, Brewers acquired him for basically free, and he's got 6 years of team control. Left handed hitting 2B/3B with promising plate discipline and power -- there's our Sano spot.
Also, there are some roster decisions which could have been differently. I would have had Andrew Wantz, Davis Daniel, Kyren Paris, and Jordyn Adams in the majors. I would have kept Trey Cabbage and Austin Warren. I would have kept Fletcher and Stassi, who presumably were only traded because Minasian wanted to escape the stain of the contract extensions he gave them. Even Walsh might have been worth one more year as insurance for Schanuel.
Would these guys have sucked? Probably. But Ward and Rengifo sucked for years before they figured it out. If you give these young guys under team control reps now, you're at least starting the clock on hopefully building towards a better future. The Cisnero and Hicks of the world-- they suck just as bad anyways. Total waste of time. 

If 2024 wasn't primarily about taking stock, why didn't Perry spend more? He signed no major free agents - just a bunch of bench guys and relievers. As you say, they've got some trade fodder and the rest of the guys you mention are cheap filler. They're on the team because the Angels don't have enough minor league depth to fill a major league roster.
I agree that it is a "shitty team with ton of journeymen," but there's also some young talent. And again, who do you want to see playing that isn't playing? We can nitpick details, like giving Hicks playing time over Adell, but I'm guessing that will change eventually.
Or to put it another way, if they accept that they need to take stock and rebuild, what else could they have done? Rebuilding a team takes time; signing and developing young players takes years. The fact that the Angels didn't max out their payroll with (more) dubious free agent contracts is a good thing - it means they've accepted the fact that their approach of the last eight years hasn't worked, and they need to try something else.