tchula

Jesus christ shut the fuck up.

Random thoughts, by level:
AAA: Will Davis Daniel continue his strong performance in AAA? He had a sub-3.00 ERA in both A+ and AA last year, but then struggled in 21 IP in AAA (10.29 ERA). He could be a really strong #4-5 starter for the Angels. And of course, everyone will be watching Reid Detmers and whether he can reduce his HR rate, although that will be difficult in Salt Lake. Brendon Davis is one to watch; unlike Daniel, he kept on performing in AAA, hitting .333/.409/.641 in 31 games. He's really established himself as a decent prospect, and is a darkhorse to grab a major league job next year. And everyone loves Michael Stefanic, comparing him to David Fletcher, but he looks like he's a better hitter.
AA: The two name to watch is obviously Sam Bachman, with the big question being whether he can stick as a starter; I have my doubts. Robinson Pina and Adam Seminaris are two others to keep an eye on; Pina has good stuff and could be a nice reliever. Jeremy Arocho is someone I have my eye on - I love his discipline-speed combo; who knows, maybe he can be a Figgins Lite utility player. I know he's old for a prospect, but you got to root for Braxton Martinez -  he killed the ball last year.
A+: One of the biggest questions going into the year is whether Jordyn Adams can regain his prospect cred. Aside from stats, one important marker is how quickly the Angels call him up to AA; if he's still in A+ into the second half, we could have a problem. One of my favorite prospects is Kyren Paris - if he's healthy, he also could be in AA sometime next season. Similarly with Jeremiah Jackson; I'd really like to see the Angels work on tightening up his swing and having him take more walks. And of course Trent Deveaux and D'Shawn Knowles are still on the radar, but their prospect shine has faded quite a bit. And of course, Ky Bush is one to watch, although his upside may be limited.
A: Here's where we have some guys who could determine whether the Angels farm is truly bad or decent: Arol Vera, Edgar Quero, Alexander Ramirez, Jack Kochanowicz, Alejandro Hidalgo, etc.
Rookie: Similarly with above, but this time Mason Albright, Denzer Guzman, Adrian Placencia, Werner Blakey, David Calabrese, and others. Also, we have a bunch of "fallen prospects" like William Holmes, Erik Rivera, Sadrac Franco, Gabriel Tapia, etc.
I'm sure I'm missing lots of guys, but that's just a sampling to get the conversation started.

I agree, although I think that whole WAR salary thing is overdone, and really doesn't apply to closers and high leverage relievers in general. You can't accurately measure by WAR the value of a lights-out reliever ending a rally.
I've gone on record that they should offer him the QO because:
1. He probably won't accept it.
2. If he does, worst-case scenario and the Angels overpay him by $4-5M for one year ($18.9M vs the $14-15M+ he'll likely cost).
3. If he doesn't, and doesn't resign with the Angels, they get a compensation pick (if the draft works the same next year).

I think Cobb will resign for something like 2 year $20 million, and I would be OK with that.  No matter the price tag, I hope he have a club option for anything beyond 1 year.  If we do bring in Cobb, I think we need to bring in or trade for someone else.  

Not quite.  I tend not to blame him for our lack of pitching depth and what not.  Due to his massive success elsewhere, I wanna see how it plays out.  

@tchula, are you actually Joe Maddon in disguise?

I like Cobb a lot, and there is the option of trading him and then trying to resign him anyways (which wasn't listed or I would have traded him).  But, what another poster paraphrased above, Cobb will not get us to the promised land.  He is a solid #4 who is having a good year, but considering his injury history and up and down past, this success could literally turn on a dime.  If he has value and if we can pull a solid pitching prospect who projects as a #3 upside (floating around AA someplace), then I say we pull the trigger.  For me, we need as many pitching prospects as we can get.  I am fully on board trading away every asset we can this year for more talented close to MLB ready arms as we can get.  Because, as much as I am excited about Detmer, CRodriguez, and our new draft choices, we all know that every single one of them panning out is highly unlikely.  Just look how badly Canning has flamed out despite all this talent.  The reality is we need a lot more than what we currently have if we really want to compete.  And for me, this year is a loss.  I have to believe we can somehow muster 3 real quality starting pitching prospects (55 grades overall) by offering Adell, Iglesias (both of them), Cobb, Heaney, Bundy, and Adams to any combination of teams.   For me the biggest take away from this past draft was just how in shambles our minor league pitching situation is.  We can speculate all we want about taking 20 pitchers in 20 rounds (19 being from college).  But the biggest take away for me, was our minor league pitching situation is scary bad, so much so, our draft was historic just to try to rectify it.  

I like Cobb a lot, and there is the option of trading him and then trying to resign him anyways (which wasn't listed or I would have traded him).  But, what another poster paraphrased above, Cobb will not get us to the promised land.  He is a solid #4 who is having a good year, but considering his injury history and up and down past, this success could literally turn on a dime.  If he has value and if we can pull a solid pitching prospect who projects as a #3 upside (floating around AA someplace), then I say we pull the trigger.  For me, we need as many pitching prospects as we can get.  I am fully on board trading away every asset we can this year for more talented close to MLB ready arms as we can get.  Because, as much as I am excited about Detmer, CRodriguez, and our new draft choices, we all know that every single one of them panning out is highly unlikely.  Just look how badly Canning has flamed out despite all this talent.  The reality is we need a lot more than what we currently have if we really want to compete.  And for me, this year is a loss.  I have to believe we can somehow muster 3 real quality starting pitching prospects (55 grades overall) by offering Adell, Iglesias (both of them), Cobb, Heaney, Bundy, and Adams to any combination of teams.   For me the biggest take away from this past draft was just how in shambles our minor league pitching situation is.  We can speculate all we want about taking 20 pitchers in 20 rounds (19 being from college).  But the biggest take away for me, was our minor league pitching situation is scary bad, so much so, our draft was historic just to try to rectify it.  

The reason I rate Rod over him is that Rod had already proven he can get major league hitters out, and in the process of ramping up in AA, has been absolutely dominant. So if the arsenal is similar, which it is, Bachman is obviously a little better, but it comes down to choosing between a finance college arm versus dominant AA arm and I'll take the minor league every time. But I LOVE that there's even a debate on this, it means they drafted well. 
Vera has some helium for sure. I haven't seen him enough to say one way or the other. But lots of people do like Vera a lot. 
 

I totally agree with you.  I wasn't on the selling bandwagon until this disaster series with the Rays.  If we package Heaney, Iglesias, and/or Cobb I think we can get some 1 really good or perhaps 2 decent type prospects.  

The work of Munch is legendary, especially from the first half of his career, notably 1893 to 1910.  This period produced indisputably museum-worthy pieces that include his renowned masterpiece The Scream.
The second half of his career was less impressive.  Munch entered into an exclusive arrangement where he was commissioned by a proud Spaniard named Arturo Moreno to produce grand pieces for the Spaniard to market.  The results from this period, despite Munch insisting they were of the same caliber, were simply inferior. (See below)
Munch remains a recognized all-time great, albeit with this infamous pivot that produced such drastically different results. The irony of his masterpiece, The Scream, is that many art connoisseurs believe that while the piece’s greatness specifically stirred the interest of the investor Arturo Moreno, it also tragically foreshadowed the fair emotional reaction in hindsight to the financial arrangement made with the proud Spaniard.

Get well, Dave.  Hope you get through chemo quickly.

Fight this like a warrior, Dave!  We're all with you!  🙏
 

Prayers for Dave.

Hope you recover quickly @Dave Saltzer! Love reading your work. Thanks for all you do.

Prayers sent to Dave for total recovery. 

Didn't know that.
Definitely hoping for a speedy recovery @Dave Saltzer. 
I think we can all agree that Cancer can go fuck itself.

On a personal note, please say a prayer or send some positive vibes to our own David Saltzer who is battling a rare form of blood cancer. 🙏
Last week Dave did chemo which wiped him out and today on opening day he's spending it in the hospital getting radiation treatment. 

I mean seriously, we're fans not national sports columnists with unbiased opinions. 
We should have a little fun and wear our hearts on our sleeves a bit when it comes to being a fan. 

Dude, I ain't gonna lie.  I am getting jazzed.  I don't know if this is faux spring optimism or what, but thus far Ohtani is showing his velocity is back up (which means he's mentally recovering from his injury), Cobb's velocity is up, CRod and Detmer both looked good in their brief appearances, and I even thought Brady showed some potential (although his control needs to improve).  
For some reason, I have a sneaky feeling the Angels are going to be really good this year.  

I think it’s a platoon type situation where it’s a veteran to mitigate things if Ward goes back to being Ward of 2018-2019.   If Adell has an amazing spring then he’s insurance for if Upton is more like the Upton of the first 20 games of 2020.  I don’t love it but nothing that happened with our RF/4th OF signing was going to make or break this season.  

True...not any real downside...I just thought Ward had earned the first chance at it...if Ward stinks it up in spring training and Adell doesn’t change the thinking that he needs some AAA time, then easy enough to pick up a platoon part then,  like Eppler did with Goodwin in 2019...but, no harm no foul, I guess...

I appreciate the thoughts .  I actually support Middleton's right to kneel (and I never criticized Middleton), and him kneeling doesn't bother me it all.  I am a pretty left guy actually and support many of the social justice policies in the BLM movement.  But, I only follow a couple of Angel columnist/reporters on twitter and at least in my twitter feed that's what dominated my news feed and IMHO it was way over covered.  But, hey, that's just one guy's opinion.  At the very least it reminded me I should renew my mlb.tv subscription so I can watch the game live oppose to getting updates on twitter lol.  

I appreciate all you do Jeff, but yesterday you made more tweets about the kneeling than about the game itself.  I completely support Middleton's right to kneel, but many of us go to sports to get away from the struggles of society.  It's our escapism from the hardships of real life.  I know some of it will overlap to some degree, and maybe that's appropriate, but I sure hope that this doesn't become the new norm or our Angels coverage isn't dominated by social commentary.  I know I may get criticized for this point of view, but I believe many folks feel the same way.