Reveille1984

Yeah, MLB has him at 6'0" 185. Not the biggest dude, but "pint-sized" is a bit of a stretch.

I guess he needs a third of the games off on top of taking a third of each game he plays in off

Two top 100 prospects is underselling an Ohtani trade? I'd take that as a centerpiece for Shohei any day of the week. We'd likely get some major league talent coming back as well, but that's pretty obvious if we're moving him. I think people forget how few actual contenders have multiple top 100 guys in their farm system they're willing to move (or at all). The only two I can think of off the top of my head are the Dodgers & Orioles (Orioles have EIGHT in the top 100, holy sh*&), and I don't see Baltimore making that type of move. Some other teams have a couple of guys, but they're more towards the bottom 100 than top.

There's lots of ways to get around the blackout restrictions with the MLB app if you're even remotely tech savvy, just have to Google a bit. I use a VPN to NorCal with a firestick and it works fine.

Can't depend on an Irishman, everyone knows that

This team makes some of the weirdest defensive blunders you'll ever see. Throw is directly to Thaiss and he does a little goofy one footed jump to move his foot off the bag for absolutely no reason

At this point we just need to give the guys time to get it together, there's too much failure going on from the pitching side. Even a decent mid rotation acquisition isn't going to change much for us. To put it into perspective, only 25 (qualified) starting pitchers were worth over 3 WAR in 2022 (there's also a handful of guys like Scherzer, Sandoval, etc. over 3 WAR with less than qualified innings). You might expect a mid-rotation guy to give you 1.5-2.0 WAR over a season, and we're already approaching the 50 game mark. So even if we grab someone to replace whoever (Canning/Silseth/etc.), we'd be lucky if they added another win or two to a barely .500 team. We're better off just hoping these guys round into form, and if not trade Ohtani and get some pieces back for the future.

This is the Angels we're talking about. We'll make some kind of headway, hang around about 5-6 games out at the ASB and keep Shohei around under the justification of "having a shot". Then we'll fade completely, finish around .500, and Ohtani will walk in the offseason for squat. We all know this will happen barring some catastrophic collapse in the next two months.

Man, so much hope after our rotation was actually a strong point last year. Now it's looking like one of our biggest weaknesses.

Our SP love 20+ pitch innings (thanks Urshela)

Quite the travel day lineup

Has been about as good as we could have hoped for up to this point. League average offense (wRC+ of 100) and great defense. Competitive at bats, hasn't really looked overmatched at all. Already at around 0.5 WAR after 65 PAs. Only one walk is a little concerning, but funny enough he has a .350 OBP with all his HBPs. Once he taps into some of that power I think he'll end up a 4-5 WAR guy over the next couple years.

The even funnier thing is the crusty dudes whining that the pitch clock "ruins the sanctity of the game!". We've basically just reversed time to how fast games were in the 80s/90s.

Amazing. Now send in the robot umps!

So a sub .300 SLG is fully healthy Rendon? If so, then the rest of this contract is going to be even more painful than I thought.

What the hell is actually wrong with Rendon now anyways? Wrist bothering him again? Still recovering from the shoulder HBP? Just unlucky?

73% called strike accuracy!!?!?! That has to be one of the lowest I've ever seen.

We also have 7 blown saves already, most in MLB. Just Angels things!

We haven't finished above .500 since he's been here, but it isn't the same... what? Maybe this is the year we finally do, but I wouldn't call this team "a ton" more talented unless a lot of circumstances break our way.

He also chose us in 2017... it's been six years and nothing has changed (outside of the NL acquiring the DH). I doubt his thought process when he initially signed is still the same in 2023.

Ohtani IMHO just isn't as valuable to us as he is to other actual contenders. We need to either spend huge in FA, or refresh our team with some young talent eventually. Since Arte likely isn't going to support a $300M payroll anytime soon, if guys like O'Hoppe/Neto can become good young players and Adell can become anything, that would go a long ways on top of a package of young, impact talent from an Ohtani trade. I love Shohei and he's a once in a lifetime player, but we've likely already benefited from his best years and this isn't the NBA. I want to maybe, actually, win baseball games again at some point and become a playoff team again. Strapping ourselves to a half billion contract for a 29 year old probably isn't the first stop towards that goal.

If Texas ends up being the real deal, I could see us being 6-8 games back of the WC at the TDL if we don't pull our heads out of our asses. I still don't see a scenario where Moreno would sell off Ohtani though. The AL is a meat grinder this year, and we have to prove we can actually compete with teams like NYY/HOU/TOR/BAL/etc.

Unless something catastrophic happens with injuries again, I don't see us being far enough behind at the TDL to trade Ohtani. Especially with Arte doing a full 180 on the team sale, he probably has a renewed hard on for any semblance of a successful season. And barring that, he'll want to suck every last marketing dollar dry from Shohei before he's on his way to a new team.

One day we'll have a starter that can go past four innings