Reveille1984

I think Neto needs a smaller helmet, dude is losing it on every play

Had to be a missed sign or something. Was an awkward looking steal. Typical of what I said earlier, we seem to always find stupid ways to lose and that's exhibit A.

Funny enough our stats as a team are pretty good so far. Bullpen/SP are around the top third of the league, same with the offense. Typical of the Angels though, they seem to just always find new, unlucky, and stupid ways to lose games. Untimely defensive lapses, unclutch hitting, catcher interference calls, offensive slumps, liners right at dudes, offense sucks when the pitching is good and vice versa. We could easily be 9-5 with a few more things going our way.

Holy sh*# this defense, what is going on

That is actually a hilarious stat. The guy just isn't a starting caliber MLB player anymore, simple as that. Happens all the time, especially to fringe talents like him.

Renfroe and Drury really grinding our momentum to halt in these first six games, jaysus

Ohtani does not have it today

Per usual, it starts at the top. Moreno is a schmuck, and runs the organization like one.

Pretty fair and about what I expected, around middle of the pack. Depending on health I could see us finishing the season as a top 10 team, but I say that every year it seems.

International Presence!

Christ that's a massive contract for Nimmo. I guess given how other contracts have panned out it's not that surprising though. Maybe Ohtani really will get that $500M next year.

Yeah, we're kind of just stuck with Walsh honestly. I don't see us wasting resources on first base via free agency, our pipeline is kind of a wasteland at the position, and $2-3M is peanuts compared to the rest of the roster.

Yeah, the reliever dominance is insane. Velocity just keeps increasing, and less IP for SP allows them to be more effective. We're going to get to a point soon where relievers are pitching half the game on average. Just some crazy stats for relievers in 1993 vs 2021 (about a 30 year span): 1993: RP IP: 12777 RP% of all IP: 31.5% Reliever K/9: 6.5 WAR: 63 2021: RP IP: 18212 RP% of all IP: 42.7% Reliever K/9: 9.3 WAR: 108

We all knew it would happen, the annual "let's play well in these last ten meaningless games to lower our draft slot a few pegs".

A manager shouldn't be trying to determine when/if to use analytics; by nature they're designed to work more often than not based on probability. He should instead be the liaison between the nerds and the players, presenting the data to the team in an approachable way that makes sense. That on top of managing personalities, keeping guys motivated and engaged, etc. Those skills are still valuable for a manager. It just sounds like he's salty that some of the info provided didn't coincide with his preconceived notions about the game. "… every day we’d get ready for the game and (Angels GM) Perry (Minasian) and (assistant GM) Alex (Tamin) would come in and they would start talking about how I should use the bullpen that night. Like I haven’t done that for the last 40 years". I'm betting that Maddon wasn't always utilizing the information that the front office was giving him, so they started pushing back and putting on more pressure to make specific changes that got his undies into a twist. This and his multiple "back in the day" and "ops guys don't understand the heart of baseball" and "I like data, but..." quotes in the article kind of just hint that he isn't happy about both the direction of baseball and not having full and complete authority of the clubhouse. This isn't really new, front offices are always looking for an edge. Launch angles, spin rates and higher velocity, defensive shifts, the end of "free outs" via bunting and sacrifices, TTO baseball, more guys than ever hovering around the Mendoza line, and etc. are all rampant now. Some of these things (IMO) have made the game more robotic and dull, but it's the job of the league to make the proper modifications to offset some of this where they can. First and foremost would be banning/modifying the shift, which I think most people would be in agreement with and would do a lot to increase offense and get more guys willing to just put the ball in play. The other stuff, who knows. I'm sure someone smarter than me can come up with some clever solutions.

That's definitely a lineup

I'm not really onboard the trade Trout bandwagon, but this does have some merit. The sale of the team is likely going to bleed into early/mid 2023, perhaps even longer. Most are already considering next year a lost season where we stand pat and avoid any major acquisitions. So by that barometer, maybe new ownership starts to make some large scale operational changes in preparation for 2024. Front office staff, beefing up scouting. By that point Ohtani will likely be gone and hopefully traded for some high end assets. Rendon will be limping around at 34 with three years left on his deal, the rest of the lineup probably a handful of nobodies barring some minor league breakouts. Maybe we make some impact FA splashes or trades, but it takes a while to rebuild an entire farm system with new philosophies and approaches. Long story short, I'd be surprised if this team is competitive again by 2025 at the earliest barring some miracle moves by the new ownership group (cue Debbie Downer). The Dodgers were acquired in 2012 with a pretty terrible farm system, but already had a solid MLB core roster at that point (CY Young Kershaw, Billingsley, prime Kemp, Ethier, Gonzalez, Jansen) and won 86 games that year and the division the next (and every) year after. Maybe our pitching staff makes some strides and can carry the weight during these shakeup years, but IMO it's going to take time to build a winning franchise again. Trout might not want to wait around until he's 35 for that to happen, but this is purely Devil's Advocate on my part. Trout has never struck me as the type to make any sort of trade demands or openly request a trade.

Samuelis might actually be a possibility, not sure how I feel about it though. As a big Ducks fan, they are finally allowing the Ducks to go through a proper rebuild and have some promising talent in the pipeline to allow them to compete soon. They let Bob Murray stick around as GM way too long though, better late to fix a mistake than never though. Their scouting and development is also some of the best in the NHL and they are known to be very hands off. They definitely don't have FU money though like Ballmer or some of the other management groups.

Maybe Trump can hook him up with some nice Saudi investor money

This is obviously all noise at this point and who knows what will end up happening. I just don't understand how we're going to "buy as soon as now" with what we have going on in our system. We don't have the prospect capital to acquire anyone of substance, and Moreno has never shown the propensity to spend to/over the cap. Like some others have iterated, if we keep and extend Ohtani then Arte better be willing to exponentially increase payroll because it's just a recipe for franchise purgatory with Rendon/Trout/Ohtani sucking up over half of our payroll. Especially with Rendon and Trout's health issues already.

The thing about the Angels trading anyone for prospects is that they can't properly develop or scout talent. The fact that we've made the playoffs once in the past 13 years and still consistently have one of the most barren farm systems in baseball is a testament to that. Say hypothetically we trade Ohtani: best case is maybe we'll get lucky and grab a higher level roster player along with some "can't miss" types that are too far along for our development staff to get their hands on. The more "Angels" result would probably be Arte wanting to receive splashy roster players to grind into his marketing machine and to keep the MLB club spinning it's wheels, along with some fringe far off prospects. This is the reason we're in this twilight zone shit purgatory in the first place, and it starts from the top down. Until Arte kicks the bucket or sells the team to competent leadership that actually cares about developing a winner, I don't see much changing no matter what path we take *cues Debbie Downer emoji*

Even if he is just good and not "elite" at either side of the equation, that still makes him a superstar player as long as he can stay healthy. Asking for more consistency on the mound is kind of funny since his peripherals are even better than last year (higher K/9, lower BB/9, lower HardHit%, lower xERA/xFIP). He's on pace for 6-7 WAR even with his lesser offensive stats. A SP with his arsenal that can hit in the middle of the lineup with 30+ HR power is a one of one in the MLB, and his marketing value alone probably makes him worth whatever he would get. He puts butts in seats, and is an extremely likeable personality.

The over .500 parade?

Yeah, not sure what GMs/Managers have to do with ownership changes. We've all heard the stories of Artes ego and big brain meddling, on top of the other distractions and controversies you mentioned. Moving to an actual ownership group with deeper pockets and more of a strategy for the growth and development of the franchise and it's players would only be a plus IMO. I won't hold my breath, but I'm sure the vast majority of Angels fans would welcome moving on from Moreno.

This injury is so prototypical of the Angels. It goes from no news, to Ward saying he's "feeling great, should be back Tuesday", to Ward getting "just a precautionary MRI, everything's fine!", to Ward being a lineup no-show Tuesday, to "Ward has lost all strength in his throwing shoulder, will maybe be back soon".