sammyscioscia

Yeah, not like a bunch of our newer guys faced Snell today or anything.

It's pretty much impossible to play 85' brand of baseball these days, pretty much all prospects are HR hitters now, and with that strikeout rates are up. Power ball is the name of the game now. The game just isn't built around the scrappy players anymore, scouts avoid finesse/speed and go for brute strength and bat speed/pitch speed. It's rare to find guys like Fletcher anymore.

I'm assuming this is based on the law of averages so, based on that, offense is easier than second hardest, bats are a major surplus compared to starting pitching. Position players outlast pitchers careers way more often, also get injured less seriously than pitchers (pitchers are more fragile, especially SP), so that makes defense easier to address, as well as offense. And bullpens are so unpredictable, they should be 2nd most difficult as they require the most tweaking before and during the season. Not sure why catching isn't just bundled into defense and offense. 1- Starting Pitching 3- Bullpen 2- Offense 4- Defense 5- Catching

I'm willing to bet the Angels pen exceeds expectations this season, esp with Pena returning. In fact the whole team with all the fierce competition for the remaining spots on the roster will create a very ambitious team, everybody's trying to outdo the other, haven't been this excited for a season to begin since like ever... Maybe that's the pandemic in me speaking, but I don't think so... I know my baseball, and this team looks fun.

Someone's upselling the available relief pitchers, 'no bullpen' is a big overstatement. I think ours could be very good if luck is on our side, and it's not going to be as bad or worse than last season. Our biggest issue was not having a closer which led us to leading the league in blown saves.

Upton will hopefully be that headache in the middle of the lineup that pitchers forgot about, "oh yeah this guy... ****". He's also a Mariner killer. We need Mariner killers.

Make Arm Great Again?

THE most exciting player in baseball is Ohtani and it's not even close, try to think of another player... hard isn't it?

It feels different for quantifiable reasons, for me at least. Most of my worries currently lie on some of our hitters, can some of our guys continue to hit like they did last season? Is Walsh for real? For once, my worries don't lie entirely on the pitching staff, and I think that is a major reason why I 'feel' better about this year. One concern has been alleviated and I am allowed to worry about less-likely things happening, that's a hallmark of progress.

I know it's a bit of a cop out as a baseball fan to say the Angels have 'no pitching' and contend that as the major reason why we will remain middle of the pack and not contend yet again wasting another year of Trout. Many Twitter baseball fans, even some Angels fans as of last night say we still have no pitching 'as usual', is this really true though? While we never went out and got a stud pitcher, we gained one internally in Ohtani and acquired a reliable arm in Cobb and potential sleeper stud in Quintana who has shown he might be on the right track. How do they feel so confident in trashing our pitching? Well in my opinion, they simply must not be paying attention to our roster changes and have accepted that our record last year was a direct indicator of our pitching (which is somewhat true) and the fact we basically stood pat in terms of blockbuster moves, thus we will remain the status quo again this year. I think some of those fans are in for a little bit of a rude awakening this season. If every pitcher remains relatively healthy and doesn't pull a Teheran (which is pretty uncommon) we are looking pretty strong. If the rotation can step over the line from kind of bad last year to kind of good this year, that should be enough to make us tough division contenders. The bullpen is probably going to be pedestrian, but has the potential (like many bullpens do) to exceed expectations, if that happens we are in good shape. Also our defense can't be any worse than last season, so that's another benefit coming our way. I by no means expect us to win the division, but I do expect to see us threatening the WC standings at least. We will be that annoying team that nobody expected to be so annoying. Is it a mistake for me to assume we will be in good shape this year pitching wise?

I'm still upset we couldn't make a big boy attempt at acquiring Snell, he would have put us in really good shape.

This is why I'm against trading Rojas, at least the odds of us suffering at 1b offensively drop considerably. Not to mention one of our corner guys could get injured in a heartbeat. Regardless, Walsh probably has quite a long leash considering what he did and how long he did it. Also, it's better to slump and figure things out during ST.

Yeah I looked a little deeper. Funny thing is that was the only HR he ever hit and the only win he ever got pitching.

Astros fans Mariners fans A's fans There's nothing I hate about the game other than the off-season.

Dude rakes, we need his lefty bat incase Walsh was a fluke or Pujols/Rendon get injured. Also not directly related but Fowler has not earned his spot on the roster, I hope Maddon doesn't let the past consume him.

Good, they're both hitting well.

Also wouldn't that make him the first player in history to pitch and hit a home run in the same game in any AL park? Is that cool or what? That's not some overly complicated stat, it's quite remarkable. Also, I'm not sure if any pitcher has hit and pitched in an AL park on the same game (since DH was available).

Thanks pal. Found a place to share an opinion with like-minded individuals.

I'm honestly stoked about Sutton and he would've been enough, the Matty V hire is the icing and cherry on top of an already good cake. It's gonna be weird hearing MLB The Show while watching our guys.

Walsh, Cobb, Ohtani. I trust Quintana will be reliable, same with Bundy. Walsh is a curious one, considering he could've just been on a long streak of better than usual hitting last season, I'd say if he maintains 85% of what he could do last year that would be a success. Partly because pitchers will have updated scouting reports on him, expecting regression is expected. But he still needs to prove himself to be reliably good. Ohtani is an obvious one but the most important player we need to play well to gain the most wins, he will have to succeed at both pitching and hitting to do that. Well beyond a reasonable request by baseball standards, and a Herculean task he has proven he can take on, but can he do it again? And can it last most of the season? Cobb will need to prove he can keep us in many games, a 4.00-4.25 ERA in that range should work. However, he could also not keep us in many ballgames and give up the long ball a few too many times.

The concern is that outfielders tend to resolve the problems Adell is having way back in High School ball, these are arguably instinctual things where you either have it or you don't, that's the worry. I'm sure he will get better with time but there is a chance he will never be a good judge of fly balls.

Is this true? With Adell's athleticism, and the fact that most DHs are great hitters. He loses most of his value being a DH, he HAS to find a way to become a reliable defender. His apparent trouble reading a ball off the bat doesn't explain the high fly balls being dropped/missed. Perhaps he just needs reps on long/high fly balls in different lighting conditions.

So he shouldn't pitch in any @ NL away games? Even if it's the World Series? Too safe is sorry IMO.