cgoldangel

Sorry son, Ohtani highlights aren't allowed on this forum. Find another place if you want to jerk off to Ohtani accolades on the Dodgers. 

I think Detmers has the best chance to be a sleeper for this team. The pure stuff is there and now just has to put it together with the experience he has gotten. I really think Adell is going to break out this season. Not maybe like a superstar season but one where he is at least an average player. I just really like the reports of how hard he hard he works and just feel like everything comes together.

The interesting part is that if I recall right, his first injury was some type of sprain/strain. Then he got drilled by a fastball in the wrist.  Third injury was fouling a ball off his tibia causing him to miss rest of the season. Not sure how much of his off season training program will help on those last two injuries.

Angels make a trade: everyone bitches about it
angels don’t sign a fa: everyone bitches about it.
angels sign someone: everyone bitches about it. 
angels 1961: bitches about everything all of the time.
 

Do I want Ohtani to get hurt, no. But I will root for him just like I do all the other Dodgers, hoping they all suck!!

I think the talk of Schanuel’s lack of power is just a little premature. The guy is literally just learning hit as a professional barely two months after being drafted. I would definitely give him the benefit of the doubt after showing he did hit for power in college. The bats in college do have some limits to their exit velocity, so they are not completely different from wood bats when barreled up. I think with the fact he has come up and not completely stuck it up means he has some serious bat ball skills, which will translate into more power. Plus, the guy is only 21 years old, and still is a few years from physically maturing. Get him some professional training and professional hitting instruction, should do wonders for him.

The injury that Trout suffered was a piece of the hamate bone was fractured called the hook of the hamate. The surgery took out the piece but the rest of the bone is intact. There is no further risk of injury once he returns.

I unfortunately was at the game and it was just embarrassing. Although, I did get a chance to talk with Kyren Paris’ father before the game. He was obviously very proud of his son and was a very nice guy and am really pulling for Paris to do well

I unfortunately was at the game and it was just embarrassing. Although, I did get a chance to talk with Kyren Paris’ father before the game. He was obviously very proud of his son and was a very nice guy and am really pulling for Paris to do well

Not sure if anyone saw this but last night quite a few of our new draft picks made their debuts in the ACL including our 1st rounder who went 2-3.

I'm not sure why a bunch here keep thinking that what the halos are doing is weird.  And by weird, I presume they mean unconventional or against the grain if you will.  This year seems pretty on par with the last two drafts.  
They did finally take a HS position player this year in Wimmer and another in rd 19.  
Two years ago we had almost no scouting info from the pundits.  Last year it was still pretty limited.  This year there was a ton more.  So I don't think it's Perry and crew doing anything different than they've been doing, it just seems more against the grain this year because others have their conventional scouting info to compare it to.  Good or bad, I think the Angels rely heavily on their spreadsheets.  Which likely included a lot of pitch track and batted ball data that most scouts and very few people in the general pop have.  
I do have some concerns that there might be some 'smartest guy in the room' mentality here.  And for the record, I really don't think the halos are using 'close to the majors' as much as people thing.  College guys just have more data available to evaluate them.  They're just more predictable.  Sure they're gonna take a couple flyers here an there.  
The dogs have a great system because they choose guys who match with the things they value in terms of how they development.   HS players in general are a pretty bad bet.  People still have PTSD from the Dipoto day of the supposed 'high floor low ceiling' approach that essentially amounted to low floor no ceiling.  
Or to put it another way, maybe the approach to getting Zach Neto was a bit of a fluke but to the people that took him he's exactly what they thought he would be.  It might not work as well with Schanuel, but if I'm the Angels I think I'd double down pretty hard on the eval process that got me the last guy.  
One more thing that might be important and we'll use Schanuel as an example even though I don't know the answer and it probably applies to Zach Neto as well.  Not only can you see what the player has done but you can parse out what a player did against them.  Schanuel and Neto came from smaller schools with supposed lesser programs where they likely faced lesser competition.  But not on every pitch they saw.  I guarantee they faced some tough pitchers or more importantly, some tough pitches from guys who probably didn't through tough pitches all that often.  What did those guys do against pitches with major league level vertical and horizontal movement and spin rates and velos?   I have no idea, but I bet the Angels do.  But I bet they would have far less info of that type if at all for HS position players.  
Anyway, I have no idea what info they have, but I guarantee it ain't just a scouting report with 'good face' or 'high ass' checked off.   

I don’t have any problem being disappointed in his play, suspensions and all the rest but this injury is like the last injury getting hit on the wrist by a fastball, bad luck and part of baseball 

I know everyone needs someone to complain about and Pujols isn’t here anymore but to complain that Rendon is not tough enough is just plain ridiculous. It would be like having someone hit you in the tibia with a sledgehammer. Remember the same thing happened to LaStella and broke his tibia. It’s just not a “bruise”.

I know everyone needs someone to complain about and Pujols isn’t here anymore but to complain that Rendon is not tough enough is just plain ridiculous. It would be like having someone hit you in the tibia with a sledgehammer. Remember the same thing happened to LaStella and broke his tibia. It’s just not a “bruise”.

I know everyone needs someone to complain about and Pujols isn’t here anymore but to complain that Rendon is not tough enough is just plain ridiculous. It would be like having someone hit you in the tibia with a sledgehammer. Remember the same thing happened to LaStella and broke his tibia. It’s just not a “bruise”.

I grew up in Bakersfield and the Dodgers had their single A team there. I grew up watching the Angels because of my dad and all my friends were Dodgers fans. In the 70s and early 80s, the Dodgers were good and the Angels not so much. My friends gave me a lot of grief about the Angels so I grew up hating the Dodgers!! And still have two favorite teams, the Angels and whoever the Dodgers are playing😂.

I grew up in Bakersfield and the Dodgers had their single A team there. I grew up watching the Angels because of my dad and all my friends were Dodgers fans. In the 70s and early 80s, the Dodgers were good and the Angels not so much. My friends gave me a lot of grief about the Angels so I grew up hating the Dodgers!! And still have two favorite teams, the Angels and whoever the Dodgers are playing😂.

I grew up in Bakersfield and the Dodgers had their single A team there. I grew up watching the Angels because of my dad and all my friends were Dodgers fans. In the 70s and early 80s, the Dodgers were good and the Angels not so much. My friends gave me a lot of grief about the Angels so I grew up hating the Dodgers!! And still have two favorite teams, the Angels and whoever the Dodgers are playing😂.

It’s not my favorite rule but if the Angels could actually be better playing extra inning games it would make me feel better about the rule😂

By Jonathan Northrop, AngelsWin.com Senior Writer
Introduction: It Can't Be Worse
While we just tipped over into the second half of January, which means we're still several weeks away from pitchers and catchers reporting (February 14) and two and a half months from Opening Day (March 30), it is still the new year, and it seems that the Angels are--barring a surprise move--mostly done in assembling their 2023 team.
How does the team look? What can we expect and reasonably hope for? One thing this post will not be is a Debby Downer rant about worst-case scenarios and the poor moves of past and present management. I will try to be as objective as possible, but err towards the side of how good the team can reasonably be, if more things go right than wrong.
Injuries happen. Players have bad years. But players also have good years, and it is unusual that a team suffers the almost uncanny combination of bad luck and injury that the 2022 team experienced, essentialized in their 14-game losing streak. Chances are, no matter how bad it gets in 2023, it won't get that bad. And GM Perry Minasian has put a lot of work--and fair amount of money--into preventing a repeat of that debacle.
 
1. The Angels vs. the World Champions
What has Minasian done this offseason? Well, he's lifted the floor on the team substantially. The Angels poor performance in 2022 can be visually expressed like so:


Now it might not be fair to compare the Angels to the World Champions, but on the other hand, if you're trying to build a contender, one important tactic is to look at successful teams and, most importantly, how they succeeded and, if possible, trying to emulate that. 
What are you looking at? The two charts compare the Angels and Astros, first in hitting as represented through wRC+, secondly in pitching as represented by FIP. The striking difference between the two teams in both charts is perhaps best characterized not by the best players, but by the worst - namely, the number of poor performers on the Angels, and the visual "real estate" they take up on the charts.
Perhaps the most glaring problem the Angels had is the huge number of plate appearances given to bad hitters: Their first four hitters by plate appearance were all plus performers, but the next seven were negative; and after the first four, only one out of the next seventeen was average or above.
Compare that to the Astros: six out of their first seven were average or above, and seven out of their first ten. The mass of below average performers on the ride side of the first graph make up a fraction of the Angels' comparable section.
We see a similar phenomena with the pitchers, although in some ways it is even more striking in that the Astros only had two pitchers with below average FIP that were given substantial playing time, and one of them--Jose Urquidy--still managed about a league average ERA of 3.94.
Meaning, the Astros weren't sending (almost) any poor pitchers to the mound, while the Angels were shuffling through a bunch of them.
If you're the GM of a baseball team, you look at ways to improve controllable outcomes, of which injuries are (for the most part) not. Meaning, Minasian has very little say in whether or not Anthony Rendon gets hurt or how Mike Trout ages, or even whether Taylor Ward decides to crash into a wall. But what he does have some control over, is how the roster is configured.
So Minasian's big task this offseason was to turn as much of the "purple" into "green." There are specific needs to be addressed, but in its most simply--yet still comprehensive form--that's what was required.
The big question, of course, is how successful was he? In mid January, we cannot know. We might now come May, but even then it might not be until about mid-season that we have a sense of whether the "Minasian Plan" (Or Minasian Gambit?) worked. What did he do?
2. Minasian's Moves
First, let's talk about what he did not do: He didn't sign any big free agents or make any huge trades. Everything he did was minor to moderate, in terms of resources. The total result was the equivalent of signing a big free agent and some scraps, but no single move did any of the following:
Give a player $20M+ per year* Sign a player for more than three years Give up any top 10 (or even top 20) prospects I asterisked the first, because he did give Ohtani a one-year deal worth $30M. Ohtani was due for a big arbitration pay day that would probably have earned him a bit less, but we can consider this as a bit of a good-will deed. 
What did Minasian do? Well, here's a list:
Signed Shohei Ohtani for 1/$30M Signed SP Tyler Anderson for 3/$39M Traded Janson Junk, Elvis Peguero, and Adam Seminaris to the Brewers for OF Hunter Renfroe Signed IF Brandon Drury for 2/$17M Traded Alejandro Hidalgo to the Twins for IF Gio Urshela Signed RP Carlos Estevez for 2/$13.5M Signed OF Brett Phillips for 1/$1.2M Plus a bunch of minor league acquisitions As you can see, other than Ohtani, there is not a true star in sight. What the above list includes are a handful of quality, major league regulars and solid bench/platoon players.
The Angels Opening Day 26-man payroll is estimated at $188M, $7M higher than last year; similarly, the CB Tax 40-man payroll is $207M, $8M higher than 2022.
3. 2022 vs. 2023: What Will Be Different?
A lot remains the same, but some significant factors have changed. Essentially what has happened is:
The Angels have swapped out Brandon Marsh and Jo Adell (608 PA, 0.7 WAR) for Hunter Renfroe (522 PA, 2.5 WAR) Swapped Andrew Velazquez, Matt Duffy, Tyler Wade, Jack Mayfield, Michael Stefanic, Jose Rojas, Jonathan Villar, Phil Gosselin and David MacKinnon (1099 PA, -3.3 WAR) for Gio Urshela and Brandon Drury (1119 PA, 5.4 WAR) Tyler Anderson (178.2 IP, 4.0 WAR in 2022) has replaced Noah Syndergaard/Michael Lorenzen (177.2 IP, 2.2 WAR). Carlos Estevez (57 IP, 0.4 WAR) is replacing a variety of pitchers, including half a year of Raisel Iglesias (35.2 IP, 0.7 WAR) Replaced Magneuris Sierra, Juan Lagares, and Mickey Moniak (220 PA, -0.9 WAR) with Brett Phillips (225 PA, 0.1 WAR) OK, before you protest, note that I am not saying that we can simply take last year's numbers and switch them out like that. But I am saying that this is essentially what is happening in terms of playing time, without even looking at injuries; I included some stats to give. For instance, we don't know how much players like Rendon, Trout, Ward, and Fletcher will play in 2023, or at what level. Catcher is also a big question mark: which version of Max Stassi will show up, and who will share catching duties with him?
But....if you do swap out those players, you get a +12.8 WAR swing, about two-thirds of which (+8.7 WAR) is coming from the infield. 
What does a +12.8 WAR swing look like for the Angels? Well, if we just take the raw numbers, that adds about 13 wins and the Angels go from 73-89 to 86-76.
Again, it isn't so simple as that - and things always turn out differently than planned. But that is still the basic idea behind these moves: replace sub-par performance with--at least--solid, league average performance.
Minasian's moves this offseason could pay huge dividends, especially in the infield, where the Angels gave about two full season's worth of playing time to -3.3 WAR performance, most of which was due to poor hitting. Even if the Angels can replace that -3.3 WAR with slightly above replacement level play, they add four or more wins.
4. Two (or Three) Factors for Success in 2023
The Angels 2023 season is mostly banking on two factors:
One, the above mentioned changes work out mostly as hoped. They don't have to work out completely, but just for the most part. 
Two, better health - and not just Trout and Rendon, but Fletcher, Ward, Canning, Rodriguez, etc. Last year the Angels got only 166 games from their two highest paid players, Trout and Rendon. In 2021, it was 94 games - so if we want to find a silver lining, at least we're trending in the right direction. But they really need more from these two, and while the farm system is on a positive trajectory, there simply isn't the offensive talent waiting in the wings to make up the difference.
I would add a third that is less necessary but could swing the team significantly:
Three, positive minor league developments, namely players graduating and performing in the majors. This could include better health and performance from guys like Canning and Rodriguez, a breakout performance from Logan O'Hoppe, some of the plethora of pitching prospects in the high minors graduating and performing well. Meaning, something, someone...anything!
Summing Up
The Angels team has a lot of talent. While it may be unlikely given recent track records, there's a scenario in which the very similar Renfroe (124 wRC+, 29 HR) and Drury (123 wRC+, 28 HR) aren't, even repeating last year's performances, among the top four or five hitters on the team. It requires Trout and Rendon to be healthy, Ohtani to stay healthy, and Ward to at least repeat something similar to last year's performance (137 wRC+). Add in a potential bounce back from Jared Walsh, and the Angels could have a lineup that features seven players hitting 20+ HR, with 120 wRC+ or better...and that isn't even considering continued improvement from Luis Rengifo (103 wRC+, 17 HR), a bounce-back from Stassi or breakout from O'Hoppe.
The rotation looks, at the very least, quite solid, with the potential to be very good. There are a wide range of outcomes for the bullpen, so it bears watching. But the Angels have a lot of minor league arms to draw from, as well as (hopefully) a healthy Chris Rodriguez and Griffin Canning.
There are no certainties in major league baseball (or life), but we can at least look at the Angels and say that this team has a chance to be very good - and maybe even better. But the risk is there; they're as likely to win 80 games as they are 90 but, I would say, more likely to win 95 than 75. The talent is there.
View the full article

I think there were a few Angels last year that really struggled with whatever the hitting instructors were teaching. Walsh, Stassi, Marsh, Adell and others seemed to have a really weird approach where they were taking fastballs over the plate (even on two strike counts) and swinging at off speed pitches that were not close to the plate. I am hopeful the new hitting coaches in Anaheim and at SLC can help Adell improve his approach.  Marsh looked better in just a short time with the Phillies although still looked lost part of the time.  Give Adell the time to make some adjustments with hopefully a better instructor(s) and see if he can become a better player for next year.   Not sure we can get much for him now.

I think there were a few Angels last year that really struggled with whatever the hitting instructors were teaching. Walsh, Stassi, Marsh, Adell and others seemed to have a really weird approach where they were taking fastballs over the plate (even on two strike counts) and swinging at off speed pitches that were not close to the plate. I am hopeful the new hitting coaches in Anaheim and at SLC can help Adell improve his approach.  Marsh looked better in just a short time with the Phillies although still looked lost part of the time.  Give Adell the time to make some adjustments with hopefully a better instructor(s) and see if he can become a better player for next year.   Not sure we can get much for him now.

I think Walsh will benefit the most because of his tendency to pull the ball and the sheer number of times he was shifted. Ohtani as well. My sleeper is Stassi because he hits the ball up the middle to the shortstop side of the bag a lot which most of the time will be hits this year.

I think there were a few Angels last year that really struggled with whatever the hitting instructors were teaching. Walsh, Stassi, Marsh, Adell and others seemed to have a really weird approach where they were taking fastballs over the plate (even on two strike counts) and swinging at off speed pitches that were not close to the plate. I am hopeful the new hitting coaches in Anaheim and at SLC can help Adell improve his approach.  Marsh looked better in just a short time with the Phillies although still looked lost part of the time.  Give Adell the time to make some adjustments with hopefully a better instructor(s) and see if he can become a better player for next year.   Not sure we can get much for him now.

One thing that is positive from last year is that we had some really good improvement from players in the minors not just for the year but also mid year improvement. This seems to show our player development has improved and if we see a similar improvement this year then we know Minasian is on the right track. Really interested in seeing if Jackson and Adams can make that kind of improvement this year. It also helps to have more talent in the system through the draft.