TempeAngel

Great article by Simon Hampton. He sees the potential. I still think Canning will be our 6th guy. Health for this rotation is paramount.

I'll let you know in February...

Dallas McPherson.

What did happen to Kotchman? Was it injury? Inability to hit MLB breaking balls? You're right, I thought he was going to be our 1B for a decade.

Is a Lacob group in the running? That would be great. PSS seems like he comes with built in issues.

I concur.

Walsh on May 3rd: .213/.276/.313/.588 To think a 30 year old Walsh will return to the numbers of his one good season is sophomoric. He may, he may not. We don't know what he is and neither does Minasian!!!! That is why he brought in proven guys like Urshela and Drury. The team is better prepared for a collapse/injury to guys like Walsh or Rendon. Baseball is a game of continuous adjustments. The guys who can adjust have long careers. I don't know if Walsh is that guy yet.

Angels (First Base, -1.0 bWAR The top-heavy Angels are known for superstars Shohei Ohtani and Mike Trout, but the club also had sub-replacement production at a whopping five positions. First base was the lowest of the bunch, as Jared Walsh struggled through a rough season that was cut short by thoracic outlet syndrome surgery. While Walsh is expected to be ready for Spring Training, the Halos picked up some depth and insurance by acquiring Gio Urshela from the Twins and signing Brandon Drury, either of whom could see action at first base when not playing elsewhere around the diamond.

The more I read about Soon-Shiong the less I want him to make a deal with Arte. I know he's the most public possibility right now. Hopefully there are others out there we're not hearing about who are more like Mark Walter, Peter Seidler or Terry McGuirk.

The thing that concerns me is Walsh's splits versus RHP's last year, 31% K rate and .660 OPS. In spite of the injury he hit better versus lefty's last year than in 2021. Apparently his injury only affected him against pitchers who throw with their right hand. I saw somewhere that his struggles versus RHP's had to do with adjustments the pitchers made, fastballs high and away. This should be considered as a plausible cause of his troubles. If so, can he adjust? He needs to crush RHP's to be relevant. The new rule banning the shift will help him. Walsh had a shift in 72.2% of his PA's and is a pull hitter. As a fan, I hope he kills it this year but there is a reason Minasian talked about Urshela's ability to play 1B in his news conference. Urshela could easily see more time at 1B than Walsh.

Don't know anything about her. Why do you think she is a nutcase?

You should look at Urshela's numbers versus RHP's and then look at what RHP's did to Walsh last year. I think the league has figured Walsh out - adjust or perish.

88-74.

Canning will be in the Angels rotation and will have a very good season. Walsh continues to crater.

So you think it's possible Thaiss wins the 1B job in ST and Walsh is optioned?

The play with Adell remains fairly obvious to me. He's only 23 so it's too early to give up on him. He has limited trade value but he has an option so he can start the season in SLC and play everyday.

You're right, I missed the comma between the two. Still, thinking you could trade Adell to get a starting pitcher better than Suarez, or a SS, or a quality set up guy seems to be out of touch with Adell's current value.

Isn't the downside to this strategy the possibility of locking up the wrong player? The Angels may have done this with the early extensions they gave Fletcher and Stassi.

I don't see "None of the above".

I would prefer Pablo Sanchez.

Perry has done a nice job adding MLB =/+ players this offseason. Something we haven't had with recent teams.

Agreed. The point is if we end up with a six man rotation with four lefty's Nevin will want to avoid having three left's in a row. So he will most likely set it up initially to be Ohtani/L/L/R/L/L.

Yeah, I don't know. Sandy Alderson could be doing the MLB version of Jerry West. He was going to stay on as an advisor. I'm happy for Eppler.

No, this offseason has not changed my opinion of Eppler. I still think he is a very good GM. I still think if Arte got out of his way we would be in a much better place.

Sandy Alderson announced in September that he was stepping down - cancer survivor, 75 years old. Do you think he is playing a big role with the team? I have no inside knowledge but I'm not seeing anything about Alderson driving this.