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Barrister Kriel approves this message. Please transfer wire £3000 to London, England to claim your prize.

my only input is, what the shit? two games, two. 2.

Well some people around here live and breath small sample size.

Right....accord to bourjos apologists they do. Not according to those with the ability to sustain rational thought.

Wasn't there a Star Trek episode about alternate universes?

Love the "Richards gets confused with Weaver".... totally true, brah! Nice job!

Maybe we should just be thankful we have a reliable starter to back up an injury/poor performance?

I'm glad they are finally doing something big to shake up the game. Players need to know that PED's are not a part of the game.

Getting swept by the Astro's my God!

That doesn't prevent pregnancy by the way.

Just my opinion:  Arte has a serious insecurity/inferiority complex.  It first reared its head when he adopted the fake LA name - an embarrassment we haven't lived down in nine years.

 

I just don't see how you can say that without knowing the man? As far as the name change, Moreno, as others mentioned in this thread, made his fortune (fortune meaning 1 billion +) in marketing and the man understands the power of branding and product placement. Could the name change have been handled better and/or named differently? Maybe but the teams value increased significantly after that name change, so I'd tend to believe he is just a smart businessman rather than being embarrassed that the team is in Anaheim rather than LA.

 

Read his quotes at the big press conferences - usually you can find some mention of the word "Dodgers"...which is a complete red herring.  He feels he's "competing" with the joke of a franchise 35 miles up the road.

 

That joke of a franchise just sold for $2 + billion dollars. It has at top 5 payroll and has positioned itself to financially out-hustle most of the other teams in MLB. Team performance shouldn't be correlated with team financials and business savvy. So to answer your statement, yes he does have to compete with the franchise up the road that was just purchased by a group that is serious about making that team a powerhouse MLB competitor and he needs to address that and fight for the fanbase. Arte is a very smart businessman and he knows that if he doesn't aggressively promote the Angels and counter the Dodgers moves he can lose market share.

 

While taking his eye off the AL West rival 1,400 miles to the east.  Arte has never understood that winning championships will take care of just about all his problems.

 

Disagree with the first and partially agree with the second. Texas has a well developed farm system and a good core of players that will, barring some weird trades/injuries, keep them competitive for a long time and Moreno is not stupid he knows that. Our series of division championships through 2009 definitely showed Arte that winning brings the fans in and he even understood that BEFORE those division championships when he laid out big money for Vladimir Guerrero, Bartolo Colon, et. al. Your argument just doesn't carry much water in my opinion.

 

Disney gave him the cache of a freshly minted championship when he bought the franchise.  That goodwill has been whittled away to about nothing after 11 years.  High priced mistake after high priced mistake will do that.

 

Guerrero wasn't a high priced mistake? Were all of those playoff berths mistakes? You have a real selective memory when you are trying to make a point?

 

Continuing with his insecurity, he always covets high priced, big named players who made their stamp somewhere else.

 

For better or for worse, Moreno does understand that name brands can bring value. Have some been mistakes, especially recently? Yes. I wouldn't call it insecurity I would identify it more as the marketing side of his brain seeing an opportunity that happens to coincide with a performance history that indicates that player(s) would be a good fit in Anaheim. Moreno can't make them perform on the field.... that falls on the shoulders of players like Pujols and Hamilton.

 

Arte seems to be under the impression that Angel fans are actually interested in what Albert Pujols did in St. Louis, or that Blanton won a World Series with the Phillies.  Which brings us to the most bizarre, head scratching Angel billboard of all time:

 

This may be a valid point concerning Angels fans vested interest in Pujols long and storied history. All we see is a player on the decline, not a superstar, feared, middle-of-the-order bat. But again that is partially on Pujols and partially on the front office.

 

Arte's insecurity runs so deep, he's desperate to cling to any kind of winner - it doesn't make any difference to him what team they won for, and pay any price.  He pays top dollar for Pujol's boatload of MVP's in St. Louis, or Hamilton's success in Texas.  Not understanding that past results for older players does not necessarily have any correlation with future success.

 

Again I fully disagree that you can state with accuracy that Moreno is insecure. None of us really have any insight into his personality to determine that. Your last sentence does have some validity however and although I, along with several others (including you AO), wanted that feared, MOTO bat right before we signed Pujols. My initial thought after the excitement wore down was how would Albert age and he has not aged well so far (although he has had injuries). I'm thinking the Angels do need to go younger and try to get more athletic as we move forward. I'm sure that the front office looked at Pujols and performed some type of analysis on aging curves to understand how he would bring value as he ages and probably determined that it was worth the gamble  from a combined performance/marketing point-of-view. But you are correct that past performance does not necessarily correlate with future success (althoug there are certain indicators that do carry well from year to year).

 

And as a cherry on top of a crap sandwich that this organization has become, he skinflints a $25,000 raise to the most exciting young baseball player to play in a generation.

 

This I don't have a problem with. Trout is a great, young player but he is no different from any other young players when it comes to arbitration and the Collective Bargaining Agreement. You can make the argument that it might "tick" Trout off but Mike seems like a really well-mannered young man with a good head on his shoulders and the Angels will eventually offer him a very lucrative extension down the road that will pay him very well. That extension will be based off his value in arbitration which is based off of his base salary. If the Angels start giving lavish raises now they will pay even more down the road. This is a business not a prize giveaway.

 

Arte's fascination w/r/t these high priced stiffs, and his insecurity regarding playing second fiddle to the Dodgers leads me to the last point:  You idiot fans on this message board.

 

Not going to take offense because I am not an idiot, but to call people here idiots is pretty rude to be honest.

 

I've read you - trust me, I know who you are.  You cannot wait for the season to end, so you can get out your Christmas list of high priced "names".  Dammit, you guys needed a "Splash".  A "Big Name", or the offseason was a failure.  You needed to have something in the Christmas stocking.  You needed the team to be involved in negotiations.  You needed a mention on ESPN!  The hot stove league wasn't good enough for you, either.  The Angels needed to "improve" themselves at the trade deadline, as well.  Yippee!  Don't worry about the long term ramifications of trading prospects...we'll just get more free agents.   And Arte listened to the fans.

 

Unfortunately I think Reagins didn't fully appreciate your last sentence. Some here will and have argued that Dipoto shouldn't have traded for Greinke but hindsight is 20/20. I think Dipoto really does understand the value of a good trade (he did acquire Corbin and Skaggs when he was temp'ing in AZ) and I feel quite comfortable with him as the GM. NO GM makes perfect decisions and sometimes you have to go for it like he did last year.

 

Personally I hope we start a short rebuild process ASAP. The problem is that we have very few tradeable assets and/or they haven't established their full value and we would be selling low on them if we did trade them. This team still has a good core of players and it wouldn't take too much time (I'm talking next year even) to get back in the game so to speak.

Buying a team, especially a decade ago, and having the value increase greatly isn't an indication of great business sense. Virtually every team in every sport has had similar increases.

True but there are virtually no teams in baseball that have zero debt, like the Angels. THAT is smart business.

nice job Rob.

 

When Mike called me today he said he liked the article but he doesn't want to be your friend. 

Hmmmm.... sad this makes Yoda. Keep Trout to yourself do you?

Thanks!

There's no way the Angels should pay him that much. I'd be shocked if he got that much. 

Then I think you should put on your rubber slippers because the price of pitching skyrocketed this off-season and all it is doing is heading up. 5/60 might be too many years but $12 for a pitcher at his skill level is about right.

This bums me out as I really had hope for Frazier. 24 years old in A ball and not having a good season = trouble.

I hope he's able to get picked up by another team and give it another shot. Liked his father Charles a lot and you always wish the best for these guys. Unfortunately very few actually make it to the Majors.

The idiot in your avi hit into two rally killing double plays. 

That is unfair. S-C-I-O-S-C-I-A has told Hank he wants to see better throws to 2nd and it is not Conger's fault that he convinced the other teams defense to make those throws. Quite unfair sir, quite unfair.

A pitch that can be used in any situation? Spork!

Vlad in his prime had a .400 obp. He may have swung outside the zone but his contact skills with power were amazing, There is no logical comparison between Vlad and Aybar,

Both Vlad and Aybar love to swing at pitches, that is a fact and that is a real comparison. Vlad was a level above without a doubt but both of them like to put the bat on the ball and that is what I said and meant. Part of the reason Vlad had a higher OBP was the walks that were issued to avoid pitching to him (and he had a better eye than Aybar). Vlad was also a mentor to Aybar during their time in Anaheim and Erick certainly tried to emulate his older "brother".

Come to my warm, loving embrace!

I just wish the Grienke trade was never made.    They had to know how much it would take to sign him, and thus it was just about assured that we were trading Segura for a 2 month rental.    Ask the Red Sux and Tigers how that worked out when they traded Bagwell and Smoltz respectively for rentals.

 

To be BRUTALLY honest, the Halos were not sniffing the WS even with Grienke the moment the trade was made, because the bullpen stunk and 3/5 of the rotation was still sucking (Wilson and his 5.00 post-ASB ERA, Santana, and Haren).

I agree an argument could be made that adding Greinke certainly didn't bring us "close enough" to securing a berth in the playoffs and, as it turned out, it didn't even give us the extra punch we needed at the time. The counter to this argument, of course, is that you have to take risks and go for it and that is what Dipoto did. The energy was good on the offensive side at that time with Trout banging the ball and I don't think you can overly fault the FO for trying but I get the gist of what you are getting at AO.

I have whiplash AJ.....

Pitching coughed it up. Wilson said his Head & Shoulders weren't in alignment causing him to have a damned ruff outing making him look like a flake.

Our decision making in acquisitions since 2009 ABSOLUTELY Skus!

Butcher is no help either. You can work as hard as anyone, but if you can't communicate your findings to your pitchers well enough, you are NOT a good coach. Hacker was the same way.

Although I am not happy with his outing last night AO, you also have to consider how well the $140 million Dodgers pitcher did last night? The starting pitcher market was fairly dry when we signed Wilson and I think, unfortunately, it was a necessary move at the time to bring in what we believed was a reliable arm.

Considering how much player salaries are skyrocketing the Wilson signing may not be as horrible as it feels. Look at some of the pitchers doing worse than C.J.'s 3.95 ERA right now:

C.C. Sabathia: 3.96

Brandon McCarthy: 4.36

Cole Hamels: 4.43

Ryan Dempster: 4.69

Tim Lincecum: 4.75

R.A. Dickey 4.85

Matt Cain: 5.00

David Price: 5.24

Tim Hudson: 5.37

Dan Haren: 5.43

Considering the fact we pay him $15 million per year he looks like a bargain compared to some of the names above.

I'm not excusing his poor performance but I guess what I'm trying to say is it is not quite as bad as it appears.

A mathematical article on the odds of hitting for the cycle: http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/the-odds-of-hitting-for-the-cycle/

However, my favorite line is this: "Since triples are the hardest part of hitting for the cycle, we have to wonder how easy it will be for a bulky Trout to leg out a triple as he advances in age."

Made me laugh.

What if we call it center field left, center field center, and center field right?

Awesomely done. Moreno is a master of branding after all! Get it done!

Trout gives me an ultra-boner.

It is a game of inches.

-.-

Your friend is the anti Scott34

Nicely done.