samwum

No -- absolutely not. The game has changed a ton in the past 10-15 years. The best front offices have a deep understanding in physics and data analytics. It is good to have baseball guys around, especially on the field and in support roles, but they are super unqualified to be in charge of the entire operation.

Aaron Hicks walks out to the mound to finish the 9th and mutters to himself, "Fuck, I should have retired."

Send him down. I hear Phil Gosselin is looking for work -- could be a nice fill-in.

You don't know that. Ruining Arte's Star Wars Weekend is as big of a deal as it gets. One could even say this was our World Series.

Any chance Perry is fired tonight?

Didn't sign enough relievers this offseason I guess.

Perry must be fuming that even after banishing Adell to AAA 3 seasons in a row he's back and outshining the Shanuel-Neto-O'Hoppe-Moniak "young core".

What do you think about how he stopped using his curveball after 2021, and started using a new slider and cutter in 2022 and 2023...? I probably have an oversimplified perspective, but he was good when he was throwing fastball-change-curve, and he has been bad while throwing fastball-slider-cutter-change. I know the stuff+ and all that said the curveball stunk, but could it be possible that his arsenal was best when he had three pitches of all different speeds? The performance drop off clearly happened at the same time the pitch mix changed. I suppose other factors may have been in play too, but its kind of difficult to not connect the dots... Lastly, no worries if you don't have a good answer for this one, but are there any pitchers you know of with similar pitch mixes and pitching styles as Suarez, who are successful? I'm curious who they're trying to have him emulate, in theory.

Haha, hard to argue with any of those points. I'm not sure on Barria, his underlying stats always suggested he's about as bad a pitcher you can get. Sometimes he got lucky with soft contact and outperformed his underlying stats though, and I can definitely appreciate his contributions as the club's rubber arm. Regarding Suarez, you're absolutely right about his stuff regressing. His stuff and production has dropped off a cliff and I actually feel really bad for the guy with how he's deservedly become public enemy #1. I'm really curious about his changeup regressing from great to a meatball pitch. Is it possible that Suarez' changeup was more effective when his pitch mix consisted of 3 pitches at different speeds? In other words, I wonder if Suarez has struggled to keep hitters of balance since replacing his slow curveball with a slider and cutter that have comparable velocity to the changeup. At the very least, I hope Suarez isn't restricted by the front office and has the freedom to use the arsenal he prefers. His time is coming to a close and it's probably time to revert to what worked best.

Lol. Actually I do appreciate you mentioning that, Fangraphs doesn't have a sweeper category so Suarez' slider might actually be a sweeper, I don't know. Would certainly connect some dots -- it felt like every HR Ohtani gave up last year was off of his awesome new "sweeper".

I care about the success of the Angels yes. What's going on here? Lol

I don't even know what you're talking about, I don't care either. The Angels are bad and their depth players have and always will be bad as long as Perry's here -- whatever.

Maybe I'm coldhearted but I say who cares. I'm sure Jordyn Adams would rather come up and suck than have to repeat AAA. Let him fail and let him decide if he can mentally handle it.

Sarcasm, apathy, exhaustion, I don't know.