Jeremiah

I’m glad to hear they’re going back to their “mustard and mud” color scheme for 2020.

The early- to mid-90’s are my favorite as well. I’d like them to go back to that and add the old stitched halo to the crown of their cap.

Teams are looking more and more at how many times a pitcher can effectively turn over a lineup. They want to put the players in the best position to succeed. If that means an SP can only turn the lineup over twice, going only 5-6 innings, then they’re going to bring in the ‘pen to finish it. I think the days of SP’s going to 200 IP are largely gone. As Lou pointed out, even 180 is rare now.

I'm sure they're just going to make sure they won't have to remove him from the mound later in the season. I seem to remember that he had a UCL issue before the season began. Maybe they want to be sure that doesn't get bad.

Pretty sure that in today's game, with better ways to determine a pitcher's effectiveness, individual pitcher wins are pretty low priority. King Felix won a Cy Young with 13 wins about a decade ago.

1 minute ago, Lou said:

Ohtani should be our opener.

It was clearly decided here that he should be our closer.

I think it's an interesting idea. That first inning is actually a pretty high-leverage situation. It's a tie game in the top of the first. I read on ESPN (I think) that the team that scores first win 70-plus percent of the time. Those first hitters are often the team's best. Why not use your best relievers to turn that lineup over once and prevent them from scoring? Then the starters can go deeper into the game, maybe even finish it out, only turning the lineup over twice. Depending on the quality of the BP staff, this could work.

14 minutes ago, krAbs said:

I keep getting these pages confused, but it lead me to a weird fun fact...

https://www.teamrankings.com/mlb/stat/opponent-hit-by-pitch-per-game

https://www.teamrankings.com/mlb/stat/hit-by-pitch-per-game

We are 9th highest in batters hit by pitch per game, and 9th lowest in opponent batters hit by pitch per game. There shouldn't really be any correlation there, so that's just a weird thing...

ANYWAYS. 9th lowest in baseball at hit opponents per game. To me, that suggests that a lot of this is coming from our pitchers nibbling, rather than them missing their spots. But...I mean...I would expect this to be a pretty soft correlation, so IDK how much confidence you can draw from that. Basically, we are in the best 3rd of baseball at not hitting batters, but the worst third at walking opponent batters.

Indeed. The BB's, however they're given (BB, IBB, HBP), will kill you. They need to get more consistent with getting ahead in counts ans stop pitching from behind so much.

1 minute ago, SuperTroopers said:

Catchers call the pitches.  

That's what I figure. I was trying to quote another user who mentioned mgr calling the pitches as a possibility.

I don't know how much or little the coaching staff calls pitches, but I'd say it's a question of command of their pitches. They aren't hitting their spots. Their walk numbers are far worse than the other serious contenders in the AL. Hopefully this can be improved significantly very soon.

26 minutes ago, floplag said:

If it helps us i would trade with the Dogs.  Right now Kemp who they couldnt give away a couple months ago is looking really nice as an option if we do indeed give up on Cole, which im not ready to do but still. 
I agree though they somehow really screwed up, they had a deep farm and a good ML club, WTF happened? 

So would I. I don't like the idea of leaving any team off limits as far as trade partners. I'm sure they'll be open for business soon enough as well.

Just now, Glen said:

Heh heh...Bartolo and eating a contract.

Yup. That one was a meatball right down the middle of the plate.

1 hour ago, Taylor said:

This one is my "favorite":

 

HaloThunder lives!

Cabrera isn't wrong in terms of what he's saying. Injury and ineffectiveness will raise the ire of fans and the local radio honks, especially if that player is under contract for many years and many millions of dollars. He's airing frustrations that I'm sure many other players likely feel. I'm not bothered at all by the sentiment. I just think he probably shouldn't have said that publicly as the national and DET media will now be asking Gardenhire and others a lot of questions about it.

Kind of reminds me of the Kawhi Leonard situation in San Antonio.

And here are the WAR numbers from BR of roughly 500 1B.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/leaders/jaws_1B.shtml

I apologize if I'm reading this wrong, but this says Snow has a career WAR of 11.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/s/snowj.01.shtml

10 minutes ago, stormngt said:

The Golden knights say hello

While the Knights have been an undeniably incredible success story, much of that is fueled by the honeymoon phase and the unexpected and ridiculous heights they have achieved as a first-year franchise, the NHL is a different animal than MLB. T-Mobile is a smaller stadium to fill for half the home dates than any MLB park. It can be used for other things such as concerts, awards ceremonies, NCAA and FIBA tournaments, and other entertainment events. There's tremendous value in that. Vegas would also immediately be MLB's smallest market, trailing KC, CIN, and SD. That might make it hard to build a strong and devoted local fanbase with so many other entertainment options here. I'm sure I'm not the only local who has only gone to VGK games to support my favorite team (the Kings).

For all of the success of the Golden Knights here in Vegas, much of that has been fueled by the honeymoon factor as well as the immediate quality of the team. A first-year NHL team has never done what they've done before. That's a huge deal. That said, we are also the NHL's second-smallest media market, ranking 40th nationally. The closest MLB market in size to Vegas is Milwaukee. Other cities in that range include KC, CIN, and SD. I certainly could be wrong, but I get the idea that a Vegas MLB team would suffer two issues: the small-market mentality which largely prevents teams from keeping the talent they develop and becoming perennial contenders, and the same issues as Tampa, where they have some trouble getting locals (30-plus thousand of them) to trek to wherever they decide to build the stadium for 81 home dates. We are also currently building a brand new facility for the local AAA team.

Fandom may also be an issue. I'm intrigued by the Knights, but I've only attended games where they are playing the Kings. Tampa has a similar issue with opposing fanbases. It's not a good look for the stadium to be filled with more fans of the away team. This may all be BS, but I think they'd have a hard time developing and maintaining a strong enough local fanbase.

4 minutes ago, bloodbrother said:

I'd like to think that the closer they get to the end of his deal the more likely they'd be willing to just cut bait on him. That or they'd try to make him a bench player but IDK if Pujols ego will accept that

Perhaps they can get him to accept an Ichiro-style unofficial retirement, moving him into the FO/mentor role sooner than initially expected.

6 minutes ago, Angelsfan1984 said:

Kind of sucks too knowing that Pujols will only be more and more limited to the DH role so he may be taking away at bats from Ohtani in the coming years.

I like to think Angels management knows what they have in Ohtani and won't sacrifice his development/production for the sake of a future HOFer's ego. I hope they wouldn't do that.

Scioscia and the Phillies deserve each other!

While I agree with that assessment, if the Phils are rumored to be interested in hiring Dipoto and Klentak (I've read that in a couple of places), then Scioscia's no longer the type of guy they'd look for. If even the Phillies are waking up to analytics then the Halos may take their spot as the worst team in MLB for that side of baseball.

Yeah, the only way I could see Scioscia opting out is if the Dodger job opened up. I don't think he's Andrew Friedman's type of guy, though. I'm very disappointed in this move today. It's likely now that any of the gains the Halos made in analytics will be lost as other teams swoop in to raid the Angels offices of those folks.

Bert Blylevin

Dave Winfield

Hubie Brooks

Jason Dickson

Mike James

Julio Valera

The only thing I'd say about the lineup is that I'd rather the team not push Trout down the order. It gives him fewer AB's over the course of the season. There's also the opportunity cost of giving what would have been his AB's in the two spot to an inferior batter.