KingJustinian

9 minutes ago, bloodbrother said:

Angels still haven't had a starter get through 6 complete innings.  Not the best recipe with an unproven pen

Really? I haven't had a chance to watch much of the first few games, but the announcers said the Angels got plenty of length out of the starters so far.

Hamilton is high risk, high reward at this point. But, since he's owed such a large sum of money, when he doesn't do as well it seems a lot worse. I could easily see him having another .300 AVG 30HR season. It would suck to trade him while eating his contract, then he has another good year. If we can absorb the payroll I think he's worth keeping, the key is to limit his playing time depending on how he's doing. If Cowgill is doing well then start him.

Not like the Royals have been playing well this series. They've been struggling to score runs. We have 3 runs in 22 innings

The difference is that the Royals offense isn't very good, while the Angels had the best offense in the league.

Terrible job by Iannetta catching that costs Shoemaker a strike

If it's right down the middle it shouldn't matter how Iannetta catches it.

That was a line drive into the second deck, wow

in the National League

A closer will never face another teams pitcher. He did pitch in a pitchers ballpark though.

They did give up a lot, but to be fair Street has been lights out this year. 1.09 ERA and a .758 WHIP.

Serious question - what's up with the other pitcher's face? Is that a birthmark?

I've seen Vlad Guerrero do basically that in Cincinnati once. He was almost at the RF warning track and got it to the plate in the air. Cespedes's throw was really good though

That was usually in response to people who said he was an injury risk because of his weight even though he missed very few games through this MLB career.

That's because being very overweight will matter more in the long term. It puts more stress on your joints. Most of those people anticipated it to be more of an issue as he ages.

It's probably a lot of factors.. But throwing super hard has to put more stress on your arm. Kids are throwing more innings and more off speed pitches at younger ages, too. My dad never let me throw a slider and didnt let me throw a curve until I was a teenager, and that's later than most.

so the board should be nothing but threads about how great everything is? sounds really interesting. look, professional beat writers are discussing it, I think it's a worthy topic for a message board. when was the last time you contributed anything to this board other than a snarky comment aimed at someone else?

A circle jerk supporting the team is lame, but there should be some middle ground. It's currently the other end of the spectrum where the rant thread was 5-10 times as long as the game day thread, when they were separated.

Im with Doc.

I think dipoto inherited a very poor situation both on the big club and in the minors. His budget issues are tough because arte wanted pujols / ham.

That said, hes gone w a crap bully since hes been here. And like I mentioned a few days ago, if the money was there for garza, it was there for another bullpen arm.

Doc hit the nail on the head above. Sure, its prob best to build a bullpen from within. That said, jedi knew how weak our system was. I still like frieri, but outside of him we had nothing we could count on. And that was assuming he would be the 2012 version.

Adding smith was great. But again, even in a perfect world where frieri is a stud again and smith is lights out, thats still only 2 guys. The rest are a mix of 'decent' and dogshit.

This pen needs at minimum one more guy who can miss bats. In tight situations pitch to contact guys are risky. Hopefully two of the young guys can come up and give sosh a bullet when we need a strikeout.

I agree there needs to be one more solid reliever. Kohn and Jepsen (in before I get flogged for saying this) can both be that person, but they have only shown it very inconsistently. They need one of them to step up, and Kohn has done pretty well so far.

Freese & Iannetta in the lineup: other guys will have to do it

Iannetta has a .350 OBP and a .750 OPS.

What a beast. If he could only get that average up a bit, he would be totally vintage Pujols.

I don't care if he stays at around .280 average if his OPS is still .950 ish

Alberts going beast mode right now, ever since hammy went down he's really turned it on

Imagine if when Hamilton comes back he keeps up the pace he was pre-injury.

You forgot Ervin Santana, who has improved immensely since departing the Angels.

I think Butcher needs to go.

Ervin had good years with us. The jury will still be out on him until 2-3 years after he signs a long term deal.

Haren was fine for us except when he had back issues.

Kazmir had a bad elbow with us.

Can't really blame Butcher for most of these people.

I no longer care about Burnett and have moved on. Like he's going to perform well after missing this much time.

I think it's easier for a pitcher to get back into it than a hitter, assuming that that they are 100% healthy and don't have any lingering arm issues. A hitter has to get their timing back which is tougher.

Muscles != bones.

When throwing, face != arm

!= means "does not equal", had a long day at work

Thanks to our bullpen. Angels should had swept the A's. The starting pitching did well.

Bad bullpen, atrocious bottom of the line up hitting and no Josh Hamilton and could had won all 3 games.

I have much more promise this season though because of the starting pitching. Pujols seems to gotten off to a nice start. Trout is Trout. Unfortunate about Hamilton, because it looked like MVP Hamilton before his injury. Our bottom of the lineup hitting must improve somehow.

The bottom of the lineup has been bad, but they are mostly veteran players that we know what we will get from them by the end of the year (Howie , Aybar, Iannetta)

Sean Rodriguez just hit into a triple play against the Yankees

It was a strange series. Almost like I was watching the same game 3 times...only the Angels won last night. These guys need to rest it off.

Thank god there is an off day today after three extra inning games in a row

The first pitch to Donaldson really fooled the ump

Current management? Drafting.

Their last two drafts were excellent considering they didn't have a first round pick. And I don't give a rat's ass where publications rank our farm system. Our lower levels are pretty solid. And I can clear as day remember BA ranking our farm system the worst in baseball in 2000....

Don't forget about trading away prospects too.

I understand Hamilton is hurt but it just shows how shallow our lineup is.  We have 3 good hitters, Trout Pujols and Hamilton.  

 

Then we have very anemic guys like Howie, Aybar, Freese, and Ibanez.  

 

We arent bad at the Catcher position compared to some teams around the league.

 

Then theres Calhoun, who is decent but is still developing so I am reluctant to be critical of him.

 

All in all we have 6 weak spots in the lineup, where if we faced a decent pitcher its a safe bet all 6 would go 0-4.  Then without Hamilton, we have 7 weak spots in the lineup.  

Howie, Aybar, Freese, and Ibanez are anemic... really?

I'm pulling up 2013 stats and sorting by OPS at their position. Howie is 5th best in the MLB, Aybar is 10th, Freese was 16th, and Ibanez had a 124 OPS+ last year (can't search by DH). Granted this only takes into account qualified players with enough ABs.