Junkballer

The Angels have fans that were there from the beginning of the franchise The Yankees do not Edge Lowell

Looking forward to the prostate version of this..

While participation in HS football will definitely continue to decline it will likely have as much to do with the rise of soccer as an alternative sport and that decline will vary widely according to the region. Decline will likely be greater in large urban areas because football is such an ingrained part of life elsewhere. I have a hard time visualizing places like rural Texas without HS football being alive and well.

I'm just seeing Frankie Rios in the 17th Round on the MLB site, a shortstop. Perhaps the pitcher was a commit but not a player?

Did anyone draft a Trojan yet? Didn't they come dead last in the PAC-12? By all means, keep fighting. Only one direction to go from the bottom.

F*** you, I'm Millwall!!!! http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/f-you-im-millwall-how-10568626 Hooligans rule.

Whatever course of action that improves or at least doesn't adversely affect the club for the 2019 & 2020 seasons. Eppler is still digging the organization out of the slag heap and needs to have his highest priority on making them a true contender in the last two years of Trout's current contract. I'm fine with stopgap moves and getting fringe players some mlb time for this season. Hopefully, they do well and become more marketable or useful.

The silver lining Could've been a lot worse though.

Exactly how Stephen King started off.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3445126/ Study that analyses mechanics, velocity, fatigue, pitch type, youth development. Some interesting thoughts on lead foot placement of high velocity pitchers affecting arm mechanics. Fairly general conclusions altogether though. There's links to several other studies on the web page as well. I would think that the combination of high velocity pitching mechanics and fatigue would be an obvious culprit, but these injuries seem just as likely to occur when arms are fresh at the beginning of the season. I tend to lean towards cumulative damage from more competitive youth environments, all that travel ball and a pervasive mindset of pitching through fatigue as the baseline issue but to what extent is very hard to say.

Those are very good points and our only hope is that Eppler continues to build on the solid foundation (farm, draft strategy, value/bargain depth, tread water til bad contracts lapse) that he has started and will flourish when the org segues from building to maintaining that essential infrastructure while adding talent in the critical, often expensive positions. There is reason for hope because Eppler really hasn't let us down in any significant way, at least once we understood his general plan of action. The luxury tax in 2021 will be 210m and the CBA expires at the end of that year, giving hope that the luxury tax may not be a restraining issue. According to fangraphs the team recieved 118m in 2016 from the Fox contract alone and that amount should be ascending as the average of the deal is 150m per. They have little debt and a pretty good stadium deal. The main reason their revenues are down is because they really haven't been true contenders for a while. We have reason to believe that Eppler will continue the very good drafting baseline he has set and that he supplement that with international signings that bring us dynamic potential. The farm will improve and who knows to what extent. True, there's almost no room for bad contracts but he seems to be very, very cautious about that. Is that caution going to handcuff him from building a complete team or will he be just aggressive enough once the Hamilton money comes off the books? I concur that we better have a really strong front office and think we may actually have one in the making. Now whether Trout will want to sign with a team like the Angels is another matter.

Never understood the low ceiling/high floor strategy, especially for an upper middle payroll team. It's like preparing for a defensible poor resume. Yeah they're not very good, but most of them were not very good for the big club at least.

I was thinking about whether Arte would really jump in and be aggressive about keeping Trout and wondered about offering a stake in the Angels as part of the package. It turns out that isn't allowed, however, I don't think there is anything that prevents some type of arrangement regarding Arte's advertising business. Not going to happen, I know, but really this subject depresses me because I think the chances of him signing here are low.

That's too old for it to be a positive point for Trout. If it's not going to be a retirement contract you'll have to up the $/per by quite a big margin and have the contract end while he is still in his prime so as to command a top tier contract. It isn't going to happen because he will get retirement contract offers. You have to go into it thinking you will be paying the biggest total dollar amount contract in history or just forget about it. There will be no cutting corners or clipping coupons. Also, it is in our favor to wait until his contract is nearly up to make offers because until the Angels demonstrate that they can build a team that can compete, why on earth would he consider signing here for any amount of money.

With that crazy Counsell stance its not surprising that he went through an extended slump or two.

I'm sure the pitcher will be trying to verify if that was an adam's apple for the rest of the game.

I suppose scouting pitching is more difficult than for position players but still, I'd be fine if the Angels spent all their international allotment on pitching.

If this is a an intentional typo alluding to Escobar's fashionista toolbox, sheerly brilliant.

He'd be only the 9th player in history to do it so it is an incredible accomplishment. He's been very good for the game overall, and bad contract aside, a respectable face of the team. I'd love to be there. Probably won't though because the game I choose will undoubtedly not be the one he hits it in.

Does it look like this?

How bad does sh** gotta be that even blink 182 opts out because of substandard venue. I mean, they play county fairs right?

At least they came through with the gourmet lunch.

Mmmm, that defense and mediocre pitching depth tho.