Inside Pitch

Pretty sure Gardenhire is the Tigers manager....

Lol.. If we use fWAR, he's already there.

He's currently at 0.2. A far cry from being right and yet still closer than any of your predictions.... Glass houses dude....

That was one hell of a clutchy slide just now.....

There has to be a pretty epic story there...

Particularly since he hasn't manned a defensive position since 2014, when he played a grand total of 8 games in the OF... For his career he's had a total of 98 defensive chances ... To put that number into perspective.. Kole Calhoun has had 66 defensive chances this season alone... in 31 games. Asking him to play defense on a regular basis would be something he's never been asked to do..

Just call up the youth in low A so Arte can line his pockets.... Because you know ... Goodwill players.

Point is "Baseball is a long season"... So, losing your shit after a month and blathering on and on about OMG what if this continues is hilarious in light of your wanting to dismiss it when he goes on a tear.... particularly since everyone and their brother kept pointing out he's notoriously streaky. It was never about 12 days .vs a month.. It's about 12 years .vs 1 month.... Still not getting it? J-Ups career OPS+ is 120... going into last nights game, before going 1-3 with a walk it was 115 this season. His career wRC+ is 121, again, going into last night it was 119. Basically, he's right in line with what you'd expect and all your hand wringing is pointless because you know. "Baseball is a long season", bro... It means you don't watch baseball outside of the Angels maybe.. Currently the MLB average batting line is .246/.319/.407. Upton's sitting at .258/.318/.497. Being nearly 100 points in OPS above the league average is pretty good most of the time. No, they didn't have those years locked up. He had an opt out remember..... one you GUARANTEED he would use. Now all of a sudden he wasn't going anywhere. Dude, can you just stop. You haven't liked the guy from the minute he was acquired and have been grasping at straws to denigrate him at any and every opportunity. The one thing we can be sure of while Upton is an Angel is that you will spew the same BS regardless of what the facts are. Oh look, a reference to saving money and then a reference to Arte being greedy.. LOL... Spin those narratives booooooooy!!!! BTW... all the OF youth in the system capable of putting up Upton level production is in Low A. That's four levels below MLB just in case you aren't aware.

@Scotty@AW Dude.... I know you have your sources within the organization.. we need you to do some digging. Across the board we are seeing a lot of guys make some serious strides developmentally -- not so much referring to guys adding some ticks to their velo or any of the tools sort of thing but in the way they actually play and perform.. You need to ask your boys what has changed development wise... because something has changed or the Angels are just suddenly extremely lucky... Its sorta goofy seeing how many different players are showing rapid improvement.. WTF is up...

Fletcher made FGs Fringe 5 again... https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/the-fringe-five-baseballs-most-compelling-fringe-prospects-107/

MLB.com mock draft https://www.mlb.com/news/college-players-lead-in-mlb-mock-draft/c-276190214?tid=151437456 Second time the Angels have been linked to Ryan Weathers. 17. Angels: Ryan Weathers, LHP, Loretto (Tenn.) HS This pick could come down to Weathers, who has the potential for three solid or better pitches to go with pitchability and big league bloodlines (father David), or Hankins, who has shown his usual velocity (but not always his trademark electric life) in recent outings. If Adams convinces teams he'll give up the opportunity to play football at North Carolina, where his father, Deke, is a defensive line coach, Los Angeles is one of several in the teens who'll consider him.

Day 1 is on June 4th...

LOL... So now "baseball is a long season".... Funny how that amazing insight didn't keep you from labeling him as hot garbage when the season was even shorter.

No, I totally got that... I was more or less just pointing out how long it had been since we had seen anyone consistently good. If not for that leg injury Rivera likely gets a lot more praise from Angels fans than he currently does. Yeah, I can see that getting old in a nanosecond. Ill say this much.. its easier to take the position that it was unnecessary after the fact. For the most part the FA freeze seemed to catch a lot of people off guard. Makes this coming FA very interesting IMO.

And yet you and others have nothing other than opinion to back up your position. At the end of the day nobody has a way of proving what never materialized -- both sides can formulate a hypothesis why their position is correct but it's guesswork in both ways.. Also.... just as you believe your position is solid, there is a counter argument that has it's own merit. You're comparing the two deals on the total dollars involved -- but, it's not as simple as that.. the two deals are not constructed the same way. Justin Upton is making 16 mil this year . JD Martinez 24 mil. Justin Upton is locked for 5 -- JD Martinez can opt out after 2 years, at which point he will have earned more than 50 mil... Upton will have earned 34 mil at the same point in his deal. JD Martinez will need to continue at his current pace to be a better value and if he does, chances are he opts out next year -- at which point his agent will still be Scott Boras and the Red Sox will need to pony up or possibly lose that production if he leaves. Martinez will have finished his age 31 season if he does opt out - same age Cain was when he signed his deal... Do you really think Scott Boras will advise Martinez to stay in that contract given what Cain got and what he will be owed? (55 mil). So consider this... Cain signed for 5 years 80 mil -- he also had the opportunity cost of draft pick compensation, which we have seen is growing in value and in the Angels case given their continued effort to rebuild after years of being Dipoto'ed may have been viewed as even more valuable. Cain's deal runs through age 36, Upton's through age 34. How well the two age is ultimately going to end up determining the value of their respective contracts. When you look at Cain's comps through age 31 you find Marlon Byrd, Angel Pagan, Roy Weatherly and the assorted stiffs you'd expect to see for a guy with a career OPS+ of 108. When you look at Upton's top ten comps through age 29 you find names like Carl Yazstremski, Adrian Beltre, Reggie Jackson, Barry Bonds, Ron Santo.. You got some guys that fell off too -- Andruw Jones and Ruben Sierra... Which deal do you think will age better? It's not as cut and dried as you think, and it's too early for anyone to claim to have been right... for or against. If we see teams continue to steer clear of big FA deals, then the Upton signing may end up having been an overpay but at the end of the day he doesn't have to be all that great for the Angels to have been able to get positive value out of it. I'm not saying you're wrong... I'm saying that nothing is set in stone either way.

Juan Rivera was also 8 years ago....

CJ was quickly becoming one of the best reads on MLB while he was doing that. Glad he got a gig on the TV end but I miss his articles.

Excess stupid seems to be a contributing factor for some.

Given how streaky J-Up is... I bet this thread achieves it's purpose many many times over...

I think increasing the roster size or making for a more flexible roster may be the next big fight for the player's union. Teams are smarter now, the days when teams would make emotional FA deals seem to be fading away... the best chance the union has to recoup some $$ and increase their bargaining position is to create more MLB jobs for players. My guess is they will fight for a roster set up of 25 and some non active types.... like the NBA does. My bet is MLB will counter with just adding a 26'th spot. For the life of me I've never understood why rosters expand in Sept, then go back to 25 for the postseason.... Baseball does weird stuff.

Rojas will always get at least one hilarious barb in per game. He's the king of making his feelings known without being a blowhard... There was a game recently where a hit was ruled an error or something like that.. when it happened he was all. "They ruled that an error?" and stopped there. When the inning ended and when he did the inning run down he made a comment along the lines of -- "inning over, Angels get 2 runs on let's call it four hits"... Was hilarious and at the same time made his point for him. Absolutely love the guy. The guy in SD, Don Orsillo is great too.

It's their board, they have a right to delude themselves. But it's always interesting to see what opposing fans think. I like watching the out of town telecasts at least once per series too.

Dickson bears little resemblance to Bridwell when you consider the era's they pitched in (Angel Stadium park index was 106 in 97), albeit,the periphs look similar. The Stats Inc 1997 annual had Dickson posting the second lowest hard hit ball rate in the AL in 97... Dude was all about inducing weak contact and getting outs but his change up was a legit out pitch -- Bridwell has nothing remotely close to that. Dickson was a casualty of the Terry Collins arm meat factory...

Let's apply all the same logic to the M's that their fans at Lookout Landing put on the Angels.. According to those Ms fans... The Angels haven't played anyone. SoS, Angels .514., Mariners .490 The Angels offense sucks. OPS+, Angels 112. Mariners 109 The Angels pitching staff sucks and the SP is suspect. ERA+, Angels 109, Mariners 91. SP ERA, Angels 4.20, Mariners 4.87. AL Average is 4.34 The Angels bullpen is awful. BP ERA, 3.60, Mariners 4.32. AL Average 4.20 The Angels defense is overrated. Def Eff, Angels .704, Mariners .695. DRS, Angels 9, Mariners (-8) yes -- thats a negative. The Angels record is misleading. Exp W/L, Angels 22-15 - Mariners 18-18. Their run differential is 1. It's nice to see Angel fans aren't dismissing other teams as easily as our friends to the north. Even when the data argues people here might be overrating them almost as much as they are underrating the Angels. Bless their hearts...

Jo Adell, the Anti-Disar... “I think the big thing for me is getting on base,” he said. “I know I’m not going to get a pitch to hit a home run off every game, so you have to figure out how to be effective. If I get a pitch that I can handle and make hard contact, that’s great. The key for me is getting to third base so I can score.”