Inside Pitch

And he seems to be happy and having a lot of fun....

That scout was Jerry Dipoto....

This dude straight up trolled all of mlb during ST.....

LOL..... Gubi.... "Richards doesn't give up a lot of home runs, only the third HR he's given up all season" Game 2, 6 innings....

How many times has Clevinger beaten us now? The ultimate "thanks Jerry"...

Stong K and BB rates -- but was extremely hittable.. So, likely a sequencing thing.. But H rates over 12 are rarely a sign of dominance...

Jonah Wesley with an aggressive bump... I would have bet on them giving him more time in High A.

Our only recourse is to talk about an impending sweep at the hands of the Indians to try to counteract the bad juju. But .... He's right about the vibe....

Or like me they didnt believe they would keep playing Davis in left or Semien at short ....

Catcher is, was, and likely will always be the position with the lowest success/graduation rate for draftees. The reasons are numerous and partially why you see guys like Brayan Pena, Charlie O'Brien, and Jeff Mathis, have the careers they do... It's entirely possible the Eppler regime sees the catcher position as something easily filled via free agency or as we have seen them do, via trades and waiver claims. If the Angels dont believe he has the catcher "it factor".... so be it... Maybe having the responsibilities/rigors of catching off his shoulders let's him work on his offense, an uptick in xbh power would do wonders for him. Close your eyes, allow yourselves to dream a little bit and lets hope he surprises us by becoming a Donaldson light type player. At this point It seems they are simply trying to salvage whatever value they can.

Jeff Sullivan@based_ball Shohei Ohtani, MLB pitching debut: 92 pitches 98mph average fastball 68% strikes (like 2017 Kluber) 62% contact (like 2017 Betances) left a few sliders up, but the HR slider wasn't actually that bad 6:23 PM - Apr 1, 2018 291 103 people are talking about this

Man..... Spencer Griffin is at risk to develop an inferiority complex in that OF. Poor dude....

Reliever volatility! We were all ruined by Shields extended run of awesomeness.

To be honest, I too think he needs to pitch in as low pressure a situation as possible, but.. I do believe he needs to pitch. He's not pitching like a guy that can close and he doesn't have the history to get a long leash... At least not IMO.

LOL, you're right -- better instead to not pitch him at all and then bring him in with a one run lead instead of a four run lead where he has wiggle room.

Had to do it .... didn't you?

Rojas' best line of the day "Four hits....dramatic air quotes" Dude can be hilarious.

I love that all these years later -- Abbott, Langston, and Finley all still live in OC and consider themselves Angels...

Some of that was likely fatigue... First start and all that.

ESPN article on the Kapler RP foul up http://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/22988330/philadelphia-phillies-gabe-kapler-calls-reliever-thrown

Ettin probably has some inside people who can make this happen... just sayin...

Gabe Kapler is quickly becoming a legendary manager.. His game one decision to pull Nola after 68 pitchers where he was completely cruising blew up in his face badly -- then he one upped it last night. Dude went to the mound and motioned to the pen for a lefty.... thus forcing the pitching change, problem is.. he didn't have a lefty up. Long story short he had to buy his guy some time, so he starts stalling. This of course brings into play all the new pace of play rules and such, but given everyone and their brother knew he had screwed either due to pity or whatever... the umps sort of let the situation go on. Finally the guy gets in and much to the amazement of the opposing manager (again, because of the new pace of play rules), he's allowed to start throwing his 8 warm up pitches... This causes the Braves manager to lose his shit, dude gets himself ejected ... LOL.. the only thing that would have made it funnier would have been Benny Hilly music playing in the background. Anyway -- three games into the season. Kapler has already had to use a position player as a pitcher and has used 21 pitchers in three games including 9 the previous night in an 11 inning game... NINE... When you're three games into the season and there is already talk about the team's bullpen being depleted .. LOL... it's gonna get hilarious in Philly. This Eskin guy is has total wood for him already Howard Eskin‏Verified account @howardeskin FollowFollow @howardeskin More The #phillies manager @gabekapler had to use a position player to pitch, and it’s only 3rd game of the season. 21 pitchers in 3 games. Since Kapler wants Phils to play multiple positions maybe everyone should learn how to pitch since he already has worn out his bullpen. #itsajoke

Dipoto was great at TALKING about analytics -- but then he would make moves that flew in the face of what he had just spent hours talking about.

Cron was also drafted as a 1B -- his shoulder injury took care of his being a catcher while at Utah.