Inside Pitch

Turns out Billy is more James than Alan Bond....

So.. my thoughts on Albert are pretty simple... He's not lived up to the contract as expected. At the same time his decline has not been typical of that of an inner circle HOFer, and that's been unexpected. The plantar issues have pretty much wrecked him... Considering one of them snapped and the other one was surgically removed finally -- plantar issues can't be used as an excuse anymore... I could live with a couple years of 2016 AP.. He'd still wouldn't be living up to his contract but at least he wouldn't be a black hole. To further elaborate.... IMO, anything he does with an OBP below .325 is a black hole. Because of his career you have to give him a mulligan for 2017... he's earned that much regardless of his performance to date in Anaheim. A repeat of his 2017 numbers and it really is time for Eppler and company to have a long hard talk with AP about how he wants to exit the game. The thing I most hate about the AP situation is that the Angels may have to part with a flawed yet useful controllable bat in Cron. All things being equal, I'd much rather keep the guy that rakes RHPs and has seen his defense improve immensely than the statue formerly known as Albert Pujols. It will never happen, but good lord can you imagine if the Angels could have slotted Cron back behind the plate.... He was a catcher his entire life until a shoulder injury his last year of college... At worst he has to be the teams emergency catcher?

Marty Cordoba, Tim Salmon .... Both suffered through it while in their primes.... :ast year Addison Russell missed a month with the issue....

That's hardly journalism.. You'd think a journalist would know how to properly spell "herd" and the possessive form of Pujols. It's just some dink being ****y like Strad said...

Bro -- watch it... Given your line of work and the connections you have -- you're gonna crack up every time they call their work an "investigation".

It spends time talking about everyone else who did PEDs and then tries to make the associations to AP. Basically the entire thing is built on the idea that AP was great until they started doing blood tests for HGH and since that time he's been injury prone/not great... and the proof is the plantar issues he's had.... It's most damning statements of proof are when is asks you as the person watching "You gotta wonder". Mind ....was..... blown. I had never actually wondered until the video asked me to... and then I wondered... It really is hilarious. Even the AP haters commenting on Youtube are mocking the thing for being just absolutely awful...

Please do yourself a favor and watch it. You really need to see the lengths they go to try to demonize AP.. It's actually hilarious.. Among the things they throw out there as a sign of hypocrisy is a quote of his about the Angels and how it almost seemed a matter of divinity that he signed with a team called the Angels and then they mention the team's ST stadium is Tempe Diablo Stadium and they clarify that it means "Devil"... LOL. then to double down, they quote a bible passage about serving two masters.. They may have sought out to make a hard hitting documentary but really, it's a pretty good comedy.

This would be funnier if it wasn't coming from a Mariners fan...

While I agree -- he's also been playing with tempered expectations... We all read the bit about rebuilding not being in their DNA but there is no denying things have ramped up a bit, and likely will continue to do so next season. Eppler may see value in obtaining a sure thing shut down closer, let's not forget he learned how to GM in NY where Cashman has long pursued certainty in the 9th inning. Reed and Wade Davis are likely in play.. I think they may prefer to chase Reed if for no other reasons because his local ties may help bring the price down a tad... Again, @ettin mentioned Davis as a potential buy -- IMO it was a long-shot until Ohtani happened. Now having filled all of the problem spots with viable solutions while spending less than 50 mil to do so... it makes a bit more sense to spend some $$ on a luxury item like a closer.

The Angels will likely be looking up at the Astros for as long as it takes for Houston to have to start paying players. They ended last year with their biggest payroll ever and are currently looking at a payroll in the 150 million range after arbitration -- estimated at north of 47 million dollars.. They have 6 pending FA's at the end of this year including 2/5ths of their rotation. They can cut loose McCaan to free up some money but they will also have four 3rd year arbitration eligible players including Springer in 2019. The high costs of success will start working against Houston very soon... just about the same time the Angels should expect the farm to start kicking in with players... Eppler has done an amazing job.

The difference of course is they spent 331.5 million that year .vs 49 million so far this year... Also, nobody is expecting inner circle HOF numbers from Kinsler or Cozart -- we just want them to be better than the -1.0 fWAR we got from Espinsoa and Escobar. If they both just come in with 2.0 fWAR seasons it's a 5 fWAR swing. This is more a case of how truly bad the two positions were last year than how awesome the two guys coming in might be. Now they just need AP to play to his 2016 numbers and not 2017.

Well, a year removed from them having seen the team's closer miss the entire season, and considering there is an alternative that will just cost money and could be more than a rental (Reed), why bother with Britton. The concerns about his arm are still real -- people are stressing about Ohtani's strain but let's not forget Britton was shut down with the dreaded forearm tightness --- there have been whispers about it being a case of not IF but WHEN he will need TJ surgery.

The fact that got out cost Jeter millions in gift bags....

This reminds me of back in the halcyon days of the Angels bullpen when despite the reality that all their RHPs utterly dominated their splits people pined for a LHP....

The current cost of the win is estimated at 9 mil.. that means that anything more than 1.5 WAR out of Cozart would be considered plus value... Given he can slide over to 2B next season it seems like a pretty safe deal.

The old adage about building the lineup to benefit from your park exists because it's been proven to be true... Angel Stadium deflates IF, FB, and LD, contact to LHBs.... The only type of contact it doesn't deflate is GBs -- and even there, it's also kind to RHBs. Other than Cozart, everyone currently figured to be in the everyday lineup was in the AL last year. You know who wasn't? The LHB coming from Japan.

His batted ball profile on fly balls changed -- not unlike many others who have seen an offensive surge. Cozart's a nice pick up because he can slide over to 2B next year once Kinsler is gone. Eppler has been yapping about putting an emphasis on defensive flexibility -- Cozart brings that. I think this is also a further indication the Angels fully intend to roll with a 6 man rotation.

Apparently not as long as it took for people to start obsessing about Pujols being a disappointment. December 14 of the off-season might be the new record. In other news..... Water remains wet...

Who the hell wasnt? I don't think anyone was wrong to have bought into what he was saying -- dude can talk.. I firmly believe his real future is talking baseball on TV.... But we all wanted Jerry to be awesome and he said all the right crap. Hell, had he just followed up what he said with actions I'd be singing his praises. It's funny because Eppler got here, got labeled a rube.. especially after he talked down his knowledge of sabermetrics but all he's done since then is create an entire analytics team and infuse the team with all kinds of technology and advance thinking.

Pretty sure he's talking about the initial "Jerry Dipoto may be totally full of shit talk".... Tyler, MT.. myself.... Blarg too. There were a few of us that started to openly question why he was getting a free pass from people.. Man.. those drafts were just so putrid... Doc was pretty vocal about those too.

Jesus -- reading that is so hilarious in light of everything that's transpired since then. Early on today on MLB Network's Hot Stove, they were talking about how the Angels looked completely burried and how listless and lacking the roster was and how different the outlook top to bottom is now... Go read Lookout Landing and you'll see a lot of the same shit said around here.. "It's not his fault, he inherited a bad farm system, the owners blah blah". The dude is a svengali... Even now as the Angels have seen a massive turnaround the narrative up there is that nothing that happened in Anaheim was ever his fault and that he's doing amazing things in Seattle...

TY -- wasn't doubting you at all -- just wanted to see if it was something actually been talked about...

Link?

Remember how the Angels rarely ever had leaks to the press.?? Other that the very visible BS that broke out on the field between Guillen and Scioscia it just never really happened... Then all of a sudden Jerry shows up and it was something new and embarrassing every day.... Everything that happened in the clubhouse somehow seemed to leak to the press the Angels were a laughingstock IMO... Notice how all that stopped the second he left? Does anyone REALLY believe that's all just coincidence? Dude is a massive snatch. I doubt Passan will divulge much, but it would be neat to see what if anything MLB would do if they did track it back to someone.

You're underestimating his high level of prick-osity....