Inside Pitch

Guilty as charged!...

Now appearing in the AW.com's production of "Mother Teresa, Living Saint", it's Claude... Do I send the roses backstage or is there a PO Box? BTW before you go for the wounded maiden routine and claim "case in point" .... this entire response is in fact directed at you -- because well, you chose to make your saintly behavior the topic... Basically in this case, the narrative you are trying to dole out is that you are above petty discourse... another in a long line of comedic performances. I'll be sure to link to this thread the next time you go on record publicly as enjoying goading others into responding, and how you get a kick out of getting a rise out of people.. In the meantime.. Lets all take five seconds to read this little ditty where you weren't directing your response at the poster.... Claude -- nobody is following you around. When you post the same exact crap in every freaking thread regardless of the topic it's impossible NOT to run into your posts. I can't speak for anyone else, but I know I don't even read some threads because the titles alone make it clear you'll be busy being you in the thread and honestly, I'd rather not waste my time. P.S. Claude -- I've never had a problem with you having a different opinion -- I have a problem with you stating your opinions as facts (typically in response to others), and then lying about things to try to validate your opinions when called out on it - that is a pretty significant distinction. When you do those things (and you do it all the time), it makes it impossible not to call out the opinion -- mostly because the facts are lacking and the behavior is the issue. It's a really simple premise to understand and if not for that douchebaggery, I'd likely have a lot less to say to you. So while you're out here pontificating about the finer points of message board behavior, you may want to look around that glass house you're living in and maybe clean it up a bit.

I don't want to sling mud at the M's because -- we have had our issues here. But they have long been a franchise that caught a lot of praise for their drafts and the talent they where able to bring in but they were gawd awful at developing those players into MLB quality players -- in many ways they were our exact opposite, we tended to flub a lot of draft picks but the Angels were a pretty consistent producer of MLB talent... You're likely right in believing the Dodgers saw something and are now reaping the benefits.

You wanted what we had wanted ... for his work to match up with his talk. We were there, we feel your pain -- Jerry said all the right things here too... For all his faults, he is a very convincing speaker it's likely his greatest asset as a GM.

Physician, heal thyself...

There were predictive stats beyond the rates that all pointed towards him being a quality hitter. I think everyone is surprises his power has played so well but, he wasn't a Punch and Judy hitter by any stretch and power is the last tool to develop -- always has been.. More importantly, it's just as much about the guy JD wanted to get as it is the guy he gave up. Whatever you may have thought of Taylor's AAA numbers, he was a more valuable piece than the lump of goo that Zach Lee had turned into -- particularly given they didn't keep him.

You did good... I was betting on better health from the rotation /facepalm... Pitching still manged to be better than most people believed it would be.

It's not like he was a schleb either.. Taylor's career line in AAA is .313/.392/.464 over 1100+ PAs... No idea if he's using, but his being a hitter isn't a real shock -- he put up an 894 OPS as 23 year old in his first taste of AAA and essentially kept his line within the same range from that point on.

Buddy Biancalana!

Luiz Gohara, Zack Littell, Ryan Yarbrough, Freddy Peralta, and Alex Jackson all agree.

#winning. Great Call...

The game changed -- chemicals became more commonplace and he was trying to remake those 70s and early Royals teams... I don't think it was his vision of what a team should look like that sunk him as much as he may have been blind to how players were changing -- kind of funny but, he had tried to get Vince Coleman to Anaheim too ... arguing he could do for the Angels what Brett Butler was doing for the Dodgers. -- so, he may have just reached the point where he couldn't evaluate players like he had in the past.. Still, FWIW, Bavasi did actually give Whitey some of the credit for Anderson, Salmon and Edmonds, although Preston and others believed that was more a case of Bill being kind than anything Whitey had done. The Herzog era was pretty interesting -- for all the talk about how dysfunctional the franchise was during the MS/Dipoto era, it pales in comparison to the O'Brien/Herzog power stuggle. O"Brien took the high road and claimed to have never not gotten along with Whitey, but Herzog had pretty much tried to undermine him pretty hard. It was interesting because O'Brien was in fact the GM, but Whitey claimed he had been told he would be the final word on all baseball activities -- the draft, the hiring and firing of coaches -- trades.. pretty much everything. Best of all, some of you guys may remember but, Whitey was never in Anaheim. The Angels got him a place in the city, but he did all his work remotely from St. Louis... So while he was clamoring for control he was also completely absent.. The entire thing was a massive soap opera that somehow managed to not get fully played out in the press. Bavasi FWIW came out of it looking like the shining knight -- he oversaw the infusion of talent, he had played nice with both Herzog and O'Brien, he was generally liked by everyone in the organization.. so moving him from farm director to GM was an easy call. Preston used to say that his greatest strength was his ability to create relationships and form bonds -- with players, coaches -- clubbies. Bill Bavasi treated people well.

Translation: None of the facts of what actually happened in the real world support my narrative so I'm going to create a fantasy scenario that cannot either be proved or disproved and pretend I made a point. Hi Clod.. I see you're still trying.. I don't know. Maybe? He wasn't the only one that needed improving on -- just the one you chose to hang the blame on... because reasons... Kole Calhoun had a sub .575 OPS in two of the three months ahead of the deadline and a sub .675 OPS in April. I realize red hair is more acceptable than dreadlocks to you but, Calhoun was considered a core piece in the offense and someone the team was actually counting on.... He had posted a .231/.310/.366 batting line through the end of the trade deadline.. Not too far off Maybin's numbers when he was moved the following month in August. Would you like for me to come up with other made up scenarios or can we stick with reality? Conjecture is easy... So is spin. Seriously there is nothing else that needs to be said - you have your opinions and fantasy scenarios, I have my facts and reality -- we can both walk away happy IMO.

I'm not defending anything... there isn't anything to defend. I pointed out what his actual performance was in relation to the rest of the Angels -- 5th or 6th best depending on what source you prefer. I've consistently called him a useful player -- he is.. I expected him to be an upgrade over Nava/Gentry and Ortega -- he was. You refuse to even admit that reality because you gotta be you. The rest of your post is just more of you trying to spin what happened to try to validate your narrative. Luckily, it's been stated in more than one place that he was cut loose in order to facilitate the added payroll of Upton and Phillips. At any point have you ever ONCE stopped to ask yourself why the Astros wouldn't have just waited until he fully cleared waivers and then picked him up for 25K? Instead they paid cash to the Angels and agreed to take over his salary the rest of the year.. Why???? Guess they think he's a useful player too... D'oh! Reality >> Your BS. "End of story" Also, stop talking about things you don't know anything about and pretending you've made a point... it only serves to make you look foolish... Offense is only part of what WAR measures, your attempt to dismiss his WAR because of the Angels offense is just another in a long line of comments that prove how little you actually know about stats or baseball in general. BTW -- you're right.... HE GONE.. Why can't you let go?

LOL.. You are trying soooo hard. I like how you quoted BB-Ref to drone on with the tripe about how many teams he's played for so, you're aware of the WAR totals there but then to be "you", you used the Frangraphs WAR totals to try to act like what was said wasn't true. Hey -- maybe you missed it but the FG totals still put him as the 6th best total on the team. Your ZERO Impact comment is still ludicrous Your narratives are all you care about..... facts, reality, truth -- all alien to you and everyone knows it. But just in case anyone needs to see how big of a clod you are and how much you're willing to lie to try to press on with your bullshit - here's the BB-Ref page for the 2017 Angels.. https://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/LAA/2017.shtml "End of story" P.S.... What was the combined WAR for LFers Maybin replaced -- let me know if he was an upgrade over Ortegao, Nava and Gentry...

I've planned trips to cities around the Angels being in town -- so, for some people that might be a yes, for no other reason to see the park like was the case with me. Granted, the percentage of vacationers that ALSO happen to be baseball fans is likely a lot smaller so the impact is negligible, but I don't think it's nutty to expect a baseball fan to want to check out a new ballpark or his team while on Vacation. FWIW -- I agree with your overall sentiment.. I don't think tourism should be factored into the equation more so than population or any of the other factors. Not sure if a case can be made that on population alone it's a better potential spot for a MLB team than say Memphis/Nashville, Charlotte, or Indianapolis. CA and Tex probably have cities/areas with significantly better population bases but they won't be given any consideration. Personally, I have always viewed LV as a potential spot for a team looking to relocate, not sure MLB would award an expansion team to LV because of the while gambling thing and MLB's desire to pretend they are above such things.

1.8 WAR for Angels -- 5th best total on the team. "ZERO IMPACT".

I like how you didn't want to get into a long winded discussion but still managed to push forward your opinions as facts and argued things nobody here has ever stated like he's a "difference maker".. Meanwhile, anyone that read this board over the year knows that you were shitting on him even when he was going good. It's what you do -- you blind yourself to reality and drone on with your narratives. End of story.

While it's true that Fullmer, Estad missed more than half the season and Glaus only played in like 90 games, the biggest component of that regression was the performance of the rotation.. Washburn, Ortiz, Lackey and Appier all fell off dramatically all went from above to well above ERA+s to below league average and Sele went from bad to horrible. I guess MS should have been more like Maddon and fired one of the most respected pitching coaches in MLB. Or maybe he should have blamed the younger players early on in the season when they stumbled out of the gate -- again, like Maddon did this season. Nothing says great manager like finger pointing.

No, but this is...

Butthurt as I know it is being overly bent or unjustifiably resentful... Forgive me if I'm mistaken in it's actual meaning. Anyway, since you didn't grow up in SoCal then you never did have to put up with Dodger fan mockery and their constant bullshit -- it had everything to do with being an Angels fan.. Truth is that anyone that followed the team during those years when the Dodgers were WS contenders and the Angels were a second division club (that had never won anything), caught a lot of shit from loudmouth Dodger fans for no other reason than they were Angels fans. The disdain for the Dodgers (and their fans), from those people while silly (post 2002), was never unjustified. So, save the butthurt commentary for the next round of Harper hate, at least there it fits.

I know you're just being you and shitting on a guy for no reason other than you don't like him but, they did go 10-17 and fall out of contention after letting him go to Houston... My guess is Troll Daddy enjoyed the Angels season more when he was around and they were winning.

Well technically -- everything but the pen went to crap at some point in September.. Why? those were losses for us... Turn them into wins -- it's still only four starts. The starts lined up perfectly -- it would have been four less losses -- not 6 more wins.

Meh... I was happy with the effort they did make, not sure Verlander makes the difference for us. Lets assume all four of his starts would have gone from losses to wins... the Angels still finish behind the Twins for the final WC spot.. Going 10-17 means the Twins 14-14 September was enough to keep them ahead.. He gets no post-season heroics if he doesn't get to the postseason... and he wouldn't have. Its good for Houston that it's worked out for them but we took our shot.. No complaints.

A team built to win it all.. Jokes!