Inside Pitch

That kid cares to talk smack more than he seems to care about his performance.. If he cared about his performance, he would shut up more and work harder. Been told by more than one scout that CC acts like a player much better than he is. In fact one guy I have a lot of faith in said that Chevy wouldn't amount to shit because he's perfectly content LOOKING good and failing than looking bad and winning.

So can we start calling Bolden, Young Hamilton?

Not sure why you keep saying they failed to value him correctly. They drafted Corbin in the second round, they were willing to go to 450K to keep him from going to Southern Miss, he was the first JC player taken in the draft that year, they knew what they had -- most would argue those were decisions that hinged on quality scouting and maximizing their value.. I've never viewed trading Corbin as a value fail as it related to him, it was a scouting fail as it related to Dan Haren. Haren was a guy showing declining stuff across the board, the hope there seemed to be that he would be able to pull off a Mike Mussina sort of transformation and evolve into a different type of pitcher while maintaining his excellent control and K rates. FTR, I was actually pretty vocal when that trade went down that Corbin was being underrated by Angels fans -- many of his park adjusted numbers as a 21 year old were on par with where they are now, if there was one area where he was slightly below average and potentially troublesome it was his percentage of fly balls pulled, a seldom considered statistic but one that is often an early indication of a player with fringy stuff who will get lit up. His GB rate, his K rate on swinging strikes -- all were above the league average while being 2 years younger than the leagues optimal age for that season. I had been talking him up since seeing him pitch in the instructional league the winter of 09-10. Pat Corbin was always going to be good and people who scratched below the surface saw it coming. Dipoto's usage of advanced metrics appear to have been in play at the time.

Cez is onto something. Youll likely get a better return on your investment putting it on the web and charging a monthly fee to have people watch it.

Hate to break it to you but that shirt isn't fit to wipe with, much less worth $30.

Some people just show how much they care differently, Josh's trot pretty much sums up his Angels career to date.. If Chili Davis was on this coaching staff he would have showed how much he cared by kicking Hamilton in the balls. They need a Chili Davis type on this coaching staff for some of these guys.

Just send the guy to AAA let him start and get a lot of innings. He's not going to get better being used erratically.

For me, it's simple... I'd like to see him creating more loft and possibly show more pull power.... simply because the games I've seen him in he's not turned on balls he should/could have. But personal beliefs/desires aside.. he is actually showing signs of power as his doubles tend to indicate -- he's not legging those out.. The HR index for RHBs in his home park is 58, more severe that at any park in MLB, but again, you've got Grichuk at 21 muscling balls over that same fence -- also a RH. So while yeah, the park is hurting him, there is data that suggests he should be doing better. If you park adjust and consider his number of FBs that are going for HRs we get a HR/OF figure of 5.9% Vs a league figure of 7.1%. As a bat only position player, it's not really a good sign that he's being outperformed by the league in a power category. People like to point at Trumbo's power numbers in AA and say -- see, it's not out of the question it's just the park and not anything the hitter is doing but, Trumbo put up a park adjusted HR/OF rate of 9.5 Vs a league figure of 5.3 while at Arkansas, so there is a reason to be suspect.. As I said previously, I'd like to see him creating more loft than I have seen to date -- and while I don't want to see him go pull happy, it would be nice to see him actually muscle a ball once in a while.

Wait, did I do something again?

While I agree completely, I will publicly pretend to disagree in order to further our new blood fued, Cowboy.

Consider me a giver.

I'm still your Huckleberry.

Shuddup, Dick.... Round two....

You're right and I apologize. FTR, my point was just to say point blank I couldn't point to anything, and that I was cool with my comments being thought of as noise. I didn't mean for it to come off as confrontational as it did, quite the opposite, was actually trying to imply I understood if people were to think it was a case of some message board moron running his mouth. Hope that clears it up.

And yet -- I never compared the two. I actually said the opposite, that Gaetti's take related to his own life, and only Gaetti. I knew I should have used more caps.

Meh -- it's easy to misinterpret intent. Gaetti actually turned his life over to Christ some time in 88 and was really into his change of life while with the Angels. At the time, his faith was brought up as a possible reason for his decline, he pretty much denied it. Years later I'm talking to Tim Naehring and he tells me how he was going to some event with "Rat" and being an Angels fan I asked him what had happened to him while he was an Angel. Tim basically passed along a conversation, and essentially said that after he had a relapse he was able to find better balance. To the best of my knowledge Gaetti remained a Christian. But yeah, you get it -- I was responding to someone bringing up the subject directly.

Don't make me call you, Hoss, Champ.

Stop spying on me.

Yeah, I'm not taking offense to anything.

Don't forget, Chief.. Thats like an ace in the hole right there.

He fell off the wagon, Champ.... Keep trying. BTW, you do realize I don't think Gaetti's situation has any real bearing on Hamilton's right? Just brought him up because in his case, he felt it took over his life, and it was in response to someone who was talking about how Christianity had impacted people at times.

its cause he was....

I buy more into that than I do PEDs and talk of his not caring.

No sorry, I cannot. Tim Naehring, is just a liar and decided to tell me of the conversation just to make him look bad years before the Angels signed Josh Hamilton. So, since it's not on public record you are free to consider it all a lie. I'm just full of shit and I'm cool with you thinking that. I was also full of shit when I told M's fan friends of mine that Brett Boone was going to blow up because another mutual friend of mine had tipped me off to his having found the benefits of chemically enhancing his body PRIOR to the 2001 season. I couldn't point to any articles then either -- So Shawn Ray was a liar too.

You may want to fact-check your opinions before making statements like this one. Gary Gaetti, left the Halos in 1993 at age 34 and proceeded to win a Silver Slugger award and was in the MVP voting in 1995 - he posted above league average seasons in 1996 and again in 1998 at age 39 when he posted the third best OPS+ of his career.. More importantly, it doesn't really matter what YOU think, Gary Gaetti himself feels that it impacted his play.. One thing I do think you're nailing dead on. Hamilton has been a Christian for a long ass time ... So that makes the two situations different enough..