Inside Pitch

I'd give anything to have Chili Davis and Mark Langston be a part of the Angels coaching staff...

I don't think they make any trades before getting their own guys off the DL... And if they are still tanking when that happens -- it should be for young guys.

Every time you make one of these posts -- the other team comes back.. It's sort of funny Karma-King.

Preach it... The people that want MS gone will say it's just posturing. The people that want MS to stay will say its a vote of confidence. Some will say this means Dipoto is the guy on the hot seat, others will argue that Arte is upset with the players. Someone else said it and I agree with him, Arte likely isn't going to make any decisions until they have everyone on the field and playing.

FF is going to lose his shit after seeing this.

He hasn't been in the position to do that... I'm critical of JD's moves as they relate to the depth on this team, but I think the guy has what it takes to turn this team around long term. My only fear is that he lacks the nads to tell Arte to pound sand and let him build this team. Arte and Angels fans may need to accept a year of losing, and losing ugly in order to right whats wrong with this organization. Not sure the fans or the owner are willing or smart enough to accept that taking a step back may lead to taking two steps forward. IMO, JD's job is harder now with Hamilton on the books.

I did a huge sell off after winning my money 20 team keeper league last year. I've now got Shelby Miller, Patrick Corbin, Tony Cingrani, Matt Harvey, Mike Minor, Alex Cobb and Brandon Morrow active, with Skaggs, Trevor Bauer, and Jose Fernandez on my farm team. Traded away CC, Greinke, Trevor Cahill, Hudson Street, and King Felix, but was also able to acquire Harper, Addison Reed, and Jedd Gyorko in those deals. I also got Anthony Rizzo straight up for Torii Hunter. My favorite deal was trading Kendrys for Trumbo to one of our resident Ms fans after talking up Morales all ST long. This after trading Trumbo to him for Starlin Castro during the All Star Break last year. Told him I felt bad after Trumbo had tanked so hard the second half, but that he would owe me on. Dude won't even talk to me anymore.

Fact of the matter is that if he becomes the 10-15 HR guy with plus speed everyone said he would be he essentially makes a guy like Callaspo and his team friendly contract a loss as well. Still, I don't fault JD for having made that move. Segura was the only prospect we gave up IMO. The mistake was not making a greater effort to retain him, particularly when plan B was to chase a RFer with questionable make up.

This is where I do think he deserves blame. People keep saying it's not his fault the system is awful -- fine. But he's not really done much to try to compensate for that situation. We needed three SPs for the MLB rotation going into this year.. he added three, and Blanton was arguably an overpay. Who was signed as insurance? No MLB ready arms at AAA and this team signed NOBODY as a fall back option -- instead it lost Brad Mills to the Rangers.. lol. What we didn't need was a 125 million dollar RFer and while everyone and their brother seems content to pin that on Arte, I still believe a GM has to have the balls to say hey -- my plan is different. Everyone seems all gung ho that he might put Scioscia in his place but apparently nobody seems to care he caves when Arte walks into the room. That is worrisome to me. Stoneman inherited an even uglier farm system and a significantly less talented roster and a meddlesome team VP in Tony Tavares, the big difference is he knew how to stand his ground. IMO, Dipoto should have been significantly more aggressive on the international market before the rules changed, we weren't.. Scott Servais is supposed to be this awesome advance scout and yet there haven't really been any Chone Figgins for Kimera Bartee or David Eckstein waiver wire pick ups. There have been ZERO discard pile additions along the lines of Lou Pote, Brendan Donnelley, Ben Weber, or Al Levine. Kevin Slowey was signed by the Marlins for less than a mil. His career WHIP, H/9 BB/9 HR/9 and K/9 aren't that far removed from what Blanton's numbers in fact, most of those rates are better. Carlos Villanueva was signed for 5 Mil -- look at his stats last year and what he has done for the Cubs to date. Kevin Correia is another guy that's doing pretty well who was signed for cheap. Yes the fam system is ugly, but it's not like there aren't replacement level talents that could have been signed on the cheap. We just didn't really sign enough of them. Sorry but when you have as much front line talent as the Angels were thought to have, you don't add more to the top and ignore the depth. FWIW, I do believe Dipoto was under pressure to win now, my hope is that ownership has figured out that it's okay to take a step back in order to compete over the long haul. I think getting rid of Dipoto would be a mistake, but to say he's not the architect of this debacle is IMO, going easy on him.

Take a deep breath -- I was speaking specifically to his pursuing guys with a track record of putting up strong FIP in particular... FIP is purely theoretical in its nature and it's entire premise is built upon if everything else being even. To go completely in one direction was a massive risk, I didn't fault him when he did it, but I pointed out it was a very saber-slanted approach and I was very curious to see how it would play out. In Blanton's case, it's been horrendous. Hanson and Vargas haven't been bad, but only Hanson has managed even a league average ERA among the SPs. And you can argue at his having looked at the risks -- but, the fact that there were few fall back options in the system it makes it very clear he ignored much of the risk. Guys like Barry Enright and Michael Roth have started games.

Wells gets thrown in along with the other guys but, I'm pretty sure he's the one guy nobody faults Dipoto for moving.

It was a team based heavily on theoretical performance. It was a team with some significant potential rewards but it came with some significant risk.. The lack of depth meant there wasn't a lot of room for error, and in Hamilton, there was plenty to be suspect of, even more when you consider the price tag vs the risks if bringing back Torii.. This team is certainly capable of playing better, but what we have seen is that the ramifications of having almost zero margin for error. Some of that falls on JDs shoulders. His long term vision is better than what his short term fix appears to be.

There is no statistical measure that could be used to defend Blanton. His k/9 is down, His BB/9 and HR/9 are up. His FIP is a lot better than his ERA but at 4.73 it's still awful.

As this unfolds and players like Blanton fail, it becomes more and more likely that MS stays and JD goes. If you read out of town papers, most feel MS is the guy being forced to play this hand. Seriously, the outside opinion is JP screwed the pooch, and as Torrii, Santana, Wells, etc etc all continue to perform well vs their replacements, the theory is growing.

Way to be completely wrong.. Haren was actually nails in April and though his ERA was a tick higher in May, he was slightly better that month. He imploded in June.

The two pitchers are scrubs -- The Angels actually got him for pretty cheap. http://www.baseballamerica.com/statistics/players/cards/82667 Put him in the majors and he will walk the bases loaded. http://www.baseballamerica.com/statistics/players/cards/41885 Pretty much more of the same -- 24 years old and in the Southern League. Someone will talk up his ERA and ignore league data and his age. Scrubs. Combined they aren't as good as Donn Roach.

I remember Tony Tavares openly wanting to trade the entire core of the 99 team, I remember the article where he responded to the comment that you couldn't fire the team by loudly asking why not.. There are so many similarities between then and now. Sad so many current fans seem to have forgotten. The 99 team didn't have the big salaries this team does, but it did have the salary restrictions Disney ownership placed on them, and the farm system was worse. People don't have to watch or support the team, but they may just have to suck it up and accept a very bad season.

It does seem buggy as all hell but it's really amazing to see what some scouts thought about players in HS and the sort.

MLB Hall of Fame has added a database for old scouting reports. Truly amazing to see scouts' opinions of players http://scouts.baseballhall.org/ Jim Edmonds scouting report from HS called him an indulged child who's off field habits needed to improve. Talk about being able to spot something. Pretty amazing stuff, it's really neat to see how different scouts in different organizations viewed players. Given the horrible state of Angels baseball, you guys may enjoy the detour.

LOL..... line of the day.

Is this the same Hank Conger fans keep pining for and chiding Scioscia for not giving a chance? The same catcher who Scioscia keeps saying isn't fit defensively? The same catcher some on here were happy to see JD "go over MS's head" and make the team? At what point do people realize they don't know jack about player evaluation?

Funny part is they were winning when he got the hook.

The Managernator!

Hey, some people have said our top advance scout (Servais) is a good choice to replace Scioscia. So, there is that, right.

That's the problem.