Angelsjunky

That made me laugh too. Let's just hope it was intentional. Adam might be a bit cloistered in his libertarian compound up in Idaho.

I'm going to have to agree with Lifetime. Trout is a beast of a specimen. The reason he's not stealing as much is (allegedly) because Pujols is being a ninny and doesn't want him dancing around on the base-paths. He'll still steal 30 easily, I imagine, maybe 40 - but dreams of 60+ aren't going to be fulfilled.

When I first read the thread title I thought Chuck was on an anti-gay rant.

This is why I like him: http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/mark-trumbo-knows-improves-himself/

The Astros and Marlins. That's it. Now let's take a look at their respective payrolls: Astros: $26.1 million Marlins: $50.5 million Angels: $137.2 million While we're at it: Athletics: $62 million There's no getting around the fact that this team was poorly constructed, and is poorly run. Here's a scary thought: In 2016 the Angels will be paying Hamilton, Pujols and Wilson $75 million - more than half the current payroll and, I would imagine, somewhere close to half what it will be 2016. Throw in Weaver and you've got $95 million committed to four players in their mid-30s - more than the payrolls of two-thirds of the teams in the major leagues. The point being: The franchise is not in a good situation and this won't change for at least a few years. They're going to have those albatross contracts weighing it down, limiting flexibility. And none of this includes contracts for Trout, Trumbo or Bourjos. I suppose you could say that after the huge contracts the Angels basically have the payroll of a team like the Athletics and if they can be competitive on $60 million a year, why can't the Angels? The simple answer: Jerry Dipoto is no Billy Beane. He doesn't seem to have Beane's eye for talent, for spending less and getting more (thus the Joe Blanton contract...$15 million for this?). And he continually seems to make the wrong moves, the wrong signings - at least more often than not. There is an ever-increasing list of former Angels that are thriving elsewhere - much longer than the imports. I just don't know a way out of this, how they're going to go from a fat-cat team that spends poorly on over-rated and over-the-hill players to one that uses their money more wisely, on choice free agent only and finds ways to spend less and get more. It seems they're caught in this spiral and think that two wrongs make a right (e.g. Spending $240 million on Pujols through his age 41 season,when there were already signs of significant decline, and then spending $125 on the erratic Josh Hamilton). It is disheartening, to say the least.

Josh Hamilton is Jerry Dipoto's Rorschach test. If Hamilton doesn't turn it around and has a terrible year, then I think we can safely say that Jerry Dipoto has no clue what he's doing, beyond looking at stat pages (and then only the "first page").

That's one of those baseball conventions that isn't necessarily true.

Hamilton should bat 10th

...so far this year, according to fWAR: 1.3 Jean Segura 1.3 Vernon Wells 0.9 Torii Hunter 0.8 Mike Trout 0.8 Mike Napoli

I can't wait until he hits .207 with 16 HR in 2019.

Same boat, different coast. Went to bed around 12:20ish...7-2 in the 7th inning. Should be a win, right? Oh well. Roth is not major league ready.

It isn't black and white. Its early, but less early than it was. The team still has plenty of time to turn themselves around - 137 games left in the year - but the longer they continue the suckfest, the deeper the hole they have to dig out from.

LOL, Grigori.

It also says "A's Shat."

How about this: We're basically just 3-5, which isn't so terrible, times three.

Dear Angels, We love you, buuut....you're still a suckfest of disappointment. Love, Your Devoted Fans

...cause we're looking like this:

?

Not time to give up. Remember, the team started 2-8 and has been 7-6 since then. Not great, but respectable. Here's the hope: over the next month or so the team goes from respectable to at least very good. Weaver, Madson, and Jepsen come back to bolster the pitching staff. Vargas, Hanson and Blanton settle down to at least average. Richards and Wilson build on what they've been doing already. Hamilton is going to get hot at some point and there's room for improvement from Trout and Pujols. The point being, at some point this team is going to get hot. There are some kinks to work out, and the pitching will never be great, but the hope is that it can be good enough - average to above average - to give the powerful offense - an offense which hasn't actualized its full potential yet - a chance to win. It isn't time to give up. We just need to wait it out a bit and hope that the Angels can, at the least, continue to play decent ball (which, again, they have been playing for two weeks now) until the pieces all fall into place. I'd be more down on them if they weren't 7-6 over those last 13 games. If we were 6-17 right now I'd be singing a different tune. But they're getting there...albeit slowly.

I for one am sick of next year. It has been "next year" for the last three. Maybe I'm spoiled given the 2002-09 era, but this team isn't built to win "next year."

I'm surprised Hamilton isn't featured. Boy do Trumbo and Trout look awful - especially Trout, who swung at a pitch that hit the ground before it reached the plate. At least Trumbo has the excuse of the pitcher being Darvish. Ogando is pretty good but Darvish is just nasty.

Either, Wells got plenty of opportunity to "return to form." I suppose this year proves how big a factor psychology is.

Come on, Chuck, AO is "local color."

Great minds, Lifetime - we basically said the same thing. You just said it in your usual brusque, snarky way, and I said it in my usual over-verbose, nerdy way - but we got to the same place.

This is what I've worried about at times, and for two reasons: One, it means that Josh Hamilton is now a .250/.800+ hitter (his second half numbers were .259/.323/.510), and two it means that Jerry Dipoto is not a good judge of talent and/or Angels scouts suck and/or he doesn't listen to his scouts and/or Arte Moreno is running the show and Dipoto is just a puppet. That said, I don't think it is true. I can't quite believe that it took five years for "a book" to be created on him. Baseball is a kind of ping-pong game between pitchers and hitters; pitchers figure out a hitter, who adjusts (to whatever degree), and then pitchers figure him out again, and he adjusts again. I think what we're seeing with Trout, for example, is a continuation of the "the book" that was created on him late last year. He's still adjusting (but he will, it might just take a few months or even not until next year). With Hamilton I think the problem is largely mental - he's pressing, adjusting to a new team, expectations (including his own), etc. He'll figure it out and hit .280-.310 with 25-35 HR. The problem, though, is that there's a huge range for Hamilton - and we're unlikely to ever get the 2010 MVP version. By the way, citing his second half numbers is a bit misleading. Look at July through the end of the year: July: .177/.253/.354 August: .310/.368/.575 Sept/Oct: .245/.330/.543 So if "a book was created" on him in July, it was promptly lost in August, then kind of re-found in September. The bottom line: Hamilton is streaky and adjusting to a new environment/pressing due to expectations. The two are exacerbating each other and will likely be solved at the same time. He'll get there.