Bobthe4th

The Angels lose to a 10th inning homerun from Gregorious. He joins Trout with 10 homers for the season.

Ohtani hit another home run before being taken out.

Oakland have optioned Kendall Graveman to AAA after his bad start to the season.

Fairly inconsequential, but Chad Girodo was released yesterday.

It's April, writing off Upton and Cozart is premature. Trout, Ohtani, Simmons, Cozart, Upton should all finish with above average wRC+ and WAR. Have you watched or paid close attention to any of Ohtani's appearances? He's been amazing with the bat and almost as good as advertised pitching. Unless his arm blows up he's going to put up a minimum of 6 WAR. You keep saying the overworked bullpen is going to cost them late in the season as if bullpens are a set 7 or 8 people. They will end up cycling relievers from the minors and waiver claims just like every team does every year. As various starters return from injury, their pitching should end up a strength. They will probally be buyers at the deadline, when they can add pitching and anything else they need. I don't think that they are one of the elite teams, but I do think they have a good chance at making the playoffs at which point anything can happen. You have a point about wasting Trout's career to date, but you're completely wrong that they should be blowing it up. IMO they had the best offseason improvement of any team.

No such thing in baseball. Pillar might hit a homer in a 1-0 shutout, haha.

Why do you hate the Angels so much?

For anyone unwilling to click the link: Blue Jays great Kelly Gruber arrested for drunk driving Cops say that the 56-year-old two-time All-Star was pulled over at 2:20 a.m. by Austin police after officers noticed that Gruber’s signal indicator had been on for a while. The Texas native later was spotted driving 132 km/h — nearly 30 km/h over the speed limit. Gruber admitted he had been drinking before getting behind the wheel, according to an affidavit. A member of the 1992 World Series champion Jays, Gruber refused a breathalyzer test, field sobriety test and having his blood drawn. He was booked into the Travis County Jail and released on $3,000 bail.

Just wish we had a roster to enable using him more at 1B/DH instead of the outfield!

It's only 3 starts, he should be fine. IMO he's a solid middle rotation arm. Their overall rotation isn't good enough to let them compete though.

Feel bad for Pompey, he's finally back from injury and on a good run, but is buried by the outfield depth we currently have. He could continue to hit all year and potentially still not even get a September call up with Alford and Smith Jr also on the 40 man with him, and the multiple outfielders currently on the 25 man.

Yeah I didn't include Judge in the conversation for 2nd best simply because he's only in his 2nd full year. But in total WAR since his debut, he's actually ranked 1st. There's lot of other potential 7 / 8 WAR players this year - Altuve, Ohtani(?), Betts, Machado (at SS), Jose Ramirez, et al. So many exciting players in MLB right now!

IMO Harper is the second best player, but that’s only an opinion. Plenty of evidence and arguments for JD/Bryant/Kershaw.

Of course it’s debatable - Harper, Bryant, Kershaw are all candidates.

Maybe to play 1B for us. Could throw in Smoak or Pearce otherwise doubt the Brewers would be interested.

Wright is owed less than Tulo (this year both = $20m, then Wright’s $15m / $12m against Tulo’s $34m + $4m buyout) and will probably never play again. Tulo might play in 150 games in the next 3 seasons if he’s lucky - their values are a lot closer than you think.

Tulo also has $15m with a $4m buyout for 2021, and Miggy has vesting options for $30m for both 2024 and 2025 (if he got top ten in MVP, haha). That’s a lot of money!

Yeah exactly. IMO worth keeping him for his experience, the chance of value (especially in a playoff run) and the negligible return we'd get.

Can't see our front office trading for Cabrera. The closest trade value to Tulo right now is probably David Wright - that's how far Tulo's value has dropped.

If you or anyone else in the real world put in 80% at work because you're having a tough time in your personal life, it's unlikely anyone would take much notice if it's recognised at all. A professional sportsman being less than 100% for whatever reason is going to be noticed and effect their prospects in a big way. Comparing consequences for sportsmen to real world jobs is stupid and irrelevant. The guy is a young man who has been facing losing his mother for over a year. Yes everyone reacts differently (some will use work as an escape for example), but saying "suck it up" or dismissing him as not mentally tough enough for professional sport is both naive and erroneous.

The promising Tyler Skaggs went 7 innings in a 2-0 win over the Astros yesterday and Ohtani pitches tonight. Those 2 and Richards need to hold the rotation together until help comes from either injury returns or a trade.

I agree, but the main reasons are it saves money for the MLB owners, the vast majority of MILB players will never succeed in the majors, MILB players aren’t part of the players union, MLB teams don’t own MILB teams. Life as a minor leaguer is not fun. I bet some front office people believe this helps to build character too.

I was watching it, he fouled off about 15 in a row.

Ohtani hitting cleanup today vs the Giants.

The performance of Hernandez and Gurriel make today a good day even if we don't get the win.