OT: LA Angels of Anaheim Baseball Discussion (continued again)

[Anaheim4ever]

LOL move the team to Irvine, its where Will Ferrell is from ! & World of Warcraft is located there too lol
Perhaps famous Angel's fan Will Ferrell can replace Gubicza & we get some funnier lines in the PBP broadcast on TV.

 

[mightyquack]

Not really a surprise, Moreno has been eyeing up Tustin for a while. And while he did change the name I'm not sure I ever got the sense he wanted to move to LA (or at least move there and then have to spend a ton of money to build a new ballpark in LA) - and given it's pretty much impossible for teams to share a ballpark I'd be shocked if they actually move to LA.

The only reason the Chargers moved to LA (other than Spanos being a ) is they get to play in a state of the art stadium having to pay next to nothing long-term to actually go there.

 

[GreatBear]

The least expensive solution for everyone is to somehow renovate the current stadium. Otherwise it is probably 500 million plus to build a new stadium and the infrastructure for the stadium. I don't know of any city in Orange County that is going to cough up that sort of money. Anaheim certainly is not going to do so, and I doubt that Tustin has the money to do that. Normally I would say that Irvine would not pay that type of money either, but since the Irvine City Council has never met a development project that they didn't like, maybe they would.

Most likely if Arte wants a new stadium he is going to have to move out of Orange County. Even then, any new stadium is not going to be ready until 2021. I suppose that the Angels could do a Raider type negotiation and negotiate a two year lease while a new stadium is being built elsewhere, but if I were Anaheim I would squeeze the Angels until they screamed, and then some.

 

[McDonald19]

The least expensive solution for everyone is to somehow renovate the current stadium. Otherwise it is probably 500 million plus to build a new stadium and the infrastructure for the stadium. I don't know of any city in Orange County that is going to cough up that sort of money. Anaheim certainly is not going to do so, and I doubt that Tustin has the money to do that. Normally I would say that Irvine would not pay that type of money either, but since the Irvine City Council has never met a development project that they didn't like, maybe they would.

750 mil is what I read, and no public money will be available. Moreno isn't going to spend that kind of money. I think the opt out is a business formality and gets the ball rolling on the next wave of negotiations with Anaheim.

 

[MMC]

Go to hell Arte.

 

[Fighter]

Brad Ausmus?!

 

[mightyquack]

Ausmus isn't someone I would have wanted, but I'll wait and see what happens - Eppler has made far more good moves then bad moves since taking over.

 

[MMC]

Brad Ausmus sucks

 

[duxfan1101]

Brad Ausmus sucks

That's what everyone said about AJ Hinch before he went to Houston

 

[GreatBear]

The return of Mike Scioscia? He wasn't gone long and we get a younger version of him.

 

[jiggsawpuzzle35]

Looks like Arte wants to build a new 35,000 ballpark on the side of The Grove in exchange for the land the Stadium sits. This according to someone who deals with Anaheim Politics and Disney.

 

[Bender66]

This.

While everyone was slobbering over the Friday night/Saturday morning marathon, and glorifying all the pitching performances, all I could think of was the lack of basic offense. If the emphasis throughout the game is the gravitational pull towards Three True Outcome baseball, well, this was the poster child of why our future sucks eggs.

MondoLinks: Season over. We are all tied again.

 

[AngelDuck]

Three true outcome baseball is the current flavor but I have to imagine there will be a team soon that becomes successful by getting a bunch of guys that you can't put the shift on. And then that will become the trend. These things are cyclical IMO.

 

[Bender66]

Three true outcome baseball is the current flavor but I have to imagine there will be a team soon that becomes successful by getting a bunch of guys that you can't put the shift on. And then that will become the trend. These things are cyclical IMO.

True. It's a never ending battle of strategy adjustments. We're seeing that in NHL now too with the whole "play fast" thing, after everyone was all "CHI/LAK puck possession" craze.

I guess part of it is me getting old and falling victim to 'member berries ... but this is part of the reason I do not like the whole corsi adoption by a lot of people around hockey (i know you and I have had arguments on the whole corsi thing in the past). Part of it is because I don't want happened to baseball, happen to hockey.

I haven't watched baseball very much since about ~ 2005, even though I grew up watching baseball, and it was the first sport I loved/followed as a kid. (I still load up Tony LaRussa baseball 2 on Dosbox every 6 months or so, that should tell you where the source of my baseball fandom lies, so I'm not like any sort of "anti-stats" or "anit-sabermetrics" guy)

The only reason I started watching baseball again this year was because of the excitement around Shohei. After watching most of the NLCS and ALCS, and all of the world series - I just hate the current trend in baseball. They've somehow made a sport that is a little "slow" to watch to begin with, and made it even more dreadful. Watching Roberts throw away a world series win away in a pivotal part of the game simply because THE SPREADSHEET said it was the right move is just mind boggling to me.

I'm not a big Sciocia fan (i mean, how much of a dick do you have to be to not dress a guy on his bobble head night), but you gotta give the guy credit as a guy who at least "used to" be great at following hunches and going with his ever expanding gut in key moments. You look back at that 2002 run, and I don't think that happens in today's baseball. Guys like Eckstein and Kennedy, and Spiezio probably wouldn't sniff a MLB roster in today's game.

 

[AngelDuck]

True. It's a never ending battle of strategy adjustments. We're seeing that in NHL now too with the whole "play fast" thing, after everyone was all "CHI/LAK puck possession" craze.

I guess part of it is me getting old and falling victim to 'member berries ... but this is part of the reason I do not like the whole corsi adoption by a lot of people around hockey (i know you and I have had arguments on the whole corsi thing in the past). Part of it is because I don't want happened to baseball, happen to hockey.

I haven't watched baseball very much since about ~ 2005, even though I grew up watching baseball, and it was the first sport I loved/followed as a kid. (I still load up Tony LaRussa baseball 2 on Dosbox every 6 months or so, that should tell you where the source of my baseball fandom lies, so I'm not like any sort of "anti-stats" or "anit-sabermetrics" guy)

The only reason I started watching baseball again this year was because of the excitement around Shohei. After watching most of the NLCS and ALCS, and all of the world series - I just hate the current trend in baseball. They've somehow made a sport that is a little "slow" to watch to begin with, and made it even more dreadful. Watching Roberts throw away a world series win away in a pivotal part of the game simply because THE SPREADSHEET said it was the right move is just mind boggling to me.

I'm not a big Sciocia fan (i mean, how much of a dick do you have to be to not dress a guy on his bobble head night), but you gotta give the guy credit as a guy who at least "used to" be great at following hunches and going with his ever expanding gut in key moments. You look back at that 2002 run, and I don't think that happens in today's baseball. Guys like Eckstein and Kennedy, and Spiezio probably wouldn't sniff a MLB roster in today's game.

Good post. The amazing thing is the NHL went through a 5 year period where the best Corsi teams were winning it all basically every year. Now the game is going more towards speed creating quality chances and quantity of shots/puck control probably isn't as important. Who knows, maybe the next trend will be to put 4 forwards on the ice at once with one dman lol. It really is incredible for me to watch things
change even year to year

The reason Mike Scioscia isn't a good manager in today's game is because of his inability to adapt and take in new information that would help explain to him the new trends. It's not the fact that the Angels aren't using the data, it's the fact that other teams are that has really cost them in previous seasons. The advantage to using the data is huge. Sosh is a smart baseball mind. He knows the game better than I could ever hope to imagine. But he stopped learning the new nuances. And then younger guys like Alex Cora were willing to learn and apply them. Cora is a guy who goes with his gut but his gut is based on the data he likes I have heard.

I have heard that Dave Roberts is essentially just a puppet being controlled by the computers of the Dodgers' front office. I like the Red Sox approach much better than that because baseball will always have that human element that can't be calculated.

 

[Deuce22]

Sports are notorious for copying those they perceive as successful. I think a lot of it is rooted in fear, as if being seen as "behind the curve" or not "progressive" is somehow horrible. Football and basketball are going through the same shifts as well. It's not as simple as some want to make it. Old school vs. analytics.

Analytics exists in an attempt to gain an advantage on your opponents. The approaches teams take can be debated, but there is nothing inherently dumb about trying to do something different to improve. What cannot work is when the GM and coach are in different camps. This was the case with the Angels. Scoiscia was so entrenched that he thought he was immune to being to told what to do by the front office. He was right for a long time, until IMO he wasn't really on board with the Ohtani thing.

I totally agree with Angel Duck. These things cycle, maybe just not as quickly as we'd like them to. What isn't going to fly anymore is the idea that a coach or manager can ignore the math and just "go with his gut." Because guys from the Ivy League, MIT, etc. are now running sports franchises.

 

[McDonald19]

Looks like Arte wants to build a new 35,000 ballpark on the side of The Grove in exchange for the land the Stadium sits. This according to someone who deals with Anaheim Politics and Disney.

He's going to spend $750 million of his own money?

 

[ducks8]

He's going to spend $750 million of his own money?

He's willing to as long as the city of Anaheim gives up a piece of the parking profits

 

[Fighter]

Rest in Peace Luis, vaja con Dios...

 

[MMC]

Every time I feel upset with the Ducks and their lack of moves, I always remember they could be ran by dipshits Billy Eppler and Arte Moreno and feel instantly better.

 

[Static]

Every time I feel upset with the Ducks and their lack of moves, I always remember they could be ran by dip****s Billy Eppler and Arte Moreno and feel instantly better.

What are you talking about, eppler is an excellent GM.

 

[mightyquack]

What are you talking about, eppler is an excellent GM.

I'm guessing he's tried of getting massive negative downvotes on r/angelsbaseball for saying this over and over so is posting it here instead

 

[MMC]

What are you talking about, eppler is an excellent GM.

Lol. It amazes me how many people are Eppler fanboys. He has absolutely no f***ing clue how to run a baseball team or build a winner. Trout is going to leave in two years because this dumbass thinks building his prospect pool is more important than trying to win in his prime years. Why Angels fans revere him is beyond me.

I'm guessing he's tried of getting massive negative downvotes on r/angelsbaseball for saying this over and over so is posting it here instead

You aren’t wrong.

 

[mightyquack]

What are you talking about, eppler is an excellent GM.

Also I agree with you. I don't think Eppler is doing too bad a job at all given the mess Dipoto left him with - we've gone from the worst prospect pool in baseball to a pretty good one and he's brought plenty of talent onto the team in the shape of Upton, Cozart, Ohtani, Simmons etc - that's some great players to surround with unfortunately it's hard to be competitive if most of your starting pitching ends up on the shelf for long periods of time. Things like the Pujols contract are always going to restrict how much Eppler can do right now (especially as you want to leave some budget room for a possible Trout extension down the line), but always going for huge moves is kind of the reason why Anaheim got into a bad position in the first place.

If we can get 1 or 2 good starters and some bullpen help I think the team is looking pretty good - though I'm not overly optimistic on the starting pitching acquisition given the ridiculous contracts being given out so far, Richard's getting a sizeable deal despite not being able to pitch in 2019 (I think) and has pitched 28 games in the last 3 MLB seasons...that's just crazy. It's a shame Ohtani is hurt, his injury has really affected the rotation depth going into this season.

 

[ADHB]

Lol. It amazes me how many people are Eppler fanboys. He has absolutely no ****ing clue how to run a baseball team or build a winner. Trout is going to leave in two years because this dumbass thinks building his prospect pool is more important than trying to win in his prime years. Why Angels fans revere him is beyond me.

You aren’t wrong.

Let’s see. Trout’s extension would cover the years 2021 and onward. You’re right. Completely stupid that the team would want to ensure that they’re competitive during that period. Much better to completely blow any chance of that and go all out for the second WC the next 2 years.

Imagine the reaction this would get on an actual baseball forum.