Baseball Thread

[Mordecai "3 Finger" Brown]

In addition to cutting the number of rounds in the MLB draft, the number of affiliated minor league clubs has been cut. So there's fewer places for nepo babies to ply their craft in affiliated minor league ball.

Not only did some of the rungs of the minor league ladder get cut, but so did the hard cap of how many minor leaguers each org is allowed to have within their system.

So every time your team signs a draft pick, or signs a rando from Indy ball or signs some shitbag minor league veteran to plug a hole in a roster somewhere, it often means a corresponding player has to be released.

 

[Local Fed]

The recent Josh Jung talk compelled me to took at his draft year and look who else was taken. Specifically I wanted to see who the Angels took. I then decided to look at who the Angels have drafted and developed since 2009 (the year they lucked their way into Mike Trout and also took Randal Grichuk and Patrick Corbin.)

The following is a list of the top players (by WAR) who were drafted and signed by the Angels from the 2010 draft to the present in the format of "WAR as of posting - draft year - round" with red names signifying that they never stepped foot on a Major League field as a member of the Angels, and green names indicating that they're still members of the Angels.

Mike Clevinger (17.2 - 2011 - 4)
Kole Calhoun (14.7 - 2010 - 8 )
C.J. Cron (12.5 - 2011 - 1)
Zach Neto (10.6 - 2022 - 1)
David Fletcher (10.3 - 2015 - 6)
Taylor Ward (9.5 - 2015 - 1)
Brandon Marsh (8.8 - 2016 - 2)
Kyle Bradish (6 - 2017 - 4)
Griffin Canning (5.5 - 2017 - 2)
Reid Detmers (4.1 - 2020) - 1)

Of the 18 players they've selected in the first round from 2010 onward, they have combined for only a single All-Star appearance. This was achieved by Cron as a member of the Rockies in 2022, but he was pretty clearly Colorado's "You have to have someone here" representative. No other awards have been achieved by those players, and the only only notable achievement was a no-hitter by Detmers also in 2022.

 

[Mordecai "3 Finger" Brown]

Of the 18 players they've selected in the first round from 2010 onward, they have combined for only a single All-Star appearance.

That Angels draft history really shows they haven't been able to draft pitching over the last 15 years.

Even just being able to draft some league average SP & middle relief/setup guys every few years really helps to raise the floor of your roster. And help to have a cheap supporting cast for your stars & your expensive mistakes.

 

[Local Fed]

That Angels draft history really shows they haven't been able to draft pitching over the last 15 years.

I agree, but it's more than that. It's that they really haven't been able to draft much of anything to build around in addition to Trout (and Ohtani when they had him.) If you look at their first round picks during that timespan they really haven't drafted a true building block type of guy with the exception of Neto who I believe is on his to being one of those players. It's not even as though they've consistently been drafting at the back of the first round either due to so much winning; I didn't include it, but their average first found pick was at exactly #15 if you exclude the 2024 and 2025 drafts from the equation which I did since it's obviously unfair to expect them to be having an inpact in the Majors yet.

Neto's looking really good as I said, and Clevinger was legitimately a top starter for about a four year run (none of it coming with the Angels as noted,) but after that there's just some lower end starting outfielders and #5 starters barring what Bradish (again, not even with the Angels) was looking like before his injury.

If you use WAR again to look at their classes careers in total, here are some real depressing numbers:

Spoiler

2010 WAR: 14.9 (14.7 coming from Calhoun)
2012 WAR: -2.4 (top player was 8th round reliever Austin Adams with 1.2)
2013 WAR: 1.1 (top player was 2nd round reliever Keynan Middleton with 2.2)
2014 WAR: 3.7 (top player was 15th overall pick Sean Newcomb with 3.1)
2017 WAR: 5.8 (5.5 from Canning)
2018 WAR: 7.5 (6 coming from Bradish, who once again never played for them)
2019 WAR: 0.7 (0.6 is from current starter 3rd round starter Jack Kochanowicz)

I omitted a few years there, but it's not like there's much to hide: just the years where they took a couple of those players from the earlier post in the same draft which makes it look "not too bad" but not much more.

To put some of those in more context for how bad they're turned out, 2020's class has a 4.1 combined WAR (all from Reid Detmers) and it was only a four round draft because of it being the main Covid affected year.

 

[Preferred Penne]

That Angels draft history really shows they haven't been able to draft pitching over the last 15 years.

Even just being able to draft some league average SP & middle relief/setup guys every few years really helps to raise the floor of your roster. And help to have a cheap supporting cast for your stars & your expensive mistakes.

Then in 2021 they said "We'll show you!" and literally drafted nothing but pitchers.

 

[Mordecai "3 Finger" Brown]

Then in 2021 they said "We'll show you!" and literally drafted nothing but pitchers.

I'm pretty sure Alex Anthopoulos did that a few times in Toronto between 2010 & 2015.

Some philosophy that it was more valuable developing pitching but you could always trade for hitters.

It didn't really work out that well. He started drafting lots of HS pitchers after a lost decade in the aughts where JP Ricciardi promised cheap Rogers management that he could Moneyball a winner on a budget by drafting nothing but accomplished & inexpensive polished senior college bats.

But HS pitchers will break your heart. Probably the two best of the crop never even pitched for Toronto in Noah Syndergaard & Joe Musgrove. The best one that made the team was Aaron Sanchez, who was meh.

Then Anthopoulos got impatient just like Ricciardi had before and lobbied ownership to go out & acquire piles of bad contracts like Mark Buerhle, Jose Reyes & Troy Tulowitzki.

2015 & 2016 (Anthopoulos gone by then, pushed out by Mark Shapiro) were fun, but it was mostly getting lucky with found money in acquiring Jose Bautista & Edwin Encarnacion pre-breakout while robbing Oakland of Josh Donaldson. Not the waves of HS pitchers that never came.

 

[Fleetwood]

Noah Syndergaard

He's attempting a comeback this year let's see how it's going:

He was released by the white sox on Sunday after giving up 5 HR in 2 AAA games. https://heavy.com/sports/mlb/new-york-mets/noah-syndergaard-should-hang-up/
I guess he'll be able to pitch in that Mets alumni game after all

Then Anthopoulos got impatient just like Ricciardi had before and lobbied ownership to go out & acquire piles of bad contracts like Mark Buerhle, Jose Reyes & Troy Tulowitzki.

I remember seeing these Jays with Reyes get beat by the Yanks with Ichiro in 2013 (final Mariano year and Jeter barely played that year after breaking his ankle in last postseason)

 

[Mordecai "3 Finger" Brown]

I remember seeing these Jays with Reyes get beat by the Yanks with Ichiro in 2013 (final Mariano year and Jeter barely played that year after breaking his ankle in last postseason)

It was an awful strategy. The Marlins for some reason went out & signed Mark Buerhle & Jose Reyes to big FA deals. Then immediately had buyer's remorse the next offseason remembering they were the Marlins & dealt Buerhle/Reyes/Josh Johnson to the Jays.

The Jays didn't really give up much in the trade, but it's still an awful idea to trade assets while also picking up the full load of free agent contracts that are already underwater.

The trade got even worse because I'm sure part of the idea was to try to convince a walk year Josh Johnson to sign an extension. But he was damaged goods, pitched terribly and amazingly never pitched in the league again (I believe he signed a pillow deal with San Diego but never made it back).

 

[Armor of God]

As the darkies say, the Dodgers "stay losing".

Ohtani fucking goes out there and strikes out 8 hitters in 4 innings and gives up a run which really should have been an easy out on a pop fly...but of course Rojas the spic nigger had to fuck that shit up.

Regardless, he provides his own run support with a 2 run blast (his 39th of the season) and THEN in the very next innings, proceeds to strike out the side. This shit is just unfathomable.

Of course, on a day like this, the Dodgers just had to lose the game 5-3. Man, this shit is just pain.

 

[Fleetwood]

Regardless, he provides his own run support with a 2 run blast (his 39th of the season) and THEN in the very next innings, proceeds to strike out the side. This shit is just unfathomable.

Was his 1000th hit also

 

[A.P. Hill]

Jack Leiter being wild only some days and locked in other days is a lot better than last year, where he was wild everyday. Unfortunately, last night we got Bad Leiter.

Merrill Kelly, after being traded for and then yanked for going to third when he could have gotten an easy force at first, is again starting tonight, where he hopefully will not have a massive brain fart. No guarantees, though. It would be Peak Rangers to get within a game of the wild card and then choke in September.

 

[Trombonista]

 

[Fleetwood]

omg I hate this. Is someone gonna end up with a sexual harassment lawsuit or something for arguing calls now and make HISTORY

 

[Local Fed]

View attachment 7759017
omg I hate this. Is someone gonna end up with a sexual harassment lawsuit or something for arguing calls now and make HISTORY

It's going to be funny when some minority player gets kicked out for acting like an idiot and this woman gets branded as the "Karen" umpire, leading to some more retarded finger wagging PSAs for everyone to endure.

 

[A.P. Hill]

It's going to be funny when some minority player gets kicked out for acting like an idiot and this woman gets branded as the "Karen" umpire, leading to some more retarded finger wagging PSAs for everyone to endure.

It's gonna be Jazz Chisholm, isn't it?

 

[Fleetwood]

Are you all not excited for the historic first female blown call? MLB better not put her at home plate. I could see some manager calling her a dumb cunt or something and getting suspended for harmful sexist language. Then again she looks pretty manly besides the long hair so maybe nobody will even notice.

 

[A.P. Hill]

Are you all not excited for the historic first female blown call? MLB better not put her at home plate. I could see some manager calling her a dumb cunt or something and getting suspended for harmful sexist language. Then again she looks pretty manly besides the long hair so maybe nobody will even notice.

Her historic first blown call behind the plate will happen tomorrow, allegedly.

Apparently, she was an-all conference softball player and a top-tier NCAA softball ump before she transitioned over to umping the minors, so it's hard to argue that she doesn't know the rules...but female refs are bad for the same reason that female cops are bad. In a profession where you need to exert your authority under pressure while being calm and accurate, women are the last people you'd want doing that job. Umps are already overly sensitive, which gets worse if a woman ruled by emotion is doing that job.

 

[Looseleaf Paper]

Are you all not excited for the historic first female blown call? MLB better not put her at home plate. I could see some manager calling her a dumb cunt or something and getting suspended for harmful sexist language. Then again she looks pretty manly besides the long hair so maybe nobody will even notice.

The male umpires act like women already, I don't think we will notice a difference tbh.

 

[Leaf Wage Slave Jr]

Watching the Jays throw Hoffman in, it’s like they want to lose games. Guy couldn’t find the strike zone with a GPS.

Does he have something on Schneider? Is Schneider being paid to take a dive? Or are my Jays, like the rest of Leafistan, just fucking retarded?

My only consolation is that I’m not a Rockies fan or Yankees fan - the former because they fucking suck, the latter because I swear they go to complete shit whenever anything happens to Judge…

 

[Mordecai "3 Finger" Brown]

I stopped watching the Dodgers-Jays after LA went up 3-1. And after the Dodgers thumped the Jays Fri-Sat. Was still listening to the audio though.

The new & improved Toronto pen sure looks shaky. They have no long man, so when their starter gets their head beat in, they burn all their one-inning guys in games that are often already out of reach.

That's how you end up with your close to 5+ era closer throwing two innings with only 33% strikes & only Tommy Nance & Mason Fluharty left to face Ohtani & Betts Bottom 9 with the sacks juiced.

LA really deserved to get the sweep today with 13 walks. Their rotation & lineup are elite & scary.

Glad the Jays won, as they've been slumping hard (lost 8 of their last 10 games going into today against non-Rockies opponents. Namely Royals & Orioles).

In some ways though, would've been nice to get humiliated completely in LA to knock down some of the insufferable bandwagon Redditor types down a few pegs.