The Angels announced several roster moves Thursday: They selected the contracts of outfielder Jon Jay and catcher Jack Kruger, placed backstop Max Stassi (concussion) and right-hander Chris Rodriguez (shoulder inflammation) on the 10-day injured list, and reinstated righty Felix Pena from the IL.
Jay spent time in the majors with the Angels earlier this season, but they designated him for assignment on April 16 after he went 1-for-8 at the plate. He’ll rejoin an Angels outfield going through some upheaval at the moment, as Justin Upton is battling knee problems and Jared Walsh is heading to first base in the wake of the team’s decision on Thursday to designate Albert Pujols.
Kruger, 26, could make his major league debut with Stassi out for at least the next week. The Los Angeles native was a 20th-rounder in 2016 who hasn’t played above Double-A ball yet. He owns a .265/.326/.357 line with 15 home runs in 1,392 minor league plate appearances.
Rodriguez has held his own out of the Angels’ bullpen this year, having thrown 15 2/3 innings of 2.30 ERA ball with 17 strikeouts against eight walks, but manager Joe Maddon said his injury isn’t serious (via Jeff Fletcher of the Orange County Register). They’ll replace him with Pena, a regular in their pitching staff from 2018-20. Pena amassed 215 2/3 frames of 4.34 ERA ball during that span, though he hasn’t contributed this year after straining a hamstring during the spring.
Rodriguez just can’t stay healthy. Such a shame.
Rodriguez is a big big loss, but it explains why he only pitched one inning last night.
After Albert Pujols clears waivers—- Do you see a trade in the near future for Pujols??
I see the Angels acquiring a Lefthanded batting infield utility man. Although he’s only hitting a little above .200 in a secondary role— he has 5 homeruns and 10 RBI’s already. He has played 3 of the infield positions already this season.
Matt Carpenter hasn’t been the Matt Carpenter All-Star player for a while. Albert Pujols is no where close to being the Albert Pujols when he was with the Cardinals.
However—- it’s not a wild guess that Pujols would like to retire wearing the birds on the bat uniform.
I see Matt Carpenter coming to the Angles and the Cardinals absorbing all of his salary for the remainder of this season. I see Pujols going to the Cardinals as a back up 3rd baseman or 1st baseman—— on a player/Coach contract. (Possibly the coaching position would be the new hitting coach).
The Angels wool absorb all of Pujols salary where ever he goes. If he goes.
Albert poojols
Well my tigers aren’t going anywhere this year , maybe they sign him to DH
Waste of a roster spot.
They already have been be future HOF’r that can’t hit anymore.
First two innings of Rays-Angels:
Outs: 12
Strikeouts: 11
There has also been one walk and one single.
I believe strikeouts are going to increase even more as the season progresses. Pitchers will be throwing an even crazier amount of insane pitches with movement as they get used to the new seams on the current baseballs. It’s so like Manfred/MLB to worsen a problem as they’re trying to correct it.
i dont think so. it’s clear pitchers are ahead of hitters with the ball right now. batters have more room to adjust to how the ball flies vs how pitchers with how it handles (which likely changed less)
Maybe.. The weather will warm, which generally increases offense, and the hitters will begin to catch up more, but I think there’s some funky enough about this baseball that pitchers will begin to manipulate it even more. We shall see.
I agree with you 100%! The spin rates and movements these pitchers are getting is out of control.
lorddgg: Entering today, MLB is on pace for 6,591 more strikeouts than hits. We are also on pace for the lowest cumulative batting average in MLB history. Shutouts and HBPs are trending at an all-time high, triples at an all-time low, double-plays at an all-timer low simply because not enough balls are being hit into play. Home runs, doubles, and total bases are way down.
MLB needs to do something because these trends will not reverse themselves. As it is, this is the most unwatchable season anyone could imagine, despite some truly elite young talent, In theory, the game should be wildly entertaining. In reality, it couldn’t be less so.
Is it time to push the mound back? After the 1968 horror show, they lowered the mound, which made the game more watchable. Modifying the baseball won’t solve anything.
I’d be fine if they pushed the mound back if this continues. Of course, we won’t really know what will happen when they do that…until they do it! Run scoring isn’t as low as it was in 1968, but in some ways it’s worse in that the way runs are scored are, well, boring.
It’s worse now because the athletes are better and can hit the ball farther. Back then, every team had 2-3 automatic outs plus the pitcher. Now, every guy can take you deep, though they also whiff a ton. So, they are allowing the superior athleticism of modern players to be wasted. This should be a boom time for MLB. Instead, they have a boring product.
Pushing the mound back would eliminate a lot of problems, such as the plethora of eight or nine-pitch at-bats that end in a strikeout. While it’s true that pushing the mound back would boost the offense, it would also shorten games because pitch counts would go down. This would save wear and tear on pitchers, which could lead to fewer injuries. It might also lead to less emphasis on “missing bats” (I hate that term). because it would change the pitching strategy. Ideally, pitching is about trying to disrupt a batter’s balance by changing speed and location. Now, it is all about strikeouts, with hitters doing their best to foul off pitches until they find one they can drive. The pitchers, meanwhile, throw as hard as they can with little regard for finesse. No surprise these guys are dropping like flies. Three-up/three-down innings should not typically take 18-plus pitches.
Moving the mound back would put those would-be foul balls in play. Shorter games with a more marketable product that emphasizes athleticism and real strategy. An opportunity to market the sport and its young stars internationally the way the NBA did. Guys like Tatis, Soto, and Acuna play with a flair that young people would love. So why not create a game that showcases the full extent of their talent. Pitchers would adjust, especially the really good ones. Moving the mound back would also eliminate much of the excessive shifting because batters would stand a better chance of using the whole field to hit. Batting averages would go up, especially for lefty hitters. And let’s not kid ourselves; batting average matters because it deals with balls being put into play as opposed to working out a 10-pitch walk.
Btw, it was creepy how MLB tried to manipulate home runs to take our mind off the strikeouts. It made the game worse, not better. They must think we fans are really stupid.
Creepy indeed ….Also creepy how they looked the other way on Steroids till they could pin the blame on Bonds and fall back into the shadows; yet this sh%t is never really discussed anywhere, we like to pick certain players/teams to unleash our frustration on when really its the Guy behind the wheel driving the boat
Baseball will fail if they don’t find their Adam Silver, somebody whoes going to put the sport in-front of all the shakedowns and ongoing allegiances/backstabbing’s….ofc it will go to court (because thats how baseball do when threatened ) but hopefully they get slammed down there as well
I heard a different point of view concerning the increase in strikeouts. It focused on the idea that batters have become susceptible to the high fastball now, because they had altered their swings into an upward motion to achieve the launch angle they so desire, and can no longer catch up to that particular pitch.
And now Ohtani has done it again. A long blast out to the center field seats, less than 24 hours throwing 5 innings, 1 hit and 8 K’s.
And 6 walks in a game the Angels lost.
None of those walks scored. No what your talking about. You don’t like the apparent second best player in mlb, just say so.
Know. Not no.
Have multiple people close to me saying Pujols will clear waivers making him a FA and the Royals will be signing him. He’ll make the league minimum and will get the majority of the PA at DH for the Royals.
I’d put him on 1B for the Brewers. Can’t do much worse than what we’ve run out there so far! League minimum and see what he does against the old NL central! Was a Crew killer back in the day…
Sign Puig
No one wants the headache that is Puig. He is bad news on a number of levels.
He’s having a grand old time in the Mexican league right now anyway lol
If it is true, I am disappointed that the Angel Front Office benched Albert on Wednesday. That is the manager’s responsibility to make the lineup not the front office nerds.
Old school is not necessarily better. In my opinion, one of the positive aspects of the modern game is the general manager and field manager working together to achieve a common goal. If anything, the FO should have insisted on benching Pujols sooner. This is an early indication that Minasian is all about winning and making the proper baseball move. Something for Angels fans to cling to as the team looks to carve out their post-Pujols identity. Who knows? Maybe it will start a trend of teams biting the bullet on high-salaried players who are no longer productive. There are a few of those guys out there.
Maybe Pujols can pitch relief.
At this point, its worth a try.
Hard to believe how much flack I took when I pointed out that Perry was making a huge mistake by not addressing this bullpen and hope and pray was not much of a strategy.
He wasn’t going to turn them into a contender in one off-season. It’s difficult enough trying to stabilize the rotation. Tonight’s bullpen performance is hideous, though.
Angels relievers through eight innings:
OUTS: 4
RUNS: 8
They are a contender with a good bullpen and he did next to nothing addressing the bullpen
The make the playoffs last year if they had a bullpen. A few times over the last dozen years they make the playoffs if they have a pen, but they continue to ignore the pen.
I disagre, the Angels are more than just a bullpen away from contending. They are A pitching staff away from contending. It just seems the Angels can’t catch a break. They find a gem with a starter(Bundy)and the starter that is expected to be solid (Quintana) falls flat on his face. Which puts tremendous pressure on a already suspect bullpen. The Angrls will need more than 5 innings from guys other than Bundy and Othani to have any chance at the post season.
No problem disagreeing. The Angels pen has already blown four or five games. Right there that puts them in contention. And last year if they don’t blow all those games early in the season, they make they make the playoffs. There is not much of a debate there.
Great link on fangraphs today about the Angel pitching. It’s better than you think. The defense has been horrible. Check it out.
Claudio has their lowest FIP of any RP thats pitched over 2 inns
3nd lowest era ( Best currently with Rodriguez/Watson Dl’ed)
3rd highest ERA + (108) behind those same 2 Dl’ed guys
The pen was totally a massive problem and still is but yall should be happy to have Claduio and is 108 ERA+ today
I don’t give a FIP about FIP. Claudio isn’t very good. He’s been mediocre in this small sample size. Amazingly LH are hitting him better than and RH. The best you can say about him is he’s not the problem. However he’s not a solution either.
I’m not happy with a guy who has been poor in prevented inherited runners from scoring. And since he almost always come in with outs already on the table, he should be well below league average instead of well above league average.
My problem with the Claudio signing was always about doing more. If he’s your 13th pitcher, that’s fine. He was not the pitcher they should have signed in December. He’s the last guy you sign to fill out your staff.
Sometimes doing more (Iglesias) is less
Bullpens hardly run a strong correlation between dollars and production
Claudio’s been a fine ink so far, the rest well…..
I disagree about Iglesias. When he comes in the game in the last inning, as closers do, he’s been perfect.
You add pieces to get to him and the Angels can’t get to him. The Angels didn’t do that. What good is a closer if you can’t get to him?
The one game he blew should have been over but Rojas did three things wrong on a ground ball and instead of out number three, the Angels lost the game.
Rojas can’t play 3rd.
Hey, how ‘bout that Jack Kruger promotion? Exciting news there, huh?
Call up Jo Adell lol
Around Memorial Day, if the reports are good, I expect them to call up Adell.
Not sure why they decided to cut Pujols. The bench is anemic.
He didn’t want to be a bench player. He want 500 ABs.
Do they really think Jay will do better this time around than what they’d get from keeping Pujols?
Yankees sign Pujols for the league minimum, Angels still paying this years contract. Put Pujols in the lineup protected by Judge and Stanton and watch him have a “resurgence”