Martinez – as February turned into March, it was pretty evident what the strategy would be.Īnd to be honest, a rebuild is about as sound a strategy as is available to the Angels. So when Moreno demurred this past winter after given the last chance to re-sign Ohtani, and then passed on all five Scott Boras-represented free agents – Blake Snell, Cody Bellinger, Jordan Montgomery, Matt Chapman and J.D. The strategy failed when the Angels lost seven straight to begin August and 11 of 14 to fall 13½ games out of first place and eight games out of a wild-card spot, and Minasian wound up waiving Lucas Giolito, Dominic Leone, Matt Moore, Reynaldo López and Hunter Renfroe to get the team under the luxury tax threshold. ![]() ![]() The reasoning is that you just don’t do that in the continent’s second-largest media market, because fans won’t put up with it, and in most cases that’s true.Īs late as last August, general manager Perry Minasian made moves at the trade deadline in a last-ditch bid to stay in contention and convince Ohtani to re-sign. The Angels – and I would suspect that means Moreno – have resisted a full teardown throughout this non-playoff drought. There are possibilities in Anaheim, albeit distant ones, and maybe there should be a reality check here as well. Who knows? They may wind up being the Sacramento A’s permanently.) (For the record, This Space remains convinced that the plan for a Vegas ballpark is going to fall through. It is worse, way worse, in Oakland, where A’s fans in the East Bay are about to lose their team and owner John Fisher remains impervious to public opinion, unswayed by not only the idea that Oakland fans hate him but those in the A’s supposed future home of Las Vegas haven’t rolled out a welcome mat, either. One passenger mistakenly started to get out and his buddy stopped him, saying something along the lines of, “We don’t want to watch the game with him, anyway.” As the stadium elevator headed upstairs Sunday morning, it stopped on the second floor, where Moreno’s box is located. It has not yet reached the point where Angels fans wear “SELL” T-shirts to the ballpark like in Oakland, and I’d be curious how the stadium ushers would handle it if they did.īut Moreno’s unpopularity hasn’t lessened. The fans who fill my inbox were prepared to party two seasons ago when Arte Moreno decided to explore selling the team, and most of them went into a funk that winter when Moreno pulled the team off the market. This was a 12-2 disaster, with Chase Silseth giving up solo home runs to David Hamilton, Rafael Devers and Tyler O’Neill in the third, José Suarez surrendering a three-run shot to Reese McGuire in the sixth (en route to a five-RBI day) and the Red Sox piling on in the ninth with four runs against Guillermo Zuñiga. They split the first two games of their home-opening series against Boston, but on Sunday hope wasn’t nearly enough. The Orioles are really good, and the Marlins really aren’t – they were 0-9 before winning Sunday – so the three games in Miami turned out to be a get-right series for the Angels. There was plenty of reason for hope when the Angels came home Friday off a 4-2 trip after being hammered twice by Baltimore in Games 1 and 2. Possibly even Jo Adell, too, though the clock seems to be ticking on the outfielder who was once the franchise’s brightest prospect. ![]() Shohei Ohtani is now a Dodger, Mike Trout is entering the back nine of his career, and the odds are that if there is to be a story of triumph written about this franchise it will be written in future years rather than the coming months, maybe by names like Nolan Scuanuel, Logan O’Hoppe, Mickey Moniak and Zach Neto. But this season the motivation is slightly different. It’s the only thing that keeps people coming back to the ballpark in some cities, the idea that better times are in the future – whether that be the near future or a few (or more) years down the road.Īs usual, it’s much of the reason that Angel fans continue to come to the ballpark. ANAHEIM - At its heart, baseball runs on hope.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |