Los Angeles Angels manager Ron Washington knew he would have some tough decisions to make if he wanted to transform Mike Trout’s team into playoff contenders. Opening day is less than a week away and the Angels outfield is kind of crowded.
The Halos have five options to fill what is traditionally four spots. Mike Trout and Taylor Ward of course are already penciled in as starters, so there’s been some stiff competition for those third and fourth outfield spots between Mickey Moniak, Jo Adell and free agent signing Aaron Hicks.
Jo Adell, who we’ve been waiting to have that breakout season and get the call every day, is out of minor league options and the Angels are unlikely to trade him or let him hit waivers, so he will be playing. The 26-year-old started on Opening Day 2023.
Teams don’t usually carry five outfielders on their roster; however, Washington believes he can finesse the outfield rotation in his favor over the course of 162 games.
“It’s not gonna be hard because whatever lineup I put out, it’s gonna be the lineup,” Washington said. “So it’s not going to be hard. They’ll get some playing time, every single one of them. So how I’m going to do it, I really couldn’t tell you that right now. But they are going to get some playing time.
“Who’s the pitcher, who has good matchups, who fits well at that time against that pitcher, those types of things,” Washington said. “Who needs a break? And we’ll use the DH, because every one of those guys is gonna find themselves getting a little bit of DH time also.”
Adell has been on a roller coaster between the pros and minor leagues for several seasons now. Of not for his lack of options, he most likely would have been optioned to Triple- A to keep getting at-bats, while Moniak and Hicks shared a platoon role.
Hicks slashed .349/.446/.524 with a .970 OPS against left-handed pitching last season while Moniak slashed .294/.322/.544 with an .866 OPS against righties.
If Adell can gain some consistency with his bat-to-ball skills, while showing more than just flashes of the elite power he possesses, he can lock down a significant amount of time at DH and also spell Moniak or Hicks on any given day.
Aaron Hicks Wants Te Be Everyday Player Again
Hicks had a career resurgence once he left the Yankees and ended up in Baltimore, helping the Orioles capture their first AL East division title after nearly a decade-drought. He naturally wants to play every day again, as he’s been the best of the three competing outfielders in Spring Training.
“If you make yourself feel like you’re a bench player, you’re going to be a bench player,” Hicks said this week. “Obviously, I want to work my way into playing every single day. But, you know, whenever my name is called, I’ll be ready to go.”
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Washington has his work cut out with an Angels team who was 73-89 last season and that was with Mike Trout and Shohei Ohtani’s masterful pitching and hitting. Ohtani is gone and LA will try to piece together a competitive lineup. With renowned fielding specialist Washington at the helm, we know defense will be a strongpoint of this rebuilding club.
The Wichita (Kansas) Police Department on Tuesday said an arrest has been made nearly three weeks after a Jackie Robinson statue was stolen from a park and found “dismantled” days later, to the dismay of baseball fans across the country.
Some even criticized the local police for not moving fast enough to find the culprit.
Ricky Alderete, 45, is charged with felony theft (value over $25,000), aggravated criminal damage to property, identity theft and making false information.
The statue, which police said was valued at $75,000, was stolen from McAdams Park, the home of League 42, a youth baseball league for about 600 children that commissioned and erected the statue in 2021.
“The investigation has not revealed any evidence indicating that this was a hate-motivated crime,” Aaron Moses of the Wichita Police Department said. “We believe this theft was motivated by the financial gain of scrapping common metal.”
Bob Lutz, the executive director of the nonprofit League 42 Foundation, said “we’re feeling good that someone is being held responsible, and I do believe that all individuals involved will be apprehended.”
The statue was cut at its ankles, leaving only bronze replicas of Robinson’s cleats behind on an otherwise barren pedestal. Tony Workman, general manager of Art Castings of Colorado, which made the original work into the bronze statue, told ESPN that the Robinson statue was 95% copper.
Moses also said that police remain committed to identifying all individuals involved in the crime.
“We know from the surveillance video [released shortly after the statue was reported missing on Jan. 25] that there were at least three individuals there when statue was taken,” Moses said, “and we know it was taken somewhere where other individuals were present.”
On Jan. 28, police recovered a vehicle that it believed to be connected to the case at an apartment complex in Wichita.
Two days after that, fire crews found burned remnants of the statue while responding to a trash can fire at another park about 7 miles away.
Donations came in approaching $300,000, Lutz said. Though the artist has died, the original mold of the statue exists and will be used by Art Castings of Colorado to rebuild a new one.
In a coordinated effort among its clubs, MLB will pay for it after several teams and individuals throughout the sport had wanted to help.
Lutz said he’s expecting the new statue to be completed by the middle of the summer.
After a quarter century in the managerial game and several close calls, Houston Astros manager Dusty Baker finally won that elusive World Series. The MLBbro manager came close with the San Francisco Giants in 2002 and fell short with the Astros in 2021. The third time was a charm for Baker, who is among an exclusive group of skippers to have 2,000 managerial career wins. Baker has managed 3,884 regular-season games, 10th-most all-time.
Dusty won his first title as a Los Angeles Dodgers player back in 1981. With his 2022 title, Baker now has two titles spanning 41 years from 1981 to 2022. No individual in baseball history had ever had his title-winning ways reach across that many decades.
Dave Roberts’ Dodgers didn’t win another World Series, but the MLBbro manager had many accomplishments, from leading the Los Angeles Dodgers to a franchise-record 111 wins (becoming just the fifth team in AL/NL history to win that many games in one season) to moving up the postseason all-time wins list. Roberts is a steady skipper who has won no less than 91 games in six full seasons at the helm. The one season he did, was a COVID-shortened season in which he had a .717 winning percentage and won the whole ball of wax.
It won’t take long for MLBbro free agent Michael Brantley to sign with a team. At the seasoned age of 35, Brantley can still swing it with the best of them and his contact-hitting approach makes him a valuable bat for any contending team.
Brantley won a well-deserved World Series ring with the Houston Astros in his final season with the team, despite missing the playoffs after getting surgery to repair a torn labrum. Brantley was limited to 64 games. His batting average dipped to .288, his first sub-.300 batting average in four seasons.
Since he arrived in Houston in 2019, Brantley AKA “the Professional” has had a .306 batting average and made two All-Star games, while maintaining a positive influence on the locker room – even when he wasn’t able to take the field. His leadership was credited during Dusty Baker’s boys’ World Series run.
At this stage in his career Brantley won’t be playing 150 games in any team’s outfield, but he can still deliver with the wood. At least that’s what his stats say as the only MLBbro on the Houston Astros posted a 127 wRC+ in 277 plate appearances last season, with more walks (31) than strikeouts (30). He has put up a wRC+ of 120 or better in each of the last five years, with a .367 on-base percentage during that span.
His veteran presence and class will be missed in the Astros locker room, but there are a bevy of talented squads who have unpolished young talent that could use a professional role model such as Brantley to elevate them to the next level.
MLBbro webmaster extraordinaire Mookie Betts won the Rawlings National League Gold Glove Award in right field for the sixth time in his illustrious career. This is Betts’ second Gold Glove award in his three seasons with the Dodgers, becoming the fourth outfielder in franchise history to win multiple Gold Gloves, joining Willie Davis (3), Raul Mondesi (2) and Matt Kemp (2).
Mookie See, Mookie Do
After an injury-riddled 2021 broke Betts’ streak of consecutive Gold Glove Awards at five, the former MVP returned with an athletic vengeance in 2022. Betts committed just two errors over 1,154 1/3 innings in right field.
Per Baseball Savant, Betts led all NL right fielders with five Outs Above Average. Per FanGraphs, Betts also graded out as the best right fielder, leading the Majors with 15 Defensive Runs Saved.
This accomplishment is par for the course for a player of Mookie’s stature and he’s sure to have a bunch more before he’s done. Betts’ glove is so versatile that he could win a Gold Glove on the infield. He’s already displayed his prowess at second base in 2021, when he was nursing injuries.
Trent Grisham’s Glove Keeps His Butt..Er…Bat On The Field
Trent Grisham has already won his second Gold Glove in four MLB season. His first came in the COVID-shortened 2020 season. The Gold Glove is determined by combining a vote of coaches and managers and metrics developed by the Society for American Baseball Research called the SABR Defensive Index.
As of Aug. 28, the last time the SDI was made public, Grisham ranked second behind Washington’s Victor Robles. Grisham led NL center fielders in outs above average (17) and was second with eight defensive runs saved. The 25-year-old, who batted below the Mendoza line this season, but showed power with 17 homers, has a bright future ahead of him in San Diego. It’s clear that his web work is still ahead of his bat, but Grisham has all the tools and a bit of time to bring it altogether.
J.P. Crawford Robbed Of Third Straight Gold Glove
The American League unfortunately didn’t have any MLBbro Gold Glove winners despite having supreme fielders and worthy candidates such as Michael A Taylor, Byron Buxton, Cedric Mullins and 2020 and 2021 Gold Glove winner JP Crawford. It’s got to be rough on Crawford to win back-to-back Gold Gloves, establish yourself as the premier defensive shortstop in the game and then get your title taken from you by a rookie. In fact, MLB didn’t even make the new jack earn his stripes as Peña becomes the first rookie shortstop in history to win a Gold Glove, according to the Elias Sports Bureau. This selection is even more surprising when you see that Pena had the third most errors in all of baseball. The 25-year-old is good, but we have to stop with the prisoner of the moment hype.
Marcus Semien Jerked On Second Consecutive Gold Glove
An argument can also be made for Marcus Semien at second base. The 2021 AL Gold Glove winner led the AL in assists with 441 this season. Definitely don’t see how anyone in the AL is better than the former shortstop at second base. Winner Brendan Rodgers is definitely a web master and had 10 more double plays turned than Semien, but also had double digit errors (10) good for third-highest among second baseman. Semien had just seven errors in 148 games at second base. He also started 13 games at shortstop, showing his versatility as a fielder.
Myles Straw over 2021 Gold Glove Winner Cedric “CM Storm” Mullins seems like a bit of a stretch as well.
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