Tryptamine

This is just embarrassing for this supposed juggernaut of an offense which frankly has been at best average since May.

You don't dump a top 25 prospect on a guy whose arm has almost fallen off twice in near career ending fashion.

His velocity increased to 92 MPH, which isn't impressive in today's game from a RHSP - definitely not "possibly better than Lester and worth more than Teheran" good when combined with his lackluster track record and extreme reliance on a splitter this year. The obvious angle from there is that Teheran doesn't throw hard either - but Teheran at 25 with 3 seasons of 180+ innings under his belt owns a 10.33% career whiff rate on his fastball, high end [expletive], to Shoemaker's 6.87%. Throw in the extremely high prospect pedigree of Teheran just because, arrived at 20 after twice ranking 5th on BA's top 100, and it is not even a contest between the two. Arrieta was a bigger, better talent across the board and acquired at 27. He was the ROY in 2014, his numbers and peripherals were quite strong in 2014, yeah 2015 was a disaster, but the increased velocity and increased usage of the splitter has been successful in 2016. That splitter is creating a lot of swing in miss for him. His contact rates are down across the board, first strike rate is up and so is swinging strike rate. Unless you're worried about the health of his arm throwing that many splitters, I don't see the issue. I'd rather spend on him than a kid sporting a mirage of a 2.46ERA thanks to a .209babip and 82.9% strand rate. That 4.03xFIP just isn't all that appealing to me.

Consider what you're sayng - this 29 YO who recently got demoted by a 4th place team and has never top 135 innings in the majors can become better than Lester and might be worth more than Teheran because he's had a good two month run with a new offspeed he's throwing nearly 40% of the time. That seems highly optimistic. Jake Arrieta edit: He's also seen an uptick in velocity of 1.3mph on his fastball.

I wouldn't mind going after Matt Shoemaker. He's going to be expensive, perhaps more than Teheran , but with his uptick in velocity and the introduction of a splitter that is getting an enormous amount of swing and misses, he could become the 2nd best pitcher on this staff. He's also under control for 4 more years and with the Angels looking to rebuild without trading Trout, this poses a good opportunity. Since May 11th, return from his demotion to AAA: 2.57ERA 2.35FIP 3.08xFIP 9.99K/9 1.08BB/9

Bryant went from 3.3fWAR to 3.9fWAR after yesterday's game. He now trails only Trout, Donaldson,Altuve,Machado and Bogearts for most valuable position player. He is .1fWAR from being 2nd on that list and now on pace for 8.4fWAR this year.

That inability to locate a fastball while relying on the slider to get strikes started sending me down Carlos Marmol memory lane.

This bullpen is an absolute joke.

Well Jake is completely broken.

Good job Jake

Another 5 inning outing from Jake incoming.

I doubt that was the thought seeing as how Warren also sucks.

Can we find one damn reliever outside of Rondon and Strop who can get people out?

oh course that falls in for a hit after last inning

horsefeathers this, just horsefeathers it.

Well that was about the single most random dragon ball reference ever.

The biggest issue for me is that he's not going deep in games anymore. 4 out of his last 11 starts have only gone 5IP and only once during that stretch has he exceeded 7IP. I'd also like to know why he's using his FB 12.5% more this year while reducing the usage of his cutter,curve and change. His velocity is down off a spike year and with the reduction of off speed pitches, I wonder if his arm isn't a little achy.

I get the feeling this is going to be said often this summer. I wonder if Soler bulked up too early in life and couldn't call take backs like Russell did? He DID make his pro debut just a year younger than Russell made his ML debut. Hannemann hit his second HR of the evening too. That's maybe almost as exciting. I keep dreaming, perhaps irrationally, that one day he's going to put it all together and be the 15HR 35SB threat he shows very brief flashes of.

So apparently in back to back days now our good friend Hawk Harrelson has called for someone to injure an opposing player. Yesterday after Frazier and Abreu were hit, he said something to the affect that Lawrie should hit it back at the reliever and clarified to mean hit him in the knee cap. Today after Abreu was hit again he said "someone has to go down" "and when I say go down I mean someone in a white uniform needs to get drilled" "Melky, take his kneecap off".

http://www.todaysknuckleball.com/inside-baseball-with-jon-heyman/dream-trade-scenarios/ So ERod,Owens,Shaw and Kopech gets you Sonny gray, but Soler,Vogelbach and Candelario only gets you Vizcaino and the shadow of Ogando? Seems completely reasonable...

I see no problem with trading McCutchen. Austin Meadows is a top 20 prospect and could fill into the OF in 2017. Use McCutchen to land a stud pitcher and 3B then in 2017 you have Cole/Liriano/Glasnow/Taillon/Cutch Trade C:Cervelli 1B:Bell 2B: Harrison SS:Kang 3B:Cutch Trade RF:Polanco CF:Meadows LF:Marte

What a disappointment Warren is. There's just no way you can bring him into any close game.

Almost got through a game without Bartman, so close.

Richard is bringing me back to sobriety real quick. Stop harshing my dong buzz.

2 for 32 now, can we please stop playing Montero?