Tag Archives: Angels

How many trout can Mike Trout now buy?

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Mike Trout is about to sign a $430 million contract, keeping him an Angel for likely the rest of his career.

Which leads to an important question: How much trout (the fish) could Trout (the ballplayer) buy with all of that money?

Ultimately, it depends on whether we are talking about whether he wants to buy trout as food or trout as fish.

The food is easy enough. Presuming that Mike Trout has Amazon Prime (and why wouldn’t he?), he could get 3.7 ounce Roland Rainbow Trout Fillets smoked and sliced for $7.08.  That means that (if he doesn’t get taxed on his salary- and he will be) he could buy 60.73 million (60,730,000) of those. That’s 224,701,000 ounces of trout- 6,270 (long) tons. That’s a bit over half the weight of all the trash that New York City creates in a day. That’s a lot of fish.

Then, there is the questions of actual Trout. According to a trout hatchery that I found on Google that offers trout for pond/lake stocking, the price of rainbow trout varies both on how long the trout and how many are being ordered. So, depending on what type of trout that Trout wants, it could be anywhere from a maximum of 296,600,000 rainbow trouts between 4 to 6 inches to a minimum of 107,500,000 rainbow trouts between 10 to 12 inches. Technically the trout could get bigger, but that’s a “call for pricing” thing. I’m curious if that would even be possible. I imagine it would technically be, as trout are very widespread both commercially and in the wild. But then again, I’m not an expert here. Maybe Mike Trout could corner the entire trout market.

So, in short: Mike Trout is going to be helluva rich and be able to buy a helluva lot of trout.

Continuucast 6 with Brandon DuBreuil (@brandondubreuil) of CPBL English!

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It’s time for another Continuucast, this time featuring Brandon DuBreuil of CPBL English! Hit play above, download by right-clicking here, follow the RSS feed here or follow on iTunes here or Stitcher here (if the latest episode isn’t up yet, it will be shortly).

This time on the Continuucast:

 

-Dan Glickman goes beyond the sea (through Skype) to talk Taiwanese baseball with Brandon DuBreuil (pronounced Du-BRAY), one of the co-founders of CPBLenglish.com. Topics include how Brandon got to Taiwan, why CPBL English is opening now, notable names both foreign and domestic in the CPBL, and interesting traditions in Taiwanese baseball.

 

-Dan gets the Angels out of the way for “30 Teams, 30 Posts” by briefly talking about how the Angels may have wasted their opportunity with Mike Trout.

 

-Dan previews the next episode, which will be a SEASON OPENING EXTRAVAGANZA with multiple guests (not all at the same time).

 

Music/Sounds Featured:

 

“The National Game” by John Phillip Sousa

 

Instrumental version of “La Mer/Beyond The Sea” by Django Reinhart

 

“The Mike Trout Song” by Conn.B.

 

The death music from Super Mario Brothers

 

Excerpt of “Pennant Fever” from the Major League soundtrack

 

All sound and music used is either public domain or is a short snippet that falls under fair use.

(Blogathon ’16!) Renaming Moved Teams

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This post is part of the 2016 Baseball Continuum Blogathon For Charity, benefiting the Roswell Park Alliance Foundation. The Roswell Park Alliance Foundation is the charitable arm of Roswell Park Cancer Institute and funds raised will be “put to immediate use to increase the pace from research trials into improved clinical care, to ensure state-of-the-art facilities, and to help improve the quality of life for patients and their families.” Please donate through the Blogathon’s GoFundMe page.

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There are four teams in MLB who have kept their names despite moving to different cities (or at least parts of a town where it’s enough where they change the first words of the team): The Angels, the Dodgers, the Athletics, and the Giants. What, however, if they had had to change their names? And, no, I’m not letting them just take their old Pacific Coast League team-names.

Let’s go place by place:

Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, Orange County, California, USA, North America, Northwestern Quadrant, Planet Earth, Sol System, Milky Way, Local Group, The Universe

There was a very good reason why the Angels were originally called the Angels when they started playing: they were actually in Los Angeles, playing at Chavez Ravine. In addition, the LA Angels had been one of the flagship franchises of the Pacific Coast League, so the name had history. But as they moved to Anaheim and went by “California Angels” and then “Anaheim Angels” and now “Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim”, they have become more and more detached from the name. So what if they had abandoned the “Angels” moniker as soon as they left Chavez Ravine? Assuming that they had adopted California as their “first name” after leaving the ravine, perhaps they would be California related, perhaps the “California Bears” or the “California Trout” (ha). Or maybe they’d be more Anaheim-focused, with a name like “Oranges”. Personally, I think they would have to go with “Anaheim Mice”. In addition to the obvious Disneyland connection, there is the fact that mice are said to scare elephants, which would be a nice little poke at the Athletics. Well… it would be if…

The Oakland Athletics

Kept their Elephant logo despite changing to a new name. I think it’d be cool if they still had an old-timey sort of name. How about the “Oakland Eurekas”, after the California State Motto? (For the curious, the Pacific Coast League Oakland team was called the Oaks.)

Los Angeles Dodgers

If the Dodger brand hadn’t been so firmly established in Brooklyn, it feels likely they would have been renamed when they headed west. After all, “Dodgers” has basically nothing to do with Los Angeles. But what would they have been called? I personally think that they would take advantage of Hollywood and go with the name “Los Angeles Stars”. Oh, yeah, that was the name of Hollywood’s PCL team, but, guess what, it wasn’t LA’s, so it counts. So, “Los Angeles Stars” it is.

San Francisco Giants

The San Francisco Prospectors, or “Pros”. That was easy.

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At 3 PM: MR. GO!

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This post has been part of the 2016 Baseball Continuum Blogathon For Charity, benefiting the Roswell Park Alliance Foundation. The Roswell Park Alliance Foundation is the charitable arm of Roswell Park Cancer Institute and funds raised will be “put to immediate use to increase the pace from research trials into improved clinical care, to ensure state-of-the-art facilities, and to help improve the quality of life for patients and their families.” Please donate through the Blogathon’s GoFundMe page.

 

 

All-Star Wrap-Up and MVP of Yesterday update

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Well, that was fun.

To be sure, there have been many better All-Star Games. But there have also been many worse All-Star Games as well. And, what’s more, the festivities themselves were above average- the Home Run Derby, for example, has been reborn thanks to the brackets and time limits. It certainly isn’t perfect, but for the first time in quite awhile, I felt like I was watching the Home Run Derby beyond the first round because I was enjoying it, not simply because it was on.

And then there is Mike Trout. He batted four times last night, and in some ways the game became his showcase. He homered, he walked, he beat out a throw to first to avoid a double play. He rightfully was named MVP, his second in a row (the first player to do that), and he’s only 24. It is not out of the realm of possibility that, one day, the quote “The All-Star Game was made for Willie Mays” will instead be “The All-Star Game was made for Mike Trout.”

Not surprisingly, Trout is the MVP of Yesterday, just as he was the MVP of the game. Standings, as always, after the jump:

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“30 Teams, 30 Posts” (2015): The Angels’ season, according to OOTP Baseball 2016

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In 30 Teams, 30 Posts, I write a post about every MLB team in some way in the lead-up to the beginning of the 2015 season. Previous installments can be found here. Today, we’ve reached the Los Angeles Angels of Angel Stadium of Anaheim, 2000 Gene Autry Way, Anaheim, Orange County, California, USA, North America, Northwestern Hemisphere, Planet Earth, Sol System, Milky Way.

The new Out Of The Park Baseball came out yesterday, and while my review won’t be coming for another week or so, I decided I’d give it a quick spin today to see what it thinks of the Angels for this year. Go below the jump, as this is very image intensive.

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2014 SEASON PREVIEW (PART 4): Best Case/Worst Case for… the AL WEST (with Getty Images)

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Today, we look at the AL West, and what could go right… and what could go wrong. Complete with Getty Images that may or may not have anything to do with the actual team.

Here we go:

Oakland Athletics

Best-Case Scenario: Billy Beane‘s @#$% finally works in October, the Athletics win the World Series, and their long-term stadium situation is finally solved.

Worst-Case Scenario: Billy Beane’s @#$% doesn’t work very well during the Regular season this year, the Athletics finish third, and finish the season as a barnstorming team when their stadium in Oakland disappears in a sinkhole of bad plumbing and a dark spell cast by Al Davis in the late 1990s.

Worst-Case Scenario That Could Actually Happen: See above, but remove the barnstorming, the sinkhole and Al Davis’ dark spell.

Texas Rangers

Embed from Getty Images

Best-Case Scenario: It finally happens, and the Rangers win the World Series with the help of a resurgent Prince Fielder, the ever-underrated Shin-Soo Choo, a breakout year from Jurickson Profar and a Cy Young year from Yu Darvish.

Worst-Case Scenario: Ian Kinsler is a wizard, and his wish for the Rangers to go 0-162 comes true.

Worst-Case Scenario That Could Actually Happen: It all falls apart: Fielder continues to decline, Choo has an off-year, Adrian Beltre shows his age, Darvish gets hurt, Profar muddles and the Rangers have their worst year in years. Ron Washington is fired despite his recent extension.

Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, Orange County, California, West Coast, United States of America, North America, Western Hemisphere, Planet Earth, Sol System, Milky Way

Embed from Getty Images

Best-Case Scenario: Mike Trout wins Triple Crown, MVP, All-Star Game MVP, the Home Run Derby title, Sports Illustrated‘s Sportsman of the Year, the AP Male Athlete of the Year, an EGOT, the Nobel Peace Prize and the Presidential Medal of Freedom as he single-handedly straps the team on his back and brings them to the World Series. Or something like that. In reality, the Angels probably need Trout to keep on Trouting while having both Albert Pujols and Josh Hamilton show their old selves and the pitching staff stepping up.

Worst-Case Scenario: Mike Trout gets hurt. Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies! Rivers and seas boiling! Forty years of darkness! Earthquakes, volcanoes…The dead rising from the grave! Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together… mass hysteria!

Worst-Case Scenario That Could Actually Happen: To be honest, Trout getting hurt is arguably the worst-case scenario, as I find it highly unlikely that both the rest of the lineup can take up the slack AND the pitching takes a step forward.

Seattle Mariners

Best-Case Scenario: Felix Hernandez is still awesome, Hisashi Iwakuma gets better (health-wise), Taijuan Walker gets better physically and on the field, and Robinson Cano… just keeps doing what’s he’s doing.

Worst-Case Scenario: Robinson Cano gets hurt in a money-counting incident, misses rest of the season.

Worst-Case Scenario that could actually happen: Felix actually starts to show that he may be human, Iwakuma and Walker struggle with health problems all year, and Cano has problems playing in Safeco Field all year around.

Houston Astros

Embed from Getty Images

Best-Case Scenario: Ha. Hahahaha. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Are you kidding me? Even their best-case scenario sees them, at the absolute very best, in fourth place. In some ways, their best case scenario may actually be for them to have one of the worst records in league, as it’ll let them get better draft picks.

Worst-Case Scenario: 1898 Cleveland Spiders.

Worst-Case Scenario That Could Actually Happen: 1962 New York Mets.

The West Is (Number) One

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Josh Hamilton, the prize hitter on the free agent market, is a Los Angeles Angel of Anaheim. And so continues the movement of baseball’s greatest talents to the west. While it is true that Hamilton was already in the West Division of the American League, it shows that the old powers of the East Coast baseball establishment are no longer what they were- the money and the power is now out west. Consider:

  • The Dodgers are going to make so much money from their cable deal that they are now a financial force greater than even the Yankees ever were.
  • The Angels now have three players (Albert Pujols, Hamilton, and Mike Trout) who have had a claim at one point or another of being the best in baseball, as well as Mark Trumbo, one of baseball’s best young hitters (assuming they don’t flip him for pitching or prospects now).
  • The San Francisco Giants have won two of the last three World Series.
  • And the Athletics have lots of good young pitching, which, of course, can be the great equalizer.

What does this mean?
Well, for one thing, it means that staying up late will be a treat in the coming years. The struggles between the Dodgers and Giants will be grand opera, narrated by Vin Scully. The Athletics will have to once again find a sling in order to take down Goliath. The Rangers will have to do all they can simply to avoid falling into the basement of the AL West (thankfully, they will still have the Mariners and Astros to beat up on).

For another, though, it means, once again, that television and the ever-increasing riches in baseball- for all teams but definitely more for some than for others- have changed the game. The Los Angeles teams now are able to tap into more money than they had before, while established eastern powers like the Braves are trapped in bad deals. The big advantages that team-owned stations like YES and NESN once gave are now no longer so big. It’s a brave new world.

Finally, did anybody else hear that the Red Sox signed Ryan Dempster? Yeah, I almost missed it too.