Already eliminated from American League playoff contention, the Angels don’t have much left to play for this season. They’ll go through their final meaningless couple weeks of the year without left fielder Justin Upton, who’s dealing with patella tendinitis in his right knee, as Jeff Fletcher of the Orange County Register was among those to report. Upton will undergo a platelet-rich plasma injection next week, and he should be ready to work out again in six weeks.
Injuries bookended 2019 for Upton, who didn’t debut until mid-June on account of a toe issue. Upton endured uncharacteristic struggles when he did play this season, as he slashed an unimposing .215/.309/.416 with 12 home runs in 256 plate appearances. He’ll wrap up the year with a career-low 92 wRC+ and minus-0.2 fWAR – which counts as his worst figure in that category since his rookie campaign in 2007.
The 32-year-old Upton has typically been an above-average producer, which is why the Angels signed him to a five-year, $106MM contract going into 2018. They and Upton can only hope he’ll bounce back to his usual form next season, when the Halos will try to finish over .500 for the first time since 2015 and break a five-year playoff drought.
The Angels can’t make a good free agent decision which is why I think it’ll either be the Halos or the Padres that sign Porcello and Puig this off season.
Lol Puig scared the hell out of the Angels the other night. After they hit him twice and pissed him off they wanted nothing to do with Puig.
The Padres will definitely not sign Porcello. They pick up pitchers with stats like his for minimum contracts and hope they’ll turn around. I think Porcello is looking for decent money and a team other than the Padres will give it to him.
Good deal…
And I apologize Halo clowns. I had no doubt at the beginning of the year, the Angels would be 20 games out and under .500. I never would have guessed 30 + games out at seasons end.
Troll Shane…the JUp of MLBTR.
Sure u did Skippy
I saw it!!! To bad morons calling you troll
You mean “too” bad. When you call someone a moron, make sure you proof read before you post. Otherwise, you look like the moron.
prrof read? he didn’t even know it!
This is just another case of stats queens not understanding that most home run artists strike out. Age catches up with them. Most players can’t hit. They strike out. Pitchers will adjust.
how is patella tendinitis a case of that?*
*that = a list of disconnected thoughts tacked on to whatever a “homerun artist” is.
Good dig on a stupid comment. Keep it up!
Here’s stupid…trade jbj & price for Upton. Stupid but get rid of 2 salries for 1
JBJ is going to be a free agent so its even dumber than you think.
No, JBJ has 1 year of arbitration left….fact check pal
Before correcting someone, you should check to see if you are right. Before calling something ‘dumb’ you really really have to check to see if you are right.
Back to the trade, as a RS fan, I wouldn’t do it. Price costs $8M more per, but I think he has more upside at this point.
You can throw in Rusney Castillo as well.
no! you guys eat all those mentioned!
Sure if you guys take Albert too
Speaking of Dodgers, Noah Syndergaard accused the Dodgers of cheating.
Finally, this is catching on. I called it all year.
Syndergaard should spend less time telling people what he thinks and focus on becoming a top level pitcher.
At least for a short time now people can stop calling Ai Avila an idiot.
lol,my phone’s ringing
Free mike trout
But they have the player all media personal fish over and says he’s the greatest ever and MVP every season…
*Gush not fish. Stupid auto correct
If you mean the Tigers acquiring Grayson Long and Elvin Rodriguez for Justin Upton then maybe. Justin Upton was a salary dump. I still think the Tigers need to revamp their entire scouting system.
why? they had to build an entire analytics department and hire different scouts.of course Upton was a salary dump,Tigers came out and said as much.now just gotta get rid of Zimmerman,that was MR.I coming down and told the GM to get a deal done.Dombrowski absolutely gutted our farm teams to go out and trade for guys to keep us in the hunt..were only just now starting to see the fruits of the drafts and a rule 5 pick up here and there starting to get here.i think Victor Reyes was a good move in rule 5 the guy just hits.
Porcello will be a tiger next season…. remember you heard it here first .
Gary, there’s a lot of Avila hate on another site that can’t say one thing positive about the guy. My point is I’m glad we are not stuck with Upton for 4 more years at $20 million/per.
Any Avila bashers out there wanna’ say they wish we had Upton back now?
injured, upton didn’t hit much. glad he is taking care of that.
I have a question to angel fans. Do they have bad luck in signing free agents, or bad decisions? Pujols, Hamilton and Upton? These guys didn’t really pan out for the angels. Why did they sign them? I am curious.
Upton has had one bad injury plagued season. The Angels were praised for the affordable contract when they signed him to an extension. He will bounce back.
he’s the wrong side of 30.every injury takes its toll.not saying he’s bad or anything cause he’s not when he was here in Detroit he was a good player but even then he was getting injured often.
He just turned 32 about three weeks ago. He is still in his prime. His contract expires during his 34/35yo season. Its not a bad contract at all.
Justin Upton played in roughly 95% of possible games as a Tiger and previous to this season hadn’t had durability issues since his early days with the diamondbacks.
There is something very wrong with the Angels training staff. Guys have complete health collapses when they come over.
Gotta feel for mike trout. Hell never sniff a post season with this abysmal club
Don’t feel bad at all, it was his choice to stay there, twice.
Angels will shut down Trout by end of weekend. And possibly cost him the MVP….. Health over individual awards.
And a better draft pick
I was wondering the other day if he still was in baseball. I guess he is and just hurt?
Angels are going to waste Trout’s talent forever. He’s never going to sniff a playoff berth with this sorry team. Then they hire one of the worst managers they could find, in Brad Ausmus.
gee! what’s tomorrow’s lotto number, genius?
I so agree with you about Ausmus. I said it was trouble when they hired him to the front office. If Joe Madden is available after this year I hope they have the balls enough to fire Ausmus and give Joe a chance or get bigger balls and hire the other Joe……Girardi