The Monkey's Paw!

2003-09-08T16:06:00.000-07:00

Thoughts on the Kansas City Series

1. The double-header sweep of the Royals on Saturday probably ended any realistic chance the Royals had to make the playoffs. Baseball Prospectus' now gives the Royals only a 3.7% chance of making the playoffs, and that may be generous. The Royals have been one of the best stories of the year, but it was always built on sand.

2. Kevin Gregg has certainly earned himself a look in spring training next year. He certainly hasn't earned himself a spot in the starting rotation, because two good starts do not prove anything. He doesn't have great stuff by any means, but I do like his K/BB numbers in AAA: 75 strikeouts and only 18 walks in 91.2 innings. Anyone with better than a 4-1 K/BB ratio has at least earned a chance.

3. Speaking of having earned a chance, Scott Shields earned a shot at the starting rotation, and has done little to show that he deserves it. I was a big proponent of cutting loose either Appier or Sele and giving Shields a chance. I still think it was a good idea. We now have a pretty good indication that Shields is better suited for long relief rather than starting, at least at this point in his career, and we don't have to find that out next season when the games will probably count.

4. Uncle Arte for the first time promised a trip to the free agent Toys R Us this Christmas, but didn't promise to actually buy anything. My wish list? 1. Kevin Millwood. 2. Vlad Guerrero 3. Carlos Beltran (if available) 4. Kaz Matsui.

5. Watching the Angels without Hudler and Physioc just didn't seem right. I'm not going to argue that those two are great announcers--they aren't, and sometimes they give me fits. But they are ANGELS. They have really made themselves as an identifiable part of the Anaheim Angels and something just doesn't seem right when they aren't there. Kind of like that goofy freshman year roommate that you tolerated more than liked, but you really missed him when you were out on your own and you looked him up on occasion. And to be honest, Hudler is a character. Harry Caray used to say anyone could announce for a team in first place in September during a close game. It's the June blowouts for a team out of the race that separates a real announcer from the pretenders. Caray was willing to make himself the story if there were no stories going on the field, and willing to get out of the way when there was somethig we needed to pay attention to on the field. Hudler is the same way, except sometimes he has a little trouble with the "get out of the way" part. That will come with experience. Hudler is the young Garret Anderson of color men: maddeningly frustrating and one isn't quite sure that he understands the game, but certainly full of talent and promise.

I don't particularly condone what Hudler is accused of doing, but I don't condemn it out of hand, either. It's a misdemeanor, and should be treated as such. Besides, it isn't like he's accused of raping a teenager in a Colorado hotel room. And it certainly seems that most sports fans in SoCal are willing to say that's OK, as long as it means another victory parade outside Staples Center.

2003-09-04T01:30:00.000-07:00

This explains a lot.

Honestly, I love Hudler, and in an era when all the announcers are starting to sound and look alike, we need a clown like the Wonder Dog in the booth, even if I sometimes think a donkey knows more about the game of baseball than he does. His particular brand of idiocy might play better if they had a smarter play-by-play man than Physioc next to him, but I honestly can't say that Physioc is any worse than most of the idiots out there calling ballgames, and in some ways he's better.

I'm sure I'll say more about this later on, but as for now, I'll just say: DON'T FIRE HUDLER!

2003-09-03T23:56:00.000-07:00

Having now seen the replay on Baseball tonight, all I can say is:

DIDN'T YOUR FATHER EVER TELL YOU TO USE BOTH HANDS, BENGIE MOLINA?

2003-09-03T13:55:00.000-07:00

I was writing my last post while listening on the radio to the horrible, horrible end of today's 6-5 loss to the Twins. I can't think of a worse way to lose a game. Well, actually I can, but I don't want to. And would someone please tell KSPN that that I'm tired of being asked about whether or not I have "sweaty palms" during each commercial break. (No link, I'm not going to give them any more publicity.) Talk about making up an illness to fit a cure!

2003-09-03T13:51:00.000-07:00

I haven't said anything about the Angels picking up Wilson Delgado. I wonder why?

It's hard to know what to do with a season that is lost like this one. You can blame it on injuries, you can blame it on not making moves in the off-season and you can blame it Darrin Erstad's contract, as Rob Neyer likes to do. What's even harder is trying to motivate yourself while you are essentially playing out the string. But I know how the Angels are motivating themselves. They are looking forward to that big Christmas shopping trip to F.A.O Schwartz that Uncle Arte has promised to take them on if they are good boys. Never mind that Uncle Arte has never promised any such thing, but the assumption is that now that Uncle Scrooge is gone, there will be lots of presents under the Angels tree this winter.

We've already mentioned the wish list of Kaz Matsui and Carlos Beltran, but Ramon Ortiz added another name to the list, Vlad Guerrero.

Now I would love to get Vlad Guerrero, and although I have some real questions about his long-term health, getting him off the turf in Montreal would have to help him like it helped Andre Dawson. But are the Angels forgetting the lessons of the eighties, when Gene Autry's high priced free agents brought nothing but an occasional lightning in a bottle AL West championship? The Angels won a championship by building from within, and there are at least four players (Santana, McPherson, Mathis and Kotchman--add in Bobby Jenks if you are feeling charitable) that have major league all-star written all over them. Certainly injuries could derail any or all of those guys, but I would hate to see those guys become the next Tom Brunansky, Brian Harper, Mike Easler, etc, etc, while the next Geoff Zahn is trying to win games in Anaheim and Donnie Moore is trying to save them.

Honestly, I don't think Stoneman will go in this direction. I think that all of this is a bunch of players trying to motivate themselves by saying better times are ahead. Stoneman seems pretty committed to building from within--otherwise he would have traded Mathis and Kotchman for Beltran earlier this year.

But I do think it is possible the Angels will sign ONE big name free agent this off-season, and it might be Vlad, if Arte really wants to open up the pocketbooks. The Angels are going to draw three million fans this season, so there should be some money to go around towards Vlad's huge contract. And there is one other cultural matter: Vlad doesn't speak English very well. Arte would be the only owner who could make a personal pitch to him without a translator, and that might mean a lot to Guerrero. But let's just say I'm not getting my hopes up.

2003-08-30T23:46:00.000-07:00

Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose and sometimes it rains. Of course, it never rains in Southern California.

There is a pretty funny article on the official Angels website on how David Eckstein has been picked to be the new player rep. Eckstein hasn't agreed to do it yet, but as Jarrod Washburn said (who is filling in for the traded Scott Schoeneweis) "He has less service time than me. He has no choice." Washburn addded that "I'd give it to Shields, but he ain't smart enough."

This seems to be the way of a lot of teams--unless the team has a respected veteran who has been active in union activity for a while or someone actually wants to do it, it goes to a young player that the rest of the team can respect. I know the Cubs picked Mark Prior for the job after Joe Girardi got dumped.

Ironically, such a cavalier attitude actually indicates that the players take the job pretty seriously, rather than the other way around. It's a lot of work for no extra pay and a lot of extra grief. All you get out of it is the respect and gratitute of your fellow players. Eckstein is perfect for it and Wash is right, Eck has no choice.

2003-08-30T15:57:00.000-07:00

Wow, I haven't written since Wednesday. No big deal since I don't really have any readers yet because I refuse to advertise. I guess "refuse" is simply a fancy way of saying "too lazy to get around to doing it" and "would feel too much pressure to write if I thought anyone was reading."

Alfredo Amezaga decided that he wanted to be a real Angel so he went and tore up his labrum. I laughed out loud when Physioc said this on Friday. I mean, how cursed can this team be? Certainly, if it's a matter of us having used up all our good luck last season, it was a good trade. Bad seasons are forgotten, but World Championship flags fly forever.

But since I don't believe in that kind of crap, I have to think that it's just bad luck, with perhaps a bit of desperation from players playing hurt to help a struggling team and making it worse.

Despite that, the Angels got to play spoiler to their old eighties nemesis the Royals and their playoff hopes with a 10-3 victory in Kansas City. Of the Angels I expected to have a chance of a breakout year, Bengie Molina was not one of them. But Bengie's season takes some of the pressure off of Stoneman to push Jeff Mathis.

In a "related" manner, Jose Molina now has gone 88 AB without a walk.

Baseball Prospectus has an article on the Angels firing of Denny Rowland. It a subscriber-only article, but essentially it looks at the 2000 and 2001 drafts and concludes that he wasn't fired for performance reasons, because he did a pretty good job.

Well, I agree he wasn't fired for performance reasons. The Orange County Register uses nicer words that I'm going to, but they claimed he was fired for being a jerk. An ambitious jerk who might have been angling for Stoneman's job, even. He apparently upset the scouts below him and management above him.

But for as wonderful as the 2001 draft was, BP admits that the 2000 draft wasn't all that special, although Bobby Jenks could salvage it. They don't even look at the 2002 draft, probably because they think it is too early to evaluate, but it isn't looking very good. First round pick Joe Saunders is injured, and only second round pick Kevin Jepsen making even as far as low A Cedar Rapids so far. Rowland has been a decent scouting director, and certainly the Angels Latin American operations have improved greatly over the past few years. But I don't think that Rowland is so great that he can't be replaced, and it would be easier to replace him than two-thirds of the scouting staff who can't stand him.

Finally, Carlos Beltran is making noise that he'd like to play for the Angels. I don't think he has any particular affinity for the Angels, I just think he wants to get out of KC and would like to play somewhere warm that has a chance to win. The Angels inquired about Beltran earlier this season and were told it would cost them Casey Kotchman and Jeff Mathis and the Angels wisely said no. Beltran doesn't become a free agent until after next season, but it is generally assumed that the Royals won't agree to arbitration with him this off-season, where he could make as much as twelve million. So if the price for Beltran comes down, the Angels might be willing to make a deal for him.

Is this a good idea? Probably. Carlos Beltran is probably one of the top two or three centerfielders in the majors, only clearly inferior to our old buddy Jim Edmonds. On top of that, he'll only be 26 next season, so he should just be entering his prime.

The downsides? Beltran's agent is Steve Boras, and Boras thinks he can get Beltran a contract of 15 to 18 million a year over eight years. That's not going to happen. Not from the Angels, not from the Dodgers and even not from the Yankees. But it does mean that trading for him means risking losing him to free agency after next year because Beltran and Boras will test the market if they don't get a deal close to that.

The other downside is what to do with Darrin Erstad. I've said it so many times that it seems ridiculous to repeat myself, but Darrin Erstad is worthless as a first baseman. Perhaps moving him to right and Salmon to the DH spot might be OK, but Erstad simply wouldn't have as much of an opportunity to use his great defensive skills in right field as he would in center. It would make the Angels pitching staff extremely happy, however, to see as outfield of Garret Anderson, Carlos Beltran and Darrin Erstad. That would be one of the greatest defensive outfields in history. But it still isn't clear that giving up, essentially, Brad Fullmer's bat to DH Salmon and put Erstad in right field would be worth the defensive gain of keeping Erstad in the outfield. But it certainly isn't worth it to move him to first base.

2003-08-27T14:25:00.000-07:00

Last night's 3-0 loss to the Twins is just another mark on a lost season. I honestly don't know what to say about it. I can't really get upset with the strike-'em-out-throw-'em-out double play that ended the game, since I had said just before the play to my wife "Yeah, I send the runners." I thought that Salmon hits into a lot of double plays and Figgins runs well It was a good gamble that just didn't work out. Additionally, there is no assurance that Spiezio would have done anything with two outs had the runners not gone.

The Angels fired scouting director Donny Rowland the other day in what appears to be more of a personality conflict between Stoneman and Rowland more than a judgement on his ability. On the other hand, if he was churning out great draft after great draft, Stoneman would have kept Rowland even if they didn't get along. As has been noted in the articles after his firing, the Angels 2001 draft was a bonanza with Casey Kotchman, Dallas McPherson and Jeff Mathis, but the 2000 and 2002 drafts are considered busts, with 2003 being too soon to tell, of course. What bothers me about this is not that Rowland was let go, but rather the comment made in the LA Times article:

Stoneman said the Angels have not wavered from the philosophy he directed Rowland to follow, that of drafting high-risk, high-reward prospects, particularly high school players.

Under the previous management of general manager Bill Bavasi and his scouting director, Bob Fontaine, the Angels emphasized the selection of college players who might sign more cheaply and reach the majors more quickly, even if their potential might not be as great.

Look, I thought Moneyball was a great book, but that Michael Lewis overstated the advantage of drafting college players over drafting high school players. But Lewis and Beane have a point--it is much harder to project high school players than college players. And it is absolutely ridiculous to think that high school players have a higher ceiling that college players. The folks at Baseball Prospectus and Baseball America don't agree on a lot, but the old saw that high school players have a higher ceiling is one that they both reject. Sure, Alex Rodriguez didn't go to college, but Barry Bonds did. Mark Prior, Tom Seaver and Randy Johnson all went to USC. If those aren't "high ceiling" pitchers, I don't know who is one. On the Angels, Garret Anderson was drafted out of high school, but Troy Percival, Troy Glaus, Jarrod Washburn, Adam Kennedy, Darrin Erstad, John Lackey and David Eckstein are all college men. Tim Salmon went to junior college. The Angels are a living testament to the idea that drafting players out of college (OK--the Red Sox drafted Eckstein and the Cardinals drafted Kennedy) and then developing them through your farm system is a formula for winning a World Championship. And of the three highly-touted players taken in the 2001 draft--Kotchman, Mathis and McPherson--which one looks like the best right now? McPherson. Can you guess which one went to college? That's right, McPherson went to the Citadel.

I'm not Michael Lewis. Heck, even Billy Beane isn't Michael Lewis. I'm not against drafting some talented high school players and taking some chances. What is it that investment advisors are always saying? Diversify your portfolio? A good farm system has got a good mix of high schoolers and college players. But the idea that high school players have a higher ceiling is simply crap. The Braves have a draft strategy of getting all the best players, high school or college, from Georgia and the Carolinas, in a way to concentrate their resources to make sure they get the best players. The Angels could do a lot worse than to concentrate on really scouting Southern California, both high school and college. Unfortunately, unlike Georgia and the Carolinas, the Angels would have to deal with a lot of other teams combing SoCal for talent.

Of course, it may be that the crap here is coming out of the LA Times and not the Angels, since the Angels declined to put those comments on drafting strategy on their official site. But having seen the heavy emphasis on drafting high schoolers since Stoneman took over, I doubt it.

2003-08-25T12:17:00.000-07:00

I forgot to mention Bobby Jenks yesterday, and today's off-day is as good a time as any. Jenks has now pitched 29.2 innings of shutout ball, and many people are saying that Jenks has finally gotten his five cent head out of the way of his million dollar arm and turned himself into a real prospect. (Nuke LaLoosh was twice as smart as this guy.) John Sickels answered a question about Jenks, essentially repeating the party line on him, although he was kind by describing Jenks as simply having "troubles with emotional maturity."

I'm still dubious. Jenks is still walking a lot of batters, and that's going to only get worse as he moves up the ladder. Minor league hitters know that they get rewarded more for a high batting average than a high on-base percentage (ask the Red Sox and David Eckstein) and thus they have a tendency to swing at pitches that major leaguers would lay off. Jenks may still put it all together and become a dominating pitcher and I certainly hope he does, but I think that even if he learns to control his head, he still is going to have to learn to get that 100 mph fastball over the plate.

2003-08-24T16:10:00.000-07:00

Wow, I hadn't written anything since the Tigers series started. It's been hard since today's game was the only one televised.

Something just isn't right about Percival and there is probably more to his retirement talk than he is letting on. Even when he manages to get a save, he looks bad doing it. Sure, the runs that he gave up in the ninth were unearned, but I've always thought it was a little bogus when they consider a run scored on a home run to be "unearned." I understand why they do it, but it is silly to think that Percival wasn't responsible for those runs in today's defeat. Of course, he is getting the "L."

It's ironic that an error by Adam Kennedy was what led to the losing dinger. Kennedy should win a gold glove, but such things aren't usually decided by overall excellence. What's also ironic is that just about a month after I had packed AK's bags and shipped him of to Baltimore (or wherever), Adam Kennedy has clearly been the Angels MVP since the all-star break. So much so that the Angels finally got rid of Benji Gil and gave the job to Kennedy full-time.

How good has Kennedy been? His defense has always been excellent, and even the error he made today was a tough play. But he has been tearing the cover off the ball-- a .958 OPS--so much so that only Marcus Giles has a better OPS among second basemen since the all-star break. He's even getting on base at a .390 clip. When one considers that Eckstein's health has been questionable and pretty much every thing except his health has been questionable for Alfredo Amezaga, Kennedy is making a strong bid to return for next season. With the Angels continuing to pursue Kazuo Matsui in Japan, according to the LA Times, would the Angels be willing to part ways with fan favorite David Eckstein to keep Kennedy? That's a tough call. If you base it on this season, Kennedy has now pulled ahead of Eckstein, and he's a year younger and more "toolsy." But I can imagine the outcry from Cerritos to San Clemente if little David Eckstein is allowed to go on his way.

Looking at the lineup the Angels put on the field in Detroit, I'm actually pretty surprised that the Angels took three out of four. Yes, there isn't a word in the English language to describe how truly terrible the Tigers are, but they have managed to win one out of every four games this year against real major league teams, and those guys wearing the grey uniforms with Anaheim on the front were much closer being the Salt Lake City Stingers than the Anaheim Angels. Losing the last game--and the only televised one-- was a real disappointment, but not really all that surprising.

2003-08-20T19:31:00.000-07:00

No TV for tonight's game, which pretty merciful considering how the Pale Hose have been treating the Halos. Which reminds me that when my wife first started calling the Angels the "Halos", it really sounded like "Pale Hose."

David Eckstein joined Troy Glaus, Darrin Erstad, Brad Fullmer, and the Rally Monkey on the disabled list. Alfredo Amezaga got a HR, but made another error and is still 50 points away from hitting his own weight, despite only weighing 165. The Angels have a big decision coming up this off-season, and Amezaga isn't making it any easier.

Troy Glaus is out for the year. You can't just blame this whole season on injuries, but they sure haven't helped.

Troy Percival is talking retirement after his contract ends after the next season. I doubt he will. Although I don't know Troy personally, most athletes have to have their jersey ripped off their backs and I'm sure that some team would offer Percival a chance to pitch in 2005. On the other hand, I'm pretty sure that team won't be the Angels. If Francisco Rodriguez hasn't been move to the starting rotation before then, and I doubt he will be, then he would certainly be a cheaper and probably a better option as the closer. And if you are like me and are looking for bright spots for the Angels since the All-Star break, look at the way K-Rod has gotten his act together. He's been the pitcher we expected him to be after the past post-season. On May 22 his ERA was at 5.48. He's only given up eight runs since in 45 innings and has dropped the ERA to 2.90.

By the way, if you saw the Hall of Fame's Baseball as America exhibit in LA this past offseason, you got to see Frankie Rodriguez's cap. How many players get their cap in the Hall of Fame before they are a rookie?

I don't have anything to say about Mike Scioscia and Scott Spiezio's sniping about the team's defensive players in the LA Times, other than to say that they both are right. The Angels pretty much packed it in at the end of the 2001 season, and I'm sure Scioscia is having visions about reliving that nightmare again. But while you have to expect injuries and usually it's no excuse, you really have to figure that the Angels used up all their good luck last season.

2003-08-19T12:12:00.000-07:00

There goes the chance to win twenty in a row.

I'm really mad at the LA Times. Today my copy arrived at my doorstep and instead of a sports section, I got a piece of paper that was completely blank except for some faded color photographs of Jeremy Burnitz and some football players from USC. The California section was equally mutilated. And no, I'm not going to subscribe to the "Camelot" Daily News in protest.

From reading on-line, I notice that the Angels are talking contract extension with Garret Anderson. I hate paying players for what they did last year rather than what could be reasonably expected from them over the life of the contract, but the Angels are going to have to pay GA whatever he wants. There is no clear replacement in the minors for him and while he still won't draw many walks, if he hits enough home runs and for a high enough average, who really cares? It's not like he's still the Luis Polonia wannabe that he was in the late 90's, and most hitters develop more plate discipline as they get into their thirties, which hopefully makes up for their drop in batting average. On top of that, Anderson is the player most associated with the Angels in the minds of the public these days. Get out the checkbook one more time, Arte.

2003-08-18T15:25:00.000-07:00

The Angels finished off their sweep of the hapless Tigers with an 11-6 victory on Sunday. Ramon Ortiz got the win despite pitching pretty poorly, and Ramon has got to be the worst fourteen game winner in the majors. He's even got an outside chance at winning twenty. If Ramon wins 18-20 games this season, Stoneman has got to move him this offseason before Ramon becomes the next Shawn Estes, trading on one high-win season into seven years of "one more chance."

The Angels, as I predicted, have now won five in a row. I figure if the Angels can win another fifteen in a row, they'll be back in the playoff race. Even with four more games against the Tigers, this isn't going to happen. They might win 17 out of 20, but that isn't going to be enough. And now with David Eckstein and Brendan Donnelly day-to-day, the list of walking wounded keeps growing.

The pitching matchups for the White Sox series:

Jarrod Washburn (9-11, 4.38) vs. Mark Buehrle (10-12, 4.22)
Scot Shields (3-3, 2.15) vs. Jon Garland (8-9, 4.60)
John Lackey (8-11, 5.12) vs. Esteban Loaiza (15-6, 2.55)

The Wednesday night matchup looks brutal, but the others are OK. Frank Thomas said something to the effect of "They may be the World Champions, but that isn't the same team out there." The White Sox are reeling right now and they were embarrassed in Anaheim. Should be a good series.

Finally, Adam Riggs made history by being the first player to ever play for the Anaheim Angees. Hudler and Physioc had a lot of fun with that one. Apparently it was the fault of the manufacturer, and I could see how no one in the Angels clubhouse bothered to check and see if the front of the jersey was spelled right. Oh well, it was probably made by an illiterate peasant in a sweatsop in Bangladesh--they're lucky they got the other five letters on correctly.

2003-08-16T02:55:00.000-07:00

My Fair and Balanced look at the Angels.

The Angels have gotten to the soft underbelly of their schedule, the time that I predicted back in July would give them a chance to get back into the race. Actually, that soft underbelly started with the trip to Baltimore and Tampa Bay after the all-star break, and we all know how well that went. But what I'm trying to say is that the Angels three game winning streak is not to be unexpected, and it is likely to hit five before the Angels finish up with the Tigers and leave town on Sunday. And it'as also nothing to get excited about, even if Baseball Prospectus now gives the Angels a 0.1% chance of making the playoffs, up from zero. So the Halos have gone from none to slim. Well, really, really slim.

I'm not a doctor, but I think Troy Glaus should have the surgery. But I don't know what I'm talking about when it comes to things like rotator cuff tears, so I just hope he's getting good advice.

I wrote about Alfred Amezaga's troubles last time, but I think one player who has really helped himself earn a spot on the Angels next season is Chone Figgins. Better known as Tim Salmon and Bengie Molina's legs in the 2002 World Series, Figgins has come up to the Angels and hit a very empty .300, with few walks and no power. But the Angels aren't going to ask Figgins to replace David Eckstein, like perhaps they will with Amezaga, they just want him to pinch-run and fill-in at several positions when a guy gets a minor injury or needs a day off. When a utility player like that hits .300, you really don't care how empty it is, because a .641 OPS is good enough for such a player.

When I say that Figgins is hitting with no walks and no power, l don't mean Jose Molina-type no walks and no power. Jose is going to places that no one since Rob Picciolo has gone. Jose has gone 80 ABs without drawing a walk, and is now only 39 ABs away from Picciolo's team record for the '84 Angels of 119 ABs without a walk. OK, I'm just assuming it's a team record. How could anyone other than Picciolo go 119 ABs without a walk? Even Gary DiSarcina drew a good 15-20 walks a season. But in 1628 ABs in the majors (how?), Picciolo drew just 25 walks.

The funny thing is, this really isn't in character for Jose. Coming into this season, he had ten walks in 126 ABs. Not exactly Kevin Youkilis territory ("The Greek God of Walks") but certainly not something too out of the ordinary. Take that out to a full season, and that's about 40-45 walks. I don't know what has gotten into Jose lately, but I do think it's odd that no one has ever seen him and Rob Picciolo together in the same room.

2003-08-14T12:09:00.000-07:00

I didn't get around to posting after the Angels got their butts handed to them on Tuesday, but the good Jarrod Washburn returned yesterday and while he didn't get the win, he did keep the Halos in it long enough for them to pull out a 2-1 victory over the White Sox on Wednesday.

I forgot to add one thing about my discussion of Matsui. Well, two things actually. The first is that the Mets are apparently going after him, which seems odd considering how much they rave about Jose Reyes as their shortstop of the future. But of course, if the Mets really want someone and assuming that Matsui doesn't have a real allergy to the East Coast, the Mets will get him.

But the thing that I really forgot to mention is the struggles of Alfredo Amezaga. Amezaga has looked completely overmatched out there, both at the bat and in the field. I know that a lot of independent analysts seem to think Amezaga is more of a utility prospect than someone who could actually be a contributing starting shortstop. The Angels better find out in the next six weeks what the truth is. And besides, it's fun listening to the Baseball Tonight crowd trying to pronounce his name.

Finally, I've read Rob Neyer's column on the Angels, in which he essentially says it's all Darrin Erstad's fault, or more precisely, Darrin Erstad's contract's fault. I really like Neyer as a writer, and in fact I think he's the most insightful baseball writer in the game on a day-by-day basis. But we all have our own little prejudices, and Neyer's is Darrin Erstad and his contract. Neyer points out that the Angels have had a ton of injuries and that they are massively underperforming their pythagorean projection. Somehow this isn't an excuse. The Angels have actually outscored their opponents this season, 545 to 533, and should be sitting around 61-59 right now, even with all those injuries and disappointing production from the middle of the infield. But then Neyer makes the absolutely crazy assertion that Erstad's contract prevented the Angels from making the necessary upgrade to their offense.

Ridiculous. Neyer never answers who should have been "upgraded," in fact he specifically says that they probably shouldn't or couldn't have replaced Kennedy or Spiezio, the two players who were the least likely to repeat their 2002 season. He pretty much leaves unsaid who should have been replaced, but by elimination, the only answer is that Neyer thinks Erstad himself should have been sent packing.

OK. I like Erstad, but I'm not wearing blinders. I've repeatedly written that most of his value comes from his defense and if he can't play centerfield, he's worthless. So if the Angels can replace him with someone better, great. Let's assume that in the offseason, Bill Stoneman traded Darrin Erstad and Jeff Mathis to the Royals for Carlos Beltran. I think that Neyer would agree that Beltran was the best CF who might have been available this past off-season. So take Erstad out of the lineup and replace him with Beltran. Does Neyer honestly believe that the difference between Darrin Erstad and Carlos Beltran would cause the Angels to pick up 13 games on the Athletics and win the wild card? Of course he doesn't. Neyer has argued repeatedly in the past that the difference in such cases is no more than two or three wins.

Neyer doesn't know what he's talking about. The 2002 Angels were a unique and rather weird team, with no outstanding strengths outside of the bullpen but no glaring weaknesses or even old players nearing retirement. Stoneman could have dumped Spiezio, Erstad and Kennedy, but he wasn't likely to get better players in return. Stoneman correctly decided he'd rather gamble with what he had than with what was out there. But hey, even Troy Percival blows a save every once in a while, and I now know from experience that it isn't easy to come up with something interesting to say about baseball every day. But Erstad's contract is not dragging the Angels down to mediocrity.

2003-08-12T19:40:00.000-07:00

The Angels looked like the Angels of 2002 for a few innings of last night's 10-8 victory over the Chicago White Sox. The irony of this, of course, was that a lot of the damage was done off of Scott Schoeneweis. And then Troy Percival brought us back to a sense of despair, looking as poor as he ever has while giving up four runs in the ninth and almost blowing a six run lead. Still, we won and so I shouldn't complain that much.

The LA Times report that the Angels may be after Japanese free agent Kazuo Matsui. The Times is saying that Matsui wants to play on the West Coast, which gives the Angels a good chance to get him. The Giants have Rich Aurilia and the Athletics won't have the money and are clearing out shortstop for Bobby Crosby. I figure that the Dodgers will make a big play for Miguel Tejada, and the only way they won't get him is if they aren't willing to spend the money, which means they won't get Matsui either. That leaves the Angels, Mariners and Padres--and maybe the Diamondbacks if Arizona is considered "West Coast." I doubt the Padres will sign him--they may have the money with Petco Park but Japanese players seem to avoid losing teams. The Mariners have to be considered the favorite with their Japanese owner and all their Japanese players, but they seem to be up against the limit as to how much ownership is willing to spend, although Edgar Martinez's expected retirement might free up enough money for the Mariners to sign him. That leaves the last two World Champions, the Angels and the Diamondbacks. Bet that Arte Moreno won't let Jerry Colangelo sign a player he wants.

If I had to bet, I'd bet Matsui goes to the Mariners. But we don't know what Arte is going to be willing to drop in terms of money this off-season. If he's free-wheeling--and a Japanese player might be good for attendance--Matsui could end up in Angels red.

Finally, Steve Bisheff continues to live in his alternate reality where he castigates the Angels for not giving up Dallas MacPherson (or whomever) to get Aaron Boone (or whomever) in a ridiculous attempt to win 84 games this season. Those were the kind of moves that made the Yankees so lousy in the late '80's. If those kinds of trades sunk the Yankees, they certainly aren't a good idea for the Angels.

2003-08-11T17:50:00.000-07:00

Back from San Diego, where I was mercifully spared watching the Angels continue their self-immolation in Boston and Cleveland. Unfortunately, while Angels games are not televised in San Diego, KSPN radio comes in loud and clear, at least as long as the sun is out. I did get to watch the Cubs sweep the Padres, much to the delight of the large number of Cub fans in Jack Murphy/Qualcomm Stadium. Qualcomm is a pretty bad place to watch a ballgame. It isn't terrible--the place was pretty clean and the weather is almost always nice, but it certainly is sub-standard these days. The pictures of Petco Park look pretty good. It won't be Pac Bell or PNC Park, but it will likely be an excellent place to see a ballgame and should energize a moribund Padres fan base.

Oh, I'm supposed to be talking about the Angels, not the Padres. What to say? Everyone knows that they're playing terribly right now. The hitting has pretty much disappeared. A lot of that is the result of injuries, some is just slumping players, the rest is guys like Jeff DaVanon coming down to earth. Erstad is out for the season and Ross Newhan is again speculating that he will have to move to first base. I've said it once and I'll say it again: if Darrin Erstad can't use his magical glove in center field, he's worthless as a player. He does not hit enough to be a productive first baseman, and he'd just block Casey Kotchman.

I'm trying to be positive about the Angels, but it's a little hard. Still, because even losing baseball is better than no baseball, I'm going to try and conviince you not to give up on the Halos. Having said that, I now present:

Top Ten Reasons to still watch the Angels this season

10. Dumb "Condiment Race" at Edison now replaced with more exciting "Molina Race."

9. Rex Hudler's head might explode.

8. You know how you slow down to gawk at an accident on the Santa Ana Freeway? It's like that, only without the cars.

7. Ah-nold Schwarzenegger has promised to reveal his position on an important issue after every Angels win! (Hey, wait a minute . . .)

6. For the convenience of the players, home games moved from Edison Field to Orange Coast Memorial Medical Center.

5. Washburn, Lackey and Ortiz give every Angel game the excitement of a home run derby!

4. Rally Monkey to be replaced with "Don't Embarrass Us" Monkey.

3. Arte says: "Free Beer!"

2. New weekend uniforms designed on "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy."

1. It couldn't be worse than watching "The OC" on Fox!

2003-08-03T11:24:00.000-07:00

I'm spending next week in San Diego, where I'll get to say my own personal good-bye to the Q. Of course, I doubt it will be any sort of tearful farewell. But this means I won't update this blog until Friday or Saturday.

The bad Jarrod Washburn showed up again last night.

Scot Shields gets his tryout to try to pitch himself into the rotation for next season. Shields himself seems pretty ambivalent about the whole thing: probably not a good sign. But it just may be his personality. Also, Steve Physioc on the Angels radio pre-game made the first mention of Ervin Santana possibly being in the majors next season. Well, if Dontrelle Willis can make the jump, maybe Santana can too. Santana was the most dominating pitcher that I've personally seen in single A ball since Mark Grant twenty years ago--and he made the jump to the majors that quickly. On the other hand, the rest of Grant's career indicates that it might not have been a good idea.

Sympathy for the Devil

Alex Rodriguez should just keep his mouth shut, because no matter what he says or what he does, the mediocrities of the world are going to jump on him. Mike DiGiovanna, one of the dumbest hacks at the LA Times, took up the "Greedy, Greedy Alex Rodriguez theme" because he's too stupid to write anything else. Buster Olney at ESPN the Magazine the same thing earlier in the week, but I can't find the link right now.

Derek Zumsteg in Baseball Prospectus took on some of the fallacies of this in this article. The first point that Zumsteg makes that shouldn't be ignored is that the Rangers were just one year removed from a 95 win season when A-Rod signed with them. The idea that he signed with a terrible team just for the money is false. If Vlad Guerrero signs with the Angels next season, is DiGiovanna going to write an article about how Vlad signed with a lousy team just for the money?

The second of Zumsteg's points is that in the end, A-Rod only had two offers on the table. (He never had an offer from the Yankees or Braves, despite DiGiovanna's rantings) The Mariners and the Rangers, and the Rangers offer was for more than 2 and a half times as much. I'd like to see DiGiovanna turn down an offer from the San Bernardino County Sun for two and half times what he makes at the LA Times just so he could be on a winning team.

Or willingly cut his salary in half so that the Tribune Corporation can hire another editor. This "A-Rod should take a pay cut" argument is so bogus, and that isn't a word I use lightly or even often since I graduated from high school twenty years ago. First of all, the MLBPA would never allow it. Maybe he could defer some more of it, but I dobt that Tom Hicks wants to still be paying A-Rod until A-Rod's 70th birthday. I know where this "renegotiate to sign another player" crap comes from though: the NFL. Just because the NFL doesn't have a union worthy of the name doesn't mean that athletes in other sports should risk getting crippled for their employer and then see their employer cut them off without a cent when they do. (And this happens in the NFL every year--heck, it happens every week.) If a steelworker gets crippled by an industrial accident and the company then said "Sorry, but since you can't work anymore we aren't going to honor your contract," people would be angry. This guy didn't do anything but do his job (let's assume no malfeasance here), he got crippled for the company he worked for and now they say they aren't going to give him another dime. That happens in the NFL every week, and people see it as just part of the game.

But what I really want to address is the idea that the Rangers can't sign a good pitcher because of A-Rod's contract. This, of course, is also crap, and that's what A-Rod got tired of hearing when he lashed out. Take A-Rod off the Rangers, and they still have a payroll of 82 million dollars, which is the same as the San Francisco Giants. They're spending money even with A-Rod. This crap is also demonstrably false. Even after A-Rod signed his contract, the Rangers did sign a big name free agent pitcher: Chan Ho Park. Is it A-Rod's fault that this was a terrible idea? Is there any evidence that if A-Rod cut his salary that the Rangers wouldn't use that money to give 50 million dollars to Freddy Garcia? And why isn't Mike DiGiovanna calling on Chan Ho Park to take a paycut to make the Rangers more competitive?

Even funnier is DiGiovanna's suggestion that if A-Rod wanted to play for a winner, he should have signed with the Mets. THE METS? THE METS? Has DiGiovanna noticed where the hell the Mets are in the standings right now? The Mets without A-Rod are a lot worse than the Rangers without him. At least the Rangers have good young players like Hank Blalock and Mark Teixeira. The Mets have Ty Wiggington and Jason Phillips.

I could go on and on about the bad spending decisions that the Rangers have made. Juan Gonzalez. Todd Van Poppel. Chan Ho Park. Rafael Palmeiro. Ugeth Urbina. But no one seems to care about their bloated salaries.

Is Alex Rodriguez overpaid? Of course. Every player is overpaid, if you want to compare them to what our teachers, police and fire fighters earn. But if you want to boo A-Rod for being overpaid, you'd better be prepared to boo Tim Salmon, Darrin Erstad and Garret Anderson for the same reason.

2003-08-01T16:50:00.000-07:00

One more thing I forgot to add. It seems like the outfield walls at Edison are getting covered with advertising these days. I suppose that's the downside of having a guy who sold billboards for a living owning the team. If that's what it costs to have a guy who cares about the game, the team and the fans own the team, I can live with that.

2003-08-01T13:14:00.000-07:00

Aaron Sele pitched well, but it didn't matter as the Angels got swept by the Yankees for the first time in eight years. The home plate umpire decided early that he wasn't going to call any strikes on the Yankees, but the Angels hung in anyway.

The trade deadline came and went without the Angels making a move. Apparently the NY Yankees inquired about Darrin Erstad and Stoneman said no. I'm not against trading Erstad, and the Yankees are the only team likely to take on his contract, but I can't really see who the Yankees were planning on trading us to get him. So while I'm not against trading Erstad, I'm not in favor of just giving him away either. The Yankees weren't trading Nick Johnson, and the Yankee farm system is really bare from years of trades and neglect.

Scot Shields is stepping into the the starting rotation with the departure of Appier, who will apparently sign with either the Cardinals or the Royals. Better that he sign with the Cardinals to help the Cubs out. But both the OC Register and the LA Times are saying that this may be a temporary move, with the Angels going after a big-name starter in the off-season. The other position the Angels are looking to fill is right field, with Salmon becoming more or less the full-time DH.

I certainly be happy if the Angels picked up Vlad Guerrero or Brian Giles. One keeps hearing that Giles is bound for San Diego though, and a lot of teams are going to be bidding for Guerrero. Carlos Beltran would also be a nice option, and Anderson, Erstad and Beltran would easily give the Angels the best defensive OF in the majors. I'm going to toss out a final name that I think ought to be considered: Ken Griffey Jr. Sure, the Reds would have to pick up a chunk of his contract in order for us to get him, but even so, his contract isn't that bad--remember he gave the Reds a home-town discount. If he can stay healthy, he's still young and still potentially the best player in the game. Yeah, I know that "if" is a big if, but he only had one major injury in the 11 years he played in Seattle. We could also let him DH a bit and put Salmon out in right field from time to time, which would make Tim happy, or at least happier. He'd also play right field for us instead of CF, which would mean quite a bit less running. Would he be a risk? Sure. But so would Vlad Guerrero (whose back problems may be chronic, according to Will Carroll) and Carlos Beltran, who's had a few injuries himself. Everyone in Cincinnati, including Junior himself these days, has to agree that he needs to get out of Ohio. (Last one on the Reds turn out the lights!) I don't know what the Reds would want for him, but it can't be too much. Maybe Scot Shields and Ben Weber. Maybe Dallas MacPherson. Not guys we want to get rid of, but probably cheaper than Vlad Guerrero and Carlos Beltran would cost. It's something worth pursuing in the off-season.

2003-07-30T16:12:00.000-07:00

The purge has begun.

Wow. I thought that the Angels might look to release Kevin Appier this offseason, but to cut him lose now and eat 15 million dollars of his salary (a record for any team) just shows that the new Arte Moreno regime is not going to let players just hang around and collect a paycheck. Appier didn't even get out of the first inning of last night's shellacking at the hands of the Yankees. Scioscia had obviously run out of patience with Appier, who clearly doesn't have anything anymore. I was wondering if Arte would shell out the money to make a move like this, now I have my answer.

The question then becomes, why now? Did they just run out of patience, or do the Angels have a starting pitcher coming over in a trade? Sidney Ponson? Possible, but I doubt it. Ponson is having a great season and is really most valuable to a team that is looking to win it all this season, but I don't think Ponson is a good long-term risk.

A better possibility is Jeff Weaver. For one, the Yankees would likely pay the rest of his salary, so if he didn't work out the Angels could get rid of him at little or no cost. Secondly, this guy was a pretty good pitcher before he got to the Bronx. He's probably just suffering from Ed Whitson disease, and is likely to rebound after a trade. I'm against the Angels getting him though. Not because I don't think he can pitch, but because every time I see him I have that stupid Gary Wright song go through my head.

On to the Schoeneweis trade. Baseball America talks about all the particulars here. Both Dunn and Bittner are intriguing, but neither is a sure bet to even make the majors. let alone become effective pitchers. Considering that this was Scott Schoeneweis that we traded and that we weren't going to offer him arbitration at the end of the year anyway, Stoneman did OK. Not great, but OK. Schoeneweis may have a long career as a LOOGY (left-handed, one-out guy) but his bad platoon differential means he's unlikely to succeed in any other role without some serious changes to his game.

The only other question the Schoeneweis trade brings up is who is going to be the new player rep. I have no idea, but if we're taking wild guesses, I'll say Aaron Sele. they aren't likely to cut him and Appier. All I know for sure is that it won't be Brendan Donnelly.

2003-07-29T17:29:00.000-07:00

Just one day after the Orange County Register publishes a story that confirms my suspicions that Jarrod Washburn's velocoity is down and hints that his arm might not be right, Washburn goes out and pitches his best game of the year in a 2-1 victory over the A's. My obsession with Washburn is now approaching unhealthy levels, but one now has to wonder if the birth of his new son Owen might have had a little something to do with his problems. I could certainly imagine that it might be difficult to concentrate on pitching if your wife is about to give birth, especially if there were some complications--which I don't have any indication that there were, but if my wife was having pregnancy complications I cetainly wouldn't be telling the media about it. Let's hope this gets Washburn back on track for this season and next.

Ross Newhan today had an article in the Times that was half-good and half-bad. He criticized the Angels for brining back the entire team from last season and saying that you can't considered fifteen or twenty players to be the "core" of the team, and that everyone other than GA, Glaus, Erstad, Molina, Percival, Ortiz and K-Rod are expendable. He's absolutely right in saying that the Angels and us, the fans, have to be willing to say goodbye to guys like Spiezio, Weber and Kennedy who brought us such joy last October. He's wrong in thinking that anyone other than Anderson, Glaus and K-Rod belong on that list. Oh sure, we can't trade Erstad because he makes way too much money, so I guess you could add him to the "core" players out of necessity. But Ortiz really isn't any better than Washburn or Lackey, so if any one of them should be on the list it should be Lackey because of his youth and contract. And Bengie Molina? Sure, I love the guy, but he's having a career season and isn't really this good, and in case he hasn't noticed, Jeff Mathis is the second-highest rated catching prospect in the minors and will probably move from San Bernardino County to Orange County by 2005.

The other problem with Newhan's article is that he argued that the team needed to make moves not because it was silly to think that Scott Spiezio or Adam Kennedy would continue to play as well as they did last year or that it was clear that the Appier and Sele are living on borrowed time, but out of some ridiculous psychobabble that a team that comes back intact is complacent and lacks the hunger to win. Puh-leeze. The Cincinnati Reds made pretty much no changes to their lineup after their championship in 1975 and the Big Red Machine destroyed everyone in 1976, and Newhan is old enough to remember that. Heck, I'm sure he covered those teams extensively. They didn't start sinking until they traded Tony Perez--although a lot of that had more to do with the collapse of their pitching and the rise of the Dodgers than missing Perez.

Same goes for the Dodgers of the 70's who had the same infield of Garvey/ Lopes/ Russell /Cey for eight seasons and managed to win four pennants and one World Series. Newhan's psychobabble is just that. A lot of the Angels are just returning to their true value, and others are just having off seasons. It has nothing to do with a lack of hunger.

Finally, ESPN.com got around to Edison Field in its ratings of all the major league ballparks. Wow. I mean, I love Edison, but I'm not sure I love it as much as Page 2's Eric Neel does. Better than Dodger Stadium? Sure, that's overrated. But better than Fenway? Better than Yankee Stadium? Better than Safeco? On the other hand, I can't think of anything to argue about in his ratings. (Well, maybe that I love having dinner at the National Sports Grill before the game across the street that he couldn't find, but it took me five or six visits to Edison before I found it too.) Edison rightly gets good marks for the re-model. I never saw the Big A in person before the re-model, but my wife played halftime of a Rams game with her high school marching band and she assures me it was a dump. Edison also gets good marks for two things that I, having been going to Edison a little longer than Eric Neel, realize are even newer than the re-model: Arte Moreno's low concessions and the college football atmosphere that has been there since about last July. And that is what really makes the Big A special right now--the fans who come early, wear red, yell loud and love their Halos. As long as that can continue, Edison Field will continue to be the happiest place on Earth in my eyes.

2003-07-28T01:38:00.000-07:00

Another humiliating defeat.

I wanted to return to my monologue about why the Angels need to trade Adam Kennedy, but I came across Steve Bisheff's hilarious column in the Sunday Orange County Register. Rather than openly calling for the team to start preparing for next season, as any team that's lost 9 of their last 11 games should be doing, Bisheff openly calls for Arte Moreno to tell Bill Stoneman to go and pick up players. In particular, he suggests packaging Rob Quinlan along with say, Ben Weber for, oh, I don't know, someone like Sidney Ponson?

Isn't it the job of a newspaper columnist to laugh at fans who call up talk radio and make those kinds of trade suggestions? The Angels are not going to make the playoffs this season and Bisheff's whole reasoning, that the Angels need to make a trade to keep fans coming into Edison, is silly, since the Angels have already sold so many tickets for the rest of the season that they could not win another game the rest of the season and still set an attendance record. Good thing Disney doesn't still own the team: that last sentence might have given them an idea. If you want fans to renew those season tickets for next year, then you really want to make big trades and free agent acquisitions in the off-season.

OK, once Jim Beattie and Mike Flanagan get done laughing at that one, the idea of trading for Sidney Ponson is a dumb one at any level. The guy has been in the league for six seasons and has been lousy in four of them and mediocre in one. He's been pretty good this year, mostly by cutting down on the number of home runs he's allowed. But is this the type of pitcher you want to give up two prospects for and sign to a three year deal at 8 million a season? Didn't we learn anything from signing Aaron Sele?

But even if you do decide he's worth the risk, why not just wait until the off-season and then try to get him?

Bisheff tells Moreno to open up his wallet to sign more players, but that isn't really the problem. Come next season, the real question is going to be is he willing to open up his wallet to pay Kevin Appier and Aaron Sele to pitch either for another team or not at all. Because it's a pretty good bet that at least one of those two is going to become completely ineffective and probably significantly worse than a replacement-level pitcher like Mickey Callaway. And then we'll have to see if Moreno and Stoneman are willing to just cut the line on them and let them go.

Finally, there was a nice little piece on Bobby Jenks on SportsCenter tonight. If you can imagine Nuke LaLoosh with a bad drinking problem, a talent for self-mutilation, depression and possible suicidal tendencies, then you've got Bobby Jenks and his fastball that's been clocked at over 100 mph on many occasions.

2003-07-26T20:10:00.000-07:00

I wrote Will Carroll at Baseball Prospectus to ask about my theories about Jarrod Washburn. He agreed that something was wrong with Jarrod Washburn, but he assured me that it wasn't his mechanics and that he had no indication that there was any sort of injury problem. He speculated that it might just be a return to his 2001 form, but I've got to respectfully disagree since Washburn wasn't anywhere near this bad in 2001. The 2001 season might be a truer expression of Washburn's value than last season was, but he's clearly underachieving in 2003.

But I need to thank Will Carroll for his prompt and courteous reply to my stupid question.

The Angels have now dropped two games to the Athletics and even the LA Times is openly saying what has been whispered for weeks: the Angels are looking to sell. Barring a miracle, there really isn't any chance of making the post-season at this point, not with the Angels playing in the AL West. Certainly they are as good a team as the White Sox, Twins or Royals in the Central, but geography dictates that they won't be flying another flag in Edison next April.

With the recall of Alfredo Amezaga from Salt Lake City, the planning for next season has begun. The Times says that the Angels have no interest in trading either David Eckstein or Adam Kennedy at this point, but one of them is going to have to go to make room for Amezaga next season, and from the Times article, Kennedy is sounding like he thinks he's the odd man out.

But should he be? Assuming that Amezaga is going to be the Angels starting shortstop next season, who should play second base? Both have had lousy seasons this year, and both are a major reason for the dropoff in offensive production this year. But who should the Angels keep?

David Eckstein
Pros
--Gets on base a lot through walks and hit by pitches, offensive value less dependent on opposing defense
--Good defensive shortstop whose biggest weakness, a weak throwing arm, would be less important at second base
--Has had two productive seasons before this year's bust, and has consistantly gotten on base throughout his pro career
--Problems this season can be partially attributed to injuries
--Fan favorite who is more likely to keep the turnstiles at Edison rolling

Cons
--Is a year older than Kennedy
--Lacks "tools." May turn in more seasons like 2002, but unlikely to get any better than that
--Hasn't played second base above AAA. Unclear if he could easily go back. Might be weak on the pivot.

Adam Kennedy
Pros
--Gold-glove caliber second baseman. Proven commodity on defense.
--Better "tools" and is younger. Probably a higher upside.
--More power. Related to the "upside" comment, it isn't hard to imagine him becoming a 15-20 HR a year guy.
--Can hit lefties. Scioscia doesn't let him only because Benji Gil hits them harder, but doesn't have a big platoon differential.

Cons
--Makes too many outs. Doesn't draw walks, so his OBP is pretty strongly connected to his batting average.
--Potential hasn't been realized.
--Eckstein has been a more valuable player the past three seasons.

And that last one is really the bottom line. Both players are having bad years, but Eckstein has even been a little better this season. I don't want to go into the stats, but Eckstein's superior OBP is more valuable than Kennedy's slightly better power.

So if Adam Kennedy is going to go, should we trade him now? The one pennant contender who might be looking to acquire a second baseman is Minnesota, assuming they finally admit that Luis Rivas is a disaster, and the Twins have a strong farm system to deal from. So should Stoneman be offering the Twins Adam Kennedy in the next five days? I'll try to answer that tomorrow.

Quick additional note. I really hate Fox's "Sounds of the Game" when they decide that people would rather listen to a pop song than a ballgame, but I actually like it when they mike the players or coaches. I really liked the exchange between Scott Spiezio and A's third base coach Ron Washington that went something like this:

WASHINGTON: That's why we let you go. You couldn't get hits with men on base.
SPIEZIO: Did you watch the last post-season?
WASHINGTON: (long pause followed by an even longer pause) Was that you?

2003-07-25T12:08:00.000-07:00

I wasn't able to sign on to Blogger yesterday for some reason--I'm assuming they were down.

What is wrong with Jarrod Washburn? Washburn really isn't as good a pitcher as his 18-6, 3.15 ERA last season might indicate, he's an extreme flyball pitcher who doesn't strike out a ton of batters, but he's certainly a lot better than he's been this season, except for six good weeks in May and early June. Washburn is exactly the type of pitcher who should have suffered at the loss of Darrin Erstad over that time period, but that's the only time when he's actually pitched well. But with the Aaron Sele Experience continuing to roll along (and shouldn't Sele running out of gas in the game in Tampa tell Scioscia something?) and Kevin Appier posting a miraculous quality start in last night's 10-6 victory over Texas, Washburn is looking like the worst starter on the staff.

Something tells me that Washburn's health isn't right and he's not saying anything about it. Just a hunch, but it would explain what is happening to him. His strikeout rate is off dramatically this season, dropping from a good but not incredible 6.07 per nine innings, to a 4.72 ratio this season that not even Jamie Moyer's mother could love.

Washburn suffered a sprained left shoulder back in training camp, and it would certainly explain his poor April, when he wasn't striking anyone out (2.57 per nine innings) and getting hit pretty hard. Then in May he seemed to get right and he pitched the way he did last season, even without Death to Flying Things out in center field. His strikeout rate returned to normal. But in June, Washburn fell apart. His strikeout rate didn't really drop, but he started to give up a home run every time Arte Moreno dropped the price of concessions at Edison Field. I hope the two aren't connected. That might make life in Edison very difficult for Jarrod and besides, being gouged by Arte is a lot cheaper and more pleasant than being gouged by Michael Eisner. ("That's another home run given up by Jarrod Washburn. Edison Field and the Angels are proud to announce that means beer will now sell for 2.75 a bottle!" and the crowd went wild.)

Washburn's problems recently are clearly different than his struggles in April, which were probably related to his injury. But you don't often see a drop-off in performance this quickly and this badly without some sort of injury. Then again, maybe you do. Ask Tom Glavine.

2003-07-23T12:07:00.000-07:00

The Angels managed to split a two game series with the Devil Rays, which you don't need me to tell you that isn't good enough when you're nine and a half games out of first. Unless the Mariners want to return us the favor of 1995, this team is going to be the first defending World Series Champion since the Toronto Blue Jays to not make the playoffs the next year--and no, the Florida Marlins don't count since they didn't even try. I don't believe in giving up, but I do believe in reality. Even with the unbalanced schedule in the Angels favor, it isn't going to happen without divine intervention.

Sean over at Purgatory Online noted my article on trading relievers and adds that the Angels ought to consider moving Brendan Donnelly too, since his value is at an all-time high. He's probably right, but seeing what the Pirates got for Scott Sauerbeck, Mike Williams and, even worse, Kenny Lofton and Aramis Ramirez, I'm not sure that anyone is going to give us what Brendan Donnelly is worth before July 31. Of course Donnelly is more attractive than any of those warmed-over Buccaneers, so it might be worth pursuing. But I'm thinking the Angels get more for Donnelly in the off-season, if they decide to move a reliever then.

The problem with trading Donnelly, and in fact, with trading Schoeneweis and Weber as I advocated earlier, is that I'm not sure what contender is in the market for a reliever. Rob Neyer went over the trade needs of the contenders today and came to the conclusion that only the Cardinals were in the market for a reliever. Neyer is really looking only at team needs, certainly the Cubs, the Giants and the Braves might like to add a reliever, and the Yankees will take anyone who's still breathing, but with those teams, it's a luxury rather than a necessity. But a trade with the Cardinals is a problem because they aren't likely to give up any major league talent and the Cardinals' farm system has been called one of the worst in the majors right now. The other problem is what happens when the Dodgers face reality and start dealing their relievers. Guys like Paul Quantrill and Paul Shuey would likely be dumped for nothing as the Dodgers look to shed payroll so they can sign Miguel Tejada this winter, and that would depress the market for Donnelly, Weber and Schoeneweis.

Sigh. Too lousy to compete, too good to gut the team. Story of the season.

On to the good news. Ervin Santana got rewarded for his fine pitching and out-dueling Randy Johnson with a promotion to AA Arkansas. I'm glad I got to see this guy pitch his last game in Southern California before he arrives in Edison, and you'll be glad to see him too. The promotion to AA means a 2005 arrival date should be about right, although don't count out a K-Rod-like call up next year. Next season will be a critical one for the Angels farm system. If the guys currently tearing up the California League in Rancho Cucamonga continue to progress in the AA next year, the future should be bright for the Angels. Double A is where they generally separate the propects from the pretenders, so keep a good eye on the Arkansas Travellers next season.

2003-07-21T15:58:00.000-07:00

The Angels suffered their first four game sweep at the hands of the Orioles since the days of Jim Fregosi and Brooks Robinson in 1965. Heck, Frank Robinson was still in Cincinnati during that series.

The season may not be dead yet, but it's certainly on life support. Only poor play by the Athletics and the Mariners continue to allow the heart to beat.

What went wrong is pretty clear: the starting pitching is breaking down and the Angels aren't getting enough offense out of the middle of their infield or first base. What they could have done about this last off-season is not particularly clear.

Several commentators attacked the Angels for not making a move over the off-season (I know Rob Neyer has made some comments to this effect, I can't find them right now) and that standing on your previous team was a recipe for disaster, because the other teams were going to go out and improve themselves while you stood pat. And do you know what? He's right. The Angels were in trouble because the Mariners (Randy Winn), Athletics (Erubial Durazo and Keith Foulke) and Red Sox (Bill Mueller and later Byung-Hyun Kim, fixing a hole that failed to be fixed by Ramiro Mendoza) filled holes while the Angels did nothing. The only off-season move the Angels made was dumping Alex Ochoa and Orlando Palmeiro for Eric Owens. A bad move, to be sure, but not the cause of the Angels disappointing season, especially since the move allowed for Jeff DaVanon to play every day.

Buf if you were Bill Stoneman, what would you have done? Those teams had great strengths and great weaknesses and it was pretty apparent that they could improve their clubs by getting just solid major league ballplayers. The Angels, on the other hand, were a team of no overwhelming strengths, except maybe the bullpen, but no overwhelming weaknesses either. Sure the Angels could have gotten into the Erubial Durazo sweepstakes, but is he really any better than (a healthy) Brad Fullmer? Is Randy Winn better than Darrin Erstad? No, not really. The cheap talent that was out there was not going to improve the Angels like it was going to improve Oakland or Seattle.

What about the expensive talent? The problem with that, of course, was that Disney was trying to sell the team last winter and no doubt didn't want to scare away any new owner with any more long-term deals. Fan favorite and Disney favorite, Darrin "Death to Flying Things" Erstad got a new contract, but it wasn't very likely that Disney was going to put down the bucks necessary to get Jim Thome to come to Orange County.

That brings up the other problem. I exaggerated, a little. There was a clear weakness on the Angels, the back-end of the rotation. The problem is that Kevin Appier and Aaron Sele were not only likely to be the worst pitchers on the team (and Jarrod Washburn's efforts notwithstanding, they turned out to be the worst) but they are also the highest-paid and third highest paid players on the team, respectively. (Salmon is second) The Angels got a decent season out of Appier last year, but all indications were that Ape was living on borrowed time. Sele was a terrible free-agent signing from the very beginning. But Disney was not about to eat their contracts and then pay Kevin Millwood eight million a year, just as they were trying to sell the team.

I'm not finished with this hindsight yet, and honestly, I said a lot of this in the offseason, but you'll have to take my word for it. But the Angels play Tampa Bay on ESPN2 in fifteen minutes and I rather watch the Angels than write about them. More tomorrow.

2003-07-20T11:51:00.000-07:00

Yesterday's 8-4 defeat disgusts me so much that I don't want to say anything about it, other than it wasn't an unexpected result with Kevin Appier on the mound. But I did forget that it's a four game series, so the Angels can still avoid the sweep.

I also forgot to mention Scott Shields in discussing the bullpen yesterday, and Shields' effective pitching is yet another reason that Stoneman should be looking to move a reliever.

2003-07-19T16:04:00.000-07:00

The Angels dropped yet another game to the lowly Baltimore Orioles last night, 6-5, which makes me come to the conclusion that the Angels should be sellers rather than buyers come the July 31 trade deadline, especially since tonight's Kevin Appier vs. Sidney Ponson matchup means a sweep at the hands of the Orioles is a real possibility. Five and a half games out of the wild card is not insurmountable, but it isn't looking very good. By July 31 if the Angels haven't cut that gap at least in half, it may be wait until next year again.

So if the Angels decide to move players, who should they trade? The most obvious source of strength is the bullpen, and honestly the Angels have more good pitchers in the bullpen than they have innings for them to pitch. There are two pitchers in the pen I wouldn't trade under any circumstances, Brendan Donnelly and Francisco Rodriguez. Neither one makes any money nor are they eligible for arbitration soon. Donnelly has been as close to perfect this season as a pitcher can be. K-Rod hasn't been as effective, but he is young, has an incredible slider and has a bright future as a starting pitcher once he gets older and builds up some arm strength.

That brings us to Troy Percival. Percy is one of my favorite players but to be honest, there are two guys on the team that can do his job right now, Donnelly and Ben Weber, and K-Rod could probably do it by next season. He has that "closer" cachet that teams covet so much and could make a big impact in a pennant race for a team like the Red Sox or Giants. But Percival has a big contract and few teams are willing to take on any more money this season. Additionally, the Angels aren't so desperate to move him that they'd be willing to continue to pay his salary, a la the Mets and Jeremy Burnitz. So unless the Red Sox or Giants blow us away with a big offer for Percival, the wisest course is to probably hold onto him. But it wouldn't hurt to ask teams if they're interested.

The final two pitchers in the bullpen are prime trade bait: Ben Weber and Scott Schoeneweis. Both have been effective pitchers this year, although Schoeneweis gets into trouble when he has to pitch to a right hander. Right handers are hitting .328 off of him this season, whereas lefties can only manage a measly .179 off him. This makes him an effective LOOGY (Left-handed, One-Out Guy, as John Sickels calls them) that a team like the Cardinals might pay some good B level prospects to get. Weber is a good ground ball set-up man who closed effectively when Percival got hurt last season. He's sort of a groundball version of Brendan Donnelly, and while he isn't as effective as Donnelly, he's a player that probably 15 teams in baseball would love to have, and he's eligible for arbitration and a big raise at the end of the season. Stoneman should be taking offers for him now. Even if they decide not to give up on this season and go after a player like Aaron Boone or Dmitri Young, Ben Weber is one of the guys who should be offered as bait.

As far as players who aren't in the bullpen go, there isn't much there that a) other teams want and b)the Angels can afford to lose. Other teams might be interested in Ramon Ortiz, but I doubt the Angels can afford to lose their most effective starting pitcher. The entire outfield and third baseman make too much money, and Scott Spiezio's .786 OPS at first base is nor really something other teams are drooling over. His versitility gives him some value, but probably not enough to make it worth the aggravation of trading a World Series hero. "Shawn Wooten--Professional Hitter" is actually someone that teams looking for a bat of the bench might like. Again though, is it worth trading Wooten, who doesn't make much money, for a grade C prospect, which is all the Angels would be likely to get?

Adam Kennedy could be moved in order to open up second base for Eckstein and shortstop for Alfredo Amezaga, but Kennedy hasn't hit well at all this year, and teams in a pennant race normally don't trade for defense down the stretch, Alex Ochoa notwithstanding.

With any luck, the Angels will run off eight straight wins and Stoneman won't have to worry about this. But I'm not particularly optimistic at this point.

2003-07-18T18:56:00.000-07:00

The Angels lost to the Orioles last night 2-1, which just points out the problems the Angels have with their hitting. It may be getting to the point where the Angels are going to be sellers this month instead of buyers. More likely, the Angels will just stand pat, neither wanting to give up on the season nor sacrifice the future. A defensible strategy, I guess, but one not likely to improve the Angels chances of winning another World Championship either this year or next. More likely, it will just keep the team "competitive" and the big crowds in Anaheim coming back for at least one more year.

I'm not a big fan of the Commissioner, but I'm going to give him credit for one good idea if he pulls it off. Major League Baseball is apparently pushing ahead with a World Cup for baseball. This has been the primary source of contention between MLB, amateur baseball and the International Olympic Committee, who pretty much wants to cancel baseball as an Olympic sport if they don't get the right to host a baseball World Cup like they do in basketball. MLB obviuosly and understandably wants the right to host such a potentially lucrative event themselves, and aren't eager to shut down baseball for two weeks in the middle of August so players can fly off to Beijing, where fans will be paying money to the IOC rather than the owners. Oh, and the IOC won't pay the players anything for doing this either, unlike MLB.

But international competitions are an important marketing tool. Fourty years ago hardly anyone played basketball outside of North America, but because it was an Olympic sport, progams were started throughout the world be governments eager to gain some athletic glory. Now almost a third of the players taken in the first round of the NBA draft were foreigners. International competitions won't create world-wide popularity for baseball on their own, but it certainly is part of an effective international marketing strategy.

Let's see, if MLB could pull this off, the most likely scenario would be to hold it in April and delay the start of the season by two or three weeks. The season would likely also be shortened to 154 games in the years they had a World Cup. The big three would obviously be the United States, the Dominican Republic and Japan. Assuming an eight team field and that the Cubans would not be invited, the other five teams would then be what? Canada and Mexico would have to be invited, and then because much of this thing is a marketing device, a South American team (Venezuela) and a European team (Probably the Netherlands, as long as they could include Arubans like Sir Sidney Ponson) and then you've got three candidates for the eighth team--Korea, Australia and Puerto Rico. I suppose they could just count the Puerto Ricans as Americans (because they are) but then you'd still have a tough time chosing between Korea and Australia. Maybe they should just do ten teams.

The teams other than the big three would have no chance of winning, but that really isn't the point. If the Netherlands gets excited about baseball because they beat Canada with a bunch of colonial ringers, that's a good thing. The people of Belarus went nuts about hockey because of their victory over Sweden in the Olympics, even if they didn't bring home a medal. So if Bud Selig can actually pull this thing off, he'll actually have something to be proud of for once.

2003-07-16T16:52:00.000-07:00

The Rancho Cucamonga Quakes shelled Randy Johnson yesterday, erupting for four runs in the third inning and adding an unearned run of the Big Unit in the fourth. The big blow was a Dallas McPherson three-run HR that was simply crushed just to the right of dead center field, giving him a memory to tell his grandchildren some day. McPherson doesnt get the pub of Casey Kotchman (who's still hurt) or Jeff Mathis, but the guy is a pure hitter. There are some questions about his defense and third base is kind of blocked for him at the major league level, hopefully for some years to come, but he could end up replacing Tim Salmon in RF one day

Randy Johnson wasn't at his best last night, obviously, and he was clearly working on his curve and change up some times when it would have been better to throw the heat. I'd add that Johnson looked miserable out on the mound while the Quakes were circling the bases, but Randy looked miserable when he was winning the World Series too, so the Quakes probably weren't responsible for his apparent bad mood.

Even better, I got my first look at Ervin "Magic" Santana, who got a new nickname when the Quakes announcer accidently called him Ervin Johnson before the game. Santana, who had previously been named to the Futures Game and the California/Carolina League All-Star game, looked brilliant, giving up only one run in six innings, while striking out seven. Santana's fastball reached 97 mph according to the Quakes scoreboard, which is probably a joke, but I'd bet he was hitting 92-93 regularly. But even better than that was an absolutely devastating change-up that he threw about two or three times with two strikes on the batter. At least, it looked like a change-up to me. If it was a slider, it acted like a change-up. It's awfully unusual to see a pitcher in A ball have a change-up that good, so he is certainly one to watch. The only troubling thing was the way he tended to fall off the mound to his left after he revved up to throw a fastball. I didn't notice him doing this on any other pitch or even a fastball early in the count. Sounds like something that could be easily fixed though. I couldn't tell you if his future is in the starting rotation or in the bullpen, a la Eric Gagne, but I'll bet we'll see him in Anaheim by 2005.

If you're reading this, you undoubtedly saw the All-Star Game and don't need me to tell you about it. But I will add that Joe Sheehan's All-Star diary at Baseball Prospectus makes some nice points about Brendan Donnelly and Garret Anderson. Sheehan probably doesn't care about this, but one poingt he doesn't make is that the difference in personality between Kirby Puckett and Garret Anderson will probably keep Garret from any chance at Cooperstown, barring a HR tear that would have Garret end up around 450 HRs. So while Garret may end up with better stats than Puckett, he doesn't smile and get his picture taken with a lot of dying children like Puckett did in his prime. Should that make a difference? No, but you're kidding yourself if you think it doesn't.

2003-07-15T11:20:00.000-07:00

So Garret Anderson won the Home Run Derby? Who'd a thunk it? Well actually, I told my wife before the contest that without the big names like Alex Rodriguez and Sammy Sosa (although Jason Giambi was there) that "It'll probably be someone no one expected like GA or Bret Boone." So I'm not exactly Nostradamus. I picked two of the eight guys, one of whom won it and the other couldn't even get a single HR.

The HR Derby was more exciting than I imagined it would be, however, and most of the thnks for that goes to GA, Giambi and Albert Pujols, who put on quite a thrilling run at Anderson's nine in the final round before quite clearly running out of gas. The biggest problem of the HR Derby last night was, as my wife put it, "Nothing interesting to hit home runs into." Her theory of baseball architecture is that every park needs to have somewhere interesting for a HR to land. Wrigley Field has Waveland Avenue, Fenway has the net and now the seats over the Green Monster, Pac Bell has McCovey Cove, Edison has the miniature golf course, the BOB has a swimming pool, Miller Park has those windows to break. Comiskey, oh, sorry, US Cellular, doesn't really have anything like that, which detracted from the festivities.

Anderson's national stature will clearly be enhanced by this, as his name was mentioned on all the morning news shows as the Derby champion. Chris Berman, whose act is really starting to get old, could only come up with "The Quiet Man" to describe him. At least A-Rod called him "The Quiet Assassin." A-Rod seemed to be openly pulling for Garret out of some sort of AL West solidarity. That's an interesting concept. The AL West only has four teams and they don't get a lot of national exposure because none of them are the Giants or Dodgers. And the Diamondbacks would rather die than join the AL West. (Can you imagine what the AL West would have been like if Arizona had replaced Texas last season like they were supposed to? Yikes!) They see a lot of each other, so it is likely that talk to each other regularly, yet I don't sense a lot of bad blood between the teams like say, in the NL Central with the Cubs, the Cardinals, the Reds and the Brewers, none of whom seem to like each other. I saw A-Rod having a long conversation with Benji Gil before the last Texas game at Edison a couple weeks ago.

But I digress. GA's HR Derby championship is a nice bonus and will give him some national attention, but the thing that will really get him and the rest of the Angels the publicity they deserve is another trip to the post-season.

2003-07-14T16:18:00.000-07:00

First, I'm going to have to do a quick mea culpa on my criticism of the starting pitching. The Angels offense is down this year. Last year they were forth in the league in runs scored, so far the Angels are eighth. I do wonder how much of that is due to the unbalanced scedule that will even out as the season goes on. But I wrote that earlier post without checking the facts, and I should have done that first. On the other hand, the point still stands. The Angels struggles early in the season have been mostly the result of poor starting pitching. Last year the Angels gave up the fewest runs in the AL and this season they're third--and while I don't have a starting/relieving breakdown, I know that the relievers this season are the best in the AL, so the increase has got to come from the starting pitching.

Joe Sheehan did a nice write-up on the Angels in Baseball Prospectus today. The article is a subscriber-only article, so I can't give you a link unless you shell out the $27 for a subscription (well worth it, in my opinion) but I will cite one stat he gives: In the games that Darrin Erstad was on the DL, the Angels gave up an average of 4.5 runs a game, and only 4.0 runs a game the rest of the season. It's hard to believe that any outfielder's defense is worth a full half a run a game, but with the Angels flyball pitching staff and Erstad's ridiculous range, Erstad might well be that player. The talk of moving Erstad to first base is a silly one, kind of like turning Bengie Molina into a pinch runner to take advantage of his speed. (OK, Erstad does hit better than Molina runs. Just a little hyperbole.) Erstad is only a quality major league player because of his stellar defense. He really hasn't hit that well since his .355 season in 2000, which I am now confident was a fluke. Moving him to first would rob the Angels of his most valuable assets, his speed and defense, and emphasize his weakest character, his hitting. The Angels pitching staff is built around the assumption that most things hit to the outfield will be caught by Darrin Erstad, and moving him to first would probable mean trading Jarrod Washburn and Ramon Ortiz as well.

Secondly, I'm going to Rancho Cucamonga tomorrow to see the Quakes, so I should have a report about how the Angels high-A minor league team is doing. Why am I going to miss the All-Star Game on TV (THIS TIME IT COUNTS, I'M TELLING YA!) to see a minor-league game? Let's just say that the Lancaster Jethawks starting pitcher is a lot better than any of the starters at U.S. Cellular Field tomorrow. So if the Quakes get any hits while this guy is on the mound, it will be quite an accomplishment.

Oh, I forgot to give a quick thanks to Sean at Purgatory Online for the mention of this site. If you're reading this, you probably found it through him. So it looks like I'm open for business now!

2003-07-13T23:29:00.000-07:00

The Halos did what they had to do and swept the Twins with a 6-1 victory on Saturday and an 8-3 victory on Sunday. Boston and Seattle both split their final two games over the weekend, but the A's won both games over Baltimore, so the Angels pick up one game on Seattle and Boston and none on Oakland. Oakland's propensity to go nuts in the second half of the season is very worrisome to our wild-card hopes, but it isn't time to scoreboard watch just yet. The Angels are now 10-1 against the AL Central with 30 more games to go. Obviously they probably won't go 27-3 in those final 30 games, because some of them are against KC and the White Sox, neither of whom are terrible, and the Twins shouldn't be as terrible as they are now. But last year the Angels went a combined 23-4 against Baltimore, Tampa Bay and Detroit. This is a team that has a tendency to clobber the bad ones, probably because of the "small ball" and aggressiveness that Rex Hudler loves so much tends to work better against the poor teams than the good ones, since it exploits their defensive weaknesses. So just as playing the King's Gambit can wreck havoc on your local club player but probably isn't as good an idea against Garry Kasparov, "small ball" works better against bad defensive teams (that means you, New York Yankees) and not as well against good defensive teams like Seattle. I was shocked to hear Joe Morgan agree with this on the ESPN game of the week tonight, since he has repeatedly said the opposite in the past, but I guess Joe just says whatever he thinks makes him look smart at the moment.

Luckily the Twins, normally a good defensive team, are such a mess in so many other areas right now that Scioscia doesn't really have to rely on one-run strategies and baserunning to beat them.

What will the Angels have to do to make that playoff push after the All-Star break? The starting pitching needs to come around, obviously, although with the exception of Kevin Appier, they seem to have already. It remains to be seen how long the Aaron Sele Experience continues to work though.

So turning to the offense, what is missing? Losing Brad Fullmer was obviously a big blow, because he was having a great season, but it may have inavertently solved the Angels biggest problem this season. David Eckstein, so good as a leadoff hitter last season, has been close to godawful terrible this year, and Darrin Erstad hasn't been much better. Now I don't advocate giving up on Eckstein and calling up Alfredo Amezaga as some impatient Angels fans have suggested, because the Red Sox gave up on Eckstein once upon a time and lived to regret it. I think we are just going to have to ride out Eckstein's slump, and Scisocia has done the right thing moving the lil' tyke to the nine hole against right handers.

But then the Angels need a leadoff hitter, and this is where Jeff DaVanon has stepped up. He enters the All-Star break with an OBP of exactly .400 in 179 plate appearances. DaVanon, of course, would not likely even be on the team this year if not for the injuries to Erstad and now Fullmer. It seems that Scioscia has found a leadoff hitter, at least against right handers, in Jeff DaVanon. (Or Jerry DaVanon, as Vin Scully likes to call him. How come everyone got on Harry Caray's mistatements and bloopers late in his life, but no one dares criticize Scully?)

Can DaVanon keep this up? He's had OBP of .432 and .395 the past two seasons in the PCL, but those numbers are undoubtedly inflated a bit by playing in Salt Lake City, which is kind of a Coors Lite Park. Baseball Prospectus' PECOTA ratings forcasts about a .338 OBP for DaVanon in the majors, although that forcast also figured he'd have to hit off left-handers too. So while we really can't expect DaVanon to get on base two out of every five times the rest of the season, an OBP of .360 or even .370 is certainly not out of the question and that would easily be our best option in the leadoff spot. So if Bill Stoneman is listening, and I know he isn't, he should really be looking to replace Fullmer's power at first base and leave Salmon in the DH role, rather than looking for a DH that would move DaVanon to the bench.

2003-07-12T11:45:00.000-07:00

There isn't really a lot to say about yesterday's 5-0 win over the Twins other than Adam Kennedy deserves a gold glove, Ramon Ortiz pitched six of the ugliest shutout innings I've ever seen, the Twins are struggling and Rex Hudler discovered e-mail. The biggest news is that Bill Stoneman is starting to make noises about the Angels now being back in the race, indicating that the Angels may be buyers rather than sellers come the trade deadline. I will write more about whom the Angels should be looking at next week. For now, let's just say Scott Spiezio may not be a happy World Series hero for the rest of the season.

In most seasons. however, being 9 1/2 games back of Seattle just before the all-star break and 6 1/2 back of Boston for the Wild Card would mean that the season is pretty much over. But the unbalanced schedule and the overall crumminess of the AL Central gives the Angels reason for hope. The Angels have only played 9 games so far versus the AL Central and still have 32 to go. The Mariners and Athletics have both already played 30 versus the dogs of the Central and have only 15 left to go. The Angels will have to make their move in August when they play the Central and Seattle and Oakland are playing the East. Unfortunately, that's after the trade deadline, so the the Angels are going to have to make up their mind whether or not they are in this thing before they get to play those games.

2003-07-11T13:26:00.000-07:00

Day three of the Aaron Sele Experience tour (A Mike Scioscia production) was another smashing success in Anaheim yesterday afternoon, providing a 7-1 victory over the Royals. Sele is upset about the five-inning limit and says he isn't doing anything differently, but his ERA before this little experiment began was 7.01. In the three starts since Sele went on the limit, his ERA has been 0.60, lowering his season ERA to 5.37. In the nine starts that Sele had before he got put on the inning-limit, he'd actually limited himself pretty well, getting into the seventh inning only once.

Sele's problem is that he thinks his manhood has been questioned. There was an old insult in the days of Koufax and Drysdale, "He's a seven-inning pitcher," which meant that a pitcher didn't have the stamina to finish his own games. Obviously no one says that anymore because everyone is a seven-inning pitcher, but I'm sure Sele is worried about being called a "five-inning pitcher." It's amazing how much professional athletes would rather lose games than look weak or effeminate. Shaq won't shoot free-throws underhanded, because seven-year old boys would tease him about shooting free-throws like a girl. Or at least they would if he weren't over seven feet tall and the greatest player in basketball, but he still thinks they will.

And the Aaron Sele Experience is yet another example of why Mike Scioscia is such a great manager. I'm going to write a longer essay on Scioscia's strengths and weaknesses when I get some actual readers, but Scioscia saw that Sele was a problem and asked "How can we solve this" and came up with an answer. Sele is going to be around for a while because of that fat contract, so he couldn't just cut him or banish him to the end of the bullpen. So he decided to see how much good he could squeeze out of Sele and how he could cut out all the problems. But I honestly see no reason why Sele should ever be in the game when they start singing "Take Me Out to the Ballgame"

Now Scoiscia is talking about letting Sele go longer, explaining that the whole experiment was a way to build up Sele's arm strength, which I suppose saves a bit of face on the part of Sele. I'm sure he's also worried about the strain it's going to put on the bullpen who will be needed in future games when Kevin Appier melts down again. But hey, Scott Schoeneweis is complaining about his lack of playing time--I think that Schoeneweis could just expect to pitch in every game Sele starts.

Finally, the starting pitchers complained to Scioscia that they're getting all the blame for the disappointing season. I'll write more about this when I actually have readers, but what are they talking about? The Angels are hitting more than they did last year and the bullpen has been lights out. So else's fault could it be? The Rally Monkey's?

Finally, the Twins are coming to town, and it couldn't be at a better time. The Twins are falling apart, although the long-awaited moving of Johan Santana to the starting rotation might hurt us a little, as he's going tonight at Edison. But the Angels really need to start sweeping a few series if they want to get back into the playoff hunt.

2003-07-10T16:40:00.000-07:00

Why am I starting a blog about the World Champion Anaheim Angels? I can't even claim the Angels as my favorite team. That honor goes to the hapless Chicago Cubs of my youth in the Midwest. But as I have grown older, I find myself increasingly, and to a rather unhealthy degree, obsessed with baseball and I need an outlet for this "hobby" before madness sets in. A daily recording of my relationship with the National Pastime is my attempt to deal with this problem.

So why not write about the Chicago Cubs? For one, I live in California now, and I see a lot more of the Angels than I do the Cubs these days. I was at Edison last week. I haven't been to Wrigley Field in seven years. But a big factor is that there are several Chicago Cubs-oriented blogs on the net already, the best of which is Christian Ruzich's The Cub Reporter, although the one Cub blog that I never fail to miss is Al Yellon's cantankerous, opinionated and never dull bleacher bum view and another thing! I just didn't see a need for another Cub blog on the net at this time. The only Angels blog on the net that I'm aware of, however, is the solid but somewhat erraticly maintained Purgatory Online. This is really too bad, because the Angels are a fascinating team that are ripe for some serious on-line dissection. Unfortunately, despite their World Championship, the Angels seem to still get ignored by the national media and they don't always even get the coverage they deserve from the local Southern California media.

This isn't just a matter of me trying to write to a perceived need on my part, however. Without question, the Angels are my second favorite team and favorite American League team. I have followed them closely since I moved west some five years ago. So fans who have suffered in Orange County for decades should not fear my take on the team because it is from a fan who wants to see the Angels win many, many more World Championships after this one. In fact, I'm currently writing down notes to myself with an Anaheim Angels pen and pondering what to write by staring at my Jarrod Washburn bobblehead.

My history with the Angels probably goes back a lot farther than a lot of the people at Edison these days. I clearly remember the Angels teams of the late seventies and eighties, back when the Angels got a lot bigger share of the national spotlight because of players like Nolan Ryan, Reggie Jackson, Bobby Grich, Fred Lynn, heck, you all know who they were. Brian Downing was always my favorite Angel because of his funky batting stance and because he was a great lead-off hitter who coudn't run. I lost several bets, mostly six packs of beer, to my Red Sox fan college friends when Dave Henderson hit that home run in 1986. And having spent most of the nineties in Iowa, I've seen the Cedar Rapids Kernels many, many times. Because of this, I've been following the Angels for almost a a decade now, once at a distance and now up close. Of course, I've been to see the Rancho Cucamonga Quakes many times too, so I've got both the Angels Class A farms teams down pat. I try to go to Edison Field about once a month. Man, my seats have gotten lousy this year.

Finally, writing about the Angels gives me a little more distance from my subject than the Cubs would. I hope this blog is going to be an enlightening discussion about baseball, and it will be easier for me to do this writing about the Angels and not the Cubs, since I'll probably fly into a mad rage at the mere mention of the name Antonio Alfonseca. So while I'm not going to begrudge an Angels fan popping a rivet about Kevin Appier's struggles, I'm going to try to stay calm about Appier's troubles and I won't shed a tear at the mention of Gary DiSarcina. It's open season on Mo Vaughn though.

So let's get this thing started and hope the Halo shines brightly tonight.