Chronicles of the Lads

WHEREIN I WRITE A SEASON PREVIEW

2009-04-21T17:18:00.000-07:00

Somewhat. At BTF.

BRIAN FUENTES

2009-04-18T03:20:00.000-07:00

There are two out in the eighth inning. You lead by two. The bases are loaded. Two left-handed batters are due up. The pitcher you have on the mound is right-handed and has a career 7.13 ERA.

If you're not going to put in your multi-million dollar left-handed closer that has only pitched once in the last five days, then why is he even on the roster?

ADENHART

2009-04-09T11:39:00.000-07:00

I don't have any words for this. If any of you have been around here for awhile, you know I followed Nick Adenhart from the moment he was drafted:

One intriguing draftee is Nicholas Adenhart, a high school pitcher who measures at 6'4'' (or 6'3'', if you believe Baseball America) and can hit as high as 93 on the gun. The MLB scouting report pegs him as a "definite blue chipper" and a "potential frontline [major league] starter," and BA ranked him as the second-best high school pitcher in the country (he actually held the number one spot for much of the season). Why did he go 413th in the draft? Well, he's having the Tommy John surgery. (The video shows that he has very smooth mechanics, but scouts had idenified him as having a "stiff front side" prior to his injury.) Adenhart has a full ride at North Carolina, and his father speaks glowingly of the chance for him to get an education.

So, is he signable? It will be interesting to see. I would suspect that he'll go to college and up his stock, but you can't blame the Angels for trying, and it may work out.

After he signed, he immediately entered the Watch List I used to do of prospects. And my notices were glowing, as as a pitcher young for his leagues Adenhart always at least held his own or excelled.

I liveblogged his MLB debut last year, which didn't go well, and he struggled when he returned to AAA. I was pretty much out of the blogging game by then, but I wasn't worried -- he was still young for his leagues, and you could see the stuff that he had.

Last night's game demonstrated both his potential and his struggles. He had not yet mastered his command, but had such a live arm, with a good moving fastball, a solid curve, and an excellent change. He had an absolutely marvelous sequence against Jason Giambi with men on base, shocking Giambi and myself with back-to-back changes for a strikeout. I thought it was an absolutely fantastic plate appearance from the pitcher's perspective, and it really indicated to me that this was a kid that gets it. And he was going to get there -- he hit the majors younger than Ervin Santana did, younger than John Lackey did, younger than Chuck Finley did, with for the most part terrific minor league numbers.

I don't mean to be insensitive in talking about his pitching or selfish in referring to my own previous blog entries, but this is the arena in which we as fans knew Nick Adenhart. We forge these connections with people we never meet or see outside of a uniform. And they mean something to us -- it's about us being part of something bigger than ourselves, of joining with others and cathartically sharing their joys and disappointments.

And if this incident has this kind of effect on us, I can't even imagine the effect on his family and friends. To watch this young man battle through injury and work hard and achieve his dream, and demonstrate such improvement and progression in his chosen life of work, to have the effect he seemed to have on those who knew him, and have that all seized by an act of such randomness and horror ... I cannot imagine it.

Even Scott Boras wept.

Condolences to all who knew and loved Nick Adenhart.

MY ONLY POLITICAL POST EVER

2008-10-09T16:24:00.000-07:00

HATCHING

2008-09-30T18:00:00.000-07:00

As linked at Halos Heaven:

What Teixeira has done, according to Angels hitting coach Mickey Hatcher, is change the culture of hitting in Los Angeles. He's taught teammates to be more patient, to take walks if the perfect pitch to hit isn't there.

"He definitely adds a lot to our lineup with that on-base percentage; a guy that works the count," Hatcher said. "It's good for some of my players to watch that. He's brought that into our lineup. Ever since we got him he's had a lot of big hits for us. He gets on base to help us create more runs. He plays unbelievable defense, and I think that makes our pitching staff that more confident. He's just fun to watch."

Mark Teixeira played his first game for the Angels on July 30. Up until that point, the Angels had walked unintentionally 270 in 3,884 eligible plate appearances (PA minus intentional walks, hit-by-pitch, and sacrifice hits), for a walk-per-PA rate of 6.95%. From July 30 forward, the Angels walked unintentionally 159 times in 2,135 such PA: 7.45%.

Of course, a lot of that is Mark Teixeira, who had 28 UIBB in 226 "E"PA (12.39%). Taking Teixeria's contribution out, the rest of the Angels walked 131 times in 1,909 EPA: 6.86%.

Before: 6.95%. After: 6.86%. Not looking good so far for the Mickster.

But there's one thing to check ... let's take Casey Kotchman out of the equation in the "before" category. 15 UIBB, 390 PA, taking that out gives the Angels 255 UIBB in 3,494 PA, giving us ... 6.54%.

So the rest of the Angels did walk more often after Teixeira was acquired than before. By 0.32% walks per plate appearance. That's a difference of seven walks.

I'm certain Scott Boras will include this in the portfolio he submits to teams seeking Teixeira's services this winter.

TEIXEIRA

2008-07-29T15:09:00.000-07:00

So it says here our boys have traded Casey Kotchman and Stephen Marek for Mark Teixeira.

I am both sad and hopeful about this. Sad because I really like Casey and think he's going to be a productive hitter over the rest of his career (I'm betting on his June and most of July this year being an aberration), hopeful because Teixeira is an improvement and Marek isn't a huge loss. I don't really know if I see the Angels re-signing Big Teix after this year, so, Kendry Morales, you better be ready come 2009.

JON BORE-LAND

2008-07-07T02:26:00.000-07:00

Back when we traded for Jon Garland, I tried to figure out what made him tick, how he got guys out. I got nowhere with this, and put it aside, figuring maybe after watching him a couple times per week I might get it.

After his first few starts, I began to think the answer to the question "How does Jon Garland get guys out?" was "He doesn't", but he's turned it around, and has been taking names all around the league for more than a dozen starts. I've been watching, and I must conclude that I simply have no idea how he's doing it.

But in watching him, I have come to yet another conclusion about Jon Garland: he is the most boring major league pitcher I have ever seen.

What do I mean by this? Well, you know, most major league pitchers, especially quality ones, have something about them that's exciting. A hot fastball, like Ervin Santana. A bendy breaking ball, like Francisco Rodriguez. A hot bendy fastball, like Scot Shields.

What does Jon Garland have? I don't know. A low-90s two-seamer: ho-hum. He throws a curve, but from the footage we've seen on telecasts, it was twenty times better in high school than it is now. I guess he has a change, too, I don't know what he's doing. The guy struck out two men with a guy on third and no outs today, and I literally had no idea it was happening until it was over.

And he doesn't have any personality, either. I don't mean in life, maybe he's the most personable guy there is, I have no idea -- I mean on the mound. He doesn't seem to gesture or show emotion or do anything. Has he ever talked to a catcher or anything on the mound? He congratulated Juan Rivera after his fine throw today, by the dugout, but that's not really on the field. He just doesn't seem to do anything -- except for slow down his pace painfully when multiple guys get on base. Which is boring. And he doesn't seem to being making any kind of impact on local media, either.

Quite frankly, I don't even know what Jon Garland looks like. If he wants to come to my house he better be wearing his jersey otherwise I'm calling the cops about a stranger trespassing.

I was pondering these two Jon Garland facts, as I do, the fact that I don't know how he has success with such non-phenomenal stuff and by striking out no one, and the fact that I've never seen a pitcher so boring, when I finally had an epiphany:

Jon Garland bores opposing hitters to death.

I mean, think about it. When you're facing a big-time pitcher like John Lackey, you're on your game. You have a lot to think about. "Oh, is he going to throw his fastball? What about that curve? What do I do? What does he do?" You think about what's going on. You're engaged. Lackey's still gonna get you, but you know what's happening to you.

And when you face a bad pitcher, like Justin Speier Puts Gas On the Fire over the past month, you're at your best attention: "Now's my chance to get a hit, I gotta focus." You're in the game.

What are you thinking when you're batting against Jon Garland? "Oh, I guess here comes a sinker *YA-AWN* oh hell I better swing" and you tap some week grounder to the second baseman, and then you go back to the dugout and you've already forgotten what happened. And Garland strikes out three guys a game and gives up a not-unusual number of groundballs and ends up with an ERA better than the league average year after year after year. All by being uninteresting.

Well, whatever works.

WELL, AT LEAST I WITNESSED MY FIRST IN-PERSON NO-HITTER

2008-06-29T11:33:00.001-07:00

MARK GUBICZA DOESN'T LIE

2008-06-25T12:39:00.000-07:00

During the game yesterday, Bob Boone came to visit Rory and Guby in the booth. Boone used to manage Gubicza in KC, and Guby told the story of pitching in a game against the Angels, and he had two outs in the ninth, and Boone came to take him out with Garret Anderson coming to the plate. Gubicza told Boone he'd get Anderson to hit a groundball, Boone believed him and let him stay in the game.

Guby then coerced Anderson to hit a groundball -- which he did for a base hit. And out came Boone to take Gubicza out of the game.

This is exactly the kind of story that doesn't seem to be true at all, but I went into Mark Gubicza's records and ... it happened.

May 9, 1996. Bottom of the ninth, Royals up 8-2, Gubicza enters the inning with 107 pitches. He strikes out Tim Salmon looking on five pitches, gives up a first-pitch single to Chili Davis, but then takes eight pitches to retire JT Snow.

So you can see Boone's thinking, let him finish the game, when the inning begins. But now he's up to 121 pitches, the lefty Anderson is coming up, you got your shot, but Snow took it out of you. He comes out, Guby insists on getting the last out, Boone acquiesces. And then:

G Anderson Single to RF (Ground Ball thru 2B-1B)

And then Boone came out and removed Gubicza, and Julio Valera got the last out.

I guess that's a pretty memorable circumstance for Guby, but that's still over a decade ago, and he nailed it.

CONCLUSION

2008-05-02T01:08:00.001-07:00

Well, that was a disaster. Oh well.

LIVE BLOGGING ADENHART'S DEBUT: INNING 2

2008-05-01T19:29:00.000-07:00

Here comes Big Frank, the greatest hitter Nick Adenhart has ever faced. Fastball way outside, then he grooves one that The Hurt fouls back. Brings the fastball back in a couple of times and Thomas breaks his bat and ground out to third. Some nice action on that fastball, and I like the coming inside against Frank Thomas there.

Emil Brown can't hurt a curveball, so Adenhart starts him off with one. It goes about 55 feet. A fastball evens it up, but there is no doubt in my mind that the Angel advance scouts saw Brown struggle with curveballs and thrive against fastballs, because our guys have just been feeding him charlies all series.

Naturally, on 1-1 Adenhart comes up and in with a fastball and Brown shoots it the other way through the 3/4 hole.

Jack Cust will present another test, with his patience. Takes a fastball away, and then another one that only barely misses. And another one up and away and not close -- this is Adenhart's first PA from the stretch, and it's a four-pitch walk.

Napoli on the mound. I spot a small gesture toward the infielders. Wanna bet the message was "Just keep it down, in the zone, and let them hit it. You've got Erick Aybar out there for God's sake." He hits the outside knee against Crosby for strike one, and Napoli points in encouragement. The second pitch misses just a bit low and the ump gets some catcalls from the stands.

The 1-1 curve goes about 55 feet again, then the next one finishes up and in as he overcompensates on the release point. His slowish movement toward home may encourage him to open up that left shoulder early. This draws out Mike Butcher.

Incidentally, some of the things I'm saying here are being said by Phys and Rex, too, almost simultaneously with my typing, so I'm perfectly willing to admit that I'm wrong on everything.

Napoli does Adenhart no favors by declining to block a fastball in the dirt with this Hannahan character up. Then the next fastball misses way high.

This is not good. He's only thrown one curve in the zone, has missed badly on three, and just threw a changeup up at blimp level. The A's can sit on his fastball, which he now misses with way high and away to issue a walk and load the bases.

Now Chone Figgins will talk to him. How many people are going to talk to this kid? Is it going to help? Send me a chopper, Artie, I'll get out there and talk to him.

He starts off Ryan Sweeney with a curve in the zone. It was the top of the zone, though, not necessarily a pitch you want to throw. And then he misses with two straight fastballs, then a curve just outside. A high fastball walks in a run, and he's walked four straight guys, with a wild pitch (that should have been blocked) thrown in for fun. Moseley gets up in the pen.

Adenhart sticks with the stretch. I'd go to the windup here. It's not like the A's are gonna steal home. Wind up and get back to what you know.

He finally puts a couple heaters in the zone, but the second one Suzuki puts on the ground and it eats Quinlan up. 4-0, and Quinlan is about as graceful as Amy Winehouse out there.

Another two high strikes on curves to Mark Ellis. A third one misses down and away, but in the place where you want to miss. Then the fastball misses away, but not a bad miss on 1-2. A high change gets a force play.

Look, if he gets out of the inning, let him stay in. See how he bounces back from a tough inning. I'm not saying run up his pitch count on the day, but let's see him be resilient.

First pitch to Barton -- and I have to go for now. To be continued.

LIVE BLOGGING ADENHART'S DEBUT: INNING 1

2008-05-01T19:27:00.001-07:00

I have no idea if this will bear fruit, but I typed these observations during the first inning, and here they are. Not that anyone will be following along live, but there may be a huge pause in the middle of the game while I attend to other matters.

#34, huh? Shouldn't rookie Angel pitchers all have numbers like 87 and 74?

First pitch time: fastball hits the outside black at 93. Could be worse.

Second pitch is 92, down and away. Had some good downward movement -- and so does the third pitch, hitting the outside corner at the knee.

Grounder to third for out number one -- Adenhart's major league career is off to an infinitely better start than Ervin Santana's.

In the first PA, I focused on the pitches and not the motion. Looking at it against Ellis, is is kinda funky, with that pause on the forward kick. But only kinda.

All fastballs for the first nine pitches, and now he has Ellis 3-2. Doubt we'll see any off-speed here, but it would be pretty ballsy. Sure 'nuf, he sticks with the heat and draws an F-9. What, a flyball out? Get him out of there!

Starts Barton with a 76-mph deuce for a strike, follows up with a 94 two-seamer to induce the 6-3. So far, I like the action on his fastball, and if he locates it right, he can succeed without a plentitude of K's (though I suspect that they will come in time).

Justin Duschererererererer is a starererererer now? When did that happen?

I HATE TIME WARNER CABLE AND/OR FOX SPORTS HD

2008-04-30T00:20:00.000-07:00

One of my biggest pleasures in life is watching a baseball game, and come midnight tonight, after an evening out, I was very excited to watch tonight's game (fast-forwarding between pitches, of course). Well, either Time Warner's crappy DVR broke down (this is the most unreliable piece of hardware I have ever encountered; I'd rather have an Amiga in charge of my television watching) -- as it neither played nor fast-forwarded from the beginning, freezing on the pre-game color bars -- or Fox Sports HD's wacky signal (I often have problems with that channel when every other channel is fine) contributed to the nonsense.

So I got to MLB.com, to see if I can watch it there. I bring it up, and there's the line score on the side, but you have to tell it to not hide the line score. Except when it loads, well, the score is there for an instant. So I see the score. Of course, watching it on MLB.tv is pointless at midnight, I can't fast forward (any attempt to do so brings you back to the beginning of the telecast), and for some reason I can't do the thing where you can skip to a half-inning or anything.

And in my inbox I have an email about a great catch being made! So now I'm watching the tail-end of the replay that started at 11 PM. Ugh. But with no suspense or anything. But I'll record the replay from the beginning tomorrow and watch it just out of spite.

Time Warner is really a catastrophe. This is a cable service that can't even figure out what stations they broadcast. Let me tell you a story:

Last fall, when TBS started offering the playoffs in HD, Time Warner saw fit to offer TBS HD for the first time. Good. Unfortunately, they put it on two different channels -- 417, which was previously unoccupied, and 413, which had previously belonged to Fox Sports HD. Not so cool.

Well, Fox Sports HD doesn't have programming all the time, so I waited about a week, and noted that 413 never switched over to Fox Sports HD. I call Time Warner Cable to explain the problem. They tell me that they have no idea that anyone is supposed to be getting these stations, as it's not listed on the website. That's right -- all the techs know is the channel listing on the website, which hasn't been updated in months. They offer to send out a tech to check it out. I know that won't do anything, but agree, anyway, hoping at least to demonstrate the problem.

The guy comes. I show him how TBS HD is on two channels instead of one channel, and how FSN HD is on no channels instead of one channel.

The guy's solution is to switch out boxes. I tell him to take a hike (politely) -- there's no way the box is the issue.

Within a week, the problem was fixed.

So, for a two- to three-week period, Time Warner was basically broadcasting the wrong channels, and had no way of knowing it. And their only solution was to switch out boxes. This is their solution to everything -- switch out the box. "My cable's out," "Switch out the box." "My DVR freezes all the time," "Switch out the box." "My kid has the measles," "Switch out the box." Inept fools.

And now they've ruined what may end up being the best game of the year. Thanks, cocksuckers.

STATE OF THE BLOG

2008-03-25T16:38:00.000-07:00

As you have assuredly noticed, I have been pretty inactive here since the end of the 2007 season, a season which had already been notable for inconstant posting.

There are several reasons for this. My recent inactivity is assignable to: a chaotic work schedule, which cuts into my posting time; that much of my sports energy is being spent on college basketball; that since the Torii Hunter signing, there has been little that has been particularly newsworthy -- or, even more importantly, analysis-worthy -- in Angels baseball.

By themselves, these aren't reasons. I could always take to posting more from home instead of the office (where I really shouldn't be doing it anyway); I've been just as occupied with college basketball in the previous two years as I have been this year; there are plenty of pieces I could have been working on in this time that have to do with historical Angels content instead of current events.

But the underlying reason ... let's step back for a second. One of the reasons I started doing this, aside from boredom, was to get a unique look at all things Angel out there. To paraphrase something Bill James once said, it was to tell readers something they didn't know. By which I don't mean to imply that I have some special store of knowledge I dispense at my leisure; my intent was to look at things in a unique way, a personalized way, and share what I found. Sometimes that meant statistical research, sometimes that meant looking at some minor league stats that maybe my readers never got around to looking up for themselves. But I hoped to always come at things from somewhere different than other people were, at the very least. Very often, I did things to find out an answer for myself, and then I just let you all know what I found.

On the whole, I'm pretty happy with how it has turned out, especially given that this is nothing more than a hobby (if it even ascends to that level). I had a nice little series on the 1995 Angels (okay, there are really some stylistic horrors in it, particularly in the first section, but copy editing wasn't high on my list of priorities), I looked at Angel bunting and baserunning, I looked at Casey Kotchman and flyballs, and to the best of my recollection I was the first person in the Halosphere to talk about Reggie Willits and Darren O'Day (I also talked up Steve Andrade, but hey). Hell, I even wrote about DeWayne Buice, in probably my favorite entry that I've done, for whatever reason. Not too shabby.

But, at this point, I've been doing this for the Vlad Era, and this many years into it, I think I'm pretty much out of things to say. Rally Monkey's better than I am on the stats stuff, Rob has the minor leagues covered with his daily updates, and I can always count on Seitz to criticize John Lackey's pitch selection or the umpires or whatever. Not to mention that Halos Heaven is about as thriving an online fan community can be. I think my capacity to share with my readership something new, and my devotion and energy to finding new things to share, is at a nadir. And the Halosphere has me covered -- I'm sure my twenty or so readers will manage.

Who knows, in two or three weeks, with the season in full swing, maybe something will occur to me. Maybe I'll end up doing one piece per month or something. If you have me in your blog reader, keep me there. If you don't have me in it, well, then you probably aren't reading this anyway. If you don't have a blog reader, you should start using one, they're really convenient.

And I'm not going anywhere. I still waste time at Baseball Primer, I still read all the other Angel blogs daily, I'll still be recording every game and fighting off every spoiler until I can get home to watch. I fully intend on throwing items violently across the room when things go wrong and clapping with joy when they go right. I just won't be typing about it as much.

And the Angels will win the division with an 91-71 record.

STAY-ROD?

2008-02-18T02:43:00.000-08:00

The news of Francisco Rodriguez saying that he expects this season to be his last in an Angel uniform has spread through the Halosphere like wildfire. I first noted it at BBTF when this OC Register article was linked, which includes the following passage:

[T]he Angels have made numerous multi-year offers to their closer over the past three offseasons. General Manager Tony Reagins confirmed that the Angels did make Rodriguez a multi-year offer this winter. That deal is believed to have been in the neighborhood of $34 million for three years. Coming off three consecutive 40-save seasons with more saves than anyone in the majors over that time, Rodriguez was seeking a deal more like the three-year, $45 million contract extension Mariano Rivera signed with the Yankees this past winter.

Rodriguez could be a hot commodity as a free agent. With a less impressive track Crecord than Rodriguez has, former Rangers and Brewers closer Francisco Cordero was able to get a four-year, $46 million deal from the Cincinnati Reds as a free agent this offseason.

There are people out there doing good work on how much a player should be paid, based on what he contributes to his team. But let's ignore that for the moment, and look at it from the perspective that Frankie and his representatives will be. They want to know who is similar to Frankie, and what they do get paid, not what they should be, necessarily.

As you recall, Frankie became the Angel closer in 2005. Over the past three years, he has saved 132 games with an ERA+ of 197. So let's look at pitchers who, from 2005 through 2007, have at least 100 saves and an ERA+ of at least 170; this will be Frankie's peer group.

Here they are. There's only four: Joe Nathan, Mariano Rivera, Billy Wagner, and Frankie. Frankie actually has the lowest ERA+ of any of them, though he has the most saves. But let's see what these guys make:

Pitcher   Yrs   Sal   Yr Signed
Nathan     3    16M      2006
Rivera     3    45M      2008
Wagner     4    43M      2006

Nathan wasn't a free agent yet when he signed his current deal, which gave him $5M per year in 2006 and 2007; the club exercised its $6M option for 2007. Rivera and Wagner, however, are making an average of $12.6M per year over their current deals. Though Frankie isn't quite as good as they, or at least hasn't been over the last three years, with salary inflation and his age, one would have to imagine that this would be at the bottom of the range that Frankie would command on the free market come next winter, presuming he stays healthy and performs at a level substantially similar to what he has done thus far.

There are five pitchers one step or more down from Frankie, guys who have had 100+ saves over the past three years, but ERA+ numbers below the 170 mark.

Pitcher   Yrs   Sal   Yr Signed
Isrinhsn   4    33.75M   2005
CCordero   1     6.2M    2008
Hoffman    3    21M      2006
FCordero   4    46M      2008
Jones      1     7M      2008

Chad Cordero has never been a free agent, so his salary isn't really relevant here. Isringhausen and Hoffman are both on their option years in 2008. Anyway, of the four free agent pitchers in this group, they're making an average of $9M per year.

The Angels have offered Frankie just over $11M per year, so they are trying to pay him at a level close to the Big Boys, but not quite matching them; that's much closer to Francisco Cordero than . His performance thus far would justify that, if that's how you're looking to pay your players. However, I would have to assume that Tony Reagins is not an idiot, and knows that there's no way Rodriguez would go for that, especially not in a world that pays Francisco Cordero, a reliever of lower accomplishment and older vintage than The K, $11.5M per year. The market for elite closers, rightly or wrongly, is trending upward, and there's no way in hell we should expect Frankie to sign for a lesser deal than Francisco Cordero.

How much should Frankie be paid, based on performance? We'll look at that another day. But the Angels have low-balled him thus far, at least relative to other recent closer contracts; this may be sound negotiating, and this may all resolve itself in the next few months, but based on what has reportedly been offered so far, I can understand why Rodriguez thinks he may be in a different uniform come 2009.

AFTER SLEEPING ON IT

2007-11-22T12:09:00.000-08:00

I just made this post at BTF, reflecting my current feeling on the deal:

The more I think about it, the better I feel about this deal:

1. Hunter is probably good for a +5-+10 season above average, offensively.

2. Hunter is, at worst, an average defensive center fielder, and quite possibly +5 or +10.

3. Add it all up, and he's like 3-4 wins better than replacement. If wins above replacement are really close to $5M as guys like Tango and MGL are saying, his contract isn't out of line.

4. Ceteris peribus, Orlando Cabrera-for-Torii Hunter is an upgrade, possibly of 1.5-2.5 wins.

5. This doesn't really afffect the value of Matthews; sure, he gets the positional knock moving over, but he'll also get a gain in defensive value, which will likely balance out.

The potential problem isn't years 1 and 2, but years 4 and 5 (the same is true of the Matthews deal). In five years, Hunter may be a below-average hitter who can no longer handle CF, and then what are you doing with your $16M? In year 4, both he and Matthews will be in that boat (though Hunter will probably be better while Matthews is cheaper). And during this span you need to re-sign Vlad, Lackey, (hopefully) Howie, Kotchman, etc. ... I'm worried about tying up that much money in two guys in their 30s.

But I do think the Angels are better this week than they were a week ago, and I have to believe that one of the Miguels is on their way.

TONY REAGINS IS MYSTIFYING

2007-11-21T23:34:00.001-08:00

Torii Hunter? Really? What the hell is going on?

SHORT CHANGED

2007-11-21T13:15:00.000-08:00

Earlier this week, I tried to crack the riddle that is Jon Garland. Let's take a moment to look at what we've lost in Orlando Cabrera, and what we have in-house to replace him.

I was skeptical of the Cabrera signing when it happened (we'll explore the whole 2005 Shortstop Carousel next week -- I initially had a big comparison in this post before realizing it was way off-point, even for me, so I'll put it up as its own thing later), but I grew to like him as a player and as a personality on our team.

Offensively, even last year, he was no great shakes. He had an 89 OPS+ for us over the past three seasons; AL shortstops were at 88 last year and 92 in 2006 and 98 in 2005. He was -25.2 batting runs against league average over the three years, and also probably a bit below average as a shortstop -- though this largely due to his poor 2005. His defensive numbers were always solid, no longer spectacular, and this matched my visual observations. He was excellent on the basepaths (though I recall a few gaffes last season), and Mike Scioscia considered him one of the smartest players he's ever been around; finding residue of this sort of thing is forbiddingly difficult, but it's certainly possible that Cabrera's knowledge helped young infield defenders learn their craft.

All things considered, I'd guess that Cabrera was an average player for us. There were 26 shortstops who played 300+ games over the past three years; Cabrera's OPS+ ranked 17th amongst them. Add in his defense and baserunning, and I think it's probably right around the middle of that group.

The way I see it, there are two in-house options for April of 2008, and it's clear which one is better -- or, at least, which one has been better so far. Regardless, the LA Times implied yesterday that the Angels do not agree with me, with Mike DiGiovanna writing, "As of today, [Cabrera] will be replaced by slick-fielding 23-year-old Erick Aybar." He does add the following: "Utility player Maicer Izturis also can play shortstop, and Scioscia said the Angels are considering moving [Brandon] Wood from third base back to shortstop next spring."

Okay, let's just take Wood out of the equation for sec; he's not ready. The decision comes down to Aybar versus Izturis, and I just have no idea how you can look at those two and decide on Aybar. Looking at their respective major league performances thus far:

Player    PA   AVG  OBP  SLG  OPS+  SB  CS    BR   BR/600
Izturis  1104  273  340  386   90   34  10  -14.2   -7.7
Aybar     251  239  274  295   50    5   4  -18.0  -43.0

Okay, okay, that's not fair to Aybar. He's young, he's been hurt, played irregularly, etc. How about minor league track records?

I'll spare you the numbers, but Aybar has actually out-produced Izturis at each age, which appears to be true even when you account for their ballparks. That doesn't mean Aybar will develop just as Ztu did, of course. But Izturis' age 23 season, at the major league level, was roughly equivalent to what we saw from Aybar last year:

Player    PA   AVG  OBP  SLG  OPS+  SB  CS    BR   BR/600
Izturis   121  206  286  318   53    4   0  - 8.1  -40.2
Aybar     211  237  279  289   50    4   4  -14.6  -41.5

Izturis made his offensive leap in the minors that year, hitting .338 at AAA, but would not make his major league jump until his age 25 year. I suspect Aybar may have a similar leap within him, but I suspect that it may not happen in 2008, and as a result I suspect that the better alternative, offensively, for next season is Ztu. I'd expect him to be around -5 runs against average; Aybar could be as bad as -20.

How about defense? So far in their careers, Ztu has a .820 zone rating and a .770 revised zone rating (in very, very small sample size) while Aybar has a .754 zone rating and a .720 revised zone rating (in an even smaller sample size). That doesn't tell us anything. I'm suspicious of Izturis being able to handle shortstop, but I doubt he'd be terrible. Aybar is quite possibly better, but I don't know if the gap is large enough to overcome the offensive deficiency.

In fact, there's a chance that Izturis could outperform what we got from Cabrera the past three years. We haven't seen him hit every day, and maybe he would get exposed in that situation, but I think he would project to be a roughly league-average shortstop, overall. I don't think Aybar's bat is ready to get him to that level.

Hopefully, DiGiovanna was just speculating, and if we go into spring training without making any further moves, the job will be open for competition and won't just be handed to Aybar. Of course, I doubt there will be no more changes.

Next week, I hope to look at which Miguel would be a better fit, and what cost we draw the line. For now, have a great Thanksgiving.

THANKSGIVING GARLAND

2007-11-19T10:28:00.000-08:00

Honestly, I'm so shocked by this that I don't even know how to start analyzing it. First of all, it appears that major league baseball teams have the ability to exchange players with other teams. Did you know this?

Joking aside, for the second time, the Angels have traded for pitcher Jon Garland. (Recall that before the 2002 season, a deal was in place to trade Darin Erstad for Garland and Chris Singleton, which was smacked down by ~~Tony Tavares~~Paul Pressler). This time, the bounty is Orlando Cabrera.

Did anyone see this coming?

Anyway, so now we have Jon Garland in the rotation. I'd like to tell you about Jon Garland, but the fact is I haven't been able to understand him for years, and I'm not about to start now.

What do I not understand? For one, how does this guy get people out? Over the last four years, he's only struck out 12% of the batters he'd faced; the AL K'd 17% of batters last year, so he's been consistently below-average in this regard. Last year, despite pitching over 200 innings, Garland only whiffed 98 batters: this was the fourth-lowest strikeout total in baseball for any pitcher that pitched so much.

Yet, somehow, Garland succeeds. Over the last four years, he has an ERA+ of 111, and has been approximately 38 earned runs better than average. (He did give up an immense number of unearned runs last year, but that's been out of his norm. We'll get to that at some point, I'm sure).

Is Garland an extreme groundball pitcher? Honestly, I had thought he was, but his groundball-to-flyball ratio was only 55th out of the 80 major league ERA qualifiers last year and his groundballs allowed as a percentage of balls in play ranked 19th. However, this was his lowest groundball rate ever, as well as his highest flyball rate (see it all here).

As a groundball pitcher, his success may be highly correlated to how the defense behind converts his groundballs into outs. Let's look at his past four seasons:

Year   K/BF  BB/BF  HR/BF  BABIP  ERA+
2004   .122  .082   .037   .275    97
2005   .128  .052   .029   .267   128
2006   .124  .046   .029   .311   105
2007   .111  .065   .022   .285   112

2006 and 2007 provide an interesting contrast; Garland struck out less people and walked more, but did manage to cut down on home runs. That HR improvement is tantamount to roughly 6 HR; assuming 1.4 runs per HR (the linear weight value), that's a savings of .37 points of his ERA -- which would have left his ERA+ at 103, very similar to his previous year's performance. It appears that the frequency by which Garland allows home runs is even more important than the batting average he allows on balls in play behind him; the correlation between his HR/BF and ERA+ (-.49) is slightly stronger than the correlation between his BABIP and his ERA+ (-.43).

You see what I mean? You think have something (oh, he's a groundball pitcher, he's heavily dependent on his defense), then you take a deeper look and it's, like, no, you really have no idea what makes this guy tick.

Anyway, there's no doubt that having a good defensive shortstop would be an aid to Garland, and quite frankly I have no idea if we have that right now. I mean, I know we have Erick Aybar, but can Aybar hit? We have Maicer Izturis, a league-average hitter, but can he handle short defensively at this point? Or even maintain that offensive performance over a full season. Brandon Wood's a year away, we're not going to rush him, are we?

Not knowing what is to come, it's hard to evaluate this move. Does this mean Miguel Tejada will soon be wearing red? Let's see what happens.

But one thing I'll say for Tony Reagins -- he sure knows how to surprise us.

PMR RUN CONVERSIONS, THIRD BASEMEN

2007-11-13T18:06:00.000-08:00

Pinto.

Conversions:

Player             Runs    Runs/365
Ryan Zimmerman     35.8      32.8
Pedro Feliz        25.4      27.2
David Wright       19.3      18.6
Aramis Ramirez     16.4      19.4
Mike Lowell        16.1      18.2
Brandon Inge       15.8      15.1
Adrian Beltre      13.5      13.6
Melvin Mora        13.4      16.2
Joe Crede           9.6      31.0
Alex Rodriguez      8.9       9.8
Scott Rolen         6.7       8.5
Troy Glaus          5.2       8.1
Chone Figgins       4.1       7.8
Maicer Izturis      4.0      15.3
Ramon Vazquez       3.2       7.8
Morgan Ensberg      2.2       5.0
Hank Blalock        1.6       7.4
Chipper Jones       0.6       0.8
Travis Metcalf      0.6       1.9
Nomar Garciaparra   0.2       0.6
Eric Chavez        -0.1      -0.2
Abraham Nunez      -0.8      -1.5
Akinori Iwamura    -1.0      -1.4
Wilson Betemit     -1.9      -7.2
Chad Tracy         -1.9      -7.2
Jack Hannahan      -2.5      -9.5
Alex Gordon        -3.2      -3.6
Wes Helms          -3.4     -10.2
Greg Dobbs         -3.4     -10.8
Mike Lamb          -4.6     -14.6
Nick Punto         -5.0      -7.4
Edwin Encarnacion  -5.6      -6.5
Ty Wigginton       -7.7     -14.4
Mark Reynolds      -9.9     -17.4
Kevin Kouzmanoff  -10.8     -13.4
Josh Fields       -14.0     -23.4
Jose Bautista     -17.6     -18.9
Casey Blake       -21.0     -21.8
Ryan Braun        -22.4     -34.2
Miguel Cabrera    -25.4     -25.7
Garrett Atkins    -38.0     -39.3

PMR RUN CONVERSIONS, SECOND BASEMEN

2007-11-12T12:45:00.000-08:00

Here:

Player             Runs    Runs/470
Brandon Phillips   34.6      36.8
Chase Utley        17.4      21.1
Orlando Hudson     17.2      19.6
Robinson Cano      16.8      15.5
Ian Kinsler        15.2      16.3
Mark Ellis         15.2      13.2
Aaron Hill         13.6      11.4
Ronnie Belliard    10.9      15.9
Josh Barfield      10.8      13.3
Kaz Matsui          8.6      12.5
Placido Polanco     8.2       9.5
Jose Lopez          7.8       7.8
Jose Valentin       6.4      20.5
Esteban German      4.5      19.0
B.J. Upton          3.9      10.8
Howie Kendrick      3.8       6.7
Luis Castillo       3.4       4.3
Mark Grudzielanek   3.2       4.9
Tadahito Iguchi     3.1       4.2
Mike Fontenot       2.4       7.6
Alexi Casilla       1.8       6.0
Geoff Blum          0.9       2.3
Dustin Pedroia     -0.2      -0.3
Brian Roberts      -0.3      -0.3
Kevin Frandsen     -1.2      -4.9
Danny Richar       -1.8      -5.6
Jamey Carroll      -2.5      -7.0
Felipe Lopez       -4.3     -15.1
Adam Kennedy       -4.7      -8.5
Freddy Sanchez     -7.4      -9.0
Aaron Miles        -8.3     -20.1
Mark DeRosa        -8.7     -17.4
Kelly Johnson      -8.7      -9.7
Brendan Harris    -11.0     -41.5
Jeff Kent         -13.1     -16.6
Marcus Giles      -14.3     -17.6
Rickie Weeks      -14.7     -21.5
Ray Durham        -18.0     -24.5
Craig Biggio      -19.1     -29.1
Dan Uggla         -21.3     -21.5

PMR RUN CONVERSIONS, CENTER FIELDERS

2007-11-12T12:33:00.000-08:00

As I mentioned in the shortstop entry, please use caution in comparing these to anything before 2005; I'm not actually sure when David added "distance" as a parameter for outfielders, so perhaps even 2006 is the only year one can really use as a comparison.

For center fielders:

Player             Runs     Runs/395
Coco Crisp         22.2       23.2
Ichiro Suzuki      21.3       21.4
Curtis Granderson  15.7       15.5
Andruw Jones        7.7        7.9
Juan Pierre         6.9        7.6
Carlos Beltran      5.9        6.1
Jacque Jones        5.6       11.8
Felix Pie           5.2       18.4
Willy Taveras       5.2       10.0
Gary Matthews Jr.   3.9        4.3
Josh Hamilton       3.1        7.5
Mike Cameron        3.1        3.4
So Taguchi          2.8        9.6
Darin Erstad        2.8       10.8
Ryan Church         2.6        9.1
Nook Logan          2.0        3.3
Johnny Damon        1.6        5.2
Dave Roberts        1.0        1.7
Norris Hopper       0.6        1.9
Torii Hunter       -0.1       -0.1
Alfredo Amezaga    -0.6       -1.2
David DeJesus      -0.7       -0.7
Jim Edmonds        -1.2       -2.0
Rajai Davis        -1.3       -4.0
Hunter Pence       -1.4       -2.2
Ryan Freel         -1.6       -4.5
Chris Duffy        -1.6       -3.6
Aaron Rowand       -2.1       -2.1
Mark Kotsay        -3.2       -8.6
Melky Cabrera      -3.3       -3.7
Jerry Owens        -3.5       -6.4
Vernon Wells       -3.8       -4.6
Marlon Byrd        -4.1      -13.6
Nick Swisher       -4.3      -11.7
B.J. Upton         -4.5       -8.4
Grady Sizemore     -6.1       -5.9
Nate McLouth       -6.4      -16.7
Chris Young        -7.4       -8.0
Elijah Dukes       -7.4      -31.8
Kenny Lofton       -8.5      -16.7
Corey Patterson   -12.8      -16.9
Bill Hall         -14.2      -17.8

PMR RUN CONVERSIONS, SHORTSTOPS

2007-11-08T10:56:00.000-08:00

David Pinto has started posting his Probabilistic Model of Range figures for teams and individuals, starting the individuals off with the shortstops. Here are the conversions (there's an explanation in the relevant section of the sidebar to your right, as well as figures from past seasons):

Player               Runs      Runs/490
Troy Tulowitzki      38.0        33.0
Tony F Pena          23.0        25.1
Rafael Furcal        20.9        23.0
Jason Bartlett       16.9        18.7
John McDonald        12.6        21.0
Jimmy Rollins        12.4        11.8
Jack Wilson           9.7        10.4
Jhonny Peralta        7.3         7.1
Omar Vizquel          4.7         4.6
Orlando Cabrera       3.8         4.1
Julio Lugo            3.7         4.2
Yunel Escobar         2.7         9.9
Adam Everett          1.8         4.1
Alex Gonzalez         0.0        -0.1
J.J. Hardy           -0.3        -0.3
Cesar Izturis        -0.3        -0.6
Bobby Crosby         -0.6        -0.9
Stephen Drew         -0.9        -1.1
Mark Loretta         -1.0        -2.7
Eric Bruntlett       -1.4        -5.0
Ryan Theriot         -1.6        -2.5
Marco Scutaro        -1.6        -6.4
Royce Clayton        -2.1        -5.0
Hanley Ramirez       -2.2        -2.4
Yuniesky Betancourt  -2.7        -2.8
Khalil Greene        -2.7        -2.6
Edgar Renteria       -3.1        -4.2
Jeff Keppinger       -4.3       -15.4
David Eckstein       -6.5        -8.9
Josh Wilson          -7.8       -25.3
Miguel Tejada        -7.9       -10.3
Juan Uribe           -8.6        -8.1
Jose Reyes           -9.0        -8.6
Cristian Guzman     -10.5       -39.4
Felipe Lopez        -14.1       -18.3
Carlos Guillen      -14.4       -17.2
Brendan Harris      -14.4       -27.9
Michael Young       -21.8       -21.1
Derek Jeter         -30.6       -32.5

A few points:

1. David, along with the individual totals, listed the team totals, which also means that we have the major league-wide totals. This is great; one concern with the first couple of years of these conversions was that I had to guess at what the league average really was in any given season, as David was using multi-year probabilities. This led to weird happenstances where every third baseman was "above average", which makes no sense, so I had to guess at what the average really was. The last two years, David seems to be using one-year probabilities, and in fact major league shortstops were "predicted" to have made 15,904 outs last year when they really made 15,913. This is a negligible difference, and the predicted DER and observed DER are the same for several decimals. (The MLB total also allows me to properly state the number of predicted outs a SS would have in 150 games, which is 490 [actually 491, so sue me for rounding], and what the second column represents.)

2. At some point I need to go back and re-code the various PMR models, but David is using something called the "smoothed visitor model", which is I believe the second version of PMR. He did this last year, as well.

3. As such, use caution when comparing these figures to years before 2006. I believe the smoothed visitor model was introduced in 2005, so it's the same version -- but my "re-center" of the MLB average was an estimate and not an absolute. This caveat will apply for every position.

4. In 2005, we saw, in addition to these figures, groundball-only figures for infielders. For the past two seasons, the figures have been for every kind of batted ball. Zone rating and MGL's Ultimate Zone Rating do not account for popups and line drives, so, again, use caution when comparing these figures to runs generated by or estimated from other systems.

AN ALTERNATIVE PRESENTS ITSELF

2007-11-06T14:49:00.000-08:00

Over the past couple of weeks, I've been posting about the possibility of the Angels acquiring Alex Rodriguez. Recent developments, long-rumored, present us with another potential option for improving the Angel offense.

The Florida Marlins are reportedly willing to put Miguel Cabrera on the market.

Miguel Cabrera is a young hitter of astonishing quality and achievement. He doesn't turn 25 until April; here are some stats of Cabrera and two other hitters through the age of 24:

Player     PA  OPS+  HR  AVG  OBP  SLG
Player A  3173 145  140 .316 .365 .543
Cabrera   3072 143  138 .313 .388 .542
Player B  3156 142  165 .298 .380 .552

Player A is Hank Aaron.

Player B is Frank Robinson.

There are, however, certain negatives to Cabrera:

1. His defense.
By all accounts, both anecdotal and statistical, Cabrera is a bad third baseman. Per the Baseball Info Solutions data at the Hardball Times, he was approximately 15 plays below the league average on balls in his zone last year, worth over 10 runs (he also had an unexceptional total of plays made outside of his zone, though this doesn't necessarily mean anything). He was approximately -8 plays, or around -6 runs, below average in 2006.

2. His conditioning.
Miguel Cabrera is progressively becoming a fatter and fatter bastard. This bodes ill for his conditioning, long-term health, and his ability to play defense and run the bases.

3. He will cost a fortune -- in players.
The Marlins are allegedly seeking a young third baseman, a young pitcher, and a center fielder.

It just so happens that the Angels can offer such a package: Brandon Wood, one of Joe Saunders and Ervin Santana, and -- though he may be older than what the Marlins are looking for -- Chone Figgins.

This is a steep price, even for a hitter of Cabrera's talents. But while Brandon Wood is looking like the next Dean Palmer (not a bad thing with good glove at either of his potential positions), Cabrera is a sure bet.

Of course, trading one of Saunders and Santana would mean we'd have to go out and get a starting pitcher. Intriguingly, Florida is also looking to shop Dontrelle Willis. Would Florida accept a package of Wood, Saunders/Santana, Figgins, and maybe one more mid-level prospect (not Adenhart) for Cabrera and Willis? I suspect they'd think about it. Should the Angels?

Let's break this down:

- Is Miguel Cabrera a step up from Brandon Wood? Almost certainly.

- With Reggie Willits around to caddy Gary Matthews Jr and Garret Anderson, with the payroll flexibility to bring Juan Rivera back to support the corners, and with Maicer Izturis providing roughly league-average production as a infield backup, is Chone Figgins expendable? I like the guy, and he's coming off a big year, but I can't help but answer "yes".

- Is giving up one of Saunders and Santana and getting Willits an upgrade or downgrade, and if it's the latter, is it enough to negate the improvement made by adding Cabrera to the lineup?

By BB-Ref's linear weights figures, Cabrera has been +46.3, +56.6, and +45.7 runs above average, offensively, in each of the last three years; he's a good bet to be +50 or so in the next couple of years. Dock 10 runs for his D, he's still a +40 player, roughly 4 wins above average. Chone Figgins, whom Cabrera would be replacing in the lineup, over the past three years has been +1.8, -13.4, and +13.4 (these figures include basestealing, but not other baserunning). Even with his defense, I'd guess that Figgins in 2008 projects to be roughly average, maybe just a bit above.

So we're looking at maybe a 35-40-run difference between Cabrera and Figgins.

It is obvious that the difference, in the short term, between Saunders/Santana and Willits will be far less than 40 runs. Let's look at their totals the past four years, which of course for the Halos is only a couple of years (PR is Pitching Runs, or Earned Runs Prevented Above Average):

Pitcher    BF   K/BF   BB/BF   HR/BF   H/BF   ERA+   PR   PR/IP
Willis   3725   .165   .077    .022    .241   113   +28   +.032
Saunders  816   .152   .082    .025    .257    97   - 3   -.016
Santana  2104   .174   .083    .030    .235    92   -20   -.041

As you can see, Willis has been better over the past few seasons than the two Angel youths. However, somewhat like Santana, he's coming off a bad season where he pitched well below-average.

I'll spare you the details, but looking at Willis' batted-ball stats, we can see that he allowed home runs more frequently last year on flyballs than at most other points in his career, which could have been a big part of his struggles. Whether or not that's a fluky thing or a sign of a change in his skill level, I don't know. If he's healthy, I have trouble believing that he just forgot how to pitch or something.

My preference would be to only give up Wood and Figgins -- that does open a shortstop hole in 2009, but we don't know that Wood would fill it, anyway, though if we still have him in 2008 I'd love for him to return to that position at AAA -- for Cabrera. I think there's a good chance that both of Saunders and Santana will be at least as productive (and cheaper) than Willis in the next few years (based on their component stats and relative ages), so I don't know that I'd like to exchange one of them. But I can see talks moving in that direction, and, despite the money, Willis is probably a solid bet to shore up the bottom of the rotation.

As for the question of Cabrera vis-a-vis A-Rod, the question is really "What are we more willing to part with -- players or money?" I don't know what Arte's answer to this would be. From a roster construction standpoint, the ideal would be to sign A-Rod and hold on to all our chips; Wood can be bred for short, Saunders and Santana can develop, and we still have Figgins to play or be traded for a pitcher if we don't trust in the tykes.

Even re-signing Cabrera and/or Willis in future years would likely cost less (combined) than A-Rod would -- though of course that's a few years down the road -- so that's obviously a more cost-effective solution in terms of dollars (though adding a shortstop to the payroll -- or re-signing Orlando Cabrera -- in lieu of the bargain Wood is another financial cost to consider in that scenario).

I do think these are the best two alternatives of which we're aware; there is occasional talk of Miguel Tejada, but Tejada's on the wrong side of 30 and is not a hitter of the caliber of either Rodriguez or Miggy, and may well demand a package of similar value (to the Cabrera package) in exchange.

So, money or players? I don't know.

ORLANDO CABRERA WINS GOLD GLOVE

2007-11-06T14:38:00.000-08:00

Orlando Cabrera has won his second Gold Glove, first with the Angels. The last Angel to win was Darin Erstad at first base in 2004.

To tell you the truth, I'm not convinced he deserves it, not for 2007, anyway -- but I'm not convinced he doesn't, either. Based on BIS' zone stats, Tony Pena, Jr may have been the best choice, but The OC has likely deserved awards in the past that he hasn't won, and the award has no credibility, so there's no point complaining.

Congrats to Orlando Cabrera.

ANGEL PAYROLL, 2007 AND 2008

2007-10-31T12:30:00.000-07:00

Well, the LA Times kinda beat me to this, but I had this post pretty much prepped already, so here we go:

(Per Cot's Baseball Contracts)

2007:  $109,251,333

2008 (in millions):

Guerrero:   $14.500
Anderson:   $14.000
Rodriguez:  $10.000*
Cabrera:    $ 9.000
Escobar:    $ 9.000
Matthews:   $ 9.000
Lackey:     $ 7.000
Speier:     $ 4.750
Figgins:    $ 4.750
Shields:    $ 4.250
Oliver:     $ 2.000
Quinlan:    $ 1.050
Izturis:    $  .530*
Santana:    $  .500*
Kendrick:   $  .425*
Napoli:     $  .425*
Weaver:     $  .425*
Aybar:      $  .425*
Kotchman:   $  .425*
McPherson:  $  .400*
Murphy:     $  .400*
Willits:    $  .400*
Moseley:    $  .400*
Mathis:     $  .400*
Balance:    $ 6.080 (16 remaining roster spots x $.38M)
-------------------------------------------------------
           $100.535

*denotes guesstimate for non-arb players and K-Rod

The Times and I agree that the payroll as of now is roughly $100M. The article also points out that the Angels "could clear $18 million after 2008 by letting Anderson and Cabrera go and free up $4.75 million by trading Chone Figgins." These things are true. But a few other points, just kind of randomly assembled:

1. We also may be able to clear Kelvim Escobar after 2009, depending on the development of young pitchers. That's another ~$9M per year.

2. The strong farm system is a boon to us here, as key players such as Napoli, Kotchman, Kendrick, Willits, Weaver, Santana, Saunders, and Quinlan are all pretty cheap.

3. At the same time, these guys aren't that cheap forever, and at some point the Angels are going to have to look into locking down some of them through their arbitration years and beyond. Come 2009 and 2010, Weaver could be up to $5M or $7M per year, and it's easy to see Kotch and/or Kendrick hitting that level, as well. Still, these guys won't be more than $20M per year between them, and if Brandon Wood can take over for Orlando Cabrera starting in 2009, that would be a big help.

4. The LA Times piece also mentions that the Angels may be in need or want of another starting pitcher, one who might cost money. I don't know if that's speculation or if the team lacks faith in Santana and/or Saunders.

Anyway, what does adding $30 or $35M to this payroll do? One fear is that it reduces flexibility; with nearly $50M per year tied up in two players, that doesn't give you a lot of room to navigate. Let's speculate as to how the above list could look in 2009:

2009 Speculative (in millions):

A-Rod:      $35.000
Guerrero:   $15.000
Anderson:   $14.000
Anderson:   $ 3.000 (buyout)
Rodriguez:  $12.000*
Cabrera:    $ 9.000
Wood:       $ 0.400
Escobar:    $ 9.500
Matthews:   $10.000
Lackey:     $ 9.000
Speier:     $ 4.750
Figgins:    $ 4.750
Shields:    $ 5.000
Oliver:     $ 2.000
Quinlan:    $ 1.500*
Izturis:    $ 1.000*
Santana:    $ 1.000*
Kendrick:   $ 1.000*
Napoli:     $ 1.000*
Weaver:     $ 1.000*
Aybar:      $ 1.000*
Kotchman:   $ 1.000*
McPherson:  $  .400*
Murphy:     $  .400*
Willits:    $ 1.000*
Moseley:    $ 1.000*
Mathis:     $ 1.000*
Balance:    $ 7.600 (20 remaining roster spots x $.38M)
-------------------------------------------------------
           $122.750

If Arte is committed to a payroll in the $130M-$150M range (or above, even), that actually gives him some wiggle room. Of course, as mentioned above, come 2011 or so Kotchman, Kendrick, and Napoli may be worth close to $20M instead of $3M. What if all of our young pitchers wash out, and we need to go out and get one (like we did with Kelvim and Colon), but we're already expending more than $140M per year? Would Arte go for spending more?

I don't know, and that's where our analysis runs into a wall: at some point, Arte has to decide if spending that much is worthwhile to him. No one else can make that decision. I think Alex Rodriguez is a tremendous, once-in-a-lifetime player, and that adding him to this lineup makes the team the favorite in the division for the next few years and a legit World Series contender year-in and year-out. But it's easy for me to say that; it's not my money.

And while money doesn't guarantee you rings, right now the Red Sox are paying out more than $140M in salary, and they've gotten two in the last four years. The Yankees are in a Series drought, but still a formidable club, and their payroll is closer to $200M. If Arte wants to play with the big boys, he may have open his wallet a little wider.

I AM INTERVIEWED

2007-10-31T02:22:00.000-07:00

... at LA Angelscast.com. I show up maybe a third of the way through, and then you're pretty much stuck with me the rest of the way. Topics include my heritage as an Angel fan, A-Rod, and Tony Reagins. Thanks to Erica Bardin for interviewing me, it was a lot of fun, and I hope y'all enjoy it.

And, by the way, I was a bit congested that day, so I don't always sound like that.

BATTING RUNS ABOVE AVERAGE, ANGEL 3B AND ALEX RODRIGUEZ

2007-10-30T10:00:00.001-07:00

(For multi-position players, batting runs are apportioned from seasonal total by percentage of season's games played at 3B. I used games started for 2004-2006 and games played for 2007 [BB-Ref didn't have the games started listed when I went through, but any discrepancies should be minor]. Batting runs figures come from BB-Ref.)

2004
Figgins:   + 0.6
Quinlan:   + 5.4
Halter:    - 3.7
Glaus:     + 4.0
McPherson: - 0.4
Amezaga:   - 0.3
Angel Tot: + 5.6
Rodriguez: +28.8
A-Rod >:   +23.2

2005
McPherson: - 1.5
Figgins:   + 0.5
Izturis:   - 2.4
Quinlan:   - 2.4
Merloni:   - 0.4
Sorenson:  - 0.1
Angel Tot: - 6.3
Rodriguez: +66.4
A-Rod >:   +72.7

2006
Izturis:   + 1.2
Figgins:   - 2.8
McPherson: - 0.9
Quinlan:   + 0.7
Alfonzo:   - 5.6
Kendrick:  - 0.1
Angel Tot: - 7.5
Rodriguez: +30.8
A-Rod >:   +38.3

2007
Figgins:   +11.5
Izturis:   - 0.4
Wood:      - 3.5
Quinlan:   - 1.0
Brown:     - 0.8
Aybar:     - 0.2
Angel Tot: + 5.6
Rodriguez: +69.2
A-Rod >:   +63.6

Totals
Angels:    - 2.6
A-Rod:    +195.2    
A-Rod >:  +197.8

+197.8 runs is approximately +20 wins, or five wins per year. Of course, as it turns out, Angel third basemen over the past few years have been a generally average lot, so A-Rod comparison to our guys isn't too different from his comparison to the average.

A replacement player is about two wins below average, A-Rod over the last four years has been about five wins better than average (offensively only) per season, so he's about seven wins above replacement. How much is that worth?

Luckily, the Angels just happen to have a pretty average player who's about two wins above replacement: Gary Matthews, Jr. How much is he paid per season? It averages out to $10M -- or $5M per win above replacement.

And if A-Rod is seven wins above replacement, and the Angels are paying our $5M per such win, that means that over the past four years A-Rod has "earned" by his performance ...

... $35M per year.

Of course, he likely won't be as good over the next few years as he was over the past contract, and we haven't looked at defense yet. But stay tuned -- we'll get to those topics in the coming days.

A SERIES OF FACTS POSTED HERE AS A BASIS FOR AN ARGUMENT YET TO COME

2007-10-29T10:04:00.001-07:00

OPS+, 2004-2007, at least 300 Games Played
1.  Barry Bonds    198
2.  Albert Pujols  169
3.  David Ortiz    159
4.  Travis Hafner  155
5.  Alex Rodriguez 154
6.  Ryan Howard    151
7.  Lance Berkman  149
7.  Vlad Guerrero  149
7.  Manny Ramirez  149
10. Miguel Cabrera 149

OPS+, Active Leaders, at least 3000 Plate Appearances
1.  Barry Bones    182
2.  Albert Pujols  167
3.  Frank Thomas   157
4.  Manny Ramirez  154
5.  Jim Thome      150
6.  Vlad Guerrero  148
7.  Jason Giambi   147
7.  Alex Rodriguez 147
9.  Lance Berkman  146
10. several        143

Angel League Rank in OPS+ This Century
2000:   4t
2001:  11
2002:   5t
2003:   7
2004:   6
2005:   8
2006:  11
2007:   7t

SLG, 2004-2007, at least 300 Games Played
1.  Barry Bonds    .644
2.  Albert Pujols  .626
3.  David Ortiz    .616
4.  Ryan Howard    .610
5.  Manny Ramirez  .581
6.  Alex Rodriguez .573
7.  Travis Hafner  .567
8.  Vlad Guerrero  .566
9.  Aramis Ramirez .564
10. Chipper Jones  .560

SLG, Active Leaders, at least 3000 Plate Appearances
1.  Albert Pujols  .620
2.  Barry Bonds    .607
3.  Manny Ramirez  .593
4.  Todd Helton    .583
5.  Vlad Guerrero  .579
6.  Alex Rodriguez .578
7.  Jim Thome      .565
8.  Frank Thomas   .561
9.  Lance Berkman  .559
10. David Ortiz    .559

Angel League Rank in SLG This Century
2000:   1
2001:  12
2002:   6
2003:   9
2004:   9
2005:   9
2006:   8t
2007:   9

ANGEL GENERAL MANAGERS, SORTED BY WINS

2007-10-16T15:20:00.000-07:00

GM               Years    Seasons   W    L   PCT  >.500   >90W   >95W   Div   WC   WS
Bill Stoneman  2000-2007     8     703  593 .542    6      4      2      3     1    1
Fred Haney     1961-1968     8     614  679 .475    3      0      0      0     -    0
Buzzie Bavasi  1978-1984     7     535  545 .495    4      1      0      2     -    0
Mike Port      1985-1991     7     513  479 .517    4      3      0      1     -    0
Harry Dalton   1972-1977     6     444  520 .461    0      0      0      0     -    0
Bill Bavasi    1994-1999     6     434  473 .479    3      0      0      0     0    0
Dick Walsh     1969-1971     3     233  253 .479    1      0      0      0     -    0
Dan O'Brien    1991-1993     3     208  241 .463    1      0      0      0     -    0
Whitey Herzog       1993     1       6    9 .400    0      0      0      0     -    0

Notes:  Mike Port was 10-10 when relieved in 1991 and replaced by Dan O'Brien; O'Brien
was 65-80 in 1993 when replaced by Whitey Herzog.

THE REAGINS ERA BEGINS

2007-10-16T11:40:00.000-07:00

As you know, Bill Stoneman has stepped aside as general manager, and director of player development Tony Reagins will be assuming the mantle.

There will be time to assess Stoneman's tenure, and we'll probably get to that soon. But suffice to say that in Stoneman's eight seasons as GM, the Angels went 703-593 (.542), won three division titles, one wild card championship, and the championship of the world.

Was he perfect? No one is, but he obviously put our organization in a position of great strength, with a productive farm system supplementing and feeding a successful collection of veterans. The results are unassailable.

Will he be missed? I don't know. He will still be on as a consultant, and obviously has confidence in Tony Reagins' ability to move up. Of course, we don't know what Reagins will be like, and if he shares Stoneman's philosophy of caution. Some assistants make great GMs; some top out at assistant and fail when taking on the big job. But given the strength of the organization, I'll give Tony some doubt. We'll get into what's on Reagins' plate as time goes on.

For now, let's thank Bill Stoneman, a prime architect of the best stretch in our team's history.

AND SO IT ENDS

2007-10-08T10:50:00.000-07:00

Well, I guess the optimism in my "prediction" was misplaced; we did lose to a better team, and, well ...

... that's not quite good enough, is it? Losing to them is one thing; I don't feel bad about having lost to the White Sox in 2004, who were on such a tear, especially as we were the only team to win so much as a game against them that postseason. But I feel that we should have been able to at least, you know, win a game this time. We even had two good starts out of the three. But it wasn't enough, as you know.

A couple of days ago, I talked about expectations. I said that winning the division was the minimum; this is a team that has to compete for the World Championship. We're a strong organization, but it doesn't look like we're there quite yet.

One "problem" with the Angels is that each regular is an average or better player, making finding significant upgrades difficult.

We'll talk about that as the offseason goes on. As for now ... well, it's over.

PATHETIC

2007-10-04T00:38:00.000-07:00

Well, that pretty much made me want to take back all the nice things I said in the previous post. But, hey, Josh Beckett was on his game, so let's tip our caps and move on.

But let me say this: Bill Stoneman's first priority this offseason should be getting Erick Aybar off this roster. Nothing against Aybar -- he's a good glove, can probably learn to be a good basestealer, and has potential to be an acceptable hitter -- but how in all the holy heck Mike Scioscia thinks Erick Aybar and his .279 OPB (.259 against righties) should be pinch-hitting for Mike Napoli and his .351 (.344 against RHP) is beyond me. And, believe me, I don't want to hate on Sciosc -- I want him to be our manager for the rest of his natural life (and beyond, depending on technological advancements). But the only time that should be happening is if you need someone to lay down a bunt. Kendry for Willits? I can dig that. But I'd rather see Nathan Haynes batting than Erick Aybar. Heck, I'd rather see Gary DiSarcina pinch hit than Erick Aybar. I don't know what kind of toy Mike thinks Aybar is, but I think he got a faulty description on the box.

EXPECTATIONS

2007-10-03T09:56:00.000-07:00

What do we expect from the Angels every year?

This is (more and more) a high-profile team, with a large payroll, centered around one all-time great, an elite pitching staff, and complemented by young developing stars, competent (at worst) veterans, and able bench players who can fill in at a moment's notice. This is a team expected to go places, and win championships.

I think the division title is the minimum goal the Angels should have each year. The other teams in the division are not terribly formidable at this point, and though that can change on a dime, with the base the Angels are working from and the talent coming up the minor league pipeline, in addition to the exorbitant funding provided by Arte Moreno, this is a division the Angels should put a stranglehold on.

Does that mean that years where we don't win are failures? Not necessarily. Last year we lost the division by four games, and it was probably winnable. But we also established players like Mike Napoli, Howie Kendrick, and Jered Weaver as major leaguers, which was a step toward winning this year. One can't be draconian; at the same time, one can't lower expectations unnecessarily.

With winning the division as the minimum goal, that means that the team has higher sights: making noise in the playoffs and being legit World Series contenders. Again, one can't be draconian; while it's not exactly true that the playoffs are a "crapshoot", there is some truth to it, and the best team doesn't always win a short series. A team that fails to win the World Series is not a failure. But you play to gain flags and rings, and this team is at a stage where such victories should be considered attainable, and that winning the World Championship is a reasonable expectation.

In short, I believe the expectations of this organization is to, year in and year out, have a reasonable claim at being the best team in baseball as the playoffs begin -- meaning that the team should be one of the top three or four teams, and that you can construct an argument that they may be the best.

I don't know that we've exactly accomplished this this year; I would say the Angels are definitely, along with the Red Sox and Indians, one of the best three teams in baseball right now. But do we have a reasonable chance of making noise in the postseason? Can we get Arte his ring?

I believe that the best team in baseball is the Boston Red Sox. The only offense definitely better than theirs is the Yankees' (you can also make an argument for Detroit), and the BoSox led baseball by only allowing 4.06 runs per game -- that's right: despite playing in a bit of a hitting park, in the hitting league, Boston, on the strength of a staff ERA+ of 118, allowed the fewest runs in the major leagues.

Does this mean we have no chance? It does not. We certainly do -- but I would say that the Red Sox are the favorites.

But, then again, the postseason is more about front-line talent than depth. Now, the Angels are here because of their depth, but how does their frontline talent compare to Boston's?

As a starting point, let's look at our nine starting players and their nine, just ranked by OPS+:

          Angels          Red Sox
TmRk  Player   OPS+    Player   OPS+
 1    Vlad     154     Ortiz    176
 2    Kotchman 125     Manny    129
 3    Figgins  123     Lowell   128
 4    Garret   120     Youkilis 120
 5    Kendrick 113     Pedroia  115
 6    Napoli   113     Drew     108
 7    Izturis  103     Varitek  106
 8    Willits  101     Crisp     86
 9    Cabrera  100     Lugo      68
TOT            112              105

Eh, what's this? The Angel starting offensive players are better than the Red Sox's? We're not even including stolen bases and other baserunning in this; these Angels are 110 of 148 in stealing bases, a 74.3% success rate, while these Sox are 85 of 107 for a success rate of 79.4%. So the Red Sox gain some there, but I suspect strongly that the Angels are stronger at the other aspects of baserunning, such as advancing extra bases on hits.

(FYI, I cheated and weighted each player's OPS+ by AB instead of PA to get the total. Sue me.)

Let's look at starting pitching:

          Angels          Red Sox
TmRk  Player   ERA+    Player   ERA+
 1    Lackey   144     Beckett  139
 2    Escobar  127     Dice-K   104
 3    Weaver   111     Schillng 118
TOT            129              120

Note that I actually went away from pure team rankings here, so as to show the match-ups next to each other. Once again, we find that the Angels have an advantage at the top of the rotation. John Lackey had a better season than Josh Beckett, and Kelvim blew Matsuzaka out of the water. Jered did struggle at times, but his season isn't particularly worse than Schilling's was.

Back of the bullpen:

          Angels          Red Sox
TmRk  Player   ERA+    Player   ERA+
 1    Frankie  154     Papelbon 246
 2    Speier   150     Delcrmen 223
 3    Shields  112     Okajima  206
TOT            136              224

Uh-oh. Here's a real source of concern: not only because the back of our pen has been so inconsistent, but also because theirs has been so good. This, obviously, helps the Red Sox in close games. In innings 7-9 this year, Boston allowed opposing hitters a mere 218/290/344 line, best in the league. The Angels were a bit better than the league average with a 248/318/384 line allowed, good for "only" fifth in the league.

But wait, look at that again: the main difference there is batting average. If you add 30 points of batting average to the Red Sox line, they're up to 248/320/374. Look familiar?

And then you see it: the Red Sox back of the bullpen allowed a much lower batting average on balls in play: .258 to the Angels .297. The league allowed a .304 BABIP over the course of the season, and the Sox allowed a .286 to the Angels .309.

Now, BABIP is lower in the late innings than it is over the rest of the game, as there are better pitchers and defensive replacements in the game. The league allowed a .294 BABIP in the last three innings, ten points better than the overall average; the Angel improvement from .309 to .297 in such situations is typical.

But the Red Sox drop from .286 to .258 is inhuman. Now, I'm not one of these guys who's all into DIPS and thinking that pitchers have no control over balls in play; the have some, less than we may have thought seven or eight years ago, but they have some. So I'm willing to give some of that to the Red Sox pitchers, but come on:

          Angels          Red Sox
TmRk  Player  BABIP    Player  BABIP
 1    Frankie .301     Papelbn .216
 2    Speier  .236     Delcrmn .218
 3    Shields .276     Okajima .244

The Red Sox bullpen is excellent, and those guys are possibly the best combo in the majors. But they're not quite as good as their performance suggests, and the gap between them and the Angels isn't as large as it seems at first glance.

Still, I must confess that the Red Sox, on the whole, are the better team. But I must also confess that the gap between us and them in front-line talent that wins playoff series is not very large, and that one can make the argument that we're better-suited to win such a series than they are. (This result is a surprise to me, by the way; I didn't expect to find this when I started typing this post.) And once you start making that argument, you notice that the Angels have a reasonable shot at winning the World Series.

Expectations? They've been met.

Angels in four.

GARY

2007-09-27T15:08:00.000-07:00

So Gary Matthews Jr is injured, and may or not be available for the postseason. What would this mean for the Angels?

Well, first of all, let's take a look at how Matthews has done this year. As you may recall, there was some handwringing in the Halosphere when Matthews, after having put up the first good offensive season of his life, was signed to a deal that will keep him in Angel red until the year 2011. He did okay in the first two months, hitting 286/339/452 through May (an OPS+ of 111). Along with his solid defense, that was just fine.

But the second half has been nothing but struggles for Matthews, who has hit 211/296/392 since the All Star Game, and hasn't been completely healthy of late. Interestingly, if you add 75 points to that batting average, you get a line of 286/371/467, an improvement on his first half; he actually had more walks and extra-base power in the second half than in the first, but he wasn't getting the hits to fall in.

At any rate, as of now he's got a 98 OPS+, which ranks 10th out of the 21 major league center fielders with 120 or more games. His fielding stats aren't too hot, either.

Here's something simple: how Matthews has done the past few years by average, OBP, and slugging, as compared to the park-adjusted league average, reported by BB-Ref:

Year   AVG    OBP    SLG
2004  -.008  -.013  +.013
2005  -.018  -.016  +.003
2007  -.013  -.009  +.005

Pretty consistent, huh?

Oh, wait, I left out a year:

Year   AVG    OBP    SLG
2004  -.008  -.013  +.013
2005  -.018  -.016  +.003
2006  +.033  +.026  +.050
2007  -.013  -.009  +.005

So, to the surprise of no one, except maybe the Angels, Gary Matthews Jr reverted to being the hitter he was before his "breakout" season; he's an average hitter. No more. No less.

Without Matthews in the lineup, we could see any and all of these combinations:

3B     Figgins
CF     Willits
RF/DH  Vlad/Rivera

3B     Izturis
CF     Willits
RF/DH  Figgins/Vlad

3B     Izturis
CF     Figgins
RF     Vlad/Rivera

As a hitter, Reggie Willits has been a bit better than Matthews so far this year. Willits, like Matthews, has slumped a bit after a hot start, but has still managed to hit 276/377/323 in the second half (not too far off of what I speculated he might do back in May, though I'm happy to say he has maintained his walk rate to a greater degree that I thought he would). By the numbers, his defense in center seems to be worse than Matthews', and this reflect my subjective view of their relative glovework, as well.

Surprisingly (maybe), Maicer Izturis has also out-produced Gary (on a per-plate appearance basis, at any rate) this year, notching an OPS+ of 104. Ztu put up a 106 last year, so it seems like this may actually be his real level of ability. In fact, his last two years resemble each other quite strongly:

Year   AVG    OBP    SLG
2006  +.024  +.032  -.016
2007  +.026  +.019  -.006

Izturis might just be a better hitter than Matthews at this point, and seems to be a pretty good defensive option on the hot corner. And while Juan Rivera took some time to adjust, he is hitting 348/375/652 over the last two weeks, so he may be rearing to go, as well.

All things considered, I'd have to say this team could withstand Gary Matthews Jr's absence during the playoffs. I'm not saying that as a shot at Gary: the fact is this team has succeeded because of uncommon depth. I'll probably write about this sometime, but a lot of things have gone wrong for the Angels this year, but the team has managed to stay in front because of these seemingly endless reservoirs of guys like Willits and Izturis who can step in and perform at an above-average level when someone gets hurt.

I'm actually saddened by the prospect of Gary's being unable to play in October, as he signed with this team to get that shot, and regardless of my skepticism over his contract, he seems like a good guy who has worked hard and given his all, and I'd love to see him contribute. But the reason he can even ponder playing in October is that he's on a team with the foresight and resources to still get there even when nearly everything goes wrong.

WATCH LIST SUMMARY

2007-09-25T10:15:00.000-07:00

Here is the last update.

The BB-Ref organizational stats are linked in the POSITION and PITCHER headers.

Thanks to these park factors provided by Dan Szymborski, I've included season-ending OPS+ and park-adjusted batting runs (a linear weights determination of how many runs each batter created above average) for each player. I also did ERA+ and pitching runs (how many earned runs each pitcher prevented) for the pitchers.

POSITION PLAYERS

Michael Collins, 1B, AA Arkansas, BR/TR

When    AB  H  2B  3B  HR  BB  SO  SB  CS  AVG OBP SLG OPS+ BR
Now    429 104 18   3   5  12  70   5   4  242 286 333  70 -20
8/24   394  98 17   3   5  11  65   5   4  249 292 345 
7/24   296  66 14   1   3   8  52   5   4  223 269 307
6/26   229  44 12   1   2   5  45   4   2  192 241 279
5/21   127  17  7   0   1   2  25   0   1  136 194 216  
5/1     75  12  2   0   1   2  16   0   1  160 203 227

Collins had a relatively good August, but obviously didn't do anything to put himself into the organization's first base picture.

Hank Conger, C, A Cedar Rapids, BB/TR

When    AB  H  2B  3B  HR  BB  SO  SB  CS  AVG OBP SLG OPS+ BR
Now    290  84 20   0  11  21  48   9   4  290 336 472 134 +12
8/24   262  73 17   0   9  19  45   9   4  279 329 447
7/24   213  60 16   0   8  16  41   7   3  282 336 469  
6/26   213  60 16   0   8  16  41   7   3  282 336 469
5/21   123  32  6   0   6   8  16   6   0  260 311 455
5/1     68  18  2   0   3   4   8   4   0  265 306 426

Hank had some injury troubles, but clearly had no trouble hitting when healthy and in the lineup. The only better hitter we had at Cedar Rapids, both in terms of OPS+ and BR, was Christopher Pettit, whom we'll see below.

Terry Evans, OF, AAA Salt Lake, BR/TR

When    AB  H  2B  3B  HR  BB  SO  SB  CS  AVG OBP SLG OPS+ BR
Now    475 150 40   4  15  26 119  24   9  316 352 512 112 +10
8/24   439 138 37   4  14  21 110  22   9  314 347 513
7/24   341 106 28   3  13  12  87  15   6  311 334 525
6/26   260  86 23   3  11  11  60  13   6  331 358 569
5/21   156  50 13   3   6   9  42  11   4  321 355 558

Terry Evans ended up being a solid producer for AAA, but at age 25, didn't really do much of anything to make it look like he's going to make us regret the Gary Matthews Jr. signing. Could he even be a Juan Rivera fourth outfielder type? He has a good glove, and speed, but he'll need to get that strike zone under control to be that guy. The defense and speed do put him ahead of this guy at the same age, though:

Nick Gorneault, OF, AAA Salt Lake, BR/TR

When    AB  H  2B  3B  HR  BB  SO  SB  CS  AVG OBP SLG OPS+ BR
Now    471 123 24   1  19  58 108  17   8  261 346 437  95 - 3
8/24   433 107 20   1  16  56 103  16   6  247 337 409
7/24   341  80 17   0  12  41  83  12   4  235 322 390
6/26   276  60 12   0   9  35  63  11   3  217 310 359
5/21   151  36 10   0   3  18  34   8   2  238 327 364
5/1     81  15  4   0   3   9  17   5   2  185 283 346

Nick finished strong over the past few months but, as you see, didn't even manage to be an above-average performer at his level. I do think he's better than this, but I don't think there's any room for him in this organization from here on out.

Christopher Pettit, LF, A+ Rancho Cucamonga and A Cedar Rapids, BR/TR

When    AB  H  2B  3B  HR  BB  SO  SB  CS  AVG OBP SLG OPS+ BR
Now    265  82 20   2   9  36  48  13   3  309 395 502 133 +15
Now    235  76 18   1   9  29  40  12   2  323 403 523
7/24   124  44  8   1   8  16  23   9   2  355 433 629
6/26    22   2  0   0   0   1   6   0   0  091 130 091
       228  79 24   1   9  23  41  17   4  346 429 579 192 +30 Cedar Rapids

Late-season slump accounted for, I think Pettit was definitely our system's Position Player of the Year. He led both of his minor league teams in OPS+ and BR, stole bases, showed versatility by getting a lot of time in center in addition to left, and the only guy in the organization with more doubles is Vladimir Guerrero. A very nice first full season for the local product.

Sean Rodriguez, SS, AA Arkansas, BR/TR

When    AB  H  2B  3B  HR  BB  SO  SB  CS  AVG OBP SLG OPS+ BR
Now    508 129 31   2  17  54 132  15   8  254 345 423 113 + 9
8/24   468 116 30   2  13  48 126  13   7  248 339 404
7/24   371  93 24   1  11  35  99  11   6  251 338 410
6/26   278  71 17   1  10  28  76   9   4  255 350 432
5/23   143  36  9   0   6  19  35   6   3  252 374 441
5/1     81  25  6   0   4  12  21   3   3  309 423 531

I've been a Sean Rodriguez supporter for awhile, mostly because any Angel prospect who controls the strike zone at even the lowest levels, and shows pop, is pretty rare. Rodriguez did hold his own at AA, but the Travelers saw better offensive seasons from third baseman Freddy Sandoval (see below) and second-sacker Adam Morrissey. Of course, S-Rod is two years younger than the former and four years younger the latter, and at 22 years of age is young for his competition. The new Arkansas park helped pitchers and killed home runs, so his raw stats are a bit better than they look, but Sean didn't really separate himself from the pack this year. That said, he's still quite young, and still a plus hitter at a premium defensive position.

Mark Trumbo, 1B, A Cedar Rapids, BR/TR

When    AB  H  2B  3B  HR  BB  SO  SB  CS  AVG OBP SLG OPS+ BR
Now    471 128 27   2  14  34  98  10   8  272 326 427 118 + 8
Now    443 117 25   2  13  28  84  10   8  270 318 427
7/24   340  97 20   2   9  23  73  10   5  285 334 435
6/26   242  68 16   1   7  16  53   3   4  281 327 442
5/23   117  27  6   0   3   5  30   1   2  231 266 359
5/1     49  10  1   0   1   2  16   0   2  204 245 286

Mark Trumbo improved markedly in his second year in the Midwest League. Yes, he lost some walks, but also cut his strikeouts (one less K, but in over 40 less at-bats) and managed to hit for average (the league as a whole hit .255). The jump to the High-A Cal League next year may be a challenge, but it's also an opportunity for Trumbo to have a breakout year.

Brandon Wood, SS, AAA Salt Lake, BR/TR

When    AB  H  2B  3B  HR  BB  SO  SB  CS  AVG OBP SLG OPS+ BR
Now    437 119 27   1  23  45 120  10   1  272 338 497 106 + 7
8/24   397 105 21   1  20  43 109  10   1  264 335 474
7/24   313  82 18   1  16  39  80   8   1  262 343 479
6/26   254  68 18   1  13  34  69   8   1  268 355 500
5/23   131  31  8   0   5  18  38   3   0  237 331 412
5/1     84  22  6   0   3  11  28   2   0  262 351 440

I've mentioned this before, but right now Brandon projects as a good-fielding Dean Palmer plus a reasonable number of walks. I guess I can understand an "is that all there is?" reaction to that, but he's by far the youngest regular we had at AAA, and I think another year there will really help him harness his abilities. Right now, he's a .200 hitter in the major leagues, but with the pop of which he's capable and a decent grasp of the strike zone, he can be at least an adequate player by getting that up around .240 or so. I think he can do it, but I don't know that the results will be immediate.

Watch Out:

Who       Lvl  AB  H  2B  3B  HR  BB  SO  SB  CS  AVG OBP SLG OPS+ BR
Bourjos    A  237  65  9   6   5  20  53  19   9  269 323 404 120 + 6
ClyFuller Azl 183  55 10   4   5  24  52  21   6  301 398 481
Mount      A  303  76 11   3   7  29  70  19   6  251 320 376 103 + 2
Ortiz     Azl  71  21  4   0   0   6  17   5   2  296 346 352
Peel       AA 310  79 20   2   7   6  43   2   0  255 284 400  88 - 6
Phillips   A  436 107 11   8  13  15 154  34   4  245 283 397  96 + 0
Rivera                   has not played
Sandoval   AA 472 144 32   6  11  67  78  21  11  305 392 468 137 +26
Statia     A+ 549 158 27   7   3  48  79  29   8  288 344 379  86 - 6
Sweeney    A  439 114 29   2  18  38  88   7   7  260 324 458 127 +12

Peter Bourjos had some injury troubles over the course of the year, but his strikeouts-to-walk ratio needs to improve. Clay Fuller had a fine debute in the Arizona League. Ryan Mount also struggled with injury, and never got in a groove upon coming back. Norberto Ortiz started off hot but was in the same boat, missing time and not being in sync upon his return. Aaron Peel didn't follow up on what could have been a breakthrough 2006. P.J. Phillips strikes out more than you can imagine, but does well when he hits the ball and once he's on base. Can he fix his problems? Luis Rivera never played. Freddy Sandoval was Arkansas' best player. Hainley Statia is another guy who fell off after a good 2006; at the same age, Erick Aybar was more than holding his own with a .303 average at AA. Matthew Sweeney ranked third on his team in OPS+ and led in home runs.

PITCHERS

Nick Adenhart, RHSP, AA Arkansas

When  W  L  SV  G  GS  IP    H  HR  SO  BB   ERA ERA+ PR
Now  10  8   0  26 26 153.0 158  7 116  65  3.65 112 + 8
8/24  9  7   0  24 24 142.0 143  7 106  61  3.74
7/24  7  3   0  18 18 107.0 112  4  78  43  3.36  
6/26  6  2   0  14 14  83.7  87  4  61  37  3.46
5/23  3  2   0   8  8  47.3  43  0  35  21  2.68
5/1   3  1   0   5  5  33.7  24  0  27  10  0.80

The only worry here is the strikeouts; Adenhart was a bit below average in a park that should have helped him. But with his age and groundball tendencies, I think there's a lot to be excited about. Just stay healthy, kid.

Jose Arredondo, RHSP, AAA Salt Lake, AA Arkansas, and A+ Rancho Cucamonga

When  W  L  SV  G  GS  IP    H  HR  SO  BB   ERA ERA+ PR
Now   0  0   0   2  0   3.0  2   0   1   2  3.00 162 + 1 AAA
Now   2  4   4  28  0  35.0  46  5  34  11  6.43  75 - 6 A+
8/24  2  4   4  27  0  34.0  44  4  33  11  6.09
7/24  0  2   2  15  0  16.0  24  3  13   6  9.56
6/26  0  0   2   4  0   3.7   7  0   5   4 18.90 
6/26  0  1  10  23  0  25.0  16  2  28  12  2.52 162 + 5 AA
5/23  0  1   6  16  0  19.0  12  2  22  10  3.32   
5/1   0  1   2   8  0  11.0   8  1  14   5  1.64

A weird season; Arredondo was doing very well at AA, but a tantrum on the mound when being removed from a game led to a demotion to the Cal League, where he stuck up the joint for awhile, then finally came on, and came up to the AAA club to help their postseason run. Physically, I'd imagine he's ready for AAA next year. Emotionally? I have no idea.

Gustavo Espinoza, LHRP, Arizona League

When  W  L  SV  G  GS  IP    H  HR  SO  BB   ERA
Now   0  0   0  2   0   1.3  0   0   3   1  6.75

Hey, at least he's pitching again.

Stephen Marek, RHSP, A Rancho Cucamonga

When  W  L  SV  G  GS  IP    H  HR  SO  BB   ERA ERA+ PR
Now   8 10   0  25 25 134.0 133 17 106  49  4.30 112 + 8
8/24  8  9   0  23 23 121.0 123 15  95  45  4.61
7/24  5  7   0  17 17  89.0  91 10  70  35  4.75
6/26  5  4   0  13 13  69.7  64  5  56  30  4.02
5/23  3  2   0   7  7  38.7  34  2  23  15  3.52
5/1   1  0   0   3  3  15.0  12  1   7   6  2.40

Some up and down in Marek's season. His peripherals aren't dominating, and he was actually outperformed by 21-year-old Anthony Ortega at the same level. Ortega kinda snuck up on me, so I'll take a closer look at him for next year. None of our starters at Rancho this year had knockout peripherals, it seems; Brok Butcher led the team in pitching runs, but managed only 59 K's in 110 innings, and then struggled mightily at the next level.

Tommy Mendoza, A Cedar Rapids, RHSP

When  W  L  SV  G  GS  IP    H  HR  SO  BB   ERA ERA+ PR
Now   2  4   0  12 11  53.7  67  5  38  16  4.89  75 - 8
8/24  2  4   0  10  9  44.0  54  5  30  13  4.30
7/24  0  3   0   4  3  12.3  18  4  11   6  9.00

Mendoza started late due to injury, and never really got his feet under him. This season didn't tell us anything about him. Hopefully he can stay healthy and develop more next year.

Darren O'Day, RHRP, AA Arkansas and A+ Rancho Cucamonga

When  W  L  SV  G  GS  IP    H  HR  SO  BB   ERA ERA+ PR
Now   3  4  10  29  0  29.3  27  3  22  14  4.03 101 + 0 AA
8/24  3  3   7  25  0  25.3  24  2  19  11  3.24 
7/24  1  2   0   3  0  13.0  11  1  10   7  2.77
6/26  0  1   0   2  0   2.0   3  0   0   1  4.50 
6/26  4  0   0  24  0  24.0  10  1  26   6  0.75 642 +11 A+ Final

Darren O'Day was outrageous in the Cal League, but struggled a bit against the higher competition. As a sidearmer, you'd think he'd be harmed more by lefty hitters than righties, but at AA he actually held lefties to a 224/309/245 line while northpaws managed a 276/377/431. Part of that is attributable to his allowing only a .268 batting average on balls in play to LHB, but I really don't know what the hell's going on; I assume it's a small sample size, as his splits at A+ (a 599 OPS against LHB, but 316 from RHB) makes much more sense.

Sean O'Sullivan, RHSP, A Cedar Rapids

When  W  L  SV  G  GS  IP    H  HR  SO  BB   ERA ERA+ PR
Now  10  7   0  25 25 158.3 136  6 125  40  2.22 163 +26
8/24 10  6   0  23 23 144.3 122  6 119  38  2.19 
7/24  6  5   0  17 17 102.7  94  3  86  27  2.37
6/26  4  5   0  12 12  70.3  76  3  53  19  2.96
5/23  2  3   0   8  8  48.0  56  2  36  13  3.00
5/1   1  2   0   4  4  23.0  26  2  13   6  3.52

By pitching runs, O'Sullivan was our best minor league pitcher in 2007. Only Brok Butcher comes close (+20), though that includes his poor showing at AA. As I mentioned last time, though O'Sullivan's K/9 IP is below his league average (7.11 against 7.66), but he only faces approximately 4.11 guys per inning against the league's 4.33 -- his actual K rate -- per batter faced -- is only approximately 0.5% lower than his league's. Can he keep the hits allowed total low? We'll find out.

Steve Shell, RHSP/RP, AAA Salt Lake

When  W  L  SV  G  GS  IP    H  HR  SO  BB   ERA ERA+ PR
Now   7  3   0  31  7  70.3  83 15  52  19  4.76 104 + 2
8/24  6  3   0  29  6  61.3  76 15  44  18  5.46 
7/24  4  3   0  21  4  45.0  56 12  35  14  5.60
6/26  4  1   0  14  3  31.0  39  7  23  11  4.94
5/23  1  0   0   5  1  12.0  18  3   4   2  3.75
5/1   0  0   0   2  1   7.0   9  1   3   1  1.29

A good example of the kind of environment our AAA team has, Shell's 4.76 ERA is better than the league average, once you adjust for park. He also had 13 good innings at AA, but he really seems to have fallen off the radar, and barely-above-average performance, mostly from the pen, isn't going to set off anyone's alarms.

Rich Thompson, RHRP, AAA Salt Lake and AA Arkansas

When  W  L  SV  G  GS  IP    H  HR  SO  BB   ERA ERA+ PR
Now   3  0   1  16  0  24.7  17  2  32   6  2.22 230 + 7 AAA
8/24  3  0   1  14  0  22.3  15  2  29   3  2.05
7/24  1  0   0   4  0   7.7   6  0  12   2  1.23 
7/24  2  3   0  21  3  49.3  34  5  50  14  2.02 203 +12 AA
6/26  1  3   0  19  3  44.3  32  5  46  12  2.25

Rich Thompson led both his AA and AAA teams in pitching runs. He hasn't been as keen in his irregular appearances in the majors, so my dreams of a K-Rodesque rise have been dashed. Still have you noticed that he gives up runs when stretched? In his second outing, he threw two-thirds of an inning, then struggled the next inning. In his fifth, he pitched an inning and a third before giving up a run. He's pretty much a one-inning guy right now, it looks like.

Watch Out:

Who       Lvl  W  L  SV  G  GS  IP    H  HR  SO  BB   ERA ERA+ PR
Bell       A   8  4   0  21 21 115.3 136  8  90  23  4.15  87 - 7
Bulger    AAA  5  2  10  49  0  52.7  51  4  81  24  3.78 133 + 7 
Green      AA 10  8   0  28 28 178.3 164 17 107  32  3.69 111 + 8
Madrigal    A  5  4  20  54  0  61.0  44  3  75  23  2.07 176 +11 
Rodriguez  AA  0  6   0  46  1  71.3  79  6  42  30  4.18  98 - 1
Walden     R   1  1   0  15 15  64.3  49  3  63  17  3.75
Young      R   0  1   0   3  3   9.0  10  1   9   6  9.00

Trevor Bell finished off the season with two terrific starts; somewhat in opposition to Sean O'Sullivan, the question with Bell next year is whether he will continue to give up so many hits despite good numbers in every other respect. Like Rich Thompson, Jason Bulger has earned a real look for next year's pen. Nick Green was terrific in the late summer, but, like so many of these guys, isn't missing many bats. Warner Madrigal had an exceptional year as Cedar Rapids' closer. Rafael Rodriguez finally got things together, somewhat, near the end of the season. Jordan Walden finished very strong, not walking anyone in his last 15 innings, and making an overall great debut. Young Il-Jung has been shut down due to injury.

A few random notes ... aside from Anthony Ortega, one guy who really jumped at me was Aaron Cook. He was solid (12 K to 4 BB, 4.15 ERA) in 13 innings in the Cal League after striking out 20 to only 1 walk (and a 0.81) ERA in just over 30 innings at Cedar Rapids. He's apparently another submariner, so that could be interesting ... Miguel Gonzalez also got good results at AA without great peripherals ... Robert Fish will definitely be on this list next year, as he performed very well (3.28 ERA, 77:31 SO:BB in 71.67 IP) for Tom Kotchman at Orem ... we'll also watch out for lefty reliever Douglas Brandt, who performed well at different levels ...

... 1B Christopher Garcia, 19 years old, played in only 20 games in the Arizona League, but managed 21 walks to 17 strikeouts and put up a 333/480/474 line. He's another Tom Kotchman Florida find; he played with Orem a bit, too, though not with as much success (10 BB to 21 K in 23 games) ... the top 10 Angel minor leaguers by batting runs and pitching runs, combined at all levels:

Pos  Player              Level   Runs
OF   Christopher Pettit   A,A+   37.5
3B   Freddy Sandoval      AA     26.0
SP   Sean O'Sullivan       A     25.7
RP   Rich Thompson     A+,AA,AAA 20.3
SP   Brok Butcher        A+,AA   20.0
OF   Nathan Haynes        AAA    16.1
SP   Anthony Ortega        A+    14.3
RP   Douglas Brandt     A,A+,AAA 13.5
2B   Adam Morrissey       AA     12.1
3B   Matthew Sweeney       A     12.3

***
(Technical note on the offensive linear weights [feel free to skip]: what I did was apply the factors to each element, not apply a single run factor at the end of the process; there are no factors for triples, but that shouldn't be a big deal. Meaning, if a park inflates HR by 5% but deflates run-scoring as a whole by 2%, I adjusted the HR first and then added up the batting runs, instead of determining the total runs and using the run-scoring factor on that. As we're talking about minor leaguers, I thought it would be more instructive to do it that way, even though there's very little difference once it's all said and done.)

FIRST STEP

2007-09-24T10:25:00.000-07:00

Well, the Angels have won yet another division title. Ho-hum.

Obviously, it's a cause of celebration, especially given the fact that in terms of injury and performances by a few key players, this season has been somewhat cursed. But the depth of the organization allowed our Lads to survive injuries and struggles, and we outlasted some inferior teams, some fueled by good fortune (the M's) and other derailed by bad (the A's).

The Angels are technically in a push to get the best record in the league, and secure home-field advantage through the playoffs. Though this would be nice, I think priority number one has to be getting our guys set for the postseason, getting them rest while keeping them sharp. It can be a difficult balance, but I have faith in Mike Scioscia getting it right.

What of the postseason roster? This is definitely not set in stone, so let's take a look at what we have.

Here are the guys who I consider to be locks, provided everyone is healthy:

Catcher (2): Mike Napoli, Jeff Mathis
Infield (5): Casey Kotchman, Howie Kendrick, Chone Figgins, Orlando Cabrera, Maicer Izturis
Outfield (4): Garret Anderson, Gary Matthews Jr, Vlad Guerrero, Reggie Willits
Rotation (4): John Lackey, Kelvim Escobar, Jered Weaver, Joe Saunders
Bullpen (4): Francisco Rodriguez, Scot Shields, Justin Speier, Darren Oliver

So that's 19 of the 25 spots right there. I think most of these choices are not controversial; we need two catchers, one backup infielder, and one backup outfielder who can play each spot. We'll likely only use three starters in the first round, and I think Jered should have that third spot, but you'll probably want the lefty as an option and/or as a long man. The bullpen guys are our top bullpen guys.

So that leaves six spots for some combination of:

Robb Quinlan
Kendry Morales
Erick Aybar
Juan Rivera
Nathan Haynes
Ervin Santana
Bartolo Colon
Dustin Moseley
Chris Bootcheck

First of all, I don't think we need both of Aybar and Haynes; Willits can fill the pinch-running slot in games he doesn't start, and between he and Ztu we've got the skill positions covered. If I had to pick one, it might actually be Haynes. He's not reliable offensively, but he can deliver the mail on the basepaths, and is a far more accomplished basestealer than Aybar. Five spots left.

Has Juan Rivera earned a spot? His bat looks good, he can hit lefties, he can spot the outfield corners.

It might seem odd to not include Q, given his time against lefties this year, but the fact is that he hasn't really bashed southpaws this year as he normally has. But another fact is that Kendry hasn't done well against lefties, either.

I don't know if there would be room for all three of those guys, given their redundant skills. I'm prone to say that Rivera and Kendry should get the spots, even though that kinda sucks for Q, but it's hard to say. Giving two of them spots leaves three for the pitching staff.

Bartolo Colon's health is something of a question mark in my mind, even though he (apparently, it was a rare game I didn't watch) pitched well on Saturday. I'd be shocked if he were given a starting spot in the postseason, given the inconsistency of his pitching and health this year. Would he still be effective coming out of the bullpen?

And the same questions plague us with Ervin, except for the injury concern. Would they carry both into October? I can see it happening, if Bartolo's body allows it. Neither Bootcheck nor Moseley are great shakes, either, and if push comes to shove I'd rather see Ervin pitching when it matters than either of them. Of course, one of them should get the last spot, just for mop-up duty.

That would give us 14 position players and 11 pitchers, which sounds reasonable. For the shorter series, we could even cut down on the pitching (either cutting out Bootcheck/Moseley or Colon and Santana), allowing room for either one more runner (Aybar) or bat (one of the Rivera/Morales/Q troika).

We actually have more guys with cases to make the roster than actual roster spots to dole out, which is a sign of strength. It'll be interesting to see who Mike elects to take into the divisional round with him.

PITCH MOVEMENT

2007-09-19T14:25:00.000-07:00

Hey gang.

Man, I've been a slacker this year.

Anyway, things are looking good for our heroes. I'm not completely optimistic about our chances in the postseason, but barring the biggest collapse in baseball history, we'll get there, and that's an achievement worth noting. Of course, this is a team designed to do more than just make the playoffs, and expectations are high, so I see the impending division title as more of a stepping stone than as an actual accomplishment.

I'll have my Watch List Summary up later this week, hopefully, and will probably be doing some kind of season summary/postseason preview when the time comes. But today I was reading this John Walsh article over at the Hardball Times and figured I'd pass it along.

I don't know if you've been following this, but on the MLB.com Gameday feature (their gamecast thing), most games track each pitch by a variety of measures that reflect its velocity and break. This is giving researchers opportunity to really break down what kind of pitches different pitchers have in their repertoire. Walsh has been at the forefront of this, and explains a bit in that article I link. He produces graphics that plot "pitches on a two-dimensional scatterplot, with the vertical and horizontal axes representing the pitch movement," with velocity "indicated by the color of each point."

He also links to scatterplots for various pitchers (organized alphabetically, pitchers with last names beginning A through E, F through L, M through R, and S through Z). Let's see what we can learn about various Angel pitchers from these plots.

Chris Bootcheck
Chris' fastball is pretty consistently in the low-90s. He really only seems to have two pitches, with a low-80s breaking ball that sometimes dips below 80. It looks like he also has a high-80s two-seamer or cutter, which has a similar horizontal movement to his curve, but obviously less vertical drop.

Bartolo Colon
Bartolo's velocity this year has been mostly acceptable, in the low-90s with his fastball a decent amount of the time. Of course, his four-seamer used to be in the mid- to high-90s. Colon's never really had a devastating breaking ball, and his slider has a lot less break than some of the other guys.

Kelvim Escobar
I've been interested to see how Kelvim's repertoire would look, given his smörgåsbord of pitches. His four-seam and two-seam fastballs are pretty evident. He also has two pitches in the 80-85 mph range; one -- his change -- has action substantially similar to his fastballs (though it breaks less horizontally), while the other -- his forkball/splitter -- breaks down. That's his "change/splitter combo" Rex is always chattering about on the telecasts, and when Escobar's in command of those pitches, it's incredibly effective. Add in his slider -- which moves just like his splitter, only slower -- and it's clear why he's been so effective in Angel red.

John Lackey
Lackey's another guy I thought we could learn about here. He came up as a fastball/slider guy, then they starting calling the slider a curve or a slurve when he started throwing some other slider/cutter thing, and last year he introduced a change to the whole mess. His fastball is clear on the chart, and in the middle of all the fastball plots is a pitch that runs 80-85: that's his change, and it moves similarly to his fastball, only with a bit more of a tail away from the left-handed batter.

His breaking balls are also fairly clear. The biggest break belongs to the big curve, which is in the mid- to high-70s. Another pitch in the low 80s has slightly less break. So that's his slider. It's of a similar velocity to his change, but moves in the opposite way.

Dustin Moseley
Moseley throws a straight change that in movement looks exactly like his fastball. He also has a slow curve that runs pretty close to 12-to-6.

Francisco Rodriguez
One notable thing about Frankie's fastball is its lack of horizontal movement. His change, however, is not too dissimilar to John Lackey's, though less extreme. His killer pitch, as we all know, is his breaking ball. I don't really think Frankie has two different breaking balls; he does get a bit more break when the pitch is slower than 80 mph then when it's in the low-80s, but I think that's physics as much as anything.

Ervin Santana
Ervin's fastball is consistently in the low-90s; velocity has not been his problem. Watching on TV, I often have trouble delineating Santana's change and slider, and this chart shows exactly why: he has two pitches of nearly identical break (more horizontal than vertical), one in the low- to mid-80s and one in the mid- to high-70s. He also has a smattering of pitches in the 80-85 range that move just like his fastball; I don't know if that's a straight change or a breaking ball that just doesn't break. We don't really have the data, but it would be interesting to compare his chart to last year's (when he was so much more successful) to see what differences there may be.

Joe Saunders
Joe's change is effective because it's movement is very close to his fastball's (with just a tad more drop). His high-70s curve has more vertical than horizontal movement.

Scot Shields
Scottie has the biggest gap between his fastball and slider, in terms of movement. His fastball is very consistent in velocity, and always rides back toward the third-base line. His slider is nearly as extreme in the opposite direction, and tends to straddle the 80 mph line (I've never gotten the impression that he has two breaking balls, and the movement on his pitches in that region are pretty much the same).

Justin Speier
I was surprised that Speier's fastball hits the high-80s as much as it does; it does ride up and in to the right-handed hitter, and is actually pretty similar to Shields' (though Speier's appears to be more consistent in its movement). I'm not really sure what his other two pitches are; I know he throws the splitter, I assume that's the one in the high-70s with more downward break, and the low-80s pitch with less break is a sinker or change; however, that slower pitch may be a slider (it's similar to Kelvim's slider) and the faster the splitter. Because he doesn't throw hard, there isn't a lot of variance between the velocity of Speier's different pitches, and none of them have a substantial horizontal break.

Jered Weaver
Like Frankie, Jered's fastball doesn't have much movement. His changeup, however, is substantially similar to Joe Saunders', only coming from the other side, of course. I'm surprised to see that his slider looks somewhat like Ervin's, as on TV it seems to have much more break than that.

Summary
Here is a chart that tries to break down each pitcher's pitch by break; the coordinates are (horizontal, vertical). There's a lot of guesswork, as I'm really just eyeballing the chart and guessing at where the average for each guy's pitch is, but it can let us know which pitchers have similar pitches.

           4-Fastball   2-Fastball   Curve   Change   Slider   Splitter
Bootcheck    -3,10         3, 4       3, 0
Colon        -8, 8        -9, 9               -7, 7    1, 2
Escobar      -8,11        -1, 7               -1,11    1,-2      0,1
Lackey       -9,10        -3,11       8,-4    -9, 9    1, 3
Moseley      -9,10        -9,10       2,-7    -9,10
Rodriguez    -1,12                            -4, 6    5,-4
Santana      -6,10                             3, 1    2, 1
Saunders      9, 9                   -1,-4     6,10
Shields                   -9, 9                        4,-9
Speier       -9, 9        -1, 5                       -1, 0      1,1
Weaver       -1,12                            -6,11    3, 1

As you can see, just about everyone's four-seamer is substantially similar (in movement, not necessarily speed), though Bootcheck, Frankie, and Weaver are kind of outliers together. I made a separation between four- and two-seamers based on velocity, mostly, plus with Shields I just assume it's a two-seamer because of the crazy movement, I don't actually know. With Moseley, you see that it moves the same, so it's probably just the one kind of pitch vacillating between 89 and 91 or so.

As one might expect, John Lackey's curve is by far the biggest, while Frankie and Shields have the biggest slider. Kelvim and Speier get similar action on their splitters.

Anyway, that's that.

THAT WAS OUR BROOMSTICK

2007-08-30T10:00:00.001-07:00

I've had my worries about the Angels this year -- I know that we're better than Seattle, but our play has been inconsistent and dispiriting at times. But our three-game sweep in the Emerald City certainly was good news, and one certainly can't complain about a five-game lead on August 30. Only one division leader in baseball (Boston) has a larger lead today, and even that's by only one game.

Of course, not everything went right, and our Lads have to keep up their game over the next month. John Lackey, incredibly, was able to dominate despite suffering from strep throat; I haven't had that since elementary school, but I certainly remember it being terrible, so that's an impressive outing all the more. Hopefully he gets better soon, as I can't really imagine him being able to keep it up while suffering illness.

And the enigma of Ervin Santana only continued this week, and hit what is likely his nadir. It's hard to imagine The Magic returning to the rotation as long as the division is still in dispute, but youneverknow, though even if he doesn't we may see him throwing some junk innings out of the pen. As it's been all season, I'm hard-pressed to come up with any explanation's for Ervin's deterioration. But watching him on Tuesday reminded me of ... well, me. I was at the driving range this past weekend, and my entire swing was out of sync, and nothing I could do could get me back on track. It was my worst trip to a range ever, including when I was a small child. Ervin on the mound reminded me of that experience.

We were counting on Ervin this year, and the plan has always been to count on him next year, as well. That appears to be in question, though given his track record, youth, and raw material, I would assume that he'll go into spring training with at least an opportunity to regain his rotation spot. I'm pulling for him, of course; it's always shocking to see any player, especially a young and (presumably) healthy pitcher, fall apart, and hopefully the king's men can put him back together.

Jered Weaver finished off the sweep.. His command was a bit better than his previous start, as he cut down his walks infinitely, but he gave up one more earned run and struck out the same number of batters despite pitching one more whole inning. Jered's ERA+ of 114 ranks 20th out of the 44 AL pitchers with 125+ innings pitched, and tied for 37th out of the 96 major league pitchers above that threshold. Of course, this is Jered's age 24 season, and at that same age, John Lackey was posting an ERA+ of 92, Ervin Santana one of 67, and Bartolo Colon an 83 in less than 100 innings. Jered's brother, Jeff, whose presence on the mound against us Tuesday meant that I never lost hope after Ervin got buried in the first, did manage a 111 that season, fairly close to Jered's mark. However, Jeff only posted an 89 the season before, unlike Jered and his 171.

Jered Weaver has now thrown 256 innings, posting an ERA+ of 136, with rather strong peripherals. Amongst starting pitchers in major league history who had thrown between 200 and 300 innings through the age of 24, Jered's ERA+ is tied for 7th out of 157. His innings pitched total ranks just above the middle of that group, at 65th, yet he manages to rank 10th in strikeouts, 24th in least walks issued, and 4th in wins -- it helps that he 9th in strikeouts per 9 innings and 18th in least walks per 9.

Of course, the season's not over, so we can look at this again over the winter. And there is a long-term question with his health, as there is with any young pitcher. Note Aaron Sele, whose first two season resemble Jered's first two in certain respects. He followed those two seasons with a season where he only managed six starts, presumably due to medical reasons. He was never the same pitcher, and his story is not unique.

At any rate, just as Jered is positioned to have a productive career if he stays on track, so also our team is now very much in the driver's seat as they look to win their third division title in the past four seasons.

EDDIE BANE INTERVIEW

2007-08-27T16:53:00.001-07:00

I've been horribly remiss in not posting links to this in the past, but Angels Win has a monthly interview with Eddie Bane. Nothing terribly revelatory in this month's edition -- no Matt Harvey questions, for instance -- and Bane is certainly representing the organization, so you never read him saying stuff like "This guy sucks, we really screwed the pooch drafting him." But he talks about various things the organization like about different prospects, including lower-level guys who are somewhat off the radar and often spoken of. Past editions are all there below the most recent one, so catch up.

WATCH LIST UPDATE

2007-08-24T10:08:00.000-07:00

It's been one month today since the last one; this is likely the penultimate edition of the year.

The BB-Ref organizational stats are linked in the POSITION and PITCHER headers.

POSITION PLAYERS

Michael Collins, 1B, AA Arkansas, BR/TR

When    AB  H  2B  3B  HR  BB  SO  SB  CS  AVG OBP SLG OPS+
Now    394  98 17   3   5  11  65   5   4  249 292 345
7/24   296  66 14   1   3   8  52   5   4  223 269 307
6/26   229  44 12   1   2   5  45   4   2  192 241 279
5/21   127  17  7   0   1   2  25   0   1  136 194 216  
5/1     75  12  2   0   1   2  16   0   1  160 203 227

It's been a good month for Collins, relatively. No matter what happens, there's a good chance he'll repeat the level, but since his first 127 AB he's been hitting 303/326/446. That's nothing special in the Texas League, but at least it's something. He will need to reacquaint himself with ball four, regardless.

Hank Conger, C, A Cedar Rapids, BB/TR

When    AB  H  2B  3B  HR  BB  SO  SB  CS  AVG OBP SLG OPS+
Now    262  73 17   0   9  19  45   9   4  279 329 447
7/24   213  60 16   0   8  16  41   7   3  282 336 469  
6/26   213  60 16   0   8  16  41   7   3  282 336 469
5/21   123  32  6   0   6   8  16   6   0  260 311 455
5/1     68  18  2   0   3   4   8   4   0  265 306 426

Hank has been fighting injuries for the second half of the season. It's affected both his playing time (obviously) and his numbers when he's been in the lineup, but he continues to demonstrate good power relative to his league.

Terry Evans, OF, AAA Salt Lake, BR/TR

When    AB  H  2B  3B  HR  BB  SO  SB  CS  AVG OBP SLG OPS+
Now    439 138 37   4  14  21 110  22   9  314 347 513
7/24   341 106 28   3  13  12  87  15   6  311 334 525
6/26   260  86 23   3  11  11  60  13   6  331 358 569
5/21   156  50 13   3   6   9  42  11   4  321 355 558

Evans has drawn some walks in the last month, but it's still not quite enough for a guy who doesn't project to be any better than a .250 hitter in the bigs.

Nick Gorneault, OF, AAA Salt Lake, BR/TR

When    AB  H  2B  3B  HR  BB  SO  SB  CS  AVG OBP SLG OPS+
Now    433 107 20   1   6  56 103  16   6  247 337 409
7/24   341  80 17   0  12  41  83  12   4  235 322 390
6/26   276  60 12   0   9  35  63  11   3  217 310 359
5/21   151  36 10   0   3  18  34   8   2  238 327 364
5/1     81  15  4   0   3   9  17   5   2  185 283 346

Nick didn't really start hitting anything like himself until the end of June, having raised his batting average 30 points in the last two months. Still, a disappointing year for a guy who, it feels, has been at AAA forever.

Christopher Pettit, LF, A+ Rancho Cucamonga, BR/TR

When    AB  H  2B  3B  HR  BB  SO  SB  CS  AVG OBP SLG OPS+
Now    235  76 18   1   9  29  40  12   2  323 403 523
7/24   124  44  8   1   8  16  23   9   2  355 433 629
6/26    22   2  0   0   0   1   6   0   0  091 130 091

Remember thou art mortal. Chris Pettit has stopped treating baseball like a videogame, going only 32 for his last 111, a horrific batting average of .288. That's right: in his slump, he hits 288/363/405. His control of the strike zone isn't mindblowing, but it's solid, and he's also been getting a lot of time in center field, showing valuable defensive versatility.

Sean Rodriguez, SS, AA Arkansas, BR/TR

When    AB  H  2B  3B  HR  BB  SO  SB  CS  AVG OBP SLG OPS+
Now    468 116 30   2  13  48 126  13   7  248 339 404
7/24   371  93 24   1  11  35  99  11   6  251 338 410
6/26   278  71 17   1  10  28  76   9   4  255 350 432
5/23   143  36  9   0   6  19  35   6   3  252 374 441
5/1     81  25  6   0   4  12  21   3   3  309 423 531

Rodriguez is only four months older than Pettit, and a level higher, but, still, his AVG, OBP, and SLG are all below the Texas League average despite his playing in a hitters' park. That's not what we particularly wanted to see.

Mark Trumbo, 1B, A Cedar Rapids, BR/TR

When    AB  H  2B  3B  HR  BB  SO  SB  CS  AVG OBP SLG OPS+
Now    443 117 25   2  13  28  84  10   8  270 318 427
7/24   340  97 20   2   9  23  73  10   5  285 334 435
6/26   242  68 16   1   7  16  53   3   4  281 327 442
5/23   117  27  6   0   3   5  30   1   2  231 266 359
5/1     49  10  1   0   1   2  16   0   2  204 245 286

A bit of a slump from the power prospect, but, like several of our hitters at Cedar Rapids, he's still demonstrating good power relative to the league. Last season he struck out 99 times in only 428 AB, so he seems to be making progress there, though his walks are also down quite a bit (from 44).

Brandon Wood, SS, AAA Salt Lake, BR/TR

When    AB  H  2B  3B  HR  BB  SO  SB  CS  AVG OBP SLG OPS+
Now    397 105 21   1  20  43 109  10   1  264 335 474
7/24   313  82 18   1  16  39  80   8   1  262 343 479
6/26   254  68 18   1  13  34  69   8   1  268 355 500
5/23   131  31  8   0   5  18  38   3   0  237 331 412
5/1     84  22  6   0   3  11  28   2   0  262 351 440

I think he's going to need another year. There are things to like: Brandon continues to draw the base on balls, and his strikeouts, while still prodigious, are down considerably from last season. But as of right now, I'm not convinced he's a .200 hitter in the major leagues. If he sticks at third, he projects to a good-fielding Dean Palmer. That's still a solid player on the corner, though obviously that kind of offense would be more valuable from a good-fielding shortstop, a capability Wood may still have within him.

Watch Out:

Who       Lvl  AB  H  2B  3B  HR  BB  SO  SB  CS  AVG OBP SLG OPS+
Bourjos    A  193  52  6   4   4  15  46  18   6  269 323 404
ClyFuller Azl 162  49  8   4   4  19  45  18   6  302 395 475
Mount      A  264  66 10   3   5  24  62  14   6  250 317 367
Ortiz     Azl  59  19  4   0   0   5  14   3   2  322 369 390
Peel       AA 310  79 20   2   7   6  43   2   0  255 284 400  
Phillips   A  399 104 11   7  13  12 135  33   4  261 296 421
Rivera                   has not played
Sandoval   AA 446 139 32   5  11  66  71  21  11  312 400 480
Statia     A+ 520 147 23   7   2  44  75  27   7  283 338 365
Sweeney    A  399 104 26   2  16  34  83   7   7  261 324 456

Peter Bourjos has had a bit of a (relative) power surge, but the average and strikeouts are less than exciting. Clay Fuller's numbers have come down just a bit in the last month, but that's still a solid getting-your-feet wet debut. Ryan Mount has been struggling since coming back from injury. Norberto Ortiz has also missed time, so those numbers are borderline useless. Aaron Peel -- guess what? -- has been injured for the last month. P.J. Phillips' slugging percentage is nearly 40 points better than his league's, which makes you wonder what he might be able to do if he, you know, could hit the ball; he also, ridiculously, successfully steals a base 39% of the time he reaches first (a bit of an estimate, as some of those SB are likely of third). Luis Rivera has yet to play. Freddy Sandoval leads his team in hits, doubles, triples, and stolen bases (and also caught stealing, unfortunately), and is second in home runs and walks. Hainley Statia has seen some modest improvement in the last 31 days. Matthew Sweeney's numbers may not be jumping off the page, but he does lead the team in doubles, home runs, and walks.

PITCHERS

Nick Adenhart, RHSP, AA Arkansas

When  W  L  SV  G  GS  IP    H  HR  SO  BB   ERA
Now   9  7   0  24 24 142.0 143  7 106  61  3.74
7/24  7  3   0  18 18 107.0 112  4  78  43  3.36  
6/26  6  2   0  14 14  83.7  87  4  61  37  3.46
5/23  3  2   0   8  8  47.3  43  0  35  21  2.68
5/1   3  1   0   5  5  33.7  24  0  27  10  0.80

There is some worry about Adenhart slumping of late, but the fact is he's a 20-year-old in AA. Yes, his strikeout rate is a bit low, and yes, his walk rate is high. And that strikeout rate is exaggerated; the Texas League strikes out 17.3% of batters and Adenhart whiffs 16.8%. He's holding his own against older competition, and I think he's going to be fine if healthy.

Jose Arredondo, RHSP, AA Arkansas and A+ Rancho Cucamonga

When  W  L  SV  G  GS  IP    H  HR  SO  BB   ERA
Now   2  4   4  27  0  34.0  44  4  33  11  6.09
7/24  0  2   2  15  0  16.0  24  3  13   6  9.56
6/26  0  0   2   4  0   3.7   7  0   5   4 18.90 A+
6/26  0  1  10  23  0  25.0  16  2  28  12  2.52 AA
5/23  0  1   6  16  0  19.0  12  2  22  10  3.32   
5/1   0  1   2   8  0  11.0   8  1  14   5  1.64

I don't know if Arredondo is going to be fine, but he's finally turned things around. As you can see, his demotion to the Cal League was not performance-based, though his horrific start for the Quakes certainly didn't contribute to his return to the higher level. But he has improved considerably over the last month on the mound, and hopefully has done so in other ways, too.

Gustavo Espinoza, LHRP, Arizona League

When  W  L  SV  G  GS  IP    H  HR  SO  BB   ERA
Now   0  0   0  2   0   1.3  0   0   3   1  6.75

He lives!

For some reason BB-Ref lists Espinoza's ERA as 9.00, which is impossible when a guy has 1 1/3 innings. As you know, Gustavo has been hurt for some time, but so far his return has seen him strikeout three of five batters faced. Too early to know anything, but his stuff has been compared to Johan Santana's in the past (how's that for pressure?), but he clearly has raw ability, and hopefully can harness it -- and keep his arm attached to his body long enough to do so.

Stephen Marek, RHSP, A Rancho Cucamonga

When  W  L  SV  G  GS  IP    H  HR  SO  BB   ERA
Now   8  9   0  23 23 121.0 123 15  95  45  4.61
7/24  5  7   0  17 17  89.0  91 10  70  35  4.75
6/26  5  4   0  13 13  69.7  64  5  56  30  4.02
5/23  3  2   0   7  7  38.7  34  2  23  15  3.52
5/1   1  0   0   3  3  15.0  12  1   7   6  2.40

A bit of a bounce-back.

Tommy Mendoza, A Cedar Rapids, RHSP

When  W  L  SV  G  GS  IP    H  HR  SO  BB   ERA
Now   2  4   0  10  9  44.0  54  5  30  13  4.30
7/24  0  3   0   4  3  12.3  18  4  11   6  9.00

Tommy's starting to get things together, vastly improving his peripherals over his last six starts.

Darren O'Day, RHRP, AA Arkansas and A+ Rancho Cucamonga

When  W  L  SV  G  GS  IP    H  HR  SO  BB   ERA
Now   3  3   7  25  0  25.3  24  2  19  11  3.24 
7/24  1  2   0   3  0  13.0  11  1  10   7  2.77
6/26  0  1   0   2  0   2.0   3  0   0   1  4.50 AA
6/26  4  0   0  24  0  24.0  10  1  26   6  0.75 A+ Final

O'Day continues to not dominate, though he does seem to be adjusting if his strikeouts and walk rates are any indication.

Sean O'Sullivan, RHSP, A Cedar Rapids

When  W  L  SV  G  GS  IP    H  HR  SO  BB   ERA
Now  10  6   0  23 23 144.3 122  6 119  38  2.19 
7/24  6  5   0  17 17 102.7  94  3  86  27  2.37
6/26  4  5   0  12 12  70.3  76  3  53  19  2.96
5/23  2  3   0   8  8  48.0  56  2  36  13  3.00
5/1   1  2   0   4  4  23.0  26  2  13   6  3.52

O'Sullivan has been en fuego for two months now. His K/9 IP is below the league average, but this demonstrates why using that measure is incomplete: he actually strikes out 20% of batters, while the league K's 19.7%. He doesn't rack up as many strikeouts because he doesn't face as many guys: Sean's WHIP of 1.11 blows away the league's 1.32.

Steve Shell, RHSP/RP, AAA Salt Lake

When  W  L  SV  G  GS  IP    H  HR  SO  BB   ERA
Now   6  3   0  29  6  61.3  76 15  44  18  5.46 
7/24  4  3   0  21  4  45.0  56 12  35  14  5.60
6/26  4  1   0  14  3  31.0  39  7  23  11  4.94
5/23  1  0   0   5  1  12.0  18  3   4   2  3.75
5/1   0  0   0   2  1   7.0   9  1   3   1  1.29

Steven Shell finds himself moving in and out of the rotation this year, and doesn't seem to be finding much success in either role.

Rich Thompson, RHRP, AAA Salt Lake and AA Arkansas

When  W  L  SV  G  GS  IP    H  HR  SO  BB   ERA
Now   3  0   1  14  0  22.3  15  2  29   3  2.05
7/24  1  0   0   4  0   7.7   6  0  12   2  1.23 AAA
7/24  2  3   0  21  3  49.3  34  5  50  14  2.02 AA Final
6/26  1  3   0  19  3  44.3  32  5  46  12  2.25

Personally, I am ready to see Rich Thompson in the major leagues. The guy is striking out 34% of the guys he sees carrying lumber, and our setup guy, as discussed yesterday, is running on fumes. I'd assume we'd see him in September and, if all goes well, maybe even October, too.

K-Thom?

Watch Out:

Who       Lvl  W  L  SV  G  GS  IP    H  HR  SO  BB   ERA
Bell       A   6  4   0  19 19 101.3 125  8  81  21  4.54
Bulger    AAA  5  2   9  46  0  49.0  49  4  77  23  3.86 
Green      AA 10  6   0  25 25 160.0 145 15  96  28  3.66
Madrigal    A  5  3  17  50  0  56.0  41  3  69  21  2.25 
Rodriguez  AA  0  6   0  42  1  64.7  72  6  38  30  4.34
Walden     R   1  1   0  12 12  48.3  37  2  48  17  3.75
Young      R   0  1   0   3  3   9.0  10  1   9   6  9.00

Trevor Bell has taken a bit of a beating over the last month. Jason Bulger should also be in the September mix. Nick Green has been so good over the last five starts (ten, actually) that I could probably justify moving him up to the main list if I weren't so lazy; it would also help if he had enough K's where I was convinced he was for real. Warner Madrigal not only continues to excel, but keeps getting better. Rafael Rodriguez has actually done quite well over the last month. Jordan Walden is really getting into the pitch of things. Young Il-Jung has been shut down due to injury.

A few random notes ... we have two first basemen off to good starts in the Arizona League, 19-year-old Christopher Garcia (333/480/474) and 21-year-old Seth Loman (291/442/537) ... there's Pac 10 double play duo playing for Tom Kotchman at Orem; though his numbers overall aren't overwhelming (as was to be expected) shortstop Andrew Romine has already hit two more home runs (3 total) than he did in his entire college career at the hitting paradise of Arizona State ... his parter, Hector Estrella, went to another Pac 10 "school" (to use the term loosely), is hitting well and controlling the strike zone ...

VOODOO SHIELDS (SLIGHT RETURN)

2007-08-23T15:36:00.000-07:00

Hey gang.

Yeah, I haven't been around lately.

Here's the thing: my general approach to writing this is that I want to either (1) tell my readership something it doesn't know or (2) provide some kind of different perspective on something that it does.

Often, there's a lot of overlap between things I don't know and things I assume y'all don't know, so for me it's fun to go through and figure out answers -- or, at least, potential answers -- and share them. That's the sort of post where I look at the Angels going from first to third or analyzing Casey Kotchman's batted balls or the efficacy of the team's bunting.

But, the fact is, there isn't really a lot that you don't know that I can tell you. I don't have a lot of readers here, and anyone who reads me is also reading the other Angel blogs in the Halosphere, all of whom do fine work, and most of which have a bigger readership than I do. So anyone reading this is someone who already knows quite a bit about the Angels, and that makes it hard for me to come up with stuff you don't know.

For instance, we all know about this:

IP   H  SO  BB   ERA
13  23  13  10  11.08

You know what that is, right? That's Scot Shields' line from July 15 forward. He's been a mess, and it's costing us games.

Why is this happening?

It struck me that Scot's command has seemed off, as evidenced by his high walk rate. He has thrown 315 pitches in those innings, only 179 (57%) of which are strikes. Major league pitchers throw strikes 63% of the time; Scot is usually around there (his season mark is 62%), but he's clearly been subpar over the past five weeks.

It gets worse once you consider that balls in play count as strikes. 23 hits in 13 innings is ... it's not good.

How does this performance compare to how Shields was doing before this slump?

Period    Pitches  Total Strikes  Hits  Non-H Strikes   %
4/2-7/15    744         474        27        447      60.1
7/15-Now    315         179        23        156      49.5

For the first three months of the season (which included an early slump), 60% of Shields' pitches were what we might consider "effective strikes"; strikes of swinging, called, foul, or a batted ball out. For the last five weeks, less than half of his pitches have been of this nature!

As you may recall, Scot was struggling back in May, which I discussed here. Let's break down it down even further, as he heated up pretty much right after I made that post:

Period    Pitches  Total Strikes   %   Hits  Non-H Strikes   %     ERA
4/2-4/9      98          63      64.3    2         61      62.2   0.00
4/10-5/14   247         152      61.5    7        145      58.7   4.80
5/15-7/14   413         269      65.1   18        251      60.8   0.32
7/15-Now    315         179      56.8   23        156      49.5  11.08

Well, that makes it all pretty obvious, doesn't it? He's not throwing strikes, and, when he is, they're getting hit. He doesn't have command. Even his prior slump isn't out of range with what he does when totally on, which was a sign that a turnaround was likely; this current slump is far, far worse, and I don't know what to make of it. He simply can't locate his pitches.

Now is that problem physical, mechanical, or psychological?

I don't know. There's nothing about this I can tell you that you don't already know. But if he can't get it figured out, our ability to win close games is going to be severely hampered, and so will this team's chances of winning anything worthwhile.

NOTE: Yes, this post title (or, rather, its inspiration would have been better-suited to a post about Ervin Santana's return to the rotation. But I didn't post anything then, so what am I gonna do?

HARVEY NOT SIGNED

2007-08-15T22:30:00.000-07:00

Matt Harvey, our third-round pick and an acclaimed first-round talent, appears to have gone unsigned by August 15 deadline.

I'm not sure how I feel about this. Harvey is a highly-regarded talent, and apparently Eddie Bane claimed he could be major league-ready in three years. (Of course, didn't he also say Kendry Morales was MLB-ready when we signed him?) We didn't have a first-round draft pick, our high pick being Florida high school pitcher Jonathan Bachanov in the supplemental round, so it seems like we'd have the money.

But Harvey has a scholarship at North Carolina, a college powerhouse (from whom we've already robbed Nick Adenhart) and was "advised" by Scott Boras, so he probably did have unusual leverage, and it would seem that whatever he wanted was more than the Angels thought he was worth. Assuming the Angels are right, then obviously they were right not to sign him at an inflated price.

(Interestingly, former professional pitcher and online mechanics guru Carlos Gomez is not impressed by Harvey's mechanics. Carlos likes a faster motion, and Harvey's is almost painfully slow [the MLB.com scouting report agreed that he needed to speed it up], so that's part of it. Of course, there are two sides to that coin: his mechanics may be suboptimal now, but if he's already this good with those mechanics, imagine how good he could be with some help!)

One cost to drafting Harvey and not signing him is that we lost our third-round pick. What is a third-round pick to us?

Well, last year we drafted Russell Moldenhauer. We didn't sign him, and he went on to start at the University of Texas, hitting 278/349/479 as a true freshman in the Big 12.

Other recent third-round picks have turned out better. Sean O'Sullivan and Sean Rodriguez both came in the third round, and other mentionable prospects taken in the round have included Steve Shell, Jake Woods, and Tommy Murphy. Scot Schoeneweis, Rance Mulliniks, and Carney Lansford were also third-round picks.

Also: two members of the All Time Angel lineup: Wally Joyner and Tim Salmon. (See the whole list here.)

So, it has some value. I have no way of evaluating if this turned out well for us, but I guess we'll know eventually.

SOMETIMES WE DON'T SUCK

2007-07-30T09:47:00.000-07:00

And, after a month of horrible play, we suddenly are able to sweep a good team. We've seen this team go through slumps before, what with the reliance on batting average and the lack of power. But when it all clicks, as it did over the weekend, it sure is pretty.

Speaking of average at the expense of power, there is much consternation amongst announcers over Vlad's home run slump. But over those 27 games, he's hitting 312/350/422, "good" for an OPS+ of 108. Yeah, it's far less than we expect from Vlad, but remember that last year he had a month where he hit .243, and in 2005 hit .224 and .208 in two separate months. If this is his "slump" for the year, I'm not complaining, especially one you realize that in those 27 games he's knocked 12 doubles, which over 162 games is a pace for 72. Turn six of those doubles into home runs (giving us a much more reasonable pace of 36 each), and his slugging percentage would go up to .532 over these games, and his OPS+ would be 135. He's going to be fine.

Incidentally (this whole post will be a string of incidental observations), have you noticed that Casey Kotchman got two hits against lefty pitching yesterday? I understand that Mike Scioscia wants to get Robb Quinlan's bat into the lineup against southpaws, but most recent minor league splits (I don't have any from before then) indicate that he doesn't really have a platoon split. Kotch has only 109 plate appearances against lefties in his major league career (less than 100 AB), so I would definitely say the jury's still out on whether or not he can hit them. I suspect that he can.

Anyway, we go into Seattle. I guess these games look big, but in my view this division is the Angel's to lose, and I'm not particularly concerned about the teams behind us. If we play the way we should, we should be okay. If we don't, and continue to be hacktastically inconsistent, it won't matter who is behind us: the fall will be on us.

BIG TEIX

2007-07-27T10:15:00.000-07:00

Mike DiGiovanna and Ben Bolch:

Though there is an outside chance they could acquire Chicago White Sox outfielder Jermaine Dye, it appears to be Mark Teixeira or bust for the Angels ...

...

Angels first baseman Casey Kotchman would be part of any package to acquire Teixeira, and the Rangers, who had zeroed in on Ervin Santana before the struggling right-hander was demoted to triple-A Salt Lake on July 18, are believed to be comfortable with left-hander Joe Saunders as part of a deal.

But the Rangers want a third player and are scouring the Angels' farm system to determine who to ask for. If Texas wants one of the Angels' elite prospects, such as third baseman Brandon Wood or double-A pitcher Nick Adenhart, trade talks would fizzle. But if Texas would accept a lesser prospect, a deal would be more likely.

The Rangers are also believed to be interested in outfielders Reggie Willits, Nathan Haynes or Terry Evans as the third player in the deal.

Okay, seriously, what is this nonsense?

Now, first of all, Mark Teixeira is an excellent hitter and superb defender. He almost certainly is an upgrade on Casey Kotchman right now (if for no other reason than he's not a platoon player). But how much would he help this team over the balance of the season?

Over his career (four-and-a-half seasons), I estimate Teixeira to be roughly +.035 runs per plate appearance better than the average hitter. The Angels currently use a platoon; in their careers, Kotch is +.005 for his career against RHP and Q is +.037 against LHP.

Now, this isn't entirely fair to Casey, as it includes his disease-plagued 2006 numbers, but, for the moment, let's assume that this represents his true talent level. There are 57 games from August 1 forward, and I think we can safely assume four plate appearances per game. That's 228 plate appearances left to go in the season from the first base spot. With 229 plate appearances, at his career levels, Mark Teixeira would give us around +8 runs above average.

That's right: a whole eight runs.

76% of the Angels' PA this year have come against right-handed pitching, so of the 228 remaining PA at 1B, 173 would go to Kotchman and 55 to Quinlan (Q could of course rack up some appearances at other positions). Based on their career rates, that would give us +1 run from Kotchman and +2 runs from Robb. So three total -- five less than Teixeira: half of a win.

Now, we're almost certainly underselling Kotchman here, possibly overselling Quinlan, and possibly underselling Big Tex. Kotch so far this year is +.045 vs. RHP, Q this year is -.006, and Teixeira overall is +.053. Over 228 PA, that's +12 from Teixeira against +8 from Casey and -1 from Quinlan: that's still a difference of only five runs.

(I know I'm ignoring defense here, but as Kotch and Tex are both Gold Glove contenders, I think that's going to be a wash.)

Now, let's look at some other issues: Teixeira is far pricier than Kotchman. Teixeira is three years older than Kotchman. Teixeira is a free agent after ~~this year~~ 2008, and is considered to be a favorite to bolt for the east coast, from which he hails (a Maryland native, he played college ball at Georgia Tech). Teixeira is represented by Scott Boras, who says stupid crap about Tex being worth $30M per year.

And, oh yeah: this isn't even a straight-up deal, we'd also be asked to give up one of Ervin Santana and Joe Saunders! A team that just lost Bartolo Colon forever and has Santana -- who led the team in wins last year! -- down in AAA to work out his kinks. A team that only has four major league starters at the moment, and if it traded Saunders, might only have three (four once Santana straightens out). How the hell does this seem like a good idea to anybody? We're going to give up one of our few remaining starters and three years of Casey Kotchman to get five extra runs out of Mark Teixeira?! COME ON!

(Now, I know we'd also have Tex next season before he bolted. And maybe Kendry Morales would be ready to step in for him if we didn't re-sign him. I'm just not sure that the difference between Casey and Teixeira next year would be worth the cost, especially given that we'd be down one of our five planned 2008 starting pitchers.)

It doesn't matter, the Braves are gonna top our offer, anyway. I'll be glad to get that monster out of our division.

WATCH LIST UPDATE

2007-07-24T12:52:00.000-07:00

It has been nearly a month since the last edition.

The BB-Ref organizational stats are linked in the POSITION and PITCHER headers.

POSITION PLAYERS

Michael Collins, 1B, AA Arkansas, BR/TR

When    AB  H  2B  3B  HR  BB  SO  SB  CS  AVG OBP SLG OPS+
Now    296  66 14   1   3   8  52   5   4  223 269 307
6/26   229  44 12   1   2   5  45   4   2  192 241 279
5/21   127  17  7   0   1   2  25   0   1  136 194 216  
5/1     75  12  2   0   1   2  16   0   1  160 203 227

It is pretty much impossible for Collins to end this season with good numbers, but at the very least he can continue his recent (relative) resurgence of the last eight weeks. Doing so would demonstrate resilience and at least keep him on the radar, and give him an opportunity to get some attention if he puts up a good season in AA in 2008.

Hank Conger, C, A Cedar Rapids, BR/TR

When    AB  H  2B  3B  HR  BB  SO  SB  CS  AVG OBP SLG OPS+
Now    213  60 16   0   8  16  41   7   3  282 336 469  
6/26   213  60 16   0   8  16  41   7   3  282 336 469
5/21   123  32  6   0   6   8  16   6   0  260 311 455
5/1     68  18  2   0   3   4   8   4   0  265 306 426

Conger has been injured; he's done some rehab of late in the Arizona League, where he's just getting back into the swing of things (4-for-15 with a double and 3 K's so far). Remember the Midwest League is good for pitching -- the league is hitting 254/322/370, and has an average age of 21.5 for hitters -- so Conger's numbers are very strong, especially for a catcher.

Terry Evans, OF, AAA Salt Lake, BR/TR

When    AB  H  2B  3B  HR  BB  SO  SB  CS  AVG OBP SLG OPS+
Now    341 106 28   3  13  12  87  15   6  311 334 525
6/26   260  86 23   3  11  11  60  13   6  331 358 569
5/21   156  50 13   3   6   9  42  11   4  321 355 558

Looks like Evans' lack of strike zone knowledge is catching up with him. It's hard to have more home runs than walks.

Nick Gorneault, OF, AAA Salt Lake, BR/TR

When    AB  H  2B  3B  HR  BB  SO  SB  CS  AVG OBP SLG OPS+
Now    341  80 17   0  12  41  83  12   4  235 322 390
6/26   276  60 12   0   9  35  63  11   3  217 310 359
5/21   151  36 10   0   3  18  34   8   2  238 327 364
5/1     81  15  4   0   3   9  17   5   2  185 283 346

Well, Nick finally made the Baseball Encyclopedia, but that's as far as he's likely to get in this organization. I don't even know why I still have him on here; tradition, I guess.

Jeff Mathis, C, AAA Salt Lake, BR/TR

When    AB  H  2B  3B  HR  BB  SO  SB  CS  AVG OBP SLG OPS+
Now    250  61 14   2   5  17  45   3   1  244 295 379
6/26   234  56 13   1   5  17  42   3   1  239 294 368
5/21   135  35  9   0   2   8  25   2   0  259 301 370
5/1     81  24  6   0   2   5  13   2   0  296 333 444

This is the final appearance on this list for Jeff, who has now taken the mantle of back-up catcher in the majors.

His offensive performance in AAA this year has been awful. There was once a time where I though Mathis would develop into a decent major league regular; it's still possible (it seems like some catchers make an offensive jump around 30 or so: recall Bengie), but unless Mike Napoli is struck with a significant injury, I don't think he can make that development with the Angels.

He could be a worse hitter than Jose Molina, but he could also be better, so I'm not sure if that substitution makes a big difference to the team.

NEW ADDITION!
Christopher Pettit, LF, A+ Rancho Cucamonga, BR/TR

When    AB  H  2B  3B  HR  BB  SO  SB  CS  AVG OBP SLG OPS+
Now    124  44  8   1   8  16  23   9   2  355 433 629
6/26    22   2  0   0   0   1   6   0   0  091 130 091

Can we start talking about this guy yet? Know that his current line in Cal League -- and despite the environment those numbers still sing -- comes on the heels of a 346/429/579 start at Cedar Rapids and a 336/445/566 line at Orem last season. At 22 years of age (he comes out of Loyola Marymount), he's finally caught up to his league, but he's beating everyone silly. His SB/CS reflects a certain degree of athleticism, and he's played some games in center this year, as well. He does strike out a bit, but not an outrageous amount. And after taking a week or so to get used to his new level, he's hit 412/496/745 for the last month.

Take notice.

Sean Rodriguez, SS, AA Arkansas, BR/TR

When    AB  H  2B  3B  HR  BB  SO  SB  CS  AVG OBP SLG OPS+
Now    371  93 24   1  11  35  99  11   6  251 338 410
6/26   278  71 17   1  10  28  76   9   4  255 350 432
5/23   143  36  9   0   6  19  35   6   3  252 374 441
5/1     81  25  6   0   4  12  21   3   3  309 423 531

Despite playing his home games in a good hitting park, Sean Rodriguez's OBP and SLG are both within a couple points of the Texas League average. This isn't really a cause for celebration. It's not really a cause for hand-wringing either, not yet, anyway, given his age. But while his good April made it look like he wasn't too far off of Brandon Wood on the organizational depth chart, S-Rod's season thus far falls well short of what Wood accomplished at AA last season. Rodriguez has never projected as a high-average hitter, but his secondary skills could use a boost back to where they were at the lowest levels of the minors.

Mark Trumbo, 1B, A Cedar Rapids, BR/TR

When    AB  H  2B  3B  HR  BB  SO  SB  CS  AVG OBP SLG OPS+
Now    340  97 20   2   9  23  73  10   5  285 334 435
6/26   242  68 16   1   7  16  53   3   4  281 327 442
5/23   117  27  6   0   3   5  30   1   2  231 266 359
5/1     49  10  1   0   1   2  16   0   2  204 245 286

On the other hand, Trumbo's performance repeating the Midwest League has been a very welcome improvement. He has around 88 less AB than last season, but already has more hits, doubles, triples, and home runs. He is poised to take advantage of the California League next year, and hopefully will.

Brandon Wood, SS, AAA Salt Lake, BR/TR

When    AB  H  2B  3B  HR  BB  SO  SB  CS  AVG OBP SLG OPS+
Now    313  82 18   1  16  39  80   8   1  262 343 479
6/26   254  68 18   1  13  34  69   8   1  268 355 500
5/23   131  31  8   0   5  18  38   3   0  237 331 412
5/1     84  22  6   0   3  11  28   2   0  262 351 440

I'm keeping him on here despite his being on the 25-man for now, as this is likely not his permanent trip to the majors.

Watch Out:

Who       Lvl  AB  H  2B  3B  HR  BB  SO  SB  CS  AVG OBP SLG OPS+
Bourjos    A   96  25  3   2   1   9  25  12   3  260 330 365
ClyFuller Azl  74  23  3   2   2  12  23  11   5  311 429 486
Mount      A  188  52  4   2   2  19  42   8   1  277 343 351
Ortiz     Azl  37  15  3   0   0   4  11   3   2  405 463 486
Peel       AA 310  79 20   2   7   6  43   2   0  255 284 400  
Phillips   A  298  75  9   4   9   9 102  27   2  252 290 399
Rivera                   has not played
Sandoval   AA 339 103 24   3  10  53  56  17   9  304 398 481
Statia     A+ 403 111 19   7   1  33  57  18   4  275 331 365
Sweeney    A  325  87 19   2  14  29  62   5   7  268 333 468

Peter Bourjos just returned to Cedar Rapids after a hat trick and some rehab in the Arizona League. Clay Fuller, like everyone else in this organization, seemingly, needs to strike out less, but the walk rate is promising in the early going. Ryan Mount is just coming back from injury (again, in the Arizona League). Those are Norberto Ortiz's numbers after having a bit of a slump. Aaron Peel is going nowhere fast, despite hitting fairly well in June. P.J. Phillips' plate discipline is so extremely bad, but his athletic abilities so apparent, that you wonder if some adjustment to his approach at the plate could unleash a monster. Luis Rivera has yet to play. Freddy Sandoval is on a home run kick of late, and despite not looking too good in the Futures Game, he's probably having the best season of any position player on the Arkansas Travelers. Thus far, Hainley Statia's season has been a disappointment. Matthew Sweeney's numbers, especially in terms of power, are actually fairly impressive in the context of his league.

PITCHERS

Nick Adenhart, RHSP, AA Arkansas

When  W  L  SV  G  GS  IP    H  HR  SO  BB   ERA
Now   7  3   0  18 18 107.0 112  4  78  43  3.36  
6/26  6  2   0  14 14  83.7  87  4  61  37  3.46
5/23  3  2   0   8  8  47.3  43  0  35  21  2.68
5/1   3  1   0   5  5  33.7  24  0  27  10  0.80

Really, nothing different from what we saw a month ago.

Jose Arredondo, RHSP, AA Arkansas and A+ Rancho Cucamonga

When  W  L  SV  G  GS  IP    H  HR  SO  BB   ERA
Now   0  2   2  15  0  16.0  24  3  13   6  9.56
6/26  0  0   2   4  0   3.7   7  0   5   4 18.90 A+
6/26  0  1  10  23  0  25.0  16  2  28  12  2.52 AA
5/23  0  1   6  16  0  19.0  12  2  22  10  3.32   
5/1   0  1   2   8  0  11.0   8  1  14   5  1.64

This is called making the worst of a bad situation. That is not how you should pitch after being demoted for your attitude.

Gustavo Espinoza, LHSP
Placeholder.

Stephen Marek, RHSP, A Rancho Cucamonga

When  W  L  SV  G  GS  IP    H  HR  SO  BB   ERA
Now   5  7   0 17  17  89.0  91 10  70  35  4.75
6/26  5  4   0 13  13  69.7  64  5  56  30  4.02
5/23  3  2   0  7   7  38.7  34  2  23  15  3.52
5/1   1  0   0  3   3  15.0  12  1   7   6  2.40

It's been a rough month for Marek. He seems to be staying around the plate more, at least as reflected by his SO:BB, but also by his HR allowed.

Tommy Mendoza, A Cedar Rapids, RHSP

When  W  L  SV  G  GS  IP    H  HR  SO  BB   ERA
Now   0  3   0  4   3  12.3  18  4  11   6  9.00

Mendoza has been hurt most of the year, and after one rehab appearance in the Arizona League, he's had a rough beginning to his season in the Midwest League.

Darren O'Day, RHRP, AA Arkansas and A+ Rancho Cucamonga

When  W  L  SV  G  GS  IP    H  HR  SO  BB   ERA
Now   1  2   0  3   0  13.0  11  1  10   7  2.77
6/26  0  1   0  2   0   2.0   3  0   0   1  4.50 AA
6/26  4  0   0 24   0  24.0  10  1  26   6  0.75 A+ Final

O'Day thus far is finding AA hitters harder to baffle than those in the California League, but if he gets the control issues figured out, everything else appears to be quite in order.

Sean O'Sullivan, RHSP, A Cedar Rapids

When  W  L  SV  G  GS  IP    H  HR  SO  BB   ERA
Now   6  5   0 17  17 102.7  94  3  86  27  2.37
6/26  4  5   0 12  12  70.3  76  3  53  19  2.96
5/23  2  3   0  8   8  48.0  56  2  36  13  3.00
5/1   1  2   0  4   4  23.0  26  2  13   6  3.52

A good run for Sean; his strikeout rate is approaching the league average, his control is very good, he's continuing to keep the ball from going over the fence, and his ERA is down quite a bit. The Midwest League, as I mentioned above, skews toward pitchers, but O'Sullivan's ERA still comfortably betters the league's 3.79.

Steve Shell, RHSP/RP, AAA Salt Lake

When  W  L  SV  G  GS  IP    H  HR  SO  BB   ERA
Now   4  3   0 21   4  45.0  56 12  35  14  5.60
6/26  4  1   0 14   3  31.0  39  7  23  11  4.94
5/23  1  0   0  5   1  12.0  18  3   4   2  3.75
5/1   0  0   0  2   1   7.0   9  1   3   1  1.29

Time to give up>?

Rich Thompson, RHRP, AAA Salt Lake and AA Arkansas

When  W  L  SV  G  GS  IP    H  HR  SO  BB   ERA
Now   1  0   0  4   0   7.7   6  0  12   2  1.23 AAA
Now   2  3   0 21   3  49.3  34  5  50  14  2.02 AA Final
6/26  1  3   0 19   3  44.3  32  5  46  12  2.25

Could Thompson get a on a fast track to the majors?

Watch Out:

Who       Lvl  W  L  SV  G  GS  IP    H  HR  SO  BB   ERA
Bell       A   4  3   0 13  13  66.0  83  2  57  15  4.36
Bulger    AAA  4  1   5 36   0  39.3  37  4  64  17  3.92 
Green      AA  7  6   0 20  20 126.0 126 14  71  20  4.29
Madrigal    A  5  3   7 38   0  44.0  35  3  53  20  2.45 
Rodriguez  AA  0  6   0 31   1  47.0  58  6  26  24  5.55
Walden     R   0  0   0  7   7  24.3  20  2  23  15  6.00
Young      R   0  1   0  3   3   9.0  10  1   9   6  9.00

Despite strong strikeout and walk rates, Trevor Bell's ERA is not so good; the culprit is his hits allowed -- his batting average allowed on balls in play is .380, where the team mark is .317 and the league .307. He is a groundball pitcher, so how much of that is his fault, and how much could be a faulty infield defense? Stay tuned. Jason Bulger says, "Recall me!" Nick Green has done pretty well over his last five starts. Warner Madrigal continues to do well. Rafael Rodriguez continues to struggle. Jordan Walden is looking good on K's, not so much on walks, but it is quite early. Ditto Young Il-Jung.

A few random notes ... After a good start at AA, Brok Butcher is thisclose to the list ... the Dominican Summer League is about as far away from the majors as you can get in pro ball, but a kid named Raddy Sierra is putting up a nice 326/426/549 there while playing center field ...

FIVE SPOT

2007-07-24T10:16:00.000-07:00

As you know, and this comes to no surprise to anyone, there is a good chance that Bartolo Colon is injured and that the Angels will have to figure out what to do with the fifth spot in the rotation. And even if it turns out Bart's injury is minor, the fact remains that he's pitching as though he's hurt; I consider this so self-evident that I won't bother to explain myself further.

Now, what kind of options do the Angels have here?

1. Declare Ervin Santana "cured" by his one good start at AAA and recall him.

2. Move Dustin Moseley or Chris Bootcheck into the rotation, pending Ervin proving he's ready to come back.

3. Bring up some AAA veteran like Kasey Olenberger.

4. Bring up some prospect whether he's ready or not, like Steve Shell or Nick Adenhart.

5. Trade for a starter.

These are, to put it mildly, unexciting options. I think the least unexciting, or, rather, the most manageable, may be the second one. Moseley and Bootcheck aren't inspiring -- hell, Moseley's strikeout rate is downright pathetic -- but we could even tandem them up in a way: Moseley starts, for instance, and we just tell him to make it through the order twice, then Bootcheck comes in and gets us to the real relievers. Something like that.

Such a move may chip at our bullpen depth, but at the moment we have only 37 men on the 40-man roster (plus two on the 60-day DL), giving us plenty of room to purchase the contracts of Jason Bulger and/or Marcus Gwyn, both of whom are doing well for Salt Lake. Room on the 25-man roster is also available, what with the practically unused gallery of Brandon Wood, Kendry Morales, and Nathan Haynes (yeah, Haynes would have to pass through waivers to get sent down).

With any luck at all, Ervin will get it together quickly, and earn a prompt recall from AAA. With the off-day Thursday, the Angels can delay decision on this a bit, even if news on Bartolo comes out today.

IT HAS HAPPENED

2007-07-18T16:04:00.000-07:00

Well, as you all know, Ervin was sent down today.

As you can probably guess from my prior posts, I am somewhat skeptical of this, but the fact is I just don't know if this will help or not. I have no reasonable basis by which to make any kind of analysis on this. Maybe it will. Maybe it won't. Maybe Mike Butcher doesn't know how to help him and Charles Nagy will. I don't know. All I know is We all hope it will, of course. And that's all that I know.

THE SANTANA QUESTION

2007-07-18T00:01:00.000-07:00

Ervin's start in St. Petersburg today did nothing to assuage his critics, and little to encourage his champions. He kept the ball in the park, but no matter what he did, it resulted in a hit. Hard groundballs were hits. Soft groundballs were hits. Line drives were hits. Flyballs were hits. Bloopers were hits.

And so the call resounds to sent Ervin to Salt Lake, as if this will help. After all, he never really pitched there, right?

Well, that part is true, but it hasn't seemed to have hurt him, has it? Do you really think his struggles now are happening because he didn't pitch much at AAA two years ago?

I mean, Ervin did struggle somewhat when he came up at first, at least with his consistency. His ERA stood at 6.20 after his first eight starts, but over his next 15, Ervin put up a more-than-solid 3.97 in 93 innings, striking out 65 against 27 walks.

As you know, Ervin was an above-average pitcher in 2006, as well, posting an ERA+ of 102. He probably was a bit lucky on balls in play, but, well check out this comparison between Ervin '06 and a Mystery Pitcher:

Pitcher          Age  BFP  BF/K  BF/BB  BF/HR  BF/H  ERA+
Ervin Santana     23  846  6.00  12.44  40.29  4.67  102
Lohn Jackey       24  885  5.86  14.27  28.55  3.97   92

Did you guess who the Mystery Pitcher was? I'll give you a hint: it's John Lackey, in 2003.

If you guessed John Lackey in 2003, you were correct. This is a comparison of each guy's first full season. Looking at his peripherals, you see that Ervin wasn't too far off of Lackey; a tad less strikeouts, a few more walks, but much better on hits and home runs -- and a year younger.

Now, did Ervin really get away with a season-and-half of solid major league pitching in a way that tells us he needed to experience AAA? In 48 starts from the middle of 2005 through the end of 2006, Ervin had a 4.18 ERA, striking out 206 against 97 walks in 297 innings. That's a major league pitcher.

Of course, he is pitching terribly this season. But I fail to see that his failures this year are due to his having "missed" development time in AAA. If that were the case, wouldn't we have seen these problems before? In, like, the previous 340 innings he threw?

Now, I'm not discounting the idea that maybe a trip to AAA might help him. But it seems like a rash move. I think that, if Ervin isn't straightened out within the month, it should be a trip to the bullpen, not the minors, for Santana. Let him work against major league hitters, in front of a major league defense.

There's room for him; we can always send Brandon Wood or Kendry Morales (whom Mike Scioscia appears to have little want of using) back to AAA to get regular at-bats. Joe Saunders (who everyone is talking about like he's an established major league starter, despite his bona fides being shakier than Ervin's in many ways, including his unexceptional performance for Salt Lake this year) can enter the rotation, or I guess even Dustin Moseley, though how a guy who strikes out less than one man per two innings is supposed to maintain success is beyond me.

What I know is that we have a talented pitcher who has suddenly become unable to pitch. He skipped AAA, basically, and for a reason. Let's keep him around, let him get it together against real competition in low-leverage situations if need be, and unleash him back into the rotation once he's back to where we know he can be.

SEASON RESUMES, WILL THE MAGIC?

2007-07-13T09:53:00.000-07:00

Well, finally, baseball's back. I think this whole de facto four-day All-Star Break that so many teams have enjoyed is a lot of nonsense, frankly, but what'chu gonna do?

I was silent over the break, but this time it wasn't laziness or busy-ness or anything of that sort; I simply failed. I started working on a piece to try to diagnose the problems of Ervin Santana. I took a gander at batted-ball types, at the types of counts he was getting in ... nothing jumped out, in the record of his performance, as explanatory of the problems he's had lately.

Compared to last season, Ervin is allowing more hits on balls in play and allowing many more home runs. He was exceptionally good/lucky/well-supported in connection with the former last year, so some bounce-back should have been expected and, honestly, is not at alarming levels. What's more disturbing is the latter: Santana is allowing home runs at a vastly higher rate than last season -- nearly twice as frequently.

His struggles don't seem to have anything to do with whether he's from the stretch or not, either -- oddly, he's been better with men on (an OPS allowed of 802) than with the bases empty (944) -- this is the opposite of what you normally see. He does struggle with men in scoring position the most (1000), but is actually doing pretty well with a guy on first only (618).

Does he struggle to close out innings? He's worst with zero outs. Does he struggle after guys have already seen him a couple of times in a game? He's worst the second time through the order, not the third.

The simple solution just seems to be: he's making bad pitches. How someone with his talent, and his level of success, falls apart so, I don't know. There were 84 pitchers in the AL last year who qualified for the ERA title; Santana's 102 ERA+ ranks tied for 51st out of that group, which isn't bad (qualifiers tend to be at least okay pitchers, otherwise they wouldn't get that many innings). And yet, he's starting to look nothing like a pitcher.

The temptation to bring up Joe Saunders remains -- especially that he's starting to perform fairly well at AAA -- but I honestly don't know that putting Ervin in the PCL's gonna do anything for him. (Also, it's not like Ervin is the biggest rotation problem we have now.)

What this really is is the first big challenge Mike Butcher has faced as our pitching coach. Can he figure out what's ailing The Magic? Can Ervin respond? Or is this just a bunch of bad luck, where every single bad pitch is getting punished, instead of a few being fouled off or hit right at someone?

I don't know.

FURTHER EVENTS

2007-07-03T12:34:00.000-07:00

There's been some roster busy-ness the last few days, so let's just jump in:

- Mike Napoli injured, Jeff Mathis called up.

Napoli could, reportedly, be out for as many as six weeks, which is not good. Napoli is having a solid season: I have him as around three runs above an average hitter offensively, and his OPS+ of 111 ranks 7th in the majors out of the 29 catchers who have played at least 50 games. Jose Molina is no kind of substitute for that offensive production; he's been hitting horribly so far this year, nearly 8 runs below average with only 102 plate appearances. He's better than this, but he's still not an offensive force.

Jeff Mathis has been performing poorly at AAA; I don't really know who's going to get more playing time to start with. Either way, we basically have to just hope that one of the two guys catches fire, or that Garret Anderson will be healthy enough to pick up some of the slack.

- Hector Carrasco is DFA'd, Chris Resop called up in his stead.

I think Carrasco is better than this, but, then again, he is 37 years old, so it's not like a sudden bottoming-out is a big shock. Resop is an interesting choice to replace him; his 4.60 ERA at Salt Lake is better than the 4.74 league average, and Salt Lake continues to be a hitters' park. Resop also has a good strikeout and strikeout-to-walk ratios. Jason Bulger is having a better season, but is not currently on the 40-man roster. Marcus Gwyn is in the same boat.

Anyway, there's no real way Resop's going to be worse than Carrasco has been. Hector was fairly effective last year, but Bill Stoneman's record of acquiring relievers (JC Romero, Darren Oliver, Esteban Yan, who sucks) has been a bit shaky the past few seasons. Hopefully the likes of Resop, Bulger (both Stoneman acquisitions), Jose Arredondo, and Darren O'Day will come through and make that moot in the near future.

FIRST TO THIRD

2007-06-29T10:01:00.000-07:00

Today in the Times Mike DiGiovanna looks at the Angels aggressiveness at going from first to third. Nothing you don't already know, really, but the article does report that the Angels have gone first-to-third 57 times this season, which leads the majors.

What it does not tell you is how many times the Angels have tried to do this, and have been thrown out, or how valuable going from first-to-third is.

Let's look at that second part first. Baseball Prospectus has the run expectancy matrix for 2007. You've seen these things, right?

RUNNERS EXP_R_OUTS_0 EXP_R_OUTS_1 EXP_R_OUTS_2
000    0.51922    0.27764    0.10591
003    1.42322    0.95287    0.42472
020    1.15109    0.70592    0.33828
023    2.04520    1.46536    0.57522
100    0.89761    0.52785    0.23109
103    1.83264    1.17478    0.50678
120    1.47430    0.85567    0.45846
123    2.31806    1.58758    0.82238

What this tells us is that an average team, with no one on and zero outs, will score .519 runs per inning. Two outs, make that .106 runs.

Now, this is for an average team, with average hitters and an average park, and against average pitchers. So it doesn't apply to every situation. But, it's a loose framework that can give us a guide.

Let's start by focusing on these situations:

RUNNERS EXP_R_OUTS_0 EXP_R_OUTS_1 EXP_R_OUTS_2
100    0.89761    0.52785    0.23109
120    1.47430    0.85567    0.45846
103    1.83264    1.17478    0.50678

No outs, a guy on first, you expect .898 runs. Make it first and second, you have 1.474 runs, a gain of .576. First and third, you've gained .935. But get thrown out going to third, and you lose .370 runs. Summarizing:

No Outs:
Gain from going 1st to 3rd instead of 1st to 2nd:  .358
Loss from being thrown out going 1st to 3rd:      -.946
Breakeven Point:                                  72.5%

One Out:
Gain from going 1st to 3rd instead of 1st to 2nd:  .319
Loss from being thrown out going 1st to 3rd:      -.944
Breakeven Point:                                  74.7%

Two Outs:
Gain from going 1st to 3rd instead of 1st to 2nd:  .048
Loss from being thrown out going 1st to 3rd:      -.458
Breakeven Point:                                  90.5%

You can see that some conventional wisdom is backed up by the empirical data; making the final out at third base is, obviously, awful, and if you're gonna go, you gotta be sure you can make it.

So far this season, the Angels have hit 121 singles with a runner on first base.

44 have been with no outs. 13 times, the runner has advanced to third base (I'm not including a time a bunt single and error led to such an advance); three of those times, the batter who hit the single ended up advancing to second on the throw. Only once has a runner been thrown out going for third.

So, 10 times 1st-and-3rd: 10 x .358
3 times 2nd-and-3rd: 3 x (2.045-1.474)
1 time 1st with 1 out: 1 x -.946

That's a total of 4.347 runs gained by trying to go 1st-to-3rd with no outs.

There are 43 singles with a guy on first and one out. Just skipping to the summary:

14 times 1st-and-3rd: 15 x .319
1 time 2nd-and-3rd: 1 x (1.456-.856)
1 time 1st with 2 outs: 1 x -.944
1 time 2nd with 2 outs: 1 x (.338-.856)

That's a total of 3.923 runs.

And with two outs, 34 singles:

10 times 1st-and-3rd: 10 x .048

A total of .48 runs.

So far, we've accounted for 39 first-to-thirds, and the team's up 8.75 runs. Let's look at other situations.

I'll spare you the details, but there's an additional 6 with 1st-and-3rd situations (4 with one out [4 x .319], 2 with two outs [2 x .048]) that add up to an additional 1.372 runs, getting us up to 10.122 runs; there are 8 with 1st-and-2nd, for which I'll assume the guy on second always either scores or tries to (2 with no outs [2 x .358, 2 with one out [2 x .319], 4 with two outs [4 x .048], 2 outs at third with one out [2 x -.944], 1 out at third with two outs [1 x -.458]) that add up to -.798 runs, getting us up to 9.324 runs; and 4 with the bases loaded (1 with no outs [1 x .358], 1 with one out [1 x .319], 2 with two outs [2 x .048]) that add up to an additional .773 runs, for a total of 10.097 runs.

So, there you go. Going first to third has added something close to a win to the Angels this year.

Now, there are things I'm missing; I didn't adjust for the quality of hitters on deck, I didn't look at the importance of the situation in the game (as I did for bunts this offseason a couple of times). But I think this is a good general approach. I think we'd have to look at other teams like this to see if the Angels are unique in this regard, but it does appear that aggressive baserunning, if executed efficiently, can really help out a team.

BAD DAYS

2007-06-28T10:47:00.000-07:00

So, we got swept by the Royals. That, obviously, is not good.

But you know what? It doesn't mean all that much, in isolation, either. You really think we're going to have a lot of games where we get 10 hits and score no runs?

I don't really have anything to say about the games, though. I usually watch every game, and when I miss one live I embargo all information and watch it later on the DVR, but through various mishaps I became aware of the results of the last two games before having a chance to watch them, and I don't purposefully watch losses.

And as for Shea Hillenbrand being gone, good riddance. He was signed as a panic move, despite the fact that I don't really think there's anything he can do that Robb Quinlan can't do better, unless "Jackass Index" is a new official stat. That will give more playing time to Kendry Morales, who's not doing anything to indicate that he needs less of it, and clear out a roster spot for some reliever or reserve outfielder who can provide some depth. And with any luck at all, Juan Rivera will be back in two shakes, and then Hillenbrand would have become really unnecessary.

THINGS HAVE HAPPENED

2007-06-27T20:08:00.000-07:00

Wow, I picked a great day to be slammed at work, huh?

Anyway, Shea Hillenbrand whined about not playing enough, and now he's gone.

Good riddance, clownface.

WATCH LIST UPDATE

2007-06-26T10:24:00.000-07:00

It's somehow been over a month since I last did this.

The BB-Ref organizational stats are linked in the POSITION and PITCHER headers.

POSITION PLAYERS

Michael Collins, 1B, AA Arkansas, BR/TR

When    AB  H  2B  3B  HR  BB  SO  SB  CS  AVG OBP SLG OPS+
Now    229  44 12   1   2   5  45   4   2  192 241 279
5/21   127  17  7   0   1   2  25   0   1  136 194 216  
5/1     75  12  2   0   1   2  16   0   1  160 203 227

The saving grace here for Collins is that he's only 22; the average Texas League batter is over 24 years old. He has managed to hit .265 for a month, so I guess if he can stay over the Mendoza Line by the next time I do this, I'll keep him on here.

Hank Conger, C, A Cedar Rapids, BR/TR

When    AB  H  2B  3B  HR  BB  SO  SB  CS  AVG OBP SLG OPS+
Now    213  60 16   0   8  16  41   7   3  282 336 469
5/21   123  32  6   0   6   8  16   6   0  260 311 455
5/1     68  18  2   0   3   4   8   4   0  265 306 426

Ah, now this is the business. Conger has upped both his average and power, and only his plate discipline is lagging behind (in terms of his offensive game). Hank is young for the league, and the league is hitting 254/320/370. Cedar Rapids has played as a slight hitters' park in the past, dunno if that's still true, but at any rate, Conger is outperforming older competition at his same level.

Terry Evans, OF, AAA Salt Lake, BR/TR

When    AB  H  2B  3B  HR  BB  SO  SB  CS  AVG OBP SLG OPS+
Now    260  86 23   3  11  11  60  13   6  331 358 569
5/21   156  50 13   3   6   9  42  11   4  321 355 558

He sure seems like a good kid, doesn't he? Still, he'll need to control the strike zone better.

Nick Gorneault, OF, AAA Salt Lake, BR/TR

When    AB  H  2B  3B  HR  BB  SO  SB  CS  AVG OBP SLG OPS+
Now    276  60 12   0   9  35  63  11   3  217 310 359
5/21   151  36 10   0   3  18  34   8   2  238 327 364
5/1     81  15  4   0   3   9  17   5   2  185 283 346

Nick has come around a bit in the power department since we last checked in, but the average has taken a nosedive.

This is a guy who I hope gets a September call-up. He's been at AAA forever, it seems, and has put up some good years there. This ain't one of 'em, but might as well let him get his name in the encyclopedia and ship him off to the NL Central.

Jeff Mathis, C, AAA Salt Lake, BR/TR

When    AB  H  2B  3B  HR  BB  SO  SB  CS  AVG OBP SLG OPS+
Now    234  56 13   1   5  17  42   3   1  239 294 368
5/21   135  35  9   0   2   8  25   2   0  259 301 370
5/1     81  24  6   0   2   5  13   2   0  296 333 444

We've possibly passed up the question of whether or not Mathis will ever have anything to offer at the major league level, and now must face the likelihood that he has just about no trade value left, either. For awhile I thought he could still develop into at least a solid major league regular, but he's not doing anything at AAA to make that seem possible. The shocking this is that he still has time -- he's only 24, and younger than the average PCLer, and catchers often develop a bit later with the bat than other position players. But with Mike Napoli establishing himself with the big club, it looks like the best Mathis can hope for is a back-up job in Los Angeles of Anaheim

(I had Kendry here but took him off as he's in the majors now.)

Sean Rodriguez, SS, AA Arkansas, BR/TR

When    AB  H  2B  3B  HR  BB  SO  SB  CS  AVG OBP SLG OPS+
Now    278  71 17   1  10  28  76   9   4  255 350 432
5/23   143  36  9   0   6  19  35   6   3  252 374 441
5/1     81  25  6   0   4  12  21   3   3  309 423 531

After a hot start, Sraud's season has pretty much stagnated. The plate discipline that he exhibited at the lowest levels (and that vanished for much of his Cal League season) has gone AWOL over the last month, but he hasn't upped power or base-hit ability to counterbalance it.

Like a lot of our top guys, Rodriguez (at 22) is young for his league; the only position player of a similar age at Arkansas is Michael Collins, and you can see how much better Sean is doing than he.

Mark Trumbo, 1B, A Cedar Rapids, BR/TR

When    AB  H  2B  3B  HR  BB  SO  SB  CS  AVG OBP SLG OPS+
Now    242  68 16   1   7  16  53   3   4  281 327 442
5/23   117  27  6   0   3   5  30   1   2  231 266 359
5/1     49  10  1   0   1   2  16   0   2  204 245 286

What's this? What's this? No sooner do I ponder whether or not Trumbo may be due for a return to the mound than does he go on an epic tear. That's a 328/382/520 line since I last did this, if anyone's counting, and by Trumbo's standards 11 walks against 23 strikeouts is miraculous. This is exciting to see, but recall that Trumbo did have a solid July last season (286/423/390), so let's see him sustain it for another month before we jump too high.

Brandon Wood, SS, AAA Salt Lake, BR/TR

When    AB  H  2B  3B  HR  BB  SO  SB  CS  AVG OBP SLG OPS+
Now    254  68 18   1  13  34  69   8   1  268 355 500
5/23   131  31  8   0   5  18  38   3   0  237 331 412
5/1     84  22  6   0   3  11  28   2   0  262 351 440

Looks like someone's finally getting into it; Wood has a .593 slugging percentage over the last month or so of play, and is "only" striking out a quarter of the time (he was closer to 30% last season).

Also worth noting is this observation by Rally Monkey that it's possible Salt Lake is playing as more of a pitchers' park this year than at any time in the past. This is something to bear in mind and keep our eye on.

Watch Out:

Who       Lvl  AB  H  2B  3B  HR  BB  SO  SB  CS  AVG OBP SLG OPS+
Bourjos    A   91  25  3   2   1   9  22  12   3  275 346 385
ClyFuller Azl  11   1  0   0   0   1   4   1   1  091 267 091
Mount      A  188  52  4   2   2  19  42   8   1  277 343 351
Ortiz     Azl  10   7  3   0   0   1   1   1   1  700 727 1000
Peel       AA 263  69 17   2   7   5  35   2   0  262 291 422
Pettit     A  228  79 24   1   9  23  41  17   4  346 429 579
Pettit     A+  22   2  0   0   0   1   6   0   0  091 130 091   
Phillips   A  225  52  7   2   5   5  85  18   2  231 261 347
Rivera                   has not played
Sandoval   AA 258  76 18   1   6  47  46  13   7  295 403 442
Statia     A+ 302  81 17   3   1  26  42  17   3  268 330 354
Sweeney    A  243  64 14   1   9  18  43   1   5  263 319 440

Peter Bourjos has been injured and hasn't played. Clay Fuller's season has just begun. Ryan Mount has been on fire in June, hitting 429/484/536 -- but in only 28 AB. Can Norberto Ortiz improve on his first ten AB in Arizona? Aaron Peel is another guy who's enjoyed June: 322/352/506. Christopher Pettit is a doubles machine (he leads the organization in that category), and actually improved all three of his big rate stats over the last month at Cedar Rapids. As you can see, he's now up in the Cal League, where he belongs. A slow start in his first week there, but far too early to mention. Hopefully he'll make the necessary adjustments. That's not a typo in P.J. Phillips' strikeout column; he's whiffed in over a third of his AB this month. Luis Rivera has yet to play. Freddy Sandoval has earned a spot in the Futures Game; his average is sliding down, but he's maintaining great control of the zone, and has actually bumped his power up a bit Hainley Statia is struggling to get things going, and has really slumped this month in everything except batting average (291/322/384). Third baseman Matthew Sweeney is in skidsville in terms of average and walks, but has amped back up the power this month; hopefully the rest of his offensive game isn't far behind.

PITCHERS

Nick Adenhart, RHSP, AA Arkansas

When  W  L  SV  G  GS  IP    H  HR  SO  BB   ERA  
Now   6  2   0  14 14  83.7  87  4  61  37  3.46
5/23  3  2   0   8  8  47.3  43  0  35  21  2.68
5/1   3  1   0   5  5  33.7  24  0  27  10  0.80

Nick Adenhart put up a couple bad starts right after I last did this, but has started to get it together once again. He's on the DL right now with shoulder soreness; hopefully that won't be a problem. What has been a problem is Adenhart's control -- he's just walking too many guys, though his last 40ish innings were better than his previous 15 in that regard. He's also started to allow home runs.

Still, Adenhart is very young for the league, and has an ERA much better than league average (4.27) despite pitching in a tough park for moundsmen. His strikeout-per-inning and strikeout-to-walk ratios are lower than the league average, but given his youth, I am not concerned as of now.

Jose Arredondo, RHSP, AA Arkansas

When  W  L  SV  G  GS  IP    H  HR  SO  BB   ERA
Now   0  0   2   4  0   3.7   7  0   5   4 18.90 A+
Now   0  1  10  23  0  25.0  16  2  28  12  2.52 AA
5/23  0  1   6  16  0  19.0  12  2  22  10  3.32   
5/1   0  1   2   8  0  11.0   8  1  14   5  1.64

Demoted for a temper tantrum, Arredondo probably should get it together. That said, he was doing pretty well at AA -- walking a few more guys than you'd like, but whiffing enough to make up for it. I assume he'll be back.

Gustavo Espinoza, LHSP
Placeholder.

Stephen Marek, RHSP, A Rancho Cucamonga

When  W  L  SV  G  GS  IP    H  HR  SO  BB   ERA
Now   5  4   0 13  13  69.7  64  5  56  30  4.02
5/23  3  2   0  7   7  38.7  34  2  23  15  3.52
5/1   1  0   0  3   3  15.0  12  1   7   6  2.40

The ERA is up (still better than the Cal League's 4.70, and Rancho is good to hitters), but the peripherals have improved. Marek's strikeouts and K:BB are still a bit worse than the league's, but he's not far from making that false.

Tommy Mendoza, RHSP
Has not played.

NEW ADDITION!
Darren O'Day, RHRP, AA Arkansas and A+ Rancho Cucamonga

When  W  L  SV  G  GS  IP    H  HR  SO  BB   ERA
Now   0  1   0  2   0   2.0   3  0   0   1  4.50
Now   4  0   0 24   0  24.0  10  1  26   6  0.75 A+ Final

I was going to put him on my Watch List first, but Rob beat me to it!

O'Day, a sidearmer/submariner with a backup plan to go to med school, is another Tom Kotchman draftee. Out of the University of Florida, O'Day was a bit old for the California League, and proved it by dominating everyone. He's only had two outings for Arkansas, one in which he gave no runs, one in which he gave up one. Highly intriguing across the board, though we've seen other relief prospects (Von Stertzbach, Bob Zimmerman) fade out at the higher levels. At the very least, maybe this guy could be a Chad Bradford ROOGY type.

Sean O'Sullivan, RHSP, A Cedar Rapids

When  W  L  SV  G  GS  IP    H  HR  SO  BB   ERA
Now   4  5   0 12  12  70.3  76  3  53  19  2.96
5/23  2  3   0  8   8  48.0  56  2  36  13  3.00
5/1   1  2   0  4   4  23.0  26  2  13   6  3.52

O'Sullivan is settling in nicely. Again, not many strikeouts, but reasonable control, and he keeps the ball in the park.

Steve Shell, RHSP/RP, AAA Salt Lake

When  W  L  SV  G  GS  IP    H  HR  SO  BB   ERA
Now   4  1   0 14   3  31.0  39  7  23  11  4.94
5/23  1  0   0  5   1  12.0  18  3   4   2  3.75
5/1   0  0   0  2   1   7.0   9  1   3   1  1.29

The silliness of having this kid in AA appears a thing of the past. Just let him pitch and see what happens. He's 24. What's the worst that happens, he loses some games and become a reliever later?

Rich Thompson, RHRP, AA Arkansas

When  W  L  SV  G  GS  IP    H  HR  SO  BB   ERA
Now   1  3   0 19   3  44.3  32  5  46  12  2.25

As you can see, I'm overdue on including the Aussie.

Watch Out:

Who       Lvl  W  L  SV  G  GS  IP    H  HR  SO  BB   ERA
Bell       A   2  2   0  9   9  44.7  58  0  33   4  4.26
Bulger    AAA  3  1   0 27   0  29.7  29  3  48  17  4.60 
Green      AA  5  6   0 15  15  94.0  93 10  60  14  4.40
Madrigal    A  3  3   2 29   0  32.7  31  3  35  17  3.34 
Rodriguez  AA  0  5   0 24   0  36.3  41  3  21  21  5.50
Walden     R   0  0   0  1   1   3.0   1  0   5   2  0.00
Young      R   0  0   0  1   1   5.0   5  1   5   1  1.80

Trevor Bell isn't strikeout out a lot of guys, but that control is phenomenal. Jason Bulger has been giving up some runs. Nick Green's ERA has been going the right way for two months, despite a few too many HR; the low walk total will help with that. Warner Madrigal has had some control problems of late, but he's very inexperienced from the mound. Rafael Rodriguez hasn't had any success in two months. We just signed Jordan Walden. Young Il-Jung is our Korean prep superstar, and had a good pro debut.

A few random notes ... I'm waiting for Brok Butcher to up his K's before I put him on these lists ... Marcus Gwyn isn't really a prospect at age 29, but he's the closer at AAA and is doing a fine job, and if there are any more injuries in our bullpen, he could come up and do a Joel Peralta for a week or two ... we drafted Milan Dinga out of West Point, he at Orem and off to a good first few innings ...

CAUTION

2007-06-25T10:13:00.001-07:00

These are heady time in the Halosphere, and for Angel fans everywhere. As Matt Welch pointed out over at Halos Heaven, if we played .500 ball the rest of the year and Oakland played at a .600 level, we'd end the season tied with 92 wins. We've won 103 of our last 162 games, and have been playing over .600 for more than 200 games now.

These are obviously good things, and I love the way our team is playing. But to play wet towel for a second, is there any reason to believe that our guys are do for any sort of decline?

There are a couple of guys who are more likely to see a decline in performance than a sustenance of their current levels, and both of them reside at the top of the order. Both Reggie Willits and Orlando Cabrera are succeeding at levels heretofore unseen by human eyes.

I spoke of Willits over a month ago, and anticipated something of a decline. Well, believe it or not, he has declined since then; he's hit 324/432/410 since that post, when he was hitting 366/449/409. Not much of a decline, and one we can certainly live with, but the general point remains that he is unlikely to be as good over the next 85 games or so as he has been until now.

Orlando Cabrera is in the same boat. He's a 32-year-old who's hitting above the league average for what would be the first time in his life (his basestealing has led to him to having been better than the league average as an offensive player in the past); do you really think that Orlando Cabrera has turned into a .335 hitter? Odds are his production will decrease. Yes, flukes happen, and they last over a whole season (Brady Anderson hit 51 home runs one year, remember, and you can bet people were maintaining that power surge would abate for much of that year), but you can't expect that.

And while Casey Kotchman is having the kind of year many of us thought he had in him, the fact is he has yet to do this over a year, and stay reasonably healthy. I think the fact that Scioscia protects him against lefties will help (I do think Casey will have to learn to hit southpaws as his career progresses, but as long as Robb Quinlan earns playing time by bashing them, we don't need to press the issue).

On the pitching side of the ledge, I'm not convinced that Dustin Moseley and Chris Bootcheck can continue their success. Moseley only strikes out one out of every ten batters he faces, and Bootcheck is little better at 1 per 8.5. Both have achieved what they have by minimizing walks and keeping the ball from going over the fence, and this is what they'll have to keep doing.

Of course, there's a flipside to all of this, and these are the players that we can expect to improve. Howie Kendrick was going well before his injury, and after taking a few weeks to get back up to speed, has started producing once again. Over the last three weeks he's been hitting 375/400/528, and though he's unlikely to keep the average that high, I think we can certainly look forward to more production out him. And while Shea Hillenbrand is nothing special, over enough at-bats he's going to be roughly a league-average hitter, which he hasn't live up to so far this year.

We can also expect some improvement on the other side of the ball. Ervin Santana and Bartolo Colon have both been inconsistent, but, health permitting, should be able to be at least average for the rest of the year. I actually have more faith in Ervin on this point than in Bartolo, mostly due to health. I didn't really mention John Lackey or Kelvim Escobar as candidates for decline over the rest of the season, as I suppose they technically are, but even if we see some small decline from them, I think it will be counter-balanced by these two guys.

On top of all that, we have two guys on the DL who will be a big boost if they can come back healthy: Juan Rivera and Justin Speier. We don't need Rivera to be as good as last year or Speier to be as lights-out as he was in April to help the team.

All in all, while some decline from our lofty heights may be unavoidable, there no reason to believe any such fall would be fatal, and there is reason to believe that the fall of some may be met by the rebound and return of others. This team has a broad base of talent, and should be able to sustain a high level of play for the rest of the year.

LOOKING FORWARD

2007-06-19T09:46:00.000-07:00

As the midpoint of the season draws near, rumors begin to swirl about what, if anything, the Angels will and should do to secure their lead in the West.

However, the most imminent and likely rumor has to do with dispatching someone; the Yankees, as has been reported all over the Halosphere, have expressed interest in Shea Hillenbrand. It's hard to argue that the Angels really need Shea at this point (or that they ever did, really), but, nonetheless, we are reportedly uneasy with trading him while Garret Anderson resides on the DL and Casey Kotchman's near future is uncertain due to his concussion.

Signing Hillenbrand was a panic move in light of Juan Rivera's injury, of course. An understandable panic move, but one that was likely unnecessary (as I argued before the season). Given that he is being out-produced by both Reggie Willits and Robb Quinlan, I hold to this position.

Still, I understand wanting to make sure Casey is okay before moving forward. But I have no reservations with moving him. Kendry Morales is a better use of the roster spot.

In addition to ridding ourselves of Hillenbrand, there is talk of the Angels going out to get Adam Dunn. This is far more complicated.

Dunn certainly is an intriguing player. He has a ton of power and draws a lot of walks, two things our offense could use. But he's also a poor defender and, most likely, an ordinary baserunner (at best), and he strikes out a lot. However, being in the AL would allow him to DH, removing the poor defense from consideration, and you can live with the strikeouts when he produces like he can (a career OPS+ of 128, 134 so far this season). Dunn is an elite hitter who has never played in late summer games of particular significance, so he might really shine in a spotlight.

But, even outside of pondering what we'd have to give up (Joe Saunders and Hainley Staitia and someone else, perhaps?), he would create something of a logjam once Garret and Rivera return from injury. Rivera is about to start taking batting practice, and if he can return, even at his career 115-OPS+ level, he still would help the team considerably at bat, and with his solid defense and outstanding arm would provide a great service by relieving our corner outfielders. Dunn might be able to give Vlad a break as a DH twice a month or something, but that's far from ideal.

Reggie Willits has proven he belongs in the lineup; the Angels aren't going to bench a healthy Garret Anderson (though assuming health from him may be a case of counting chickens before they hatch) and Juan Rivera has earned playing time, as well. Though I wouldn't be adverse to acquiring Dunn if the price were right, I don't see Stoneman making such a move that could disrupt our current "offensive continuity" until he knows more about the condition of Garret and Juan.

Now, if from a month from now, neither one of those guys is healthy enough to produce, then we can revisit it. But as of this moment, I don't see anything developing on that front, and that doesn't really bother me.

I'm actually far more concerned about our bullpen, which we can discuss later this week.

HOLY CRAP

2007-06-18T22:44:00.000-07:00

Best game of the year.

So far.

QUICK HELLO

2007-06-14T16:53:00.000-07:00

Hi gang.

I had a death in the family, so I've been out of town a few days. I'm still catching up with life, so hopefully will have some material tomorrow.

Someone commented on my Matt Harvey post below to say that "Whoever wrote this doesn't know what they're talkin [sic] about," saying that Harvey weighs "210lb. [sic] and is very strong". Well, it was MLB/MiLB's official website that claims he weighs 195, that's where I got that. I have no problem believing he is "very strong", I just don't think 195 pounds is a whole lot for someone who's 6'4'', that's all. And while the commenter says "you've obviously never seen his 12-6 curve [I have not] [and s]couts describe as sick and one of the best in the draft", the scouting report I link above says "Harvey has the chance to have a plus curve" (emphasis mine).

I don't know, I'm just summing up things I've heard about him. As I said, I'm excited about the pick and I hope we sign him.

MATTHEW SCIOSCIA

2007-06-08T15:09:00.000-07:00

In the 41st round, the Angels have drafted Mike Scioscia's son, a first baseman from Crespi (boo).

Another day two draftee is West Virginia QB and Heisman candidate Patrick White, who the Angels also drafted in the fourth round in 2004.

MATT HARVEY

2007-06-07T16:29:00.000-07:00

The Angels' second pick of the day is Matt Harvey. Harvey is a first-round talent in many people's minds, but had some signability concerns. He also doesn't seem to have much beyond his fastball, but it's in the 92-94 range. Durability may be a short-term concern, as he's pretty scrawny at 6'4''-195, but I think this is a great use of a third-round pick.

JONATHAN BACHANOV

2007-06-07T15:21:00.000-07:00

He's the Angels' first pick of the draft, taken with the 58th pick (the supplemental round). You can read about him here, but he's a 6'4'', 210-pound right-handed pitcher who can hit up to the mid-90s on the gun (though usually low-90s) and has a plus breaking ball "when it's on". He's considered something of a project, but comes out of Florida, where our scouting department has Tom Kotchman in charge, and Kotch the Elder has quite the eye for major league talent. His fastball has a "late tail and a nice downward plane", which sounds great to me.

The scouting video at the above link shows him hitting 89-91 on his fastball, with the slider in the mid-70s.

Look, I hadn't heard of this kid before we picked him, and you probably haven't, either. But I trust our scouting department, especially the Florida contingent, so I'm pretty happy and intrigued with this pick.

Baseball America talks about the Angel scouts checking him out a bit here.

THE DRAFTS OF BILL STONEMAN

2007-06-05T10:48:00.000-07:00

I don't know how I've managed to go two weeks without saying anything; I guess that's what happens when the team is playing well and there's nothing to complain about and no problems to diagnose.

But, as this week is the amateur draft, I thought it might be a good time to feature some draft-related material.

This is the first entry, and looks at the first five drafts the Angels made under Bill Stoneman. I didn't want to go past 2004, as it's far too early to say much of anything about the last two drafts. In fact, it's practically impossible to say anything about 2004, either, but it was the first draft with Eddie Bane in the organization and we got at least one major leaguer out of it, so we can take a cursory look.

There are various sources for draft info online, the two best of which (to my knowledge) are at Baseball Reference and The Baseball
Cube.

I'm not really going to evaluate the drafts in a systematic way (the Baseball Cube has a rudimentary draft rating system based on the major league playing time of those drafted, which is a rough starting point I will reference despite its flaws and near uselessness for recent drafts; see it for 2000 here), just take a look at who we drafted, who we could have drafted, and how it all turned out. The list of "could haves" is far from inclusive, as I just went through the first twenty rounds each year and grabbed some recognizable names.

Also, I'm not going to link to every single player I mention, as I usually do, as life is short.

Here we go.

2000
First Round: The Angels had two picks in the round; the 10th and 20th. Stoneman grabbed Joe Torres at 10 and Chris Bootcheck at 20.

Who Else Was Available: Most everyone picked between Torres and Bootcheck has been a disappointment, save one: Chase Utley, who may well be the best overall second baseman in the game right now. The Angels had just installed Adam Kennedy at second, so maybe Utley wasn't as high a priority because of that, but so far he's the pick of the round.

No one outrageously special was taken after Bootcheck; Boof Bonser went one pick later, but he has yet to pan out (though he still could, of course), and Adam Wainwright and Aaron Heilman (who didn't sign with the Twins) came later in the round. Dustin Moseley and Kelly Johnson were two intriguing later picks. The second round saw the Cubs select Bobby Hill (who the Angels had drafted but not signed out of high school) and the Pads take Xavier Nady.

Others Picked of Note: Tommy Murphy got picked in the third round, a pitcher/shortstop at the time. Matt Hensley in the 10th, but the rose so far has been Mike Napoli, somehow only the second- or third-best player taken in the 17th round (Josh Willingham, Rich Harden).

The Angels also grabbed Bobby Jenks in the fifth, and you all know how much good that did us.

Other Available Players of Note: Grady Sizemore (3rd), David DeJesus (4th), Dontrelle Willis (8), Brandon Webb (8), Edwin Encarnacion (9), Brad Hawpe (11), Freddy Sanchez (11), James Shields (16).

Baseball Cube Ranking:: 19th

Summary: Despite finding the gem in Napoli in the middle rounds, this draft would have to be considered a disappointment. The only other player to live up to expectations, to any degree, is Bobby Jenks, who has done it all for the White Sox. The world would be interesting if we had drafted Chase Utley, a local product out of Pasadena and UCLA (imagine Utley at second and Howie at third), and we are just one of 29 teams to have missed out on the likes of Sizemore, Willis, and Webb.

2001
First Round: Once again, the Angels had two picks in the first round, and took Casey Kotchman at 13 and Jeff Mathis at 33.

Who Else Was Available: Gabe Gross went a couple of picks after Casey, as did Jason Bulger. The two most intriguing picks between Kotch and Mathis, though, were Oakland's back-to-back picks of Bobby Crosby and Jeremy Bonderman. The Angels had actually drafted Crosby out of high school, but didn't sign him. Noah Lowry went 30th.

After the Mathis pick, the best pick, and what may end up being the best pick of the first round, was David Wright.

The most notable player picked in between Mathis and the Angel second-round pick is JJ Hardy.

Others Picked of Note: The Angels got Dallas McPherson with that second-round choice, so, his back notwithstanding, they weren't really complaining. Steven Shell and Jake Woods were taken in the third, Nick Gorneault in the 19th, but the only other picks to make the majors (beyond Woods) were Steve Andrade, who did so as a Royal, and Matt Brown, who sipped coffee earlier this year.

Other Available Players of Note: Danny Haren (2), Edwin Jackson (6), Chad Tracy (7), Dan Johnson (7), Kevin Youkilis (8), Dan Uggla (11), Chris Young the Outfielder (16), Jonny Gomes (18), Zach Duke (19).

Baseball Cube Ranking:: 13th

Summary: This is the draft that put the Angels on the prospect map. Kotchman, Mathis, and McPherson toplined prospect lists for the next few years, and were the first three picks taken. Though the idea of having Bobby Crosby or Jeremy Bonderman is intriguing, I can't say the Angels were wrong to stay in the family and grab Casey Kotchman. In retrospect, David Wright would have been a much better pick than Jeff Mathis, but Mathis comes from the Tom Kotchman Florida Pipeline that also brought us Casey, Howie Kendrick, and Scot Shields.

However, this was a top-heavy draft, and it looks like only one guy will pan out. Steve Shell could end up in the bullpen, and maybe Matt Brown will become a new Robb Quinlan down the line, but that's not much booty relative to all the prospects we had lined up from this draft just a couple of years ago. Prospect attrition is harsh, and no matter what the BPro guys tell you, it happens to hitters as well as pitchers. You load up as much as you can and see who survives the gauntlet.

2002
First Round: Joe Saunders with the 12th pick.

Who Else Was Available: The seven players taken right after Saunders: Khalil Greene, Russ Adams, Scott Kazmir, Nick Swisher, Cole Hamels, Royce Ring, and James Loney. Jeremy Guthrie, Jeff Francouer, Joe Blanton, Matt Cain, and Mark Teahen all went later in the round.

Others Picked of Note: The Angels got only one other major league player in this draft, but he may turn out to be a doozy: Howie Kendrick in the 10th.

Other Available Players of Note: Elijah Dukes (3), Curtis Granderson (3), Delwyn Young (4), John Maine (6), Scott Olsen (6), Pat Neshek (6), Joel Zumaya (11), Ryan Shealy (11), Brandon McCarthy (17), Russell Martin (17), Kameron Loe (20).

Baseball Cube Ranking:: 20th

Summary: Saunders is a credit to the organization now, but an injury not long after signing delayed his ascent. Scott Kazmir or Cole Hamels would have been very interesting first-round picks, and there was a lot of intruiguing talent taken at the bottom of the round.

Getting Howie was a coup, but the rest of the draft was completely devoid of prospects for the Angels; the only other name that pops out at all is Aaron Peel, who is stagnated at AA.

2003
First Round: Brandon Wood, 23rd.

Who Else Was Available: Chad Billingsley, Daric Barton, Carlos Quentin. Some intriguing names, but none as intriguing as Wood.

Others Picked of Note: Sean Rodriguez in the third, Reggie Willits in the seventh.

Other Available Players of Note: Tom Gorzelanny (2), Andre Ethier (2), Chris Ray (3), Ryan Garko (3), Jonathan Papelbon (4), Kevin Kouzmanoff (6), Anthony Reyes (15), Ian Kinsler (17).

Baseball Cube Ranking:: 25th

Summary: Wood has justified his draft position to this point, even accounting for his early struggles at AAA. Sean Rodriguez and Willits appear to be good picks, but guys like Bob Zimmerman, Von Stertzbach, and Daniel Davidson have washed out a bit. No one else has emerged from the class.

In October, 2003, Eddie Bane took over as scouting director.

2004
First Round: Jered Weaver's price dropped him to 12th, where the Angels caught him.

Who Else Was Available: Stephen Drew went three picks later. Other notable first-rounders were Josh Fields, Taylor Tankersley, and Huston Street.

Others Picked of Note: Weaver's the only one to make the majors out of this young class, but the Angels picked up a first-round talent in Nick Adenhart (14th round) and pilfered Mark Trumbo in the 18th. Hainley Statia was drafted in the ninth, Stephen Marek was grabbed in the 40th round. Nick Green went in the 35th.

Other Available Players of Note: Dustin Pedroia (2), Adam Lind (3), Chris Iannetta (4), Casey Janssen (4), Cla Meredith (6),

Baseball Cube Ranking:: 11th

Summary: Weaver was a gift, but the Angels picked up a lot of other intriguing names. It's far too early to say who the true finds were, but Adenhart and Marek may be real bargains, and in addition to Staitia, Freddy Sandoval has shown something. The Angels didn't have any picks between the first and fourth rounds, so this draft could end up being even more impressive once you see who was available.

Adding It All Up
What does this mean?

Well, by my count, Stoneman has drafted three-and-a-half regulars (Napoli, Kotchman, Kendrick, and Willits), one surefire rotation starter (Weaver), one swingman/potential rotation starter (Saunders), and one top position player prospect (Wood). A couple of back-of-the-bullpen types, too (Bootcheck, Woods) and a top starting prospect (Adenhart). Add in faded prospects like McPherson (injury) and Mathis (struggles), and that about rounds it up.

How did the Angels do in the five years prior?

I won't walk you through it year-by-year, but from 1995 through 1999, and looking at it from the perspective of the year 2002, the Angels drafted two regulars (Darin Erstad and Troy Glaus), one top starter (Jarrod Washburn), and one top pitching prospect/productive rookie (John Lackey). Robb Quinlan and Scot Shields were in the organization, both upcoming (Shields debuted briefly in 2001). Other notables that didn't add up to much, and who had mostly washed out by 2002, were Brian Cooper, Justin Baughman, Scot Schoeneweis, Matt Wise, and Alfredo Amezaga.

I'd say Stoneman's drafts compare pretty well to that group, especially considering that the highest pick Stoneman has had to work with was the 10th in his first year, and the previous regime had two top three picks that were close to no-brainers (Erstad at #1 and Glaus at #3).

The first five drafts under Stoneman haven't been particularly deep, but his draft legacy for these years is going to rest on Kotchman, Kendrick, and Weaver primarily, but with Napoli and Adenhart likely candidates to boost it up. Even if Mathis never amounts to anything or if McPherson's injuries keep him on the sidelines, the success of the above (and others) could be pretty impressive. Add in a formidable international scouting program, and you have the recipe for success that has kept and is likely to keep the Angels competitive for a pennant year in and year out.

HALOSPHERE EXPANDS, DIVERSIFIES

2007-05-23T13:29:00.000-07:00

As linked by Halofan, the Halosphere has expanded ... and now includes a 19-year old female college student. Who even references OBP!

Welcome to the Halosphere, Coral!

(I've added Coral to the sidebar, along with Angels Win, which I should have done a long time ago.)

WATCH LIST UPDATE

2007-05-21T17:13:00.000-07:00

It's been three weeks since I did this.

You should know that BB-Ref has all the organizational stats on one page, which I link in the POSITION and PITCHER headers.

I'll have you know that our system-wide performance has been terrible, at least in terms of top prospects.

POSITION PLAYERS

Michael Collins, 1B, AA Arkansas, BR/TR

When    AB  H  2B  3B  HR  BB  SO  SB  CS  AVG OBP SLG OPS+
Now    127  17  7   0   1   2  25   0   1  136 194 216  
5/1     75  12  2   0   1   2  16   0   1  160 203 227

This is, um ... this is bad.

Hank Conger, C, A Cedar Rapids, BR/TR

When    AB  H  2B  3B  HR  BB  SO  SB  CS  AVG OBP SLG OPS+
Now    123  32  6   0   6   8  16   6   0  260 311 455
5/1     68  18  2   0   3   4   8   4   0  265 306 426

Hank is showing some hammer, but not much else. Word is he's struggling behind the plate, too, especially with throwing out runners.

NEW ADDITION!
Terry Evans, OF, AAA Salt Lake, BR/TR

When    AB  H  2B  3B  HR  BB  SO  SB  CS  AVG OBP SLG OPS+
Now    156  50 13   3   6   9  42  11   4  321 355 558

Truth be told, I'm not really sold on Evans, but if I'm gonna keep Nick Gorneault on here, I might as well put in Evans, who is better, younger, and plays better defense.

But at this point he's a .250 hitter at best with no sense of the strike zone. He has some pop when he hits the ball, but he's 25 years old and he's a 250/280/450 hitter, tops, in the majors right now. If he learns the strike zone a bit, he'll be a real prospect.

Nick Gorneault, OF, AAA Salt Lake, BR/TR

When    AB  H  2B  3B  HR  BB  SO  SB  CS  AVG OBP SLG OPS+
Now    151  36 10   0   3  18  34   8   2  238 327 364
5/1     81  15  4   0   3   9  17   5   2  185 283 346

If you look at his season line, it appears that Gorneault may be stagnating at AAA. He may be, but his last 70 AB have gone fairly well for him, as he's put up a 300/380/386 line. Not much, but more than he was doing before.

Jeff Mathis, C, AAA Salt Lake, BR/TR

When    AB  H  2B  3B  HR  BB  SO  SB  CS  AVG OBP SLG OPS+
Now    135  35  9   0   2   8  25   2   0  259 301 370
5/1     81  24  6   0   2   5  13   2   0  296 333 444

Sigh. Nothing happening here. Trade bait?

Kendry Morales, 1B/DH, AAA Salt Lake, BB/TR

When    AB  H  2B  3B  HR  BB  SO  SB  CS  AVG OBP SLG OPS+
Now     94  27  5   0   1   2  11   0   1  287 302 372 
5/1     73  21  2   0   1   2   9   0   1  288 307 356

Yeah, he's in the majors now, but I assume he'll be returning to AAA soon, as he's not getting any playing time with the big club, despite looking good in his few games thus far. His line at Salt Lake has been ugly, but I would expect him to turn it on later this summer.

Sean Rodriguez, SS, AA Arkansas, BR/TR

When    AB  H  2B  3B  HR  BB  SO  SB  CS  AVG OBP SLG OPS+
Now    143  36  9   0   6  19  35   6   3  252 374 441
5/1     81  25  6   0   4  12  21   3   3  309 423 531

Can this organization catch a break? Rodriguez started off great, surpassing Brandon Wood's 2006 performance in the same league. But then: ca-rash. At least Sean's keeping his strikeouts down, somewhat (everything's relative). He's never been or projected to be a high-average guy in the minors, but he'll have to do better than .252 at AA to even project to a reasonable batting average. I'd like to see him bring it back up north of .300; it won't stay there, but if he can sustain a .250 average in the majors, his secondary skills will be more than enough to make him a contributor.

Mark Trumbo, 1B, A Cedar Rapids, BR/TR

When    AB  H  2B  3B  HR  BB  SO  SB  CS  AVG OBP SLG OPS+
Now    117  27  6   0   3   5  30   1   2  231 266 359
5/1     49  10  1   0   1   2  16   0   2  204 245 286

Trumbo started off slowly last year, built up toward respectability, had a good month and crashed. He's hitting 250/282/412 in May, which is a tiny step in the right direction. But the fact of the matter is he won't go anywhere striking out that often. Will a return to the mound be in order?

Brandon Wood, SS, AAA Salt Lake, BR/TR

When    AB  H  2B  3B  HR  BB  SO  SB  CS  AVG OBP SLG OPS+
Now    131  31  8   0   5  18  38   3   0  237 331 412
5/1     84  22  6   0   3  11  28   2   0  262 351 440

Yes, that 191/296/362 this month (47 AB) is ugly. But:

1. His walk-to-strikeouts are 7:10, a vast improvement, even though he's still striking out too much.

2. If you add 100 points of average to that, it's 291/396/462.

3. Brandon's BABIP dropped from .358 in April to .200 thus far in May.

There is room for improvement, and signs of improvement. Let's see if he can put it together.

Watch Out:

Who       Lvl  AB  H  2B  3B  HR  BB  SO  SB  CS  AVG OBP SLG OPS+
Bourjos    A   91  25  3   2   1   9  22  12   3  275 346 385
ClyFuller                has not played
Mount      A  111  24  2   0   1  12  21   8   1  216 288 261
Ortiz                    has not played
Peel       AA 146  32  7   1   3   4  20   0   0  219 255 342
Pettit     A  135  46 16   0   4  10  24  11   3  341 407 548
Phillips   A  117  26  2   2   3   2  46   6   1  222 248 350
Rivera                   has not played
Sandoval   AA 141  45  8   1   2  23  21  11   4  319 410 433
Statia     A+ 168  47 10   2   1  20  22  12   2  280 360 381
Sweeney    A  124  34  5   1   3  11  20   0   4  274 343 403

Have you noticed how bad everyone is doing? Some of our teams, such as Rancho, can't do anything. There's not a whole lot to like out of these guys, either, so far. Peter Bourjos is actually on the upswing. Clay Fuller is waiting on his first 2007 appearance. Ryan Mount continues to struggle. Norberto Ortiz has also yet to debut. Aaron Peel is treading water. I've added Christopher Pettit; he's a bit old for the league (22), and could draw some more walks, but leads the team in OPS by quite a bit. He's primarily a left fielder, but has appeared at the other two outfield positions this season. He hit 336/445/566 in Rookie ball last year, so it will be interesting to see if the Angels are more aggressive with him; I would doubt it, but Rancho is almost devoid of prospects. P.J. Phillips is mired. Luis Rivera also hasn't played. Freddy Sandoval has always had nice control of the zone, but his average is a very nice surprise in the early going. Hainley Statia started slow and is getting his average up; a shortstop, 21 years old (quite young for the league), he is only bettered in OPS on the team by 24-year-old Bradley Coon. Third baseman Matthew Sweeney is having a tough, tough month; he was hitting .349 at the end of April.

PITCHERS

Nick Adenhart, RHSP, AA Arkansas

When  W  L  SV  G  GS  IP    H  HR  SO  BB   ERA  
Now   3  2   0   8  8  47.3  43  0  35  21  2.68
5/1   3  1   0   5  5  33.7  24  0  27  10  0.80

I guess no one stays perfect, huh? The loss of control is a bad thing, but, remember, this kid is 20; the average Texas League pitcher is 24.4, the average hitter 24.7. Adenhart's the youngest pitcher on the team by roughly two years. This kid is a hero. I expect him to turn it around.

Jose Arredondo, RHSP, AA Arkansas

When  W  L  SV  G  GS  IP    H  HR  SO  BB   ERA
Now   0  1   6  16  0  19.0  12  2  22  10  3.32   
5/1   0  1   2   8  0  11.0   8  1  14   5  1.64

Jeez, is this whole organization struggling? Well, not the big team, obviously. But it seems like nearly everyone is on the downswing this month.

Gustavo Espinoza, LHSP
Placeholder.

Stephen Marek, RHSP, A Rancho Cucamonga

When  W  L  SV  G  GS  IP    H  HR  SO  BB   ERA
Now   3  2   0  7   7  38.7  34  2  23  15  3.52
5/1   1  0   0  3   3  15.0  12  1   7   6  2.40

Can you survive in the California League with that kind of strikeout-to-walk ratio? At least it's getting better.

Tommy Mendoza, RHSP
Has not played.

Sean O'Sullivan, RHSP, A Cedar Rapids

When  W  L  SV  G  GS  IP    H  HR  SO  BB   ERA
Now   2  3   0  8   8  48.0  56  2  36  13  3.00
5/1   1  2   0  4   4  23.0  26  2  13   6  3.52

He's giving up a lot of hits, but is demonstrating some good control and upping his strikeouts.

Steve Shell, RHSP/RP, AAA Salt Lake and AA Arkansas

When  W  L  SV  G  GS  IP    H  HR  SO  BB   ERA
Now   1  0   0  5   1  12.0  18  3   4   2  3.75 AAA
5/1   0  0   0  2   1   7.0   9  1   3   1  1.29 AAA
Now   0  0   0  5   0  13.3  10  1  19   1  0.69 AA
5/1   0  0   0  4   0  10.3   8  1  14   1  0.87 AA

I still don't know if there's a compelling reason he's not in Salt Lake's rotation, and I think we can close the book on him at AA, his recent struggles in the PCL notwithstanding.

Watch Out:

Who       Lvl  W  L  SV  G  GS  IP    H  HR  SO  BB   ERA
Bell       A   0  2   0  3   3  13.0  18  0   8   2  4.85
Bulger    AAA  1  1   0 15   0  18.3  17  1  25  12  3.00 
Green      AA  3  2   0  9   9  54.0  51  4  34  10  4.83
Madrigal    A  1  2   2 15   0  16.0  22  2  15   5  4.50 
Rodriguez  AA  0  4   0 14   0  21.0  30  1  14  13  3.97

Trevor Bell only has one start this month, so we can't really say anything. In addition to not getting arrested for beating up a spouse, Jason Bulger is actually having a nice month. Nick Green has his ERA going in the right direction, down from 5.00 at the end of April. Warner Madrigal pulled the opposite trick. Rafael Rodriguez has had a terrible month, completely losing the strike zone and getting battered all over the place.

REGGIE BBILITS

2007-05-18T10:09:00.000-07:00

As you know, Reggie Willits is off to a terrific start in 2007. While the high level of his performance may be something of a surprise to many, his style of performance is highly consistent with what he has done throughout his professional career.

Longtime readers will be familiar with Reggie, not only because he was a mainstay of my prospect Watch Lists while in the minors, but also because anyone who cares enough about the Angels to read this blog will be pretty well-informed about the organization and its players.

As such, we all know that Willits isn't really a .366 hitter. He never hit higher than .327 in the minors, which came last year at AAA Salt Lake. At some point his average will come down a bit, unless he's morphed into Ty Cobb. Will the rest of the game pick up that slack and allow him to continue to be a productive player?

One thing that concerned me about Willits as he came up through the majors is that, due to his lack of size and power, his walk rate would diminish. Of course, walk rates go down at every successive level of play, as pitchers become more and more accurate and precise. But I fear that players with no power suffer this more acutely, as pitcher down in the count have no reason to fear them, and are comfortable attacking the strike zone and making them swing the bat.

I often drew a comparison between Willits and David Eckstein, which, to be honest, is a completely obvious comparison. In the minor leagues, Eck walked in 13.7% of his plate appearances (I'm excluding hit-by-pitch and sacrifice bunts here, as well as intentional walks), but in the majors he's only walked 7.0% of the time. Why? Because pitchers challenge him.

Reggie Willits walked in 12.8% of his PA in the minors; in his young major league career, he's walked ... 15.3% of the time!

That looks good, but it's also worth noting that his walk rate has dived from his cup of coffee last season to this season. He had 11 walks in 56 PA last year (once again, with all the exclusions I mentioned above) for a ridiculous 19.6% walk rate; this year he's done to a more normal 14 of 107 (13.1%) -- which is still better than his minor league numbers.

David Eckstein was pretty good at working the count, averaging 3.83 pitches per plate appearances his rookie year and 3.82 over his career (the average is 3.77). Willits, however, has been even better so far, going through 4.33 pitches per PA in his young career.

Can he sustain this? I don't know -- my skepticism is noted above -- but Willits seems very comfortable hitting with two strikes and seeing as many pitches as he can.

He does walk a fine line, though. Right now, Reggie's career line in the majors is 333/436/370 for an OPS+ of 124. If he's really, say, a .275 hitter, his line would be 275/378/312 ... an OPS+ of 92. Now, with the stolen bases and stuff, he could still be a league-average hitter there, but you'd probably want more from your corner outfielder. And if those walks were to drop just a little bit, say to 10% of his PA, that OBP would drop considerably, down to around .330.

I don't think Reggie is ever going to develop any real power; his extra-bases per at-bat in the minors was only .095, so while he can probably improve on his current .037 a bit, there's not a high ceiling there. Just getting it up to .050 or .060 would be nice.

If he were to settle in at 275/350/330, that probably wouldn't be enough. But if he hits around .300, then he'd be just a bit above average.

Obviously, if he crashes down to .275 now (he'd have to hit .190 over his next 100 AB to drop his season average that far), that would be bad, but we could probably live with him hitting .275 for the balance of the season.

Of course, crazy things can happen. Darin Erstad wasn't really a .355 hitter, but he managed to do it for a season. However, Willits this year is hitting .436 on balls in play in the ballpark after having hit .363 on such in the minors (that BABIP this year would put him at 301/384/344). That's not a good bet, even though it would be wonderful.

But you know what? If he just sustains a little, he can still push Shea Hillenbrand out of the lineup once Garret Anderson returns. And that potentiality, which becomes more and more likely every day, is cause for celebration.

LACK ATTACK!

2007-05-17T10:10:00.000-07:00

John Lackey pitched six strong shutout innings last night, on the heels of a superb performance against Texas last week. Over the course of the two games, he only gave up three runs in just over 14 innings, all of which came in his last inning at Rangers Ballpark.

Both starts were typified by something I've been harping on for years: John trusted his fastball, attacked the strike zone, and got outs. Too often in his past, he's started goofing around with his breaking ball, trying to get strikeouts, and throwing hitters too many lifelines.

Though obviously his slider/curve/slurve/bender/sweeper/whatever is a killer pitch, and you need to be able to throw it with confidence even when down in the count, I've often thought that he leans too far in that direction.

But in the last two starts, this has not been the case. He ascribed this, in post-game interview after the Texas game, as a result of the Angels giving him a big lead. I didn't see if he had an interview after last night's game, though I doubt the 2-0 lead he was given really changed his approach. I think he just saw the success he had against Texas and decided to keep going with it. It's almost certainly throwing opposing hitters, especially division foes who have seen him the most, for a bit of a loop.

You can see this strike-zone-pummeling in the statistical record; in the last two games, John has thrown nearly 67% of his pitches for strikes, compared to 64% for his first seven starts. Is that statistically significant? I have no idea, to be honest. But it does comport to subjective evaluation.

This new attack philosophy has had a slight negative impact on his strikeouts. In his last two games, Lackey has struck out one every 4.9 batters, where in his first seven, it was one every 4.4. But his walks have gone down in a big way, to one every 27 batters instead of one every 15.9. As such, his strikeout-to-walk ratio moved from a superb 3.58:1 in his first seven starts to an even better 5.5:1 in the last two.

These are all extraordinary numbers, and as good as he is right now, we shouldn't expect him to keep this up. But, truthfully, I wouldn't be surprised, either. Big John seems at the top of his game, is constantly getting a better and better idea of what he's doing, and has very good stuff and a fiery intensity.

He's got a ways to go before he's the best pitcher in Halo history out of Texas, but he's doing the legacy proud.

SHIELDS DOWN, CAPTAIN!

2007-05-15T10:02:00.000-07:00

As you are aware, and Mike DiGiovanna writes about it today in case you aren't, Scot Shields has struggled a bit in the early going, at least by his very high standards.

Scottie's numbers are down almost universally across the board; though he is striking out batters more frequently than in the past, he's issuing more walks and allowing home runs at a far more rapid rate; he's already allowed half as many taters as he did all of last season, despite not pitching a quarter of as many innings.

Is there cause to worry?

Let's see, right now he's pitches just over 20 innings. Let's see if he's had any other stretches like this.

Hmm, here's one. It's not a comforting one, though: it comes from near the end of last season. From August 2 through September 5, Shields pitched in 17 games, throwing 20 innings, striking out 23 and walking 8. He allowed 4 home runs in that span.

What did he do after that? His next ten games saw him pitch 11-and-a-third innings with a 0.79 ERA. So there's an example of a bounce-back from a bad stretch, though obviously not too long-lasting.

How about slumps earlier in the year? Here's a bad stretch in 2005; not quite as bad, but not too hot, either: a 4.84 ERA over 22 1/3, but a good strikeout-to-walk ratio, and only two home runs. Shields bounced back well from that, too.

Looking at his pitch data briefly, on his BB-Ref page ... he's throwing strikes just as much as he always was, but he is only throwing first-pitch strikes to 55% of batters, where the last three years he's been at 59% and his career mark is 60%. That doesn't seem to be a real factor; in opposing plate appearances that pass through a 1-0 count, Shields has only allowed a 111/314/222 AVG/OBP/SLG line.

I think this shall pass. I could be wrong; I guess I've been doing a lot of rosy color lately. It's possible that Shields workload in previous seasons has taken its toll. He is 31, so maybe it's just his decline. But I have to think that he'll start walking less guys, especially given that he's throwing as many strikes as usual, and giving up less home runs. 21.8% of the flyballs he's allowed this year have gone over the fence. He should be closer to 10%, and that high number is unlikely to continue.

Hopefully I'm right, and these blown wins and blown saves will be nothing but a distant memory come September.

HOME AND ROAD

2007-05-14T10:12:00.000-07:00

Okay gang, just stick with this, at least past the asterisks, okay?

I'm sure you know this, but Ervin Santana for the last two seasons has been two different pitchers; a good one at home and a Bartolo Colon v.2004esque one on the road. Is there any reason we should expect this gap to continue?

After yesterday's sterling perf, Magic has a 2.57 ERA at home this year against a 7.86 on the road. The big difference -- well, hell, I'll just show you:

WHERE   BF  SO/BF  BB/BF  HR/BF  BABIP
Home    84  .202   .060   .024   .254
Away   128  .156   .109   .070   .345

It looks like he's had some bad luck defensively on the road (or has given up more screamers) and some good fortune at home. We might expect that to even out a bit (whether the cause is defense or Santana himself) as the season goes on. Of course, this is a pretty small sample. What did he do last year?

Well, last year he had a 3.02 ERA at home and a 5.95 away from the Big A. What do the peripherals tell us about last season?

WHERE   BF  SO/BF  BB/BF  HR/BF  BABIP
Home   469  .162   .075   .017   .251
Away   377  .172   .093   .034   .287

Santana was slightly but uniformly better at home last year, too. Of course, there is some degree home field advantage, so that is to be expected. But beyond that, I see no reason to expect Ervin to vastly outperform his road performance at home. I think it's just one of those fluky things that evens out over time.

***

Okay, there's a punchline to all that.

The above is, nearly word-for-word, something I wrote about John Lackey three years ago. I mean, literally: I copied-and-pasted it, and just changed the names and numbers where appropriate.

Let's look at both guy's career numbers, Santana through now, Lackey in 2003 and 2004 only. What I'm going to show you is a differential; a positive means that the pitcher is better in that category at home. For example Santana's strikeout rate has been .005 points better at home than on the road in his career.

WHO      SO/BF  BB/BF  HR/BF  BABIP   ERA
Santana  +.005  +.020  +.025  +.058  +3.65
Lackey   +.003  +.007  +.017  +.044  +2.30

Now, I'll confess to some cherry-picking here, in that I didn't include John's rookie season; Big John didn't have such a huge disparity in 2002. But I know this: he struggled on the road in a big way in 2003 and 2004, but in 2005 and 2006, was actually better on the road than at home.

Now, as you can see, Santana's road disadvantage has been more extreme than Lackey's was in those two years. Still, I can't think of any legitimate reason that this disparity should continue at such an extreme.

Remember, Santana is a young pitcher -- he's a year younger now than Lackey was at the point we're comparing them. Remember how frustrating Lackey could be in his first two full seasons? Struggling on the road, the "Lackey Inning", all that stuff? Why would we expect Ervin to be any different?

Yes, he will struggle at times. Yes, he will frustrate. But I think we gotta stick with him. He has good stuff, has demonstrated brilliance, and usually keeps a good composure on the mound. I don't know that he's going to make the same jump that Lackey did between 2004 and 2005. But I think he's got a shot, and the Angels owe it to themselves to find out if he can do it.

THE TROUBLE WITH KOTCH

2007-05-10T09:47:00.000-07:00

After the shocking events of last night, in which two Angels not named Vlad hit home runs, it may seem churlish to start examining someone's troubles -- especially given that it's someone who lashed a nice double last night. But Kotch was relied on to provide some offense this year, and has only occasionally provided same.

First, let's note that Kotch's line isn't that terrible. His AVG/OBP/SLG 233/304/388 adds up to an OPS+ of 92, which tied for ninth out of the fourteen AL regular first basemen. His defense probably nudges him up a bit, but he has outperformed a few stars (or semi-stars) thus far.

What's more, if he can get that average up to .300 while maintaining everything else, he'd have a line of 300/371/455, which would be an OPS+ of 129, which would be great. Even getting up to .280 would put him at 280/351/435, and an OPS+ of 118, which in the recent history of the Angels would be almost Gehrigesque.

So, right now, it's the singles that aren't getting through. Is there reason to believe that they will?

Here is some batted ball data for Casey's 2007, available from Baseball-Reference.com's Play Index:

Type        Tot   %   Out   1B   2B   3B   HR   SF   AVG   SLG
GB Right     36   31   31    4    0    1    0    0  .139  .194 
GB Middle     4    3    2    2    0    0    0    0  .500  .500
GB Left      13   11   11    2    0    0    0    0  .154  .154 
LD Right      7    6    2    2    3    0    0    0  .714 1.143   
LD Middle     3    3    2    1    0    0    0    0  .333  .333
LD Left       3    3    0    2    1    0    0    0 1.000 1.333 
FB Right      7    6    3    0    2    0    1    1  .500 1.143 
FB Middle     7    6    5    0    0    1    1    0  .400 1.000
FB Left      13   11   12    1    0    0    0    0  .077  .077
FB Catcher    1    1    1    0    0    0    0    0  .000  .000
SO           10    9   10    0    0    0    0    0  .000  .000
BB+HBP       11   10    0    0    0    0    0    0  ----  ----
TOTAL       115        80   14    6    2    2    1  .233  .388

Some breakdowns:

       %    AVG   SLG
GB:    45  .170  .208  
LD:    13  .692 1.000
FB:    24  .222  .593
Rt:    43  .265  .469 
Mi:     9  .357  .714
Lt:    25  .207  .241

What conclusions can we draw?

1. Casey hits a lot of balls on the ground: 45%, far more than he hits anywhere else. And that's 45% of plate appearances, that comes out to 56% of balls in play.

2. Casey does not get hits when he hits the ball on the ground, hitting only .170.

3. Casey has essentially no power to the left side of the field, only scrapping out a "line drive to 3B" for a double there thus far.

4. Casey pulls the ball 50% of the time. He only goes up the middle 14% of the time; as you see, he (as pretty much every batter would) has a lot of success going up the middle. (There is a bit of a scoring bias here, though, as a shortstop ranging up the middle to make the play will be recorded as a ground ball to the left side here.) Again, that's per plate appearance; it's 53% of all balls in play.

Now, let's compare this to Casey's one extended period of success, the 2005 season:

Type        Tot   %   Out   1B   2B   3B   HR   SF   AVG   SLG
GB Right     34   24   32    2    0    0    0    0  .059  .059
GB Middle    13    9    8    5    0    0    0    0  .385  .385
GB Left      12    9   11    1    0    0    0    0  .083  .083
LD Right      8    6    3    4    1    0    0    0  .625  .750
LD Middle     7    5    0    7    0    0    0    0 1.000 1.000
LD Left       4    3    1    3    0    0    0    0  .750  .750
FB Right      9    6    2    0    0    0    6    1  .750 3.000
FB Middle    11    8    8    0    2    0    1    0  .273  .727
FB Left      10    7    8    0    2    0    0    0  .200  .400
FB Catcher    0    0    0    0    0    0    0    0  ----  ----
SO           18   13   18    0    0    0    0    0  .000  .000
BB+HBP       15   11    0    0    0    0    0    0  ----  ----
TOTAL       141        91   22    5    0    7    1  .272  .492

       %    AVG   SLG
GB:    42  .136  .136
LD:    14  .789  .842
FB:    21  .379 1.241
Rt:    36  .260  .520
Mi:    22  .484  .645
Lt:    19  .231  .462

(Just in case you look this up, I didn't include Casey's two sacrifice attempts, one of which was a successful sacrifice and one of which was a hit.)

Some observations here:

1. Casey was just as ineffectual, generally speaking, on groundballs in 2005 as he has been this season.

2. Casey was just as effective, generally speaking, on line drives in 2005 as he has been this season.

3. Casey was much better at going up the middle in 2005.

4. Casey got much more value out of his flyballs in 2005.

It's those last two things that are making the difference, I think.

Kotch did phenomenally on balls in the air in 2005. Six of the nine balls he hit to right field in 2005 went over the fence! That's just not sustainable.

But ... he is doing very well this year in his limited flies to right. Three hits out of seven flies (one of which was a sac fly), three of which have gone for extra bases ... I've long bemoaned Casey's top-hand tendencies, rolling over the ball in the manner of Darin Erstad and doling out 4-3 putouts. And here we see that when he puts the ball in the air to right, he gets good results!

I'd like to see Casey drive the ball more and become less pull-conscious. (Of course, I can't say he's intentionally trying to pull the ball, it often seems that he's fooled and out on his front foot, his weight coming forward too quickly on some of his grounders.) He's also done very well on his flyballs to center in these two seasons. His double last night, where he stayed back and drove a vicious liner to right-center, was a great start. I think he's capable of doing these things, and knows how, and he should eventually start doing it consistently.

And if he doesn't, well, maybe I'll join the chorus calling for Mickey Hatcher's head.

***

Now, I should probably add a sample size caveat here. We don't have a lot of plate appearances to go off here, and I don't know that anyone has ever looked at this sort of thing in a rigorous manner. I'm just looking for patterns. The fact that the numbers seem to back up what I see with my eyes ... it's a nice coincidence. It will be interesting to check back in on this stuff at the end of the year.

WHAT CAN I SAY?

2007-05-09T10:43:00.000-07:00

For two days I've been trying to formulate a post about our "team", what we need, what can afford to give up, etc. Somehow, it isn't working.

Which means, of course, that I can sympathize with our Lads' pathetic efforts right now. Well, that's not quite right, the effort is there ... but you know what I mean.

I can't tell you anything about this that you don't know.

DESCENT

2007-05-04T09:52:00.000-07:00

After two fine games in Kansas City, the wheels came off a bit in the last two days. Ervin Santana finally pitched a good game on the road; I was very impressed with his mixture of pitches, both in terms of pitch selection and location. He moved the ball in and out very well and kept out of predictable patterns. Sadly, one fastball too many strayed over the middle of the plate, and he lost the game. It happens.

Most impressive in his outing was that he issued only one walk. He did give up 11 hits, more than you'd like to see, but as we know that's the sort of thing that evens out over time; when you challenge batters to earn their way on base, sometimes they do, but more often they don't. The fact that he was pounding the strike zone was good to see; in his previous losses this year, he had walked 13 batters in 14 innings, which is simply unacceptable.

Jered Weaver still hasn't had an ideal start, by his standards, but let it be known that the first two runs he allowed yesterday were both by baserunners who should never have been on base in the first place. Gary Matthews Jr.'s elliptical paths to flying baseballs sometimes cost us and sometimes don't, and yesterday cost us big when his incompetence led to a Ross Gload triple. Reggie Willits mis-read a ball in the fourth that led to a lead-off double. With a pitcher like Weaver on the mound, the outfield has to be on their game, and they weren't here. Still, his peripheral numbers -- 9 strikeouts against 2 unintentional walks and 7 hits in six innings -- were solid, and in the long run he'll be fine.

The real problem the last two games, as it has been and will be again, was the offense. Players not named Vladimir Guerrero went 3-for-30 yesterday with one walk and no extra-base hits; the day before, they were 6-for-28 with one walk and three doubles. That adds up to a 155/183/207 line for Non-Vlads over the two games, and we're simply not going to win when that happens. And as currently constituted, this is an offense incapable of scoring runs in a hurry; Matthews is the only semi-legitimate power threat in the lineup outside of Vlad (unless you want to count Shea Hillenbrand, who has one extra-base hit in 87 AB this year, or the struggling Mike Napoli), which means the singles have to string together to make the runs happen. Casey Kotchman's season has been fits and starts so far, but hopefully he can step up behind Vlad and make some run production ensue.

2007-05-01T15:31:00.000-07:00

WATCH LIST INTRODUCTION AND UPDATE

I don't know how much I have to really introduce this thing, you'll get the idea.

One note; the OPS+ figures here are blank. I use the park adjustments at Minor League Splits (click on any player's name to go to his hub page there), but they haven't posted those as yet.

POSITION PLAYERS

Michael Collins, 1B, AA Arkansas, BR/TR

When    AB  H  2B  3B  HR  BB  SO  SB  CS  AVG OBP SLG OPS+
Now     75  12  2   0   1   2  16   0   1  160 203 227

Collins, who played catcher before this season, has demonstrated some good command of the strike zone in the past, but is off to a simply horrific start this season. He doesn't turn 23 until July; hopefully he'll be in the swing of things by then.

Hank Conger, C, A Cedar Rapids, BR/TR

When    AB  H  2B  3B  HR  BB  SO  SB  CS  AVG OBP SLG OPS+
Now     68  18  2   0   3   4   8   4   0  265 306 426

Conger's holding his own thus far, not doing anything exciting, just surviving. The stolen bases are an odd surprise.

Nick Gorneault, OF, AAA Salt Lake, BR/TR

When    AB  H  2B  3B  HR  BB  SO  SB  CS  AVG OBP SLG OPS+
Now     81  15  4   0   3   9  17   5   2  185 283 346

Nick Gorneault pretty much stays on this list due to tradition. He has no future with the big club, having been passed by both Reggie Willits and Tommy Murphy (both of whom can play center), and starts like this aren't going to help. Maybe he'll become a six-year minor league free agent one day, and can end up starting in right field for the Pirates or something.

Jeff Mathis, C, AAA Salt Lake, BR/TR

When    AB  H  2B  3B  HR  BB  SO  SB  CS  AVG OBP SLG OPS+
Now     81  24  6   0   2   5  13   2   0  296 333 444

Nothing here is going to light a fire under Mike Napoli. This still projects as an average in the .220-.230 range, and Mathis just doesn't have the other offensive skills requisite to carry that kind of average.

This performance is better than Napoli's so far, by just a bit. If Mike doesn't turn it on, who knows, maybe we'll see Mathis. But his development may be in danger of stagnating. The good news is that it's early in the season, so there's plenty of time for both guys to get it together.

Kendry Morales, 1B/DH, AAA Salt Lake, BB/TR

When    AB  H  2B  3B  HR  BB  SO  SB  CS  AVG OBP SLG OPS+
Now     73  21  2   0   1   2   9   0   1  288 307 356

Yet another slow start in Salt Lake. Kendry did have the interruption of coming up to the majors, and we all know he's better than this, but once again, we have a guy who's not hitting well enough to demand immediate attention.

Sean Rodriguez, SS, AA Arkansas, BR/TR

When    AB  H  2B  3B  HR  BB  SO  SB  CS  AVG OBP SLG OPS+
Now     81  25  6   0   4  12  21   3   3  309 423 531

Hey, look at this! A top prospect actually hitting well. Sraud is still striking out a bit much, but he has a ton of walks to go with it (they vanished for awhile last year), and is off to an all-around good start. By comparison, Brandon Wood hit 276/355/552 at AA last year, and struck out in 29.4% of his plate appearances compared to Rodriguez's 22.6% so far. If Rodriguez can keep this up, he can really force himself into the picture, and maybe even pass up Brandon Wood (despite the fact that Wood is a level higher at the same age). Few see Rodriguez's future at short, and second is blocked, so he could possibly jump ahead of Aybar and move Wood back to short. It's also not hard to see him in the outfield, either as Garret Anderson's successor or as a Kirby Puckett type in center. Moves would have to be made to create room, but if Sean keeps this up, the Angels should be ready to accommodate.

Mark Trumbo, 1B, A Cedar Rapids, BR/TR

When    AB  H  2B  3B  HR  BB  SO  SB  CS  AVG OBP SLG OPS+
Now     49  10  1   0   1   2  16   0   2  204 245 286

Grabbing Trumbo in the draft, and then saving him from the ignominy of attending U$C, was seen as something of a coup for the Angels, but the guy has had, what, one good month in professional ball? He's now struggling, and struggling big, at the onset of his encore engagement in A ball. With every whiff he's looking more and more like Josh Booty and less and less like a diamond in the rough. He is only 21, but he's gotta turn this around.

Brandon Wood, SS, AAA Salt Lake, BR/TR

When    AB  H  2B  3B  HR  BB  SO  SB  CS  AVG OBP SLG OPS+
Now     84  22  6   0   3  11  28   2   0  262 351 440

We know he's not ready for the majors yet. Brandon needs to cut down on his strikeouts. At least he's starting to draw more walks, but in this hitting environment, I'd like to see him get his average up above .310 or so. The season is still very early and he has plenty of time. That's time he needs to develop, and poise himself to take over the hot corner next season.

Watch Out:

Who       Lvl  AB  H  2B  3B  HR  BB  SO  SB  CS  AVG OBP SLG OPS+
Bourjos    A   66  15  1   2   1   8  16   8   1  227 325 348
ClyFuller                has not played
Mount      A   58  13  2   0   0   6  10   3   1  224 288 259
Ortiz                    has not played
Peel       AA  84  16  4   1   1   2  13   0   0  190 239 298
Phillips   A   65  13  0   2   0   2  25   3   1  200 235 262
Rivera                   has not played
Sandoval   AA  83  23  5   1   1  13  13   6   2  277 375 398
Statia     A+  99  26  7   0   0  10  14   8   1  263 336 333
Sweeney    A   63  22  3   1   1   8  13   0   1  349 431 479

Peter Bourjos is a good defender (reputedly) and fast (evidently), and is doing a good job drawing walks, though we'll need to see that average come up. Clay Fuller is waiting on his first 2007 appearance. Ryan Mount, part of the middle infield monopoly at our lower levels, is struggling in the Midwest League. Norberto Ortiz has also yet to debut. Aaron Peel is repeating at AA, and is going nowhere fast. P.J. Phillips struggled last year and is off to one ugly start this season. Luis Rivera also hasn't played. Freddy Sandoval can at least control the strike zone and run (and defend), but he'll need more pop to stay out of a utility role at the highest levels. Hainley Statia is coming off a strong year, but hasn't gotten anything going thus far in the Cal League, despite a solid walk total and walk-to-strikeout ratio. Third baseman Matthew Sweeney hasn't found his power stroke (weather may be a factor here), but is doing everything else you could hope for.

PITCHERS

Nick Adenhart, RHSP, AA Arkansas

When  W  L  SV  G  GS  IP    H  HR  SO  BB   ERA  
Now   3  1   0   5 5   33.7  24  0  27  10  0.80

This is frakkin' awesome. I'm trying to find flaws here, and it just ain't workin'. I'd say that Adenhart is our best prospect, right now, at this moment. This is The Franchise. Stay healthy, kid.

Jose Arredondo, RHSP, AA Arkansas

When  W  L  SV  G  GS  IP    H  HR  SO  BB   ERA
Now   0  1   2   8 0   11.0   8  1  14   5  1.64

Arredondo tore up the California League early last year, earning a call-up to AA, where he got rocked for a few months. His return engagement is going much better, as you can see. I'd like to see less walks, but otherwise is going strong.

Gustavo Espinoza, LHSP
Just to remind you that (1) he exists and (2) I am stubborn.

Stephen Marek, RHSP, A Rancho Cucamonga

When  W  L  SV  G  GS  IP    H  HR  SO  BB   ERA
Now   1  0   0  3   3  15.0  12  1   7   6  2.40

Mediocre peripherals so far, but Marek only has a few starts and has been doing okay. He struck out a reasonable, but not dominant, number of guys at Cedar Rapids, so I'm not too concerned for now.

Tommy Mendoza, RHSP
Has not played.

Sean O'Sullivan, RHSP, A Cedar Rapids

When  W  L  SV  G  GS  IP    H  HR  SO  BB   ERA
Now   1  2   0  4   4  23.0  26  2  13   6  3.52

His peripherals aren't blowing anyone away, but this Kevin Appier-looking type pitched very well in rookie ball last year, and pending some more strikeouts is off to a good start in the Midwest League.

Steve Shell, RHSP/RP, AAA Salt Lake and AA Arkansas

When  W  L  SV  G  GS  IP    H  HR  SO  BB   ERA
Now   0  0   0  2   1   7.0   9  1   3   1  1.29 AAA
Now   0  0   0  4   0  10.3   8  1  14   1  0.87 AA

I've always thought that Shell might end up in the bullpen, and our rotation depth chart is pretty stacked right now. Still, he's 24, and I don't see what the harm would be in having him in Salt Lake's rotation. Sure, he got rocked there last year, but has needed one year to adjust at every single level, and we've got guys like Kasey Olenberger (age 29), Henry Bonilla (28), and Pedro Liriano (26) in the rotation. Do those guys have futures with the team?

Watch Out:

Who       Lvl  W  L  SV  G  GS  IP    H  HR  SO  BB   ERA
Bell       A   0  2   0  2   2  11.0  15  0   8   1  5.73
Bulger    AAA  1  1   0 10   0  12.3  12  1  15  10  4.38 
Green      AA  2  1   0  5   5  27.0  22  2  21   7  5.00
Madrigal    A  0  1   1  9   0   9.3  10  2  10   1  3.86 
Rodriguez  AA  0  2   0  8   0  11.3  15  0  10   4  3.97

Trevor Bell only has a couple of games under his belt, so it's too early to say much. Aren't you gald we have Jason Bulger instead of Albert Callaspo? (Callaspo is struggling right now with the D-Backs, actually.) Nick Green has good peripherals, but has given up some runs in the early going. Warner Madrigal is just learning his craft as a pitcher after a rocky career as a toolsy non-hitter; Mark Trumbo, are you paying attention? Rafael Rodriguez is another guy who played well at high-A last year before struggling at AA, though he seems back on track in the early going this season.

2007-04-30T10:09:00.000-07:00

WEEKEND DELIGHT

So, no complaints about the weekend series in Chicago. Well, Ervin Santana did pitch horribly Friday night -- he couldn't locate, couldn't throw strikes, and when he did throw strikes, the ball was getting hammered. He must have gotten about four outs on scorched liners in that game. The numbers may not make it seem that bad, but it was an awful start, and he easily could have given up more runs.

(In 28 innings this year, Ervin has K'd 20 batters, which is fine, but has walked 15, which is trouble. He needs to regain the consistency of command we've seen him have the last two years, and at home thus far in 2007.)

The offense played horribly in that game, as well, squandering opportunity after opportunity. That's a game we probably should have lost 12-10 or something.

But everything got better the next two days. Jered Weaver pitched pretty well Saturday. His command and location probably 100% where he'd want it to be, and his awesome strike-to-ball ratio was somewhat inflated by the White Sox fouling off pitch after pitch, but you can't complain about the results. A few line drives for hits, sure, but also some bloopers, and not once did he allow anything worse than a single. Kelvim had a similarly strong start yesterday, allowing only a home run to The Punter, which, though an embarrassment, only brought home two runs.

Legs Figgins returns to the lineup tonight. Pending Maicer Izturis' hamstring, this may send Erick Aybar back to the bench. Izturis and Aybar have produced nearly identically with the bat so far; Ztu doesn't have much power, but what power he does have balances out the on-base advantage Aybar has thus far. I am a confirmed skeptic regarding Aybar's readiness to produce offensively at the major league level, but his performance since stepping into the lineup for Howie Kendrick (282/317/308 in 39 AB) hasn't really done anything to prove me right or wrong.

The problem with Aybar's offense is that it's completely dependent on his batting average. He doesn't draw walks, he doesn't steal bases, and he doesn't have power. Kendrick may not draw walks either, but he's got some pop and steals bases with some efficiency. It would behoove Aybar to step up some other part of his game -- refining his basestealing skills, working counts -- to accompany his strong defense.

At any rate, a healthy Figgins should be good for this lineup right now. I don't know that he would produce a lot more than Izturis in the long term, but I think his baserunning and glove are definitely better than Ztu's at this point. But Maicer is holding down the fort, and despite some inconsistency with the bat has not dragged the team down.

Figgins' return also means that Brandon Wood has been returned to Salt Lake. He wasn't ready, of course, and only got a couple of games as a sampler of the future. He's going to need to recognize breaking pitches better, and know which ones to spit on and which ones he can drive. He'll need time in AAA to develop his talents, but he is only 22, so he has plenty of time to do so.

Finally, long-time readers may recall that I would occasionally post updates on some of our more prominent minor league players. I should have the first edition for this season up tomorrow at the latest.

2007-04-27T10:17:00.000-07:00

ROLLING FAT
Quite the game delivered by Bartolo Colon yesterday. Good control, good velocity, a minimum of mistakes. As we are so used to seeing, the threw his hardest pitch of the day in his last inning of work. He was consistently in the mid-90s with his fastball, so I feel confident in saying he's fine, and that's good.

The other big news in Haloville is the arrival of Brandon Wood. I'm sure I mentioned this last week, but I do not believe Brandon is ready for the big time quite yet, but the Angels are not averse to bringing up top prospects for short periods before they get a permanent call. I just hope that the kid does get some consistent playing time for the duration of this stay, both so we can get a look at him against top competition and that he can get his feet wet against same.

Anyway, not much else to see here. We're going back on the road, where there have been problems, but with the lineup occasionally resembling a real offense and the pieces falling together in the rotation, I would expect our Lads to put up a much better showing than on our last pathetic road trip.

2007-04-25T09:52:00.000-07:00

HALOSPHERE EXPANSION
Seitz links to this, but apparently John Lackey has a blog. So far it's filled with insights such as "It's absolutely huge having Vlad back" and "[i]t's big for us to get Bartolo Colon back". But he also talks briefly about the team preparing for opponents. Hopefully he'll go into his own strategies after starts, much like Curt Schilling does on his blog. There sure are some times when I wonder what the hell he's thinking.

2007-04-25T09:37:00.000-07:00

A TOTAL MESS
Well, we won yesterday's game, as you know, but that was one big ugly mess for the last half of the game.

Kelvim started off well, then hit some trouble; just coming off the DL, that's not really a surprise. And then the bullpen meltdown ... it's rare that our top three guys give up runs, but all three in one game? Madness.

Some good things: Kendry getting some hits (let's see him a bit more at DH while we have him, shall we?), Gary Matthews Jr continuing to heat up, and, of course, Vlad's prolonged dismantling of opposing pitchers.

Vlad also came as close to making a run by himself, non-home-run-division, in the ninth. He doubled, natch, and then advanced on Garret Anderson's deep fly to center; that wasn't really a no-brainer, with two outs some guys might stay at second and not risk it, some might have mis-read it and gone halfway instead of tagging up, but he got it right. And on the wild pitch, he got a great jump off third, and needed it, as Ivan Rodriguez had a perfect flip back to the plate. That flip was for naught, though, as Vlad's great jump got him home before Todd Jones even made it to home plate. Nothing special, really, but good fundamental play to capitalize on an opponent's mistake.

Anyway, now our good friend Joe Maddon comes in to town, so it's a good chance for the Lads to string some wins together.

***

I just wanted to make sure everyone saw this item in the Times:

Closer Troy Percival did not throw a pitch for the Tigers in 2006, but the team still awarded the former Angels reliever a full playoff share.

Percival, who is now retired, reciprocated by spending $120,000 to lease an 18-seat luxury suite in Comerica Park for players' wives to use this season.

"I've never heard of anything like it," Detroit closer Todd Jones said. "It's the best gesture I've ever seen."

What a mensch.

2007-04-24T10:33:00.000-07:00

FOUR STARTS
I was unable to post yesterday; if I had, my post would have been titled MORE LIKE IT and would have celebrated our sweep of the Mariners. Alas, last night's game put a damper on that, but I'll cover it nonetheless.

Joe Saunders didn't have a great game on Friday, and got some help from some atom balls, but he kept his composure through a few jams, and you can't complain about going six innings without allowing a run. It was nice to see Saunders succeed in his Virginia Tech hat; the game was obviously significant to him and likely of some significance to some of his fellow Hokies, so that was a nice story all-around.

Saturday brought us the return of Bartolo Colon. Though he only notched one strikeout, he had good velocity early in the game and demonstrated good command of his pitches. When Bartolo is on, he'll often gain velocity as the game progresses; that did not happen here -- perhaps partially due to his tweaked ankle. At any rate, it was good to see the Fat Man back in action and productive, a large boon to the team.

Sunday saw Ervin Santana return to form. The Kid was locating his fastball on the corners and getting his slider over for strikes. With everything working, Ervin was able to wiggle out of a couple of jams (a good sign after his jamtastic previous starts) and put up a strong start.

Much has been made of the disparity in Santana's performance on the home and road, and I do intend to take a look at it some time, but my null hypothesis is that it's all a crazy fluke. There's no real reason he should struggle on the road and dominate at home; there's no unique characteristic of Angels Stadium that would seem to benefit him. Remember, John Lackey also had a stark home-road difference in 2003 and 2004, a trend that eventually corrected itself (and even reversed itself, slightly) in the following two seasons. Was there a reason for that? Sometimes these things just take awhile to shake out.

Anyway, while Ervin excelled by getting his slider in the zone on Sunday, Jered Weaver got rocked by failing to do so Monday night. His location was off; it seemed that the culprit was an elusive release point, as Jered would miss consistently high and then, perhaps overcompensating, consistently low, or vice versa. His slider was missing well outside to right-handed hitters, and missing the zone healthily against southbats; recognizing this, Tiger hitters were able to sit on Jered's fastball, a pitch that is missing a few miles per hour from last year. Given that Weaver the Younger couldn't locate his fastball, either, this was a source of much trouble.

(When he did get the slider over, everything was shiny. He threw two good sliders to Gary Sheffield in the first, the only two he threw for strikes in the whole inning [technically Ivan Rodriguez got a hit off of a slider, but it was comfortably out of the strike zone, but elevated so that I-Rod could get it to the right-center gap]. He also got a strike two on Brandon Inge by getting his slider over the outside corner, and while the next one was outside, Inge had to respect his ability to locate the breaking ball, and wasn't able to stop his swing once he realized the pitch was too far away. Once you establish that breaking pitch in the zone, batters have to respect, and then you can get away with throwing it out of the zone. Curtis Granderson followed, Jered lost the touch on his slider, Granderson singled off a fastball, and the rally was on.)

That lack of velocity is the only warning sign that Weaver may still be injured, or at the very least not fully recovered or prepped for the season. We don't know, of course. The location problems don't really bother me, as though he wasn't quite sharp against Oakland, he only threw one egregious pitch in that game. But as long as he's healthy, I'm unworried.

2007-04-19T09:49:00.000-07:00

TROUBLE
As you know, Howie Kendrick has been placed on the DL, and is not expected back in the lineup for four to six weeks.

Howie is one of the only guys in the lineup who had his bat going, hitting 327/365/490 in his 14 games. He had made three errors at second, but otherwise was settling into a regular role somewhat nicely.

It is unclear what the Angels will do in Howie's absence, but we may be as close as one week away from Legs Figgins making his first appearance of the season, which will simplify matters; Figgins can return to third and send Maicer Izturis over to second, or vice versa.

What to do for the next week (or possibly beyond, if Figgins isn't able to come back in time)? The current on-roster solution would be to put Erick Aybar there. Aybar has plenty of defensive skills at short, but isn't as familiar with second. That's a frequent conversion, of course, but we don't know how skilled he may be on the pivot.

Another solution would be to bring up someone from the minors; Brandon Wood (off to an okay 293/373/534 in 58 at-bats at AAA, but with 18 strikeouts) could come up to play third (once again moving Ztu to the keystone) or Kendry Morales (314/340/412 in 51 AB) could come up to DH, moving Robb Quinlan and Shea Hillenbrand into some kind of timeshare at third.

I don't really know what solution is more promising. I don't think either Wood or Aybar are particularly ready to hit in the majors, and Kendry's not off to a stirring start in the minors (though it's only been a couple of weeks, so it's too early to draw conclusions off of that), but the recent offensive ineptitude may lead to Wood or Morales getting the call just because things can't get worse. Both of those guys are capable of getting off to the hot start that Mike Napoli did last year, which would be a nice kick in the pants to a dormant lineup.

Under normal circumstances, I'd say just put Aybar there for a week and see what he can do. But with Maicer Izturis batting in the third spot, this is a lineup completely devoid of punch, just waiting to string single after single together to scratch together runs. Even if Vlad returns tomorrow and healthy, he can only bat when he comes up. So I wouldn't be surprised to see Wood or Morales get the call.

***

It would be churlish to blame John Lackey for the loss yesterday, but he did do some things to annoy me. He did struggle to locate his fastball from time to time, but was mostly getting good results from it, it seemed to me, so you can imagine my frustration when he kept slurving and slurving when he got in trouble.

(I don't know what to call that pitch. John called it a slider when he came up, even though it looks just like a curveball, just with a little bit of sweep to it. The announcers always called it a curveball, and last year in an interview Lackey referred to a curve and slider separately. I think the "slider" is some kind of cut fastball, I don't know; he doesn't seem to throw that one so much. So I'm calling his big breaking pitch a slurve. And you can't stop me.)

He had Shannon Stewart down 0-2 in the third, with no outs and runners on first and second, and slurved him to first base to load the bag. He did get Nick Swisher to ground into a forceout on the slurve, and then mislocated his fastball to allow a hit to Eric Chavez. But I thought the appearance against Stewart caused the trouble.

That didn't bother me so much as in the fifth, when Nick Swisher came up again, this time with a runner on second and two outs. Since he had got him with the slurve in his previous AB, Lackey went to it again, and got a couple over for a 1-2 count. I was hoping he's show Swisher the change away and bust him back inside with the fastball if necessary, but instead he kept throwing that slurve inside. He missed the strike zone three straight times, which brought up Eric Chavez.

So what does he do with Chavez? Slurve inside corner that Chavez wants nothing of, slurve for a ball, fastball way up and in, and then ... slurve hung inside that Chavez has no trouble timing, as Lackey has thrown like 45 straight of 'em before that meaningless fastball, line drive, base hit, run scored.

Lackey has that nice change-up against lefties, but he seems to abandon it when he gets in trouble.

Did you ever see the movie of The Hunt for Red October? The US submarines are having a bitch of a time tracking the Soviet sub, Red October, on their sonar, because the Red October has this crazy kind of engine that's hard to detect. But one of the US sonar operators figures out that something his computer is telling him is a "seismic anomaly" is really that crazy kind of engine. He explains that the computer was originally designed to track seismic anomalies (earthquakes), and when it gets confused, as it is by the Red October engine, it "runs back to momma" and declares whatever it's hearing as a seismic anomaly.

Anyway, John Lackey is like that computer. When he gets in trouble, he runs back to momma and throws breaking pitch after breaking pitch. Now, that's a great pitch, and it's his out pitch, and he's a terrific pitcher, but when you overuse it guys get used to it, they're not fooled, they time it, and they take it when it's a ball and hit it when it's a strike. Lackey has to make guys earn their hits more often, I think.

What was Lackey's last pitch of the day? One out, man on first, Nick Swisher up. Well-located fastball down, 4-6-3, and he's out of the inning. He's got to trust in that more often.

But until he gets runs, it ain't gonna matter.

2007-04-18T10:40:00.000-07:00

NOT GETTING BETTER
Our "team's" performance is simply making analysis redundant right now. We all know what happened last night -- Jered Weaver basically threw one bad pitch, that hanging slider to left -- but one bad pitch it two bad pitches too many in a lineup where Orlando Cabrera bats third. Add into the equation an outfield that can neither track nor catch flyballs, and it's a recipe for disaster.

The wind was bad last night, so I should give Gary Matthews Jr. a pass for misplaying the Eric Chavez double that preceded (by two batters) Bobby Crosby's home run, but the fact is I've noted Matthews taking the scenic route to flyballs before. It cost us a hit in Ervin's second start -- not that one hit really made a big difference the way he was pitching -- and it may cost us more in the future. It's too early to make any conclusions about his glove this year, of course, but despite a few good plays and a good sense of where the wall is, he hasn't really blown me away on that front.

At any rate, we have now gone five consecutive games without scoring more than two runs, which just won't get the job done. (See our top 50 streaks of games scoring two or less runs here). And until that changes, there's not much any of us can do or say.

2007-04-16T00:08:00.000-07:00

THE OUTAGE
While our starting rotation is plagued by injury right now, the true cause of our recent malaise is substandard offense. We have only scored seven runs in our last four games, and are averaging a measly 3.42 runs per game over the season's first two weeks.

Though I hoped and believed that our offense would surpass last year's effort, mostly thanks to contributions from Casey Kotchman and Howie Kendrick (both of whom have delivered in the early going), I'm sure we all did realize that such run shortages would be in the cards. The fundamental problem of the offense remains unchanged: the lineup is built around one man, Vladimir Guerrero, and a lineup that leans so heavily on any one man will struggle to find consistency.

Vlad has managed to deliver this season, but thus far is the only bopper in our lineup. He has driven in 12 runs, twice as many as Maicer Izturis, who ranks second on the team in that category. Those 12 ribbies account for a shocking 29% of Angel runs in the early going. (And nothing against Ztu, but if he ends up the season second on the team in steaks, we're in some trouble.)

This is unsustainable, and won't be sustained; last year Vlad's RBIs accounted for roughly 15% of Halo scoring.

Vlad is hitting a mighty 429/526/643 with runners in scoring position this year; that is also likely to abate, though he's a good bet to hit around .325 in such situations. But even that outstanding level of production means that Vlad would only be converting one scoring opportunity in three, so he clearly needs assistance in picking up the slack.

Unfortunately, no one is doing that so far. The team, as a whole, is hitting 206/270/255 with runners in scoring position -- and this includes Vlad's outrageously good performance . Garret Anderson, who actually has one more plate appearance than Vlad in RISP situations (20 to 19 -- partially thanks to Vlad's being on base in 37% of his PA), is only 1-for-20 with 1 RBI in those situations. That's a lot of runner stranded, a lot of scoring opportunities wasted. Orlando Cabrera ranks third on the team with 14 plate appearances with RISP; he is 2-for-14 with 3 RBI.

Again, this will not continue. This is not a great offense, but they're not a bunch of .200 hitters, either. Garret Anderson is hitting .050 with RISP. That's just a fluke.

What is less of a fluke is the scarcity of run-scoring chances. The Angels have had 115 plate appearances this season with RISP, with a total of 170 runners on in those appearances. That's 9.6 such PA per game, and 14.17 runners per game (note that runners stranded for subsequent batters are double-counted). The Boston Red Sox, who have bashed us around for two days in Fenway, have 12 PA with RISP per game, with 20 runners per game.

And why don't we get runners into scoring position? Because we don't get runners on base, of course. I guess the fact that our .323 OBP ranks 7th in the AL thus far isn't terrible, but it's not too exciting, either, especially on the heels of a 10th-place finish in that category last season (our SLG thus far ranks an even worse 11th). And the runners we put on in front of the big gun, Vladi, aren't particularly good at reaching base.

Gary Matthews Jr.'s OBP thus far is .314; yes, it is obviously early and that means nothing in terms of evaluating him, but his performance last season marked only the second time in his career that he was able to sustain an OBP above the park-adjusted league average over a full season. Orlando Cabrera is actually off to a good start, but it's worth noting that last season was the first time he registered an OBP better than the park-adjusted league average, and even then he only did so by two points.

I worry that this is going to hurt us in the long run. If Matthews can't reprise last year's magic and The OC can't sustain his new-found on-base ability, RBI opportunities for Vlad (and Garret) won't mount up, and we already know we'll be lucky to convert one-third of the ones that do.

Is there a solution? My guess is that Kotch, Howie, and Ztu are all better candidates to set Vlad's table than Matthews and Cabrera are. But none of those guys are proven in such a role, so we are unlikely to see them get a shot there unless Matthews and Cabrera tank.

Our current #1 and #2 have shown, over their careers, that they can step up and create run-scoring opportunities. But they have also shown that they are unlikely to, and if that's the sad destiny they fulfill, and our younger players demonstrate such an aptitude, I hope our management will be willing to re-think the lineup and give Vlad and Garret some runners to actually clean up.

2007-04-11T11:17:00.000-07:00

PREVIEW!
The by-line's screwed up, but I co-wrote this Angel preview over at BTF. Can you figure out which part(s) I wrote?

2007-04-11T00:44:00.000-07:00

CHANCES ARE
Tango's Win Probability Chart in The Book says that, for an average team against an average team in an average ballpark, a visiting team on the road, in the top of the ninth, down by one with two outs, that team has an 8.2% chance of winning the game. Put that guy on second, and it's 11.6%.

So what's the breakeven point for trying to steal second? Well, you gain .034 wins for stealing the base and lose .082 (and the game) for getting thrown out. Running the math (1-(.034)/(.034+.082))) gets us a breakeven point of 70.7%.

Erick Aybar's career basestealing percentage in the minors was 65.1%. And last year Kelly Shoppach threw out 34% of baserunners, which is pretty good.

The breakeven point for the game earlier in the week where Aybar was thrown out to end the game was 68.9%, by the way. Now, we are talking about average players and teams here. But Howie Kendrick was at the bat this time ... well, he's probably better than average, even against the immortal Joe Borowski, which means the breakeven point is higher than it otherwise would be.

There's this whole other thing where successful steals often damage the guy at the plate (removing the extra hole on the right side, taking the middle infielders out of double-play depth), but anyway ... chances are we were going to lose anyway, and chances are Howie, as good as he can be, wasn't going to go 5-for-5. And I understand that sometimes you have to do suboptimal things to keep the opposition honest. But Erick Aybar, for all of his physical gifts, is no kind of basestealer, and it's silly for us to behave like he is and throw two games away.

2007-04-10T10:10:00.000-07:00

HALOPALOOZA
As I mentioned a post or two ago, the last half of last week saw me traveling, so I didn't have any opportunity to post here. Not only that, but as I was DVRing the games, I avoided all news of them to the best of my ability, and watched them all upon my return Sunday night.

Fast-forwarding between pitches and innings cuts down your watching time considerably, and though I'm used to it (I haven't seen a game live all season, and won't until this weekend at the earliest), four games in one day tend to run together. Suffice to say that I'm happy with the split and a 5-2 start.

I'm particularly happy with our starting rotation. Our weakest start thus far came from Joe Saunders, but even he was a mere one out away from a quality start and kept us in the game. He got let down by the bullpen (What! Frankie isn't perfect?!), but the other loss was dealt to Kelvim Escobar, who received the run support he has typically been given in Angel red.

Kelvim's run support, and whether or not his mediocre win-loss record coupled with his superb ERA and other stats means Kelvim just "doesn't know how to win", has been kind of a theme of the Halosphere for awhile now. Let's take another look at it.

You know about Game Scores, right? They're just this toy Bill James came up with for rating starts by pitchers. You start at 50, and get points for doing good things and lose points for doing bad things. It's not the most scientific process, but it's a good way to generalize the quality of different starts.

Here is every win Kelvim has as a starter with the Angels. He has pitched very well in those starts, averaging a game score of 60.4 and an ERA of 2.55.

What's kind of shocking is how he has done in his losses. Yeah, he's pitched poorly overall, with an ERA of 5.84 in losses, but his average game score is 47.0, just a bit below average. In his losses, by contrast, Bartolo Colon has an average game score of 33.4 ... and an ERA of 9.00.

Kelvim has gotten the shaft on non-decisions as well. Hell, let's just put it in a chart:

                            Pitcher
Avg Game Score in:    Goggles      Gordo
             Wins:      60.4        62.6 
           Losses:      47.0        33.4
     No-Decisions:      54.6        47.0

Though Bartolo Colon has pitched just a bit better than Escobar during wins (and that's a very slight difference, and you could make the argument it's a virtual tie), Escobar has pitched about just as well during his losses as during Colon's no-decisions, which is pretty crazy. Look at it this way:

                            Pitcher
W-L-ND with GS   :    Goggles      Gordo
              80+:     1-0-1       3-0-0
            70-79:     3-1-3      10-0-2 
            60-69:    10-2-3      11-2-0
            50-59:     9-8-3      11-4-2
            40-49:     1-8-6       5-2-3
            30-39:     1-6-2       0-3-5
              -29:     0-3-0      0-14-0

Here we see that Colon has both more outstanding and more horrible starts than Escobar, but what's really interesting is that middle section that I bolded. In game scores registered between 40 and 59, Kelvim is 10-16-9 while Colon is 16-6-5. That's a pretty incredible difference, and I have no reason to believe that it's something Kelvim has done to deserve this.

Let's take a look at the starts where each pitcher scored in that 40-59 range. You can view Kelvim's starts at these links.

Here are the opponents Kelvim faced in those games, their ERA+ for the season, and how many innings they threw that game (the "GS" for Game Score and "result" refers to Kelvim's GS and decision):

Opponent      Year    ERA+    Inn    GS   Result
J. Contreras  2006    109     8.3    59      L
M. Buehrle    2006     93     6.7    58      W
J. Lester     2006     97     6.3    58      W
S. Chacon     2006     70     4.7    58      W
J. Washburn   2006     93     6.0    57      L
E. Loaiza     2006     91     3.7    57      W
W. Ledezma    2005     60     5.3    57      W
R. Drese      2004    120     7.0    57      L
T. Lilly      2004    120     6.7    56      W
F. Garcia     2004    121     7.0    56     ND
G. Chacin     2006     93     7.0    55      L
J. Lester     2006     93     5.0    55      L
M. Redman     2004     99     5.3    55      W
E. Volquez    2006     64     5.0    53     ND
J. Blanton    2007    103     5.3    52      L
J. Garland    2004    100     7.0    52     ND
V. Padilla    2007     63     4.7    51      W 
M. Redman     2004     99     7.3    51      L
K. Loe        2006     80     7.0    50      L
J. Johnson    2004     88     5.0    50      W
L. Hudson     2006     95     6.3    48     ND
P. Martinez   2004    125     6.0    47      L
M. Mulder     2004    106     7.0    47     ND
C. Lee        2005    108     6.0    46      L
B. Radke      2005    109     7.3    46      L
S. Ponson     2004     90     9.0    46      L
K. Brown      2004    110     6.0    45     ND
B. Zito       2004    105     6.0    45      L
C. Janssen    2006     93     8.0    44      L
E. Loaiza     2006     91     5.3    43     ND
B. Zito       2004    105     7.0    43     ND
R. Drese      2004    120     6.7    43      L
J. Weaver     2004    103     6.3    42      L
T. Hudson     2005    125     4.0    40     ND
S. Elarton    2004     79     6.0    40      W
TOTALS/AVERAGES        99     6.2    50  10-16-9

Breaking that down a bit, Kelvim faced 19 pitchers with ERA+ marks below the league average (which is always 100), and averaged a game score of 52 in those games, going 9-7-3 against those opponents. Against pitchers with an ERA+ of 100 or better, Kelvim had an average game score of 49 and went 1-9-6.

This hints that Kelvim has not pitched as well when facing other good starting pitchers, and is the first indication I've come across that Kelvim may be at all responsible for his mediocre win-loss record with the Angels. However, remember that I'm looking at only a particular subset of Kelvim's starts here, not all of them. Some of his more outstanding starts, as measured by game scores, may have come against other good pitchers; I don't know.

On the whole, Kelvim in these games was average, and faced average opponents.

Let's look at Bartolo's starts that fit the same profile:

Opponent      Year    ERA+    Inn    GS   Result
C. Wilson     2005     65     4.7    59      W
R. Drese      2005     74     7.0    59      W
J. Towers     2005    120     6.7    58     ND
T. Wakefield  2004    100     4.0    58      W
J. Garland    2005    127     6.0    57      W
R. Halladay   2004    116     6.0    57      W
E. Bedard     2006    120     8.0    56      L
T. Hudson     2004    133     7.3    56      L    
B. Zito       2005    116     7.0    54      W
J. Harris     2005    103     3.0    54      W
T. Wakefield  2005    106     4.3    54      W
C. Park       2005     75     1.0    53      W
K. Ishii      2005     81     5.7    53      W
C. Park       2006     88     6.7    51      L
R. Franklin   2004     88     7.0    51      W
K. Benson     2004     97     8.0    51      L
C. Fossum     2006     87     5.7    50     ND
R. Hernandez  2006     75     7.3    49      L
P. Hentgen    2004     70     5.0    48     ND
J. Serrano    2004     95     4.7    47      W
C. Park       2004     93     5.3    46      W
R. Hernandez  2005     78     5.0    45      W
R. Johnson    2005    117     6.0    44      W
J. Bonderman  2005     93     6.0    43     ND
J. Moyer      2006    102     6.7    42     ND
B. Arroyo     2005     98     6.0    42      W
J. Santana    2004    182     7.0    41      L
                      102     5.8    51   16-6-5

Interestingly, Bartolo managed a better record in these games despite facing a higher quality of opponent than Kelvim, on average. However, those pitchers did not seem to have as good of days as they normally did, as they only average 5.8 innings per start as opposed to the 6.2 racked up by Kelvim's mound opponents.

14 of the 27 starts came against below average pitchers; Bartolo was 9-3-3 in those games with an average game score of 50. Remember, Kelvim had a score of 52 in games against such opponents, but only managed to go 9-7-3. (The quality of the opposing below-average pitchers was essentially the same, an 85 ERA+ for Bartolo's and an 87 for Kelvim's.)

This is another indicator, to me, of Kelvim's bad luck with offense. Kelvim faced opponents just as bad as Bartolo in these games, pitched just as well if not better, and had a much worse winning percentage.

Against good pitchers, Bartolo averaged a score of 53 while going 7-3-2; his average opponent in this category had an ERA+ of 123. Remember, Kelvim scored 49 while going 1-9-6; his opponents here had an ERA+ of 112. Interestingly, however, Kelvim's above-average opponents, despite being less good overall, average 6.5 innings per start while Bartolo's averaged 6.0. That suggests to me that the Angel offense did do well against these opponents, so while Kelvim's performance in these starts explains part of his record, the performance of the Angel offense is also a factor.

Anyway, this whole thing has gotten way out of hand. How long is this damn post? I don't know. But I will take notice this year of how Kelvim (and the Angel offense) does against other good starting pitchers, to see if he can be blamed if his mediocre fortune in garnering decisions continues.

By the way, if you've clicked on any of the links here, you can see how awesome Baseball Reference's Play Index is.

2007-04-04T14:52:00.000-07:00

FRANCISCO RODRIGUEZ, B.D.?
Well, Deadspin linked to this, so you've probably seen Derek Zumsteg's argument that K-Rod doctors the ball.

I don't know if you've gone back to look at the video or not, but I have, and ... I have no idea.

It's certainly not as clear-cut as Derek makes it seem. Frankie does touch the brim of his cap quite a bit, but he practically always follows it up with wiping his hand across his pants. Maybe he tucks his thumb and is just wiping his fingers, and it's all an elaborate ruse, or maybe that's just his tic while on the mound. Or maybe both.

Derek also exhorts us to observe how the pitches he throws after touching his cap differ in movement from those he throws otherwise, but as best as I can tell there's no pattern to this at all. The second strike Frankie throws to Brad Wilkerson (before which he touches the cap) looks just like the first strike (before which he doesn't). The only pitch with unique movement is the first pitch to Gerald Laird, a fastball that rides inside for a ball (all of Frankie's pitches but one were fastballs). A couple of the other time he touches his hat, he throws a ball.

So, I have no idea if K-Rod has his doctorate in ball ... doctoring or not, but if he does, I might suggest he stop, as the pitches that apparently arouse suspicion tend to suck.

(Incidentally, I went back and watched K-Rod's last save from 2006; he does substantially the same thing, touching his cap and then his goggles. Once again, there is no discernible difference in the movement of his pitches from one to another [he was slider-heavy in that outing, and mixes in his fastball with both the big and get-me-over sliders]. I glanced at some April outings, too, same thing. 2006 is as far back as the MLB.tv archives go.)

2007-04-03T10:39:00.000-07:00

THE GAME PLAN
Well, aside from John Lackey having a relatively short outing, Opening Day went pretty much according to plan. A strong enough outing from the starter, a few runs scrapped out here and there, and the bullpen closing the door in the last third of the game.

A few notes:

John Lackey did not look particularly good, with errant control of his fastball and slurve. He reverted back to the old pussy-footing around when he got behind in the count, getting cute with slurves (which weren't close enough to the strike zone to get anyone to bite) and foregoing his heat. Now, when Mark Teixeira is up with a runner in scoring position with two outs, fine, pitch around the guy. With guys on first and second and two outs? I'd prefer you not to walk the bases loaded, thanks.

And not only does this cowardice lead to baserunners, it also racks up the pitch count, which is going to keep Lackey from going deep into games, especially this early in the season.

Darren Oliver came in to face to left-handed batters and, shockingly, retired neither of them.

Oliver, over his career, hasn't had any kind of platoon advantage against the LHB (he's allowed an 810 OPS to RHB and 817 to LHB, a virtual tie). He's even had several seasons where lefties tag him even more than righties did, so he's miscast in a role where he's asked to only retire left-handers.

Are we so phobic of Casey Kotchman's "speed" leading to double plays that we're gonna hit-and-run with Shea Hillenbrand on base all the time? Okay, one of the instances last night was on a 3-2 count, so I dig that one. But late in the game a straight hit-and-run was put on early in the count; Casey flailed at a pitch at least a foot out of the strike zone to the side and at least a foot out of the strike zone toward the ground, and Hillenbrand got hosed from you to me. This was when Mike Wood was pitching; he couldn't find the plate at all there, and Kotchman drew a walk. The hit-and-run backfired there. Hillenbrand is no kind of speedster, so we should be careful about using this weapon.

It isn't the sort of thing you notice, but K-Rod exhibited some very nice pitching against Brad Wilkerson in the ninth. After falling behind 3-0, K-Rod came back with two fastballs to full the count. Instead of pulling a Lackey and getting cute with the breaking stuff, K-Rod kept coming at him with the fastball, garnering a flyout to deepest center.

While a fly to the warning track may look bad -- just a few feet another way and it's a home run! -- it was in fact the residue of design. With a three-run lead, Frankie knew that a home run wasn't going to hurt him, but that there's no point in walking a guy. If someone's going to reach base, make him earn it, don't give him a free pass. The K spotted his fastball perfectly on the outside corner, letting Wilkerson lay some wood on it in a place where he was unlikely to pull it over the rightfield fence or push it over the one in left. K-Rod let the ballpark work for him, and got one of the easier saves he should expect to see.

2007-04-02T17:21:00.000-07:00

OPENING DAY
Okay, let's get this show back on the road.

I have been distracted of late, and for the last week-and-a-half have had no kind of free time, but this is one of our great national holidays. It's time to get down to business.

I don't have any kind of preview post, because I wrote half of a team preview that will allegedly appear over at Primer. I don't know when that's going up, but I'll let y'all know when it does, of course.

Suffice to say I'm cautiously optimistic about the season. We should remain competitive in the division, and should expect to see a lot more production out of the right side of the infield than we did last year.

Anyway, I'll once again vow to be more active -- the season actually beginning should help with that. Of course, this vow immediately finds itself challenged with the fac that I'll be out of town near the end of this week, so don't panic. I see from my hit counter that my incredibly small but hopefully devoted fanbase is checking back in, so let's get to it.

First pitch in 86 minutes!

2007-03-01T00:42:00.000-08:00

BAD NEWS POSSIBLY GETS LESS BAD
SI.com is reporting that, in August of 2004, Gary Matthews Jr. was sent human growth hormone in care of a friend and former minor league teammate. (That is the current extent of the allegations -- not that he used, but it was sent to him -- though as a practical matter it's hard to imagine someone ordering human growth hormone and not using it, even assuming these allegations have basis in fact.)

How is this possibly less bad?

Well, in 2004, human growth hormone was not banned by Major League Baseball; the ban began in 2005.

IF Matthews took HGH in 2004 only, he would not have been in violation of any major league rules. We have yet to hear reports that he may have been sent any such substances in subsequent seasons. What's more, the notion that his career year in 2006 might have been fueled by PED would lose traction IF we were to find out that any usage on his part was also taking place over his two prior seasons.

There is still vastly more about this story we don't know than we do know, of course, and I do not wish to jump to any sort of conclusions at this juncture. I'm just examining possibilities based on the allegations put forward in the media.

2007-02-28T11:47:00.000-08:00

STEROIDS?
Well, a few weeks ago, I was planning to do a piece on whether or not we could expect Gary Matthews, Jr. to repeat the unprecedented offensive success he experienced last season. That's a piece I still intend to do, but it appears I may have been scooped by the district attorney of Albany County, New York.

As I'm sure you have heard, Matthews is listed as a client of a Florida pharmacy accused of distributing steroids and other PED. Matthews is issuing highly comforting statements like "Until we get more information, I just can't comment on it" and "I will address [my name being on the client list] at [the] appropriate time".

What does this mean, if anything? Who knows. Though it's natural that suspicion would fall on a 31-year-old having a career year in this day and age, at this point we don't really have any real evidence linking Matthews to PED use, and even if it were proved that he had used in the past, the actual effects of such usage on quality of play are somewhat nebulous.

Depending on the legs of the story, it could, however, provide as unneeded distraction and side circus for our team, which isn't optimal. But for now, we should wait and see, and hold out hope that Matthews' involvement with this pharmacy, if any, was legit.