Angels Sign Shea Hillenbrand

Randy Johnson for Kotchman and someone else

hit who with a pitch?

Hillenbrand gets hit alot by pitches. last year him and Reed Johnson were 2 guys who got hit alot by pitches

Yeah I didn't mean you. I meant HIllenbrand vs. Gibbons.

Anyone see this as a potential Chone Figgens trade precursor ???

I don't think they should trade FiggIns. It's nice to have a guy that can play practically anywhere, when you need them to. He does make 8million+ over the next two years, but that isn't too insane in this market.

sorry eeleye99, I dident read the whole post.

Oh yeah, the Cubs should trade 3 good pitching prospects for Figgins...sounds about right.

I know. I was referring to last year's trade of Mitre, Nolasco, & Pinto for Pierre. Stoneman is seemingly reluctant to trade anyone and will ask the world for Figgins even if he is to be playing off the bench. Plus Figgins is very comparable to Pierre.

Is Figgins a lefty or a righty

Of course the Cubs fan thinks they should go after Figgons... You know what's halarious about Cubs fans.. Every single one of them will tell ya the Cubs are going to win the division and yet they want to trade for every player on earth... If they had a division winning team, why would you want to trade for almost every player mentioned in a trade rumor ???

Yes, & every Phillies fan spells Figgins wrong too. Seriously, just because 1 Cubs fan said to trade for him, let's pretend that every Cubs fan wants him & everyone out there for JJ. I thought my comparison to Pierre pretty much took care of my position on Figgins.

Giving up on McPherson at 3B?

forgot about him..

I meant they can't get over the hump in the playoffs. The division is open between them & the A's, but nobody from that division can stand up to the Twins, Tigers, Yankees, or Red Sox. They can get lucky, but it's improbable. Sorry I didn't state it like that, but that's what I was trying to say.

If the Cubs sign Floyd it would be the best signing of the offseason for this franchise.... He'll come cheap. He'll be the best left handed stick in the lineup. He'll compliment the rest of the pieces of the offense... If he stays healthy it has the potential to be the biggest steal of the offseason.... Did anyone see his 05 campaign ??? The guy can straight rake when he's healthy..

Yet only 1 team from that division has made it over the hump into the World Series since the wildcard playoffs began. Every year, there's too many better teams for them to get past them all. Too many teams that are better to make it into the big series. No matter how good they are against them in the regular season & even 1st round of the playoffs, there's not enough talent there to get them all the way. If you did a team ranking right now, how many people would rank them ahead of the Yankees, Red Sox, Twins, or Tigers. How many people may even rank the White Sox above them. So yes, I say "lucky" because, IMO, there's not enough there to make it all the way past these teams in the postseason. There were 6 teams with better records in the AL last year, they haven't done anything to get better while the Red Sox have. So right now, I'd rank them 6th or 7th in the AL. That's why I say they have to get "lucky" to get to the top.

rmaxx, how soon you forget, I hated the marquis signing, am still unsure of the derosa signing, and would much rather have ted lilly than Shea. No shit, they beat your Mets to get to the Series, but guess what THEY GOT LUCKY!!! They were lucky they were in the NL Central. They were lucky the Mets lost all their pitchers before the playoffs started. Then they were lucky the Tigers forgot how to hit the ball in the World Series. So, UNLESS THE ANGELS GET LUCKY enough to beat all the better teams than them in the playoffs, they don't make it. If they don't get lucky, then they have 5 years of GMJ instead of Ichiro, Jones, Hunter, or Cameron to stay unlucky.

To say that the Angels would be 'lucky' to go deep into the playoffs is ridiculous. You have to win seven games to get into the World Series. Seven. And you don't have to play five teams to get there. With the staff and bullpen the Angels have, and the division they're in, it's not that much of a stretch.

The last five or six years especially have shown that anything can happen in the postseason. The right team gets hot, they win the Series. Simple as that.

Is there an element of luck? Of course. But you can extend that logic until it becomes meaningless. I mean, look what you say about the Cards. "Then they were lucky the Tigers forgot how to hit the ball in the World Series." Uh, you think Cardinals pitching might have had something to do with that? I mean, with the way you talk about luck, I could say, well, the Red Sox were "lucky" Mariano Rivera blew a couple of games back to back.

Are the Angels fortunate to be in the AL West? Obviously. But if they get hot, and beat whoever to win it all (like they did in 2002), would it be strictly luck, the way you portray it? No. Just because one team beats another that might look better on paper doesn't mean they had to get lucky to do it.

That was obviously just a joke, hence the lol. I joke around alot with nrmaxx on here. It's fun, and I really don't konw how in the hell you take that as mocking the 4 years since the Angels won. Read between the lines.

The Tigers hit a collective .199 against the Cards in that series. The team hit .274 in the regular season. The Cards ranked 20th in MLB in ERA. So, no, I will not attribute the Tigers lack of hitting to the Cardinals unremarkable pitching staff. When the 20th ranked ERA outpitches the 1st, it's luck. They got hot at the right time & the Tigers got cold, that's luck. They faced all the right teams at the right team to win the Series. Kudos to them, but when a team who would have finished 3rd or even 4th in any other division in baseball wins the World Series, there's a whole lot of luck involved.

I never portrayed it as strictly luck. Yet again, you infer a whole lot the wrong way.

"The right team gets hot, they win the Series. Simple as that." Anyone can easily rewrite that as "The right team gets lucky, they win the series." Since they have to get lucky to get hot at the right time & unlucky to get cold at the wrong time. That is luck. A team getting hot & a team getting lucky at the right time are interchangeable phrases. It's not strictly luck (like I never said), but it does take some luck nonetheless. I don't know about you, but I'd rather have the better team going in instead of the team that needs to get hot (lucky) at the right time.

Their pitching staff & bullpen gave them the 6th best record in the AL last year. You can't argue against that or claim that it's only a position the general public gave them. So they're the sixth ranked team. I don't see where they've done anything to make themselves markedly better, while the Red Sox have. This isn't rocked science.

I still don't see where I portrayed it as simply luck. Just because I say it's improbable for the Angels to overcome their record from last year to be the best without ever developing their talent & signing anybody that will make a big difference? How many people think that they needed one more big bat to really contend? I don't think I'm in the minority there. Nor did they get that big bat. Since they didn't do that, not many people think they will be much better than last year. It's all just opinion, but that's an unstated & obvious statement. BTW, looking at "streaks" to see who's better, is another way of saying look at who's lucky enough to be in a hot streak while the other team is on a cold streak.

All the same, you've taken a small portion of what I've said and blown it out of porportion. My original point is that, if they want to be a trully great team, they should take a step back to translate their minor league talent into the majors by giving them full seasons to perform. Then upgrade where necessary. The GMJ signing was shortsighted because, if they would have taken that step back for 1 year, they could have been in a position o sign Ichiro, Jones, Cameron, or Hunter next year. The main point I was trying to make, before everyone went off about how it takes luck to win a World Series, was that they should have looked a little more long term instead of poorly patching a few holes for this next year. There, now blow every little word I said out of porportion & take them out of context as much as you want. I'm done with this conversation.

Izturis and Quinlan are proven at 3rd and both can hit. Both do have a history of injuries however, in a platoon situation they could both excel.
I don't think the Hillenbrand signing is really all that bad since he can play first and is much better defensively than what we had last year. The contract is only 1 year which gives Kotchman tiem to get his timing and Morales time to develop.
For those that say the Angels are not "markedly better" just remember that we have improved on our defense. If the Angels have half as many errors as they did last year, they are sure to get at least another 10-15 victories which would translate into nearly 100 victories. Its not ALL about the big bat.

The point of signing Hillenbrand was to replace the injured Juan Rivera until he gets back. Not to replace Figgy at 3rd. Hillenbrand could play 1b/3b/DH, the three key weaknesses the Angels have. He is a great bench player, but there is a possibility, after Rivera gets back, that he could win the job at first base if Kotchman doesn't perform well. All in all, he is a great fit for the Angels.

Am I missing a signing or 2? GMJ will help their defense, but half the errors? They had 124 errors last year, that got them the 4th most in MLB. And by half the errors of last year, that would mean they would have the least amount of errors in MLB. Show me how they improved so much to accomplish that. So how are they so superior than any other team I've named defensively? The Red Sox took a step back with Lugo, but enough to bridge the gap between the Angels 124 errors & the Sox 69? I don't think so.

"but the Tigers who lost handedly weren't unlucky?" I thought I made it clear that they were unlucky, that was the correlation I made between hot & lucky, or cold & unlucky. If you're playing a team that is in a cold streak, thereby unlucky, then you're lucky to catch them at that time.

"As far as the Cardinal's record last year there are many reasons for it being that bad and none of them have to do with being unlucky" Huh? My point was that, with the 13th record in baseball, they shouldn't have even made the playoffs. It was pure luck, not skill, that got them into the playoffs & by all conventional wisdom, they should have been knocked out in the first round because all the other teams they played against had much better records than them over a 165 game period. But the Postseason is a crapshoot & whoever is the hottest can win the crown.

If you look at who created the errors last year you'll notice that it was a team effort plus a lapse by the veterans. Vlad & Cabrera made more errors than they had in years. They had 2 catchers in the top 10 in errors committed. The important thing is that they still have these players & still plan on putting them on the field. So until these same players prove that they won't commit as many errors as last year, proposing that they are good defensively or going to lead the league in least amount of errors is very hard to swallow.

When you said "pitching or defense", like you did in the last line of the previous post, I thought you actually meant pitching OR defense. Either way, you shouldn't add defense into your argument when it works against you.

I do think that Boston is going to have a spectacular staff. I know there's a lot of IF's in there such as Beckett pitching like he should & like his peripherals suggest he can as well as how good D-Mat is & Papelbon translating his relief success into starting success, but I don't think that saying these 3 pitchers will be well above average #2, 3, & 4 spot pitchers is very far-fetched at all. Also don't forget that Boston's defense will help them while the Angels may not.