Angels To Stand Pat Again

is this post a test??? reggie willits is currently hitting .172

If the alcoholics anonymous definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different result, maybe they need to start drinking in Anaheim.

As much as they've benefited by taking Dallas McPherson, Erick Aybar and Jeff Mathis off the table when they had a ton of value, MAYBE they should consider bringing in a bat.

When you have no intention of giving a prospect a job or having blocked in multiple ways there is really nothing to gain by holding on to him.

Either open up a slot for the guy or move him.

Unlike the Tigers deal the Angels have plenty of prospects that they really wouldn't miss. Its not like they'd be cleaning out their system to pick up a bat.

And like has been already menitoned keeping the ones under Stoneman really did nothing for them other then kill the prospects value and stunt their development.

schellis ... do you follow the Angels? They happen to let their young guys play. Just look at the team and see how many players are home grown talents. I have also included their age.

C: Mathis (25)/Napoli (26)
1B: Kotchman (25)
2B: Kendrick (24)
SS: Aybar (24)
3B: Figgins (30)
OF: Willits (27)
Pitchers: Lackey (29) /Weaver (25) /Shields (32) /Rodriguez (26) /Santana (25) /Saunders (27)

Those are the major players. There are back-ups of course + young kids who have received a lot of AB's filling in for injuries this year.

I think the kids are getting plenty of playing time. Although I would like to see GA sit more.

oh wait, he's a 'clubhouse cancer'. haha, my bad. i guess it's better to have a 'fun' clubhouse get swept by the red sox again then it is to win a freakin' baseball game.

Has anyone been paying attention? The Angels are 48-31 and have the best road record in baseball and the third best record overall. They score enough runs to win, play in a park that isn't conducive to big power numbers and let the pitching and defense do the talking

"Angels need to score runs, Angels need runners on base to score runs, GMJ and G. Anderson don't get on base nearly as much as Willits. Time for someone to sit and let Willits improve on his small sample size Avg."

I like Reggie. Every Angel fan likes Reggie. The problem is, Reggie is Juan Pierre with more walks, less hits, a better arm and less power (if that is possible). The Angel lineup is already loaded with speed, whether it is raw basestealing with Figgins, Hunter, Kendrick and Aybar/Izturis or smart baserunning and extra-base speed like Anderson, Guerrero, Napoli/Mathis, etc. Everyone in the lineup and on the bench can run except Kotchman and Rivera (who could run before he broke his leg). The other problem is that the bat never gets off Reggie's shoulder, even on an 88 mph fastball down Broadway.

I understand that Anderson has been in a slump for the last month, but he still has the ability to drive the ball and has been hitting a ton of sharp outs. His BAbip for the last 28 days is .211 despite only 12 K's in that time. Same problem Maicer Izturis was having.

As for GMJ, the opposite is true. He is hitting .311 the last 28 days after a protracted slump where his BA dipped to .219, yet he was still driving in all kinds of clutch runs.

The problem with dumping either of them for Willits is that it is one less guy in the line up that the pitcher has to be scared of throwing a first pitch strike to, because it may well end up in the stands or off the wall.

"The Angels' problem is four automatic outs in every lineup."

Where do you get this idea? First, I really don't know where you are finding Aybar such a problem. So what if he doesn't walk, he has never walked. He hits the ball hard and plays game-changing defense. Second, the Mathis/Napoli platoon has not been hitting for a high average, but have you seen their power numbers? Despite a damn near 50/50 split, Napoli has hit 11 HR. Oh, and both play excellent defense.

Oh, and has anyone here looked at GA's clutch stats? He is hitting over .300 with RISP, Men On, 2 out RISP and Late and Close. Basically, his weakness has been with the bases empty, which is where a guy like him is least valuable to the team. Figgins is the one who should be getting on base. Anderson should be protecting Guerrero.

Wait...some combination of Willits and Rivera is the answer?! Huh????!!!!

"And I just wanted to add that I hate Anderson and Matthews, and feel both are pointless on this club"

You hate Anderson? The guy holds the vast majority of the important hitting records for the Angels. One can debate Matthews all day, but Anderson? You are out of your f'ing gourd. You seem to forget when he signed his extension just after the start of the 2004 season, he was coming off a year where he hit 49 2B, 29 HR, 116 RBI (the 4th of 4 straight with over 115), and lets not forget that OPS+ of 131, and did so despite practically zero lineup protection because of injury to Troy Glaus. It was that year where he was injured for the first time in his career and missed all of May and parts of April and June. Oh, and like you said, we shouldn't forget that Anderson was arguably the best player in baseball, and definately the best on the Angels in the second half of last year, and has been a second half player his whole career.

But go ahead, keep "hating" Anderson for being such a crap player.

"This, my friends, is called PURE LUCK."

No, its called great pitching and enough offense to get them the lead.

"the Angels are playing extremely above their talent level, they are getting smashed a lot and winning a lot of 1 run games."

Smashed? A few blow outs that every team faces? 1 run games? Of course they win 1 run games. They have Shields, Arredondo and K-Rod.

If anything, this team has been playing BELOW its talent level, given that Guerrero had the worst first 2 months of his career and both Figgins and Kendrick missed significant time with injury, while Napoli's OBP went into the tank because he f'ed up his swing. Hell, they have lost a few very close games as well that could easily have gone the other way. Sometimes Sabermetrics doesn't mean a thing.

"Sorry but the Angels are not as good as the A's this year when it comes to scoring runs and giving up runs."

And which team is 5 games down in the standings? It doesn't matter how many runs you score or give up, it matters when you do that. It doesn't matter if you score a ton of runs every other game and then don't in the others. You can score 20 in one, 0 in the other, average 10 runs a game and end up a .500 baseball team, even if you only give up 1 run a game, every game.

Sorry, but the A's are not nearly as consistent as the Angels.

"It's pretty obvious the Angels are playing over their heads. And consistency? Joe Morgan? Baseball isn't like most other sports where you can just turn it on whenever you want."

Again, how about taking a look at their gamelogs over at BR? They took a few slaughterings that heavily skew their numbers, it really isn't difficult to get that.

"Good club with everyone healthy, but it's pretty obvious that they have been lucky and they could really, really use another bat."

Another bat? They already have too many bats in the lineup. Much of their hitting problems resulted from games where they had Sean Rodriguez and Brandon Wood in the lineup at the same time, two rookies who really did prove to be essentially automatic outs, though Rodriguez did play game changing defense. Further, Vlad hitting .250 was a major problem, one that has gone away with his knee issues. Hunter is performing exactly how he was expected to with an OBP well above his career average. Kotchman has an even more microscopic K rate than last year. This keeps going on.

Also: is "game changing defense" the polished version of the "gritty hustle" turd?

AA dont stop please, Im laughing my butt off over here!

Athletic Domination:

Pythag's prediction one's record is somewhat accurate, but it does not take other things into account (slumps, injuries, etc...).

Last year, the Mariners were lucky according to Pythag (they had almost no injuries, and their pitching was god awful).

However, with the Angels the pythag's prediction did not take into account that Kendrick, Figgins, Maicer, and Aybar were hurt and that their offense was replaced by Wood and Rodriguez (both of whom where hitting around .100avg).

Kendrick and Figgins were hitting over .300 and Figgins OBP was over .400. Also, Vladimir was going thru a mini slump (now he's back on track).

You also have to take into account that Lackey replaced Aidenhart/Moseley, both of whom had an ERA over 9.00 combined and pitched horribly bad.

If you take those things into account you will see that the RS/RA will improve for the Angels, as well as their pythags.

I meant to say that Wood, Rodriguez, and Brown replaced Kendrick, Aybar, Figgins, and Maicer.

God those rookies played horrid.

ill make my post quick. if im an angels fan i hate my gm. the talent is there, the owner spends money, yet they have no offense. look at brandon wood, kendry morales, and whoever else used to be a big time prospect. they could have traded those guys and legitimately had a chance at a world series the last few years. GO GET A POWER HITTER. oh, and make sure hes not an outfielder

AA, you seem to take oblivious to new levels man…

1) “Really? Have you looked at his second half from last year? Apparently not, so here is the line.”

…Considering I was the one who first mentioned it I would have to say yes, yes I guess I have seen it… 1/2 year of production Raul Ibanez production doesn’t erase the fact that he hit like Jim Abbott in the first half though, not sure how you can feel otherwise…

2) Again with your Dunn vs Anderson obsession? Ok, we’ll do it again:

Dunn @27 ~ .386/.554/.940 / 136 OPS+ / 101 R, 106 RBI, 208 combined
G. A. @27 ~ .336/.469/.805 / 104 OPS+ / 88 R, 80 RBI, 168 combined
Dunn = +.050/+.085/+135 / +032 OPS+ / +13 R, +26 RBI, +40 combined…

Dunn @26 ~ .365/.490/.855 / 114 OPS+ / 99 R, 92 RBI, 191 combined
G. A. @26 ~ .325/.455/.780 / 99 OPS+ / 62 R, 79 RBI, 141 combined
Dunn = +.040/+.035/+.075 / +015 OPS+ / +37 R, +13 RBI, +50 combined

Dunn @25 ~ .387/.540/.927 / 141 OPS+ / 107 R, 101 RBI, 208 combined
G. A. @25 ~ .334/.409/.743 / 92 OPS+ / 76 R, 92 RBI, 168 combined
Dunn = +.053/+.131/+.184 / +049 OPS+ / +31 R, +9 RBI, +40 combined

Dunn @24 ~ .388/.569/.957 / 146 OPS+ / 105 R, 102 RBI, 209 combined
G. A. @24 ~ .314/.405/.719 / 82 OPS+ / 79 R, 72 RBI, 151 combined
Dunn = +.074/+.164/+.238 / +064 OPS+ / +26 R, +30 RBI, +58 combined

4 year total:
+.217 OBP / +.415 SLG / +.632 OPS / +160 OPS+ / +107 R, +78 RBI, +188 combined
4 year average:
+.054 OBP / +.104 SLG / +.158 OPS / +040 OPS+ / +27 R, +20 RBI, +47 combined

That sir, is kicking Andersons @ss in each and every way imaginable…

3) the “every 3 days off” thing was actually an exaggeration, but not much of one though ~ infact its true if you actually look at the numbers…

Guerrero = 52/79 starts in the field = 66% in field = 1/3 games as DH or bench
Anderson = 45/79 starts in the field = 57% in field = more than 1/3 as DH or bench
…I know they are pretty much a platoon for the DH and in the field otherwise, but they need it as much as using it as well. Shoot, from Mid-May till the end of the month they both actually were on a 2-field, 1-DH rotation…