Jump to content
  • Welcome to AngelsWin.com

    AngelsWin.com - THE Internet Home for Angels fans! Unraveling Angels Baseball ... One Thread at a Time.

    Register today to join the most interactive online Angels community on the net!

    Once you're a member you'll see less advertisements. Become a Premium member and you won't see any ads! 

     

IGNORED

Jonah Keri OVER/UNDER article


Recommended Posts

http://grantland.com/features/mlb-2014-over-under-bets-yankees-mets-indians-angels/

 

"Still, this team carries a lot of “ifs.” Santiago, Skaggs, and Garrett Richards offer a modicum of upside given their youth, but they’re also so untested that the Angels are reportedly considering an eight-man bullpen, which would be a silly misuse of roster space. We can’t ignore Pujols’s age concerns or the possibility of more injuries this year, nor the chance that Hamilton’s swing-at-everything approach might not play that well if his bat speed and reaction time have truly started to slow. The bullpen has been shaky for several years now, and the acquisition of Joe Smith might not be enough to compensate for the pedestrian relievers around him. Throw in some very tough AL West competition, with Texas and Oakland likely vying for the division crown again and the Mariners improving their offense by leaps and bounds, and we get an Angels team that could win the 88 games required to lose this bet, but that would need to have almost everything go right for that to happen. Well, everything, or a Mike Trout cloning program."

 

Keri is a pretty smart baseball guy and generally pretty friendly to the Angels.  Hard to argue with anything he says here.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hard to disagree with him.  We do have a lot of "ifs."  But most teams do, of course.  We simply don't have the depth to deal with any significant injuries.  If our young guys both perform and stay healthy, we will be a good team, but we could be a Santiago/Skaggs implosion away from being a 75-win team. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Good write-up. I think 87 is a safe number, although could see anything from 80-95, depending upon how things go. 87 is if there's an even split in terms of luck and health and young players developing.

 

The interesting thing about the Angels is that if everything goes well (which it never does, except in 2002), then this is a 95-win team and the best in the division. That's if: Trout repeats or exceeds 2013, Pujols and Hamilton bounceback solidly, Weaver doesn't decline too much, Richards, Skaggs, and Santiago all learn quickly and pitch well, and the bullpen holds out.

 

But that's a lot of moving parts - a lot can go wrong. 87 wins accounts for some things going well, some not so well. 80 wins is another disaster scenario.

 

All I'm hoping for, at this point, is a return to competitiveness. I miss September games mattering. I know they mattered in 2012, but in three of the last four years they basically didn't matter (2011 was close).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Good write-up. I think 87 is a safe number, although could see anything from 80-95, depending upon how things go. 87 is if there's an even split in terms of luck and health and young players developing.

 

The interesting thing about the Angels is that if everything goes well (which it never does, except in 2002), then this is a 95-win team and the best in the division. That's if: Trout repeats or exceeds 2013, Pujols and Hamilton bounceback solidly, Weaver doesn't decline too much, Richards, Skaggs, and Santiago all learn quickly and pitch well, and the bullpen holds out.

 

But that's a lot of moving parts - a lot can go wrong. 87 wins accounts for some things going well, some not so well. 80 wins is another disaster scenario.

 

All I'm hoping for, at this point, is a return to competitiveness. I miss September games mattering. I know they mattered in 2012, but in three of the last four years they basically didn't matter (2011 was close).

And that is why baseball is so great.  Did anyone expect everything to go right for the Red Sox last year?  Of course not, but it did.  So much can happen once the games start.

 

I think we are all going into this season with lower, more realistic expectations than the last two years.  And while I don't expect this team to win more than 85 games, I could absolutely see it happening if some guys really step up.   

 

And I actually think this team could be in a decent position going forward.  We have quite a bit of young talent in Trout, Calhoun, Skaggs, Santiago and Richards, and even guys like Kendrick, Aybar and Weaver are not quite old enough to be in their decline phase. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...