Since we all hate the Rangers

[The_Outrunner]

 

[Keener]

This guy does these for a lot of teams.  The washington capitals one is best. 

Of course it is, i'm a pens fan.

[Keener]

 

[Angel Oracle]

Biggest LOL, having 18 year-old David Clyde pitch in the bigs just after being drafted out of HS in 1973, talk about the ultimate bad idea turning a pitcher into garbage.  

[Yellow Balloon]

17 hours ago, Angel Oracle said:

Biggest LOL, having 18 year-old David Clyde pitch in the bigs just after being drafted out of HS in 1973, talk about the ultimate bad idea turning a pitcher into garbage.  

True, but his starts filled the stadium and that team desperately needed the revenue.  Whitey Herzog pleaded with Short not to do it.  In fact the biggest mistake that franchise ever made was firing Whitey and bringing in Billy Martin for the quick fix.       

[Inside Pitch]

42 minutes ago, Yellow Balloon said:

True, but his starts filled the stadium and that team desperately needed the revenue.  Whitey Herzog pleaded with Short not to do it.  In fact the biggest mistake that franchise ever made was firing Whitey and bringing in Billy Martin for the quick fix.       

Interesting that years later the Angels would bring in Herzog in an attempt to manufacture their own quick fix...  He was the defacto GM (Dan Obrien Sr held the actual job title).  The only thing Whitey did was prove the game had passed him by.  He traded for or signed every over the hill broken down former STL Cardinal or NL washout he could....   Von Hayes, Hubie Brooks, Joe McGrane...   The Hayes acquisition was particularly costly as the Angels had to send their first round draft pick (9th overall), and at the time one of their best prospects (Kyle Abbott), and future Phillies GM Ruben Amaro Jr to Philadelphia to get him.   Hayes had managed all of 77 games the previous year and a .590ish OPS -- well below his career norms but Herzog was sure he would rebound despite what everyone else in the organization believed..   Hayes was out of baseball that year.   It was at Herzog's suggestion that the Angels pulled the trigger on the Jr Felix deal and chased after Gary Gaetti over retaining Chili Davis...   Gaetti flamed out and Felix was revealed to be as much as ten years older than his Dominican paperwork claimed.

 

[AngelsLakersFan]

1 hour ago, Inside Pitch said:

Gaetti flamed out and Felix was revealed to be as much as ten years older than his Dominican paperwork claimed.

 

Holy shit 10 years!?

No wonder Albert thinks he can get away with 4! 

[Stradling]

5 minutes ago, AngelsLakersFan said:

Holy shit 10 years!?

No wonder Albert thinks he can get away with 4! 

Nope

[Inside Pitch]

26 minutes ago, AngelsLakersFan said:

Holy shit 10 years!?

No wonder Albert thinks he can get away with 4! 

The funniest part of the Jr Felix situation is that even to this day -- nobody knows how old he really was.   MLB was able to rule out his initial claims, and the closest they were able to get was a birth certificate that showed he was 30 when it was believed he was 25, but the only legitimately documented paperwork that was actually certified that listed his given name in the town he claimed to be born in showed him to have actually been 35.   They were never able to verify that he was actually just 30 nor where they able to rule out he was actually 35....  So, the best that is known is that he was at least 30 at the time he was drafted away from the Angels...

[Blarg]

He was actually Sr Felix.

[AngelsLakersFan]

1 hour ago, Inside Pitch said:

The funniest part of the Jr Felix situation is that even to this day -- nobody knows how old he really was.   MLB was able to rule out his initial claims, and the closest they were able to get was a birth certificate that showed he was 30 when it was believed he was 25, but the only legitimately documented paperwork that was actually certified that listed his given name in the town he claimed to be born in showed him to have actually been 35.   They were never able to verify that he was actually just 30 nor where they able to rule out he was actually 35....  So, the best that is known is that he was at least 30 at the time he was drafted away from the Angels...

That's crazy... at the time was there any speculation about his true age? I mean 10 years is noticeable.

[Angel Oracle]

Is that Junior Felix in the Benchwarmers movie, claiming he's 12?

[Billy_Ball]

9 hours ago, Inside Pitch said:

Gaetti flamed out

 

And of course Gaetti had a career resurgence with KC and St. Louis. That 1992 team was so bad offensively.  Gaetti led the team with 12 HR and Felix led the team with 72 RBI. Regarding Hayes, I remember the Angels acquired him after he hit 0 HR (77 games) the previous year.   And who can forget the legendary Lee Stevens!

[Inside Pitch]

1 hour ago, Billy_Ball said:

And of course Gaetti had a career resurgence with KC and St. Louis. That 1992 team was so bad offensively.  Gaetti led the team with 12 HR and Felix led the team with 72 RBI. Regarding Hayes, I remember the Angels acquired him after he hit 0 HR (77 games) the previous year.   And who can forget the legendary Lee Stevens!

Gaetti found God and lost interest in baseball.  When he found the bottle, he misplaced God and started hitting again.  Not even trying to rip him.... that's his account of what happened.

[Billy_Ball]

7 hours ago, Inside Pitch said:

Gaetti found God and lost interest in baseball.  When he found the bottle, he misplaced God and started hitting again.  Not even trying to rip him.... that's his account of what happened.

Yeah, I remember that he said he became a Born Again Christian a year or so before signing with the Angels.

[Inside Pitch]

On 10/19/2017 at 2:13 PM, AngelsLakersFan said:

That's crazy... at the time was there any speculation about his true age? I mean 10 years is noticeable.

Pretty much the entire scouting department thought he was in his late 20s or early 30s when the trade happened, then he turned gray at 24 and pretty much everyone else assumed it too.  The Felix situation was possibly the biggest factor in the demise of Herzog and the elevation of Bavasi...  Fontaine, Bavasi, and Preston Gomez were all sure he was older, Preston particularly so.  Whitey dismissed their concerns as it being a case of them being unfamiliar with Latin players...    Preston Gomez, born and raised in Cuba, found that to be somewhat humorous.

[HeavenlyHalos]

Awesome stuff IP. Thanks for sharing!

[Stradling]

5 hours ago, Inside Pitch said:

Pretty much the entire scouting department thought he was in his late 20s or early 30s when the trade happened, then he turned gray at 24 and pretty much everyone else assumed it too.  The Felix situation was possibly the biggest factor in the demise of Herzog and the elevation of Bavasi...  Fontaine, Bavasi, and Preston Gomez were all sure he was older, Preston particularly so.  Whitey dismissed their concerns as it being a case of them being unfamiliar with Latin players...    Preston Gomez, born and raised in Cuba, found that to be somewhat humorous.

I love these stories. 

[Angel Oracle]

Makes one wonder what happened to the Herzog who helped to build the Royals in the 1970s?    Because his moves here all sucked!

[Inside Pitch]

3 hours ago, Angel Oracle said:

Makes one wonder what happened to the Herzog who helped to build the Royals in the 1970s?    Because his moves here all sucked!

The game changed -- chemicals became more commonplace and he was trying to remake those 70s and early Royals teams...   I don't think it was his vision of what a team should look like that sunk him as much as he may have been blind to how players were changing -- kind of funny but, he had tried to get Vince Coleman to Anaheim too ... arguing he could do for the Angels what Brett Butler was doing for the Dodgers. -- so, he may have just reached the point where he couldn't evaluate players like he had in the past..  Still, FWIW, Bavasi did actually give Whitey some of the credit for Anderson, Salmon and Edmonds, although Preston and others believed that was more a case of Bill being kind than anything Whitey had done.  

The Herzog era was pretty interesting -- for all the talk about how dysfunctional the franchise was during the MS/Dipoto era, it pales in comparison to the O'Brien/Herzog power stuggle.   O"Brien took the high road and claimed to have never not gotten along with Whitey, but Herzog had pretty much tried to undermine him pretty hard.  It was interesting because O'Brien was in fact the GM, but Whitey claimed he had been told he would be the final word on all baseball activities  -- the draft, the hiring and firing of coaches -- trades..  pretty much everything.   Best of all, some of you guys may remember but, Whitey was never in Anaheim.  The Angels got him a place in the city, but he did all his work remotely from St. Louis...  So while he was clamoring for control he was also completely absent..  The entire thing was a massive soap opera that somehow managed to not get fully played out in the press.

Bavasi FWIW came out of it looking like the shining knight -- he oversaw the infusion of talent, he had played nice with both Herzog and O'Brien, he was generally liked by everyone in the organization.. so moving him from farm director to GM was an easy call.  Preston used to say that his greatest strength was his ability to create relationships and form bonds -- with players, coaches -- clubbies.   Bill Bavasi treated people well.