Angel players you thought would become stars

[DCAngelsFan]

Hmm, "perennial all-star" is kind of a high bar ...

Start with the heart-breakers - Lyman Bostock  and Nick Adenhart 

Howie Kendrick - not sure how he ranks as a disappointment, averaging a 3+ WAR for us - yet, ppl still think he fell short

Dmac I was skeptical when I saw his actual at-bats, so wouldn't count him as a disappointment.  

Wood -  I think I did manage to convince myself that Wood was legit despite warning signs.  

Kendrys - I felt like he was on the cusp of becoming a star - after his (some word other than "break-out" 2009 season)

Escobar and Santana always teased, and before the injury, GRich seemed like to on the verge of becoming something really good - (I never had high hopes for him - his college #s were sick, and not in the good way...)

(There were times I would watch Santiago pitch and go "damn!  He could be a great pit..  oh, oops, never mind...")

edit:  I forgot Kotchman -  I looked forward to a guy who'd play good defense, and seemed like a contact hitter/doubles-machine - like maybe .280/350/.460 40 2b/15 hr - ok, no "star" but I'd take those numbers -  but he just never quite put it together  

[Claude]

We could certainly come up with a huge list of players that failed to become stars. 

Caleb Cowart

Tyler Skaggs 

Andrew Heaney 

Nick Tropeano 

Cam Bedrosian

 

 

 

 

 

[Justin]

8 minutes ago, RendZone said:

We could certainly come up with a huge list of players that failed to become stars. 

Caleb Cowart

Tyler Skaggs 

Andrew Heaney 

Nick Tropeano 

Cam Bedrosian

True, but most players fail to become stars. Did you think any of those five players were going to be one? I'm not disappointed that Caleb Cowart failed to become a star any more than I'm disappointed that I failed to become point guard for the Lakers. Howie Kendrick, on the other hand, hit .384 in his first year at Rancho Cuc (when I went to a lot of games) and I thought for sure he was going to win a batting title. I never imagined that he would only appear in one All Star game. 

[Claude]

18 minutes ago, SoPas Angel said:

True, but most players fail to become stars. Did you think any of those five players were going to be one? I'm not disappointed that Caleb Cowart failed to become a star any more than I'm disappointed that I failed to become point guard for the Lakers. Howie Kendrick, on the other hand, hit .384 in his first year at Rancho Cuc (when I went to a lot of games) and I thought for sure he was going to win a batting title. I never imagined that he would only appear in one All Star game. 

If you look back in Angelswin history all of these guys were over hyped in many threads. I expected a lot more out of Skaggs, Heaney and Tropeano. If they would’ve lived up to the hype we could’ve had a formidable 1-2-3 staff. 

[ten ocho recon scout]

2 hours ago, happybat4 said:

Yeah Garret racked up hits and stayed healthy. He definitely had trajectory to 3000 hits for a while. Finished with over 2500. He also rarely walked which helped. 

I just saw that recently, didnt realize he got so many.

I remember before arthritis hit, he was 3rd active in hits, for years, behind jeter and arod. 

Not sure he would have ever made it. But i still say that as overrated as he may be to some, hes underrated by others.

[failos]

Not a player, but Doug White

[DCAngelsFan]

35 minutes ago, RendZone said:

If you look back in Angelswin history all of these guys were over hyped in many threads. I expected a lot more out of Skaggs, Heaney and Tropeano. If they would’ve lived up to the hype we could’ve had a formidable 1-2-3 staff. 

Well, that's not really the question - it's who did *you* think would be a star but failed.  

I mean, did you think Borenstein was gonna be the next Mickey Mantle?  'cause I know at least 1 person was certain of it ... 

 

[Claude]

2 minutes ago, DCAngelsFan said:

Well, that's not really the question - it's who did *you* think would be a star but failed.  

I mean, did you think Borenstein was gonna be the next Mickey Mantle?  'cause I know at least 1 person was certain of it ... 

 

No but I was confident that Joc Pederson was going to be an Angels star. 

[happybat4]

On 4/19/2020 at 2:02 AM, McTheKnife said:

I remember Al Conin, Steve Physioc & Mario Impemba really getting excited about some of these guys.

Derrick Turnbow

Bobby Rose

Dave Frost

Ron Romanick

Junior Felix

Jason Dickson

Bobby Clark

 

I remember Turnbow had some great stuff. He did make an all star team in 2006 with Milwaukee. 

[Stradling]

1 hour ago, RendZone said:

If you look back in Angelswin history all of these guys were over hyped in many threads. I expected a lot more out of Skaggs, Heaney and Tropeano. If they would’ve lived up to the hype we could’ve had a formidable 1-2-3 staff. 

I agree screw the fans that have positive things to say about their favorite teams players.  How dare anyone be positive about anyone on their favorite team.  

Every single message board for a team has positive threads about young players.  And every single message board has a Clod to tell us all, “I told you so”.  

On a side note, only one guy was on Team Trop.  He was never going to be anything other than a back of the rotation arm.  

 

[Claude]

22 minutes ago, Stradling said:

I agree screw the fans that have positive things to say about their favorite teams players.  How dare anyone be positive about anyone on their favorite team.  

Every single message board for a team has positive threads about young players.  And every single message board has a Clod to tell us all, “I told you so”.  

On a side note, only one guy was on Team Trop.  He was never going to be anything other than a back of the rotation arm.  

 

I just don’t believe in hype. I remember when the Yankees signed some young kid named Brien Taylor. Every team including the Angels wanted him. He was touted as a can’t miss pitcher that threw 100 mph and was compared to Doc Gooden. He never pitched in the majors. 

I think that most highly touted young players end up underperforming and never live up to the hype. They have to prove it on the field. The majors is a completely different level that many can’t handle no matter how much we say they will. 
 

On a side note, “I told you so” doesn’t apply with me on this because I don’t pay much attention to the minor league system so I don’t give my opinion on guys that I’ve never seen play live. You apparently must be one of those guys that travels to a lot minor league parks to have an expert opinion on players. Or you read a lot of magazines. 
 

 

[Stradling]

I’m an expert at bullshit detecting.  If you’ve read my posts on here you’d know that by now. 

[Chuck]

5 hours ago, RendZone said:

If you look back in Angelswin history all of these guys were over hyped in many threads. I expected a lot more out of Skaggs, Heaney and Tropeano. If they would’ve lived up to the hype we could’ve had a formidable 1-2-3 staff. 

To be fair, I don't think any of us thought that Tropeano was going to be a star. We trade Hank Conger for him. 

Skaggs and Heaney were solid prospects, but none of us imagined they'd be All-Star status type guys. 

[Brandon]

8 hours ago, ten ocho recon scout said:

Some good choices here. 

Off the top of my head, the best name mentioned so far was Ortiz. He definitely did feel like he was going to be a stud for us.

Along the same lines, Ervin Santana. Still one of my favorite pitchers. His good years were always a tease.

This fits the bill and makes sense. In a sense, he was Ramon Ortiz 2.0.

He had the make up and the seasons to be close to ace caliber, but just couldn't put it all together.

But he also had the video with Jose Mota where he said, "I said, 'fuck it, lets pitch'" which makes everything better.