Who do you got? Darin Erstad or Garret Anderson

[Michifan]

Bollinger has a top five homegrown players article. He gives his top five that were drafted by the club and then played for them. I like the top five overall but wonder about his #4. He has Erstad, and it's hard to overlook Erstad's defense and his couple of really good years. But he neglects Garret Anderson. I think it's a tough call. Weave as #5 makes sense so that you have two pitchers-Finley and Weave. 

So I'm curious to what others think for #4 Erstad and his gold gloves and one phenomenal season or Anderson's stead contributions over his career. According to Wikipedia, "He holds Angels franchise records for career games played (2,013), at bats (7,989), hits (2,368), runs scored (1,024), runs batted in (RBI) (1,292), total bases (3,743), extra base hits (796), singles (1,572), doubles (489), grand slams (8), RBI in a single game (10) and consecutive games with an RBI (12)" That's pretty impressive. 

I guess it's like asking which child you like most. Maybe it needed to be a tie and have six actual listed. 

[T.G.]

Anderson > Erstad.

[Erstad Grit]

It's a tough one. Erstad is one of my favorites ever but I think GA deserves the objective nod.

Percival and K-rod deserve a mention

[floplag]

Anderson, all day, i think hes perhaps one of the most underrated in franchise history personally. 

[Erstad Grit]

6 minutes ago, floplag said:

Anderson, all day, i think hes perhaps one of the most underrated in franchise history personally. 

I think one could argue GA was better than Salmon

[floplag]

10 minutes ago, Erstad Grit said:

I think one could argue GA was better than Salmon

Salmon is one of my all time favs so thats rough for me, but you could make that argument sure. 

[ten ocho recon scout]

Erstad is my fave. But Anderson was always right next to him.

As far as rankings, Id put GA over him. I dont remember him ever having a bad year. I know advanced stats dont like him, but he was always a good at bat.

[EdmontonAngelsFan]

Anderson and that silky smooth swing so much fun to watch. One of my fav Angels growing up.

I also like Erstad too because when I was 9 I sent all the Angels on the team at that time mail to have them send me a signed card. Only Erstad and Percival sent me something back, so I thought that was pretty awesome.

But I take GA over Erstad in this conversation.

[Pancake Bear]

Biggest case for Anderson is longevity. He was only occasionally really good. Most of the time, he was just steady, but he did that for a long time. Between him and Erstad it's close and could go either way, tbh. 

45 minutes ago, Erstad Grit said:

Percival and K-rod deserve a mention

^^^

In the end, it just depends what you prefer. Anderson was a mainstay in the outfield for us for a long time. That's worth something, even if he wasn't the most dynamic player as far as results.

[Inside Pitch]

41 minutes ago, Erstad Grit said:

I think one could argue GA was better than Salmon

That would be a losing argument.  

[T.G.]

1 minute ago, Inside Pitch said:

That would be a losing argument.  

In other words, put your gun back in the holster and walk away.

[Inside Pitch]

1 minute ago, T.G. said:

In other words, put your gun back in the holster and walk away.

I always believed GA was underrated, not because of offense but rather because his defense was a lot better than people gave him credit for -- his lone season in CF he won the sabermetric gold glove and that little spin turn move he would do in LF stopped runners dead in their tracks.   But he wouldn't dive so a lot of people thought he was a bitch.   That said, as good as his defense may have been he wasn't in Tim Salmon's class as a hitter and the gap was pretty significant.  GA was a compiler, Salmon was a rates guy that helped an offense beyond padding his counting totals.

One guy finished his career 28% better than the league average hitter, the other 2% better.   That pretty much says it all.

[gotbeer]

Tough one.  The big thing with Erstad was he was versatile on the field, and played the positions at GG caliber.  

When you go WAR, Erstad has a carreer WAR of 32.3, where Anderson is at 25.7.  And this is mainly from dWAR where Erstad is at 10.8 and Anderson a -3.8.  Where oWAR Erstad is at a 18.2 vs 23.4.  

I think that's about right.  Anderson was clearly the better offensive player, but Erstad was the better defensive player.  Both contributed mightily to the 2002 run.  

I'd lean towards Erstad, just because he was a complete player on both sides.

@Michifan It would be nice to link the article so we could see who the 5 were.  

[T.G.]

1 minute ago, Inside Pitch said:

I always believed GA was underrated, not because of offense but rather because his defense was a lot better than people gave him credit for -- his lone season in CF he won the sabermetric gold glove and that little spin turn move he would do in LF stopped runners dead in their tracks.   But he wouldn't dive so a lot of people thought he was a bitch.   That said, as good as his defense may have been he wasn't in Tim Salmon's class as a hitter and the gap was pretty significant.  GA was a compiler, Salmon was a rates guy that helped an offense beyond padding his counting totals.

One guy finished his career 28% better than the league average hitter, the other 2% better.   That pretty much says it all.

[Stradling]

I didn't read the list, but here are my top 5 in order:

Trout

Salmon

Finely

Anderson

Weaver

If I was going to extend it to 10 I would add, in no particular order.

Frankie

Percival

Joyner

Erstad

Glaus

[T.G.]

1 minute ago, Stradling said:

I didn't read the list, but here are my top 5 in order:

Finely

You chucked that one.

[Stradling]

1 minute ago, T.G. said:

You chucked that one.

no, just no.

[Inside Pitch]

3 minutes ago, Stradling said:

I didn't read the list, but here are my top 5 in order:

Trout

Salmon

Finely

Anderson

Weaver

If the list is for homegrown players and how good their careers were period..

Trout
Edmonds
Finley
Salmon
Glaus
 

[Angelsjunky]

Does Jim Fregosi not count? He was originally signed by the Red Sox but taken in the expansion draft and played a full year for the Angels AAA team. If so, he should be in there.

[T.G.]

4 minutes ago, Inside Pitch said:

If the list is for homegrown players and how good their careers were period..

Trout
Edmonds
Finley
Salmon
Glaus
 

[Catwhoshatinthehat]

Erstad was a stud defensively, hustled his ass off every game and played with an intensity you always want at least one player on the team to have.  That said offensively he had 3 seasons with an OPS+ above average one of which was his 2000 season which was a major outlier and the only season he hit over .300 when he hit .355.  GA had 8 seasons with an OPS+ above average, six of which were in a row, his career batting average was .293 and he wasn't a slouch defensively despite the jokes on the board.  During a 5 year stretch he averaged 28 HR's and 112 RBI's which many of us fans (myself included) probably didn't appreciate as much as we should have as it happened when other guys were roided out putting up video game numbers.  Had GA and Erstad played in a different era they would have gotten a lot more recognition across baseball.  I'm not trying to take anything away from Erstad who I loved watching play but career wise it's GA and I don't think it's that close.

[Inside Pitch]

2 minutes ago, Angelsjunky said:

Does Jim Fregosi not count? He was originally signed by the Red Sox but taken in the expansion draft and played a full year for the Angels AAA team. If so, he should be in there.

I excluded him because he was originally from outside the organization, but he's definitely a top 5 guy if you base it on guys who made their debuts as an Angel.

He'd bump Salmon down to number 5 for me.

[Inside Pitch]

16 minutes ago, Catwhoshatinthehat said:

Erstad was a stud defensively, hustled his ass off every game and played with an intensity you always want at least one player on the team to have.  That said offensively he had 3 seasons with an OPS+ above average one of which was his 2000 season which was a major outlier and the only season he hit over .300 when he hit .355.  GA had 8 seasons with an OPS+ above average, six of which were in a row, his career batting average was .293 and he wasn't a slouch defensively despite the jokes on the board.  During a 5 year stretch he averaged 28 HR's and 112 RBI's which many of us fans (myself included) probably didn't appreciate as much as we should have as it happened when other guys were roided out putting up video game numbers.  Had GA and Erstad played in a different era they would have gotten a lot more recognition.  I'm not trying to take anything away from Erstad who I loved watching play but career wise it's GA and I don't think it's that close.

A big reason why people underrated GA is because he played beside Erstad.  They saw Erstad running into walls and throwing himself all over the place so GA gliding all over the place made them think he was lazy or "not trying". 

I personally have always believed that the very thing that made Erstad "Erstad" likely ended up hurting him career wise.  Dude was always playing hurt due to some run in with; the ground, a wall, a base, a mountain, a DC comic book villain.  He just didn't have it in him to dial it down and for a lot of the later part of his career it was to his and the team's detriment.  Both would have benefited from him being healthy and on the field.

Dude was the best red-ass in Angels history.

 

[failos]

1 hour ago, ten ocho recon scout said:

Erstad is my fave. But Anderson was always right next to him.

As far as rankings, Id put GA over him. I dont remember him ever having a bad year. I know advanced stats dont like him, but he was always a good at bat.

This

[Angelsjunky]

Career-wise I'd also rank Devon White and maybe Wally Joyner over Erstad and Anderson, but they spent a lot of years outside the org.