The Moment It All Went Wrong

[LightTheHalo]

 

591-432 (.578) with four division titles beforehand ... 285-275 (.509) with zero postseason appearances since.

 

Discuss.

[LightTheHalo]

Excuse me. Five division titles.

[Brandon]

I was in Kansas City and watched it happened.

It really is this kind of random snake bitten type stuff that happens.

[eaterfan]

Vernon Wells trade.

[Chuck]

I was thinking about this earlier in the year when we faced K-Mo for the first time. The curse of the walk-off broken ankle?

[Scott34]

I think it's the fact that they don't wear those sweet uni's anymore.

[Ohtaniland]

We were still trailing Oakland and Texas before that injury.

 

 

http://espn.go.com/mlb/standings/_/date/20100529

[Chimi]

We haven't been to the playoffs since Steve Physioc and Rex Hudler left the broadcast booth.  Just sayin

[gurn67]

Signing the manager to an unprecedented 10 year contract (honestly, is there another manager who has ever received more than a 5 year deal) thus allowing him to have unprecedented control over a young, inexperienced GM.

[Angelsjunky]

I don't think you can narrow "it" to one event. For one, the Angels were 24-27 after that game, so hardly killing it. After that win the Angels won eight of their next nine games without Morales and were as high as nine games above .500 on June 29 (44-35). The they went 22-28 and the season was a lost cause.

 

I'd rather look at it in terms of a benchmarks that denote the decline of the franchise from the "Golden Age" of 2002-09. Basically from late 2009 until the present the Angels have made one bad move after another, with a few decent ones sprinked in. We've got the trades that sent top prospects away (Torres, Corbin, Skaggs, Segura). We've got the massive turnover after the 2009 season. At the time it made sense, and Guerrero and Lackey declined and Figgins collapsed, but they had been at the core of the 2004-09 team.

 

But for me the first truly terrible move was the Vernon Wells deal, especially after not signing Adrian Beltre. That's when the warning light started flashing for me that this organization in trouble. Even though we would have liked to see Corbin and Skaggs in the rotation this year, Dan Haren was one of the ten best starters in baseball and still in his prime. The trade was a good one. But the Wells trade was terrible at the moment it was dreamed up in the minds of whoever thought up that doozy (Scioscia?).

 

The Pujols contract was also a bad one. Exciting at the time, but we all knew 10 years was too long and for too much money, but we ignored that fact because it was "Albert Frickin Pujols."

 

But insult to injury part, and what has seemingly sent this franchise into a complete tailspin, was the 2012 offseason as a whole, but in particular the Hamilton signing. Just terrible. Nothing has worked out - not Hanson, Blanton, Madson, Burnett, or Hamilton. This is why Dipoto is rightfully in danger of losing his job - almost everything he's touched has turned out poorly.

 

To add all of it together, the main problem is that the Angels have tried to transition from one era of dominance to the next without re-building - just by spending lots of money. This only works if you SPEND WISELY, which the Angels haven't done. At all.

[disarcina]

Dumb responsive 'we gotta do something" moves like the GMJ, Wells contracts. Just dumb.

 

The Blanton signing, dumb then, dumber now.

 

While folks can criticize the Pujols signing (and length of contract) folks here must admit many of us were excited when that happened. It hasn't turned that well, but it's hard to really criticize that move without being a Monday morning quarterback type deal.

 

The Hamilton signing?? that's difference.....too much, too long......would have preferred Torri Hunter for another two years probably for less money per year than Hamilton -- and that's not sour grapes or Monday morning quarterbacking -- the reason Hunter was let go was primarily financial -- then suddenly we had the money to sign Hamilton to that five year deal??  Many of us then, and certainly now, would rather have taken a 'chance' on Hunter coming off one of his best offensive years of his career (2012) than a declining Hamilton, always a risk, and who's second half numbers in 2012 tailed off.....

 

Greinke is pitching lights out for the Dodgers right now but spent much of the first half on the DL and I cannot criticize the Halos for refusing to meet his out of sight contract demands.......

 

of course, Blanton etc. was not exactly the answer.

[Docwaukee]

I think it was a combo of the Kaz trade and then the 2009 playoffs. 

 

Fuentes giving up that Hr to Arod was just part of the story in that series.  The halos made 8 errors in 6 games with five unearned runs.  Kaz was absolutely brutal.  Pitching poorly in his start and then making an error in the 8th of game 6 with the halos only down a run and allowing the score to get out of control to lose the series.

 

I really think that series is what may have sent Arte over the edge.  He got so close and from that point, the halos have had an unnecessary sense of urgency. 

[ten ocho recon scout]

Agree with AJ and Doc.

I know someone pointed out a few days ago already, but adenhart is a big one. Aside from the tragedy in real life, that moved everyone up on the depth chart prematurely.

Vernon wells for napoli was...insane. and that wasn't even a hindsight bad move. Even had vernon been the same with us as with the jays, it wasn't worth giving up a catcher with similar production who was 20 million cheaper.

Failing to get beltre, as in failing to look at our own 3B options and the market for them.

Corbin and skaggs for haren. That one is bad now, but haren was a stud with is. What I dodnt get at the time was that as great as he and weav would be together (kershaw/grienke almost), we were desperate for a bat. The timing of the haren trade is what was wrong.

But yeah, morales was huge. It not only cost us our main moto threat, but did so for two years. That and adenhart are probably the two biggest factors that led to some of our panic moves.

[CaliAngel]

This was a turning point in this organization. This brought forth a string of bad luck and bad contracts and bad acquisitions many of which the repurcussions we are still seeing to this day.

 

In May 2010 the Angels had momentum building up for a succesful season, and after the freak accident the momentum immediately stopped, and the entire situation was all so mindnumbing. The second Kendrys went down this organization suddenly felt like it was missing its piece, while waiting for his recovery it began to crumble, and in turn with his botched surgury, began a snowball effect towards failure and bad luck.

 

We did not see a playoff game that season, and we have not seen a playoff game since.

 

(reposted from another thread)

[Jason]

This team is heavily subject to Murphy's Law.

[Bruce Nye]

When Scioscia was signed to that ten year contract, there was not one peep of disagreement here.  It was widely applauded.  But now, "everyone" knows it was a bad deal.

 

LOL

[Lou E Ville]

^{Saunders getting squeezed in the ALCS at Yankee Stadium. We had a chance til then.}

[Vegas Halo Fan]

When Scioscia was signed to that ten year contract, there was not one peep of disagreement here.  It was widely applauded.  But now, "everyone" knows it was a bad deal.

 

LOL

 

I wouldn't give a ten-year deal to anyone, period. A lot can change in a decade.

[notherhalo]

Sorry, all of you are wrong so far.....   here is the true beginning of the downfall:

 

[yvangelfan]

 Brandon Wood. He was to be our big bat. Didn't work out, and we've been searching ever since.

[Ohtaniland]

Come on, you know when it all started..............

 

http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=20030515&slug=webangels15

 

[Glen]

When Scioscia was signed to that ten year contract, there was not one peep of disagreement here.  It was widely applauded.  But now, "everyone" knows it was a bad deal.

 

LOL

 

 

 

I know this is aw.com and everything but...come on.  There were plenty of people (myself included) who at the very least thought the contract was too long.  

[Taylor]

One word:

 

Buttercup.

[Brandon]

I blame Alex Ocha for not sticking around.

[stormngt]

We were still trailing Oakland and Texas before that injury.

 

 

http://espn.go.com/mlb/standings/_/date/20100529

 

That team had serious  issues offensively.  We gave up on Vladdy and went with Matsui instead.  Abreau became a bust.  Morales was our only real offensive weapon in the middle of the order and his injury ended that.  We went with Abreu, Hunter, and Rivera as our mojo bats.  That team wasn't very good and should not have been ahead of Texas.  If I am not mistaken we finished ahead of Oakland that year.  That team was two games under 500 and that was a miracle.