AngelsWin.com

By David Saltzer, AngelsWin.com Senior Writer

For those of us old enough to remember the series on TV, imagine this article narrated by Leonard Nimoy.

The story of the offseason has been mostly written. Chapter one was to focus on the starting pitching. Chapter two was about the need to improve the bullpen. Chapter three delved into the need to improve third base. The rest of the book was a deep analysis of the failure to get off to a winning month of April.

Unfortunately, the analysis to date about the failure to get off to a hot start in April has mostly focused on the wrong aspects. So far, most of the focus has been on ways to change the players’ routines in Spring Training and not on the real issue that has plagued the team: the lack of a clear identity.

Looking back at the Angels’ record in 2013 tells a more complex story than just a problem with Spring Training workout regimens. The 2013 Angels lacked a team identity that can be easily shown by looking at its win-loss record.

Overall, the 2013 team had a win-loss record of 78-84 (.481). On the surface, this record doesn’t look so bad. However, a deeper look into the record reveals that the team played with three distinct personalities based on who they were playing. Instead of playing at a consistent level against all opponents as a team, as a team, they consistently played at the level of their opponents. This can be shown by looking how the 2013 Angels did playing against their A. L. West rivals, how they played at home in general, and how they played against all the other teams that went to the playoffs.

Against their divisional rivals, the 2013 Angels did not show a strong identity. They were not confident and did not come out to beat those teams. Overall against the A.L. West, the Angels were 32-44 (.421). That means that the 2013 Angels had a winning record against every other team that they played (46-40 or .535). One team in particular, the Rangers, literally sank the Angels by winning 15 out of the 19 games played. The Astros, who posted an overall .315 win-percentage garnered nearly 20% of their total victories against the Angels by taking 10 out of 19 games. That level of play against divisional opponents is unacceptable. Losses to divisional rivals hurt doubly as they lower your place in the standings while raising theirs.

Similarly, the 2013 Angels did not show that a winning character where they should have—at home. We all, about the advantages that come with being the home team whereas typically teams play better at home than they do on the road, using the comforts and advantages of their home ballpark to secure extra victories, the 2013 Angels had a 39-42 record (.481) both at home and on the road. Every other team that went to the playoffs in 2013 had a substantially better record at home than they had on the road. That failure by the Angels to win at home not only hurt them in the standings, but also in the turnstiles as fewer fans turned out to see the team struggle at home.

Considering that the 2013 Angels overall had a losing record, there was one area where they truly excelled. When they played teams outside the A.L. West who ultimately went to the playoffs they had a surprising win-loss record of 20-18 (.526). In 2013, the Angels played the Cardinals, Dodgers, Indians, Rays, Reds, Red Sox, Tigers and even with all their problems were able to post a positive record. They even managed a seasonal sweep against the Tigers (winning 6 games) showing that they could pull out victories against the best teams in baseball. While this should give Angels fans hope for 2014, it also shows that the 2013 team lacked a consistency in its identity.

One of the beauties of a team sport is watching a group perform at a level that exceeds the sum of the individuals on the team. Championship caliber teams regularly do this. They play with heart. They walk with swagger. They have an identity. They beat the teams that they should beat (the weaker opponents). They win against their divisional rivals, taking the series against each of them. They play over .500 against the best the league has to offer.

Under Mike Scioscia, the Angels have definitely learned the lesson of “one game at a time.” In its essential form, it means to focus on just the game at hand and to not let things that happened in the past affect the performance of the present or future. It’s not always easy to “turn the page” and let things go, but, over the course of a 162-game season, it is an essential skill.

However, at the same time, in order for teams to play with a passion, they need an identity around which they can rally. They need a leader who can inspire, motivate, and push the rest of the team to perform at a higher level. As the expression goes, they need someone who can “carry the team on his back” for a while—someone with determination and grit.

Last year, the Angels did not have that person. As individuals, they had the talent to beat the best in the game. And, their win-loss record showed that. However, as a team, they could not maintain that against the teams they needed to beat (their divisional rivals) and the teams they should have beat (everyone else—especially those with sub-.500 records). They did not have the person who could carry the team on his back and could raise the overall level of play for the team.

This is not to blame anyone. Pujols’ injury made it impossible for him to maintain his elite level. And, Pujols demonstrates his leadership best when he performs at an elite level on the field. Think back to how he played from June on in 2012. I can still picture him after hitting one of his 50 doubles cheering and clapping on 2nd base trying to lift the team.

It’s also not fair to put this burden on Trout because he is still too young to carry an entire team. Most people his age are still in college or deep within the Minor Leagues rather than performing at the level he is.

And, it’s not fair to place the blame on Josh Hamilton. One cannot be a team leader in his first year with an organization. Furthermore, he had nagging injuries for most of the season that sapped his skills until the end of the season.

Leadership is not a skill that can be taught. While it can be refined and improved to a limited extent, either one primarily has that as a skill or one does not. We all know what it’s like to have a good leader to follow, whether it was in the military, on a sports team, or as a boss. We also all know what it’s like to not have that. We feel rudderless and lost.

This lack of leadership helps explain why the Angels have gotten off to slow starts consistently for the past few years. Without the presence of a strong leader, the team has stumbled out of the gate until it figures out its identity for the year.

This lack of an identity also explains what was the prequel to this offseason’s book: the signing of Don Baylor and Gary Disarcina as coaches. It’s not surprising that both have long ties to the organization. Unlike Pujols and Hamilton, both of whom came over as free agents, both are known to all levels of the organization and can immediately begin to exert immediate influence on the team.

Make no mistake about it: even with Baylor and Disarcina, the mantra of one game at a time will continue. No matter what, the Angels will have tough losses in 2014 and will need to be able to get past them before more damage is done.

However, what Baylor and Disarcina will provide is a steady presence in the clubhouse that will push the team onto greater accomplishments from the get-go. They will provide the identity and leadership until the clubhouse gels and team leaders are established. They will be the steady hand on the oar which will allow Scioscia to focus on the bigger issues of the season.

In listening to all the interviews with the Angels management and former players, everyone has talked at length about the “presence” that the new coaches will bring, particularly the “presence” of Don Baylor. Even Bobby Grich on KLAA radio talked about that with Victor Rojas and Terry Smith. That “presence” is what the Angels have been missing and needing in order to do better. In time, the players will take over and define their roles as leaders and will form a new team identity based on their own personalities. Until then, though, it will be up to Baylor and Disarcina to provide that steady push to get the team to win the games that they should win and to win the games that they need to.

In time, I believe that Trout will become a vocal team leader. He learned a lot from Torii Hunter and will hopefully absorb more from Baylor and Disarcina. Ultimately, he will bat third in the lineup and can provide the clutch hits to lift the team.

I also believe that this year that Hamilton and Pujols will also provide more leadership this year. Both feed off of their successes and will be better able to do so now that they are healthy. C.J. Wilson and Jered Weaver will both lead at the front of the rotation and the bullpen will be more secure with the addition of Joe Smith. In all, the 2014 team is on the right path to forming its unique identity. Angels fans should be confident about the 2014 team so far. Through minor tweaking and key upgrades to the rotation and bullpen, this new team should be substantially better at the start of the season.

Los Angeles Angels Tickets View the full article

Also, kudos to Angel25Fan for redesigning our banner logo and creating the one to go along with this article.
 
Eye candy type good, Brian. Well done!

By Senior Writer David Saltzer, AngelsWin.com -  Happy New Years Angels fans & AngelsWin.com faithful. The Announcement you have all been waiting for is finally here! It's time to celebrate an anniversary, and one that will be celebrated over the entire course of the 2014 calendar year. (More details on that later)

Ten years. That’s a long time. In internet years, that’s almost an eternity.
Think back: where were you 10 years ago? What were you doing? Where did you go to talk Angels baseball?
They say that all it takes for good things to happen is that someone stands up and says I’ll do it. And that’s how AngelsWin.com started—Chuck Richter looked around the internet at the limited options for Angels fans and decided that Angels fans needed and deserved an internet site to call their own. He created AngelsWin.com: a website by Angels fans for Angels fans.
If you go back that far with AngelsWin.com, give yourself a gold star. Heck, go ahead and give yourself 5 gold stars—Lee won’t mind.
When AngelsWin.com started, it was a small group of friends who got together to talk Angels baseball. There was a lot to talk about: The memories of the 2002 Championship Team were still strong. Arte Moreno made a big splash by signing Vladimir Guerrero, Bartolo Colon, and Kelvim Escobar. The team seemed poised for a spectacular run.
Not one to be complacent, Chuck wanted to do more than just talk about the Angels. He wanted to help shape the conversation. So, he started reaching out to members on the site and leveraging contacts with the Angels to give Angels fans their own unique perspective where they would drive the course of the conversation.
By doing that, AngelsWin.com became dubbed the “Voice of the Fans” by KNX 1070 AM Radio. Whenever they, or for that matter any media outlet, needed an Angels fan’s perspective, they contacted AngelsWin.com. Whether it was providing commentary for USA Today during the playoffs, commenting on the Dan Haren trade on XM Radio, or giving a perspective on the ongoing negotiations between the team and the City on CNN Latino, AngelsWin.com has been there to be the voice of the fans.
As the website grew, Chuck wanted to branch out into all things related to Angels baseball. For hardcore fans, that meant branching out into all levels of the organization. AngelsWin.com started providing prospect lists, bios, and updates. As the connections between the website and the players grew, we got them to write blogs on our site to give fans a unique perspective into their lives. Over time, we began to advertise with Angels affiliates.
As the collection of writers grew, more possibilities opened for the website. At first it was a few interviews, almost all of which were audio recorded. Hours were spent transcribing them for fans to make them useful for fans. In time, it grew to video interviews and holiday greetings.
Through the steady and professional work put forth by the website, the Angels front office began to pay attention to AngelsWin.com. They became more receptive to our interview requests giving us the chance to truly shape the conversation. AngelsWin.com arranged for online chat interviews with Eddie Bane, the Director of Scouting for the Angels. He gave fans true insights into the development of players who would go on to become staples of the team. Soon, doors opened with Abe Flores, Tony Reagins and Jerry Dipoto.
With content like that, more fans kept coming. Soon AngelsWin.com was busting at the seams and the website needed to be redesigned to handle the volume of traffic. Shortly thereafter, a second redesign had to be done. And by 2013, we had already done our 4th expansion to handle all the Angels traffic. What had once been a little chatboard had become mainstream.
AngelsWin.com has always been about the community. And, there’s no better way to build community than to get people together in person. So, in 2006, a group from AngelsWin.com decided to meet up in Spring Training. At a bar called Hail Marys they met, ate food, drank suds, and relished in Angels’ stories. And thus, the Spring Training Fanfest was born.
But, as with the website itself, the Spring Training Fanfests grew until they too burst at the seams. Within a few years, the crowd could no longer fit into Hail Mary’s—a new location had to be found. Soon, getting together just once a year as a community wasn’t enough; a summer Fanfest at the Big A was added including charity events dedicated to raising funds for the O.C. Miracle League. Even that has grown in just a few short years to include a charity golf tournament, a golf tournament, and a whole weekend of fun.
In 2012, Arte Moreno, the Angel’s owner attended our Spring Training Fanfest to take questions directly from the fans. Since then, Jerry Dipoto, the Angels General Manager, Tim Salmon, and all the Angels reporters have come to speak with our ever growing community.
Along the way, AngelsWin.com got credentialed to sit in the press box. Then, we got credentialed to be in the clubhouse and conduct interviews. And, finally, we were invited to the press conferences where we were allowed to ask a question on live national TV!
But really, AngelsWin.com is all about you, the fans. It’s about the community that comes here daily, follows us on Twitter and Facebook, and engages with one another.
So, how shall celebrate our 10-year anniversary? By honoring you, our fans. Over the next year, we will be interviewing members of our community to tell their stories, to share their favorite memories, to relive their greatest moments.
Of course we will continue to do all that makes AngelsWin.com THE internet home for Angels fans. We will continue to debate all things that are Angels baseball. We will continue the Fanfests. We will continue to provide content, news, and prospect lists. We will have our game day chats and our interviews.

As we begin the second decade of our existence, we want to thank you, our fans for making it all possible. What started as an idea from Chuck Richter has grown into so much more. As each of you has joined our site and encouraged others to come, we have continued to grow and expand our offerings to make AngelsWin.com truly a 24/7 community by Angels fans, for Angels fans. View the full article

By Senior Writer David Saltzer, AngelsWin.com -  Happy New Years Angels fans & AngelsWin.com faithful. The Announcement you have all been waiting for is finally here! It's time to celebrate an anniversary, and one that will be celebrated over the entire course of the 2014 calendar year. (More details on that later)

Ten years. That’s a long time. In internet years, that’s almost an eternity.
Think back: where were you 10 years ago? What were you doing? Where did you go to talk Angels baseball?
They say that all it takes for good things to happen is that someone stands up and says I’ll do it. And that’s how AngelsWin.com started—Chuck Richter looked around the internet at the limited options for Angels fans and decided that Angels fans needed and deserved an internet site to call their own. He created AngelsWin.com: a website by Angels fans for Angels fans.
If you go back that far with AngelsWin.com, give yourself a gold star. Heck, go ahead and give yourself 5 gold stars—Lee won’t mind.
When AngelsWin.com started, it was a small group of friends who got together to talk Angels baseball. There was a lot to talk about: The memories of the 2002 Championship Team were still strong. Arte Moreno made a big splash by signing Vladimir Guerrero, Bartolo Colon, and Kelvim Escobar. The team seemed poised for a spectacular run.
Not one to be complacent, Chuck wanted to do more than just talk about the Angels. He wanted to help shape the conversation. So, he started reaching out to members on the site and leveraging contacts with the Angels to give Angels fans their own unique perspective where they would drive the course of the conversation.
By doing that, AngelsWin.com became dubbed the “Voice of the Fans” by KNX 1070 AM Radio. Whenever they, or for that matter any media outlet, needed an Angels fan’s perspective, they contacted AngelsWin.com. Whether it was providing commentary for USA Today during the playoffs, commenting on the Dan Haren trade on XM Radio, or giving a perspective on the ongoing negotiations between the team and the City on CNN Latino, AngelsWin.com has been there to be the voice of the fans.
As the website grew, Chuck wanted to branch out into all things related to Angels baseball. For hardcore fans, that meant branching out into all levels of the organization. AngelsWin.com started providing prospect lists, bios, and updates. As the connections between the website and the players grew, we got them to write blogs on our site to give fans a unique perspective into their lives. Over time, we began to advertise with Angels affiliates.
As the collection of writers grew, more possibilities opened for the website. At first it was a few interviews, almost all of which were audio recorded. Hours were spent transcribing them for fans to make them useful for fans. In time, it grew to video interviews and holiday greetings.
Through the steady and professional work put forth by the website, the Angels front office began to pay attention to AngelsWin.com. They became more receptive to our interview requests giving us the chance to truly shape the conversation. AngelsWin.com arranged for online chat interviews with Eddie Bane, the Director of Scouting for the Angels. He gave fans true insights into the development of players who would go on to become staples of the team. Soon, doors opened with Abe Flores, Tony Reagins and Jerry Dipoto.
With content like that, more fans kept coming. Soon AngelsWin.com was busting at the seams and the website needed to be redesigned to handle the volume of traffic. Shortly thereafter, a second redesign had to be done. And by 2013, we had already done our 4th expansion to handle all the Angels traffic. What had once been a little chatboard had become mainstream.
AngelsWin.com has always been about the community. And, there’s no better way to build community than to get people together in person. So, in 2006, a group from AngelsWin.com decided to meet up in Spring Training. At a bar called Hail Marys they met, ate food, drank suds, and relished in Angels’ stories. And thus, the Spring Training Fanfest was born.
But, as with the website itself, the Spring Training Fanfests grew until they too burst at the seams. Within a few years, the crowd could no longer fit into Hail Mary’s—a new location had to be found. Soon, getting together just once a year as a community wasn’t enough; a summer Fanfest at the Big A was added including charity events dedicated to raising funds for the O.C. Miracle League. Even that has grown in just a few short years to include a charity golf tournament, a golf tournament, and a whole weekend of fun.
In 2012, Arte Moreno, the Angel’s owner attended our Spring Training Fanfest to take questions directly from the fans. Since then, Jerry Dipoto, the Angels General Manager, Tim Salmon, and all the Angels reporters have come to speak with our ever growing community.
Along the way, AngelsWin.com got credentialed to sit in the press box. Then, we got credentialed to be in the clubhouse and conduct interviews. And, finally, we were invited to the press conferences where we were allowed to ask a question on live national TV!
But really, AngelsWin.com is all about you, the fans. It’s about the community that comes here daily, follows us on Twitter and Facebook, and engages with one another.
So, how shall celebrate our 10-year anniversary? By honoring you, our fans. Over the next year, we will be interviewing members of our community to tell their stories, to share their favorite memories, to relive their greatest moments.
Of course we will continue to do all that makes AngelsWin.com THE internet home for Angels fans. We will continue to debate all things that are Angels baseball. We will continue the Fanfests. We will continue to provide content, news, and prospect lists. We will have our game day chats and our interviews.

As we begin the second decade of our existence, we want to thank you, our fans for making it all possible. What started as an idea from Chuck Richter has grown into so much more. As each of you has joined our site and encouraged others to come, we have continued to grow and expand our offerings to make AngelsWin.com truly a 24/7 community by Angels fans, for Angels fans. View the full article

By Greg Bird, AngelsWin.com Staff Writer - 
2014 has begun and it is time to look forward to the freshness of the New Year. Last year’s failures are behind us, the excitement of tomorrow is ahead. It is a time of hope, but is it reasonable for Angel fans to have hope? We don’t yet know what the pitching staff will look like but the offense is set. Can the 2014 Angels be as productive as last year’s team? Does the loss of Trumbo’s power signal the end of their offensive productivity?

What do the numbers say? In 2013 the Angels scored 733 Runs, 7th best in the MLB. Even with the failure of new superstar Josh Hamilton and the injured campaign of future Hall of Famer Albert Pujols the team was a top tier offense. The power of Trumbo and the superb sophomore season of Mike Trout carried the team and plated a ton of runs.

T&T have been split up, the dynamite is gone. What will happen now? Let’s look back at last year and see just how much of the offense each player was really responsible for creating. We will not look at RBIs since those are a team stat and only possible because teammates were successful getting on base. Simply put, the hitter is not responsible for the number of guys on base when he comes to the plate. The hitter who got on base gets credit for being on base, not the hitter. 

RBIs are clearly a team stat. This article is not another in a long litany defending this point. Please go online to FanGraphs, Beyond the Box Score, or SABR and to learn more about this. I will simply assume this to be true and move on to another way to evaluate a player’s offensive contribution, wRC.

Weighted Runs Created (wRC) is a counting stat, unlike its counterpart Weighted Run Created Plus (wRC+). Other counting stats are Homeruns, Runs, RBIs, Hits, etc. wRC+ tells us how good a player was compared to other players in any given year and wRC tells us how many runs that player is responsible for in a given year. wRC+ has no penalty for playing time whereas wRC is earned each at bat (AB) and fewer ABs means fewer chances to create runs.

wRC assigns a run value to each action by a player on the field. Each action either adds (HR, SB, walk, etc.) or subtracts (strikeout, CS, fly out, etc.) from a player’s wRC. You may wonder how accurate this is. Last year the Angels had a team wRC of 741. The number one offense in the MLB, Boston, scored 853 Runs and had a wRC of 863. The AL West winning A’s scored 767 Runs with a wRC of 743. It isn’t a perfect match due to the random variation of sequencing. In the end the numbers are very close.

2013 Offense

The following chart will only account for the primary offensive players throughout 2013. It won’t add up to 741 since some of the runs were created by backups or fill in players. I am also including the plate appearance (PA) data because a player may create fewer runs but it may happen in fewer PAs which is inherently more valuable. I have also included each player’s wRC+ stat so we can see how their performance compares to the league.



If the Angels hope to replicate last year’s offense than they need to at least repeat these numbers. Can they do it again? Let us turn to two different methods of analyses, publicly available projection systems and a simple conservative fan’s assumption. My favorite player projection system, ZiPs, has not come out on the Angels so we will look at Steamer and Oliver. First let’s just look at an honest fan’s assessment.

2014 Fan’s Perspective

Let’s assume a few players approximate their performance last year. I could see the Iannetta and Conger tandem creating a similar number of runs next year. Conger could get more playing time and take a step forward, but let’s not assume that. It is reasonable that our middle infielders could have a very similar season next year as well. They didn’t seem to have career years in 2013. They seemed to be perfectly average years for each player. Let’s pencil them in for the same production. Finally, let us also assume Trout maintains performance similar to last year. I have no idea how long he can keep being that good but I see no reason except for injury that he should regress.

Now, let’s look at the superstar question marks. Let us just assume Hamilton only maintains his performance from last year. I hope he improves, but even if he doesn’t he can still create 72 runs next year. I don’t think Pujols will only get 443 PA next year. Let’s use Pujols’ 2012 wRC of 100 as template for what he could conservatively do while healthy in 2014. That isn’t a spectacular year for him just average. That improves the offense by 46 runs.

Finally, let us look at the replacements. Bourjos and Trumbo are gone and we all hope Shuck is now a 4th outfielder. That means I’ll cut Shuck’s wRC in half for reduced playing time and subtract out Peter and Mark’s wRC. That is a combined 125 runs. That leaves us with a 79 run deficit. Can the new players create enough runs to replace this?

What will Freese provide for the Halos? Last year Freese had a wRC of 60 in 462 PAs. If David is able to get 600 PAs and only perform like last year then he could create 70 runs. How about Calhoun? In 222 PA Calhoun created 31 runs. If we extrapolate that out to 600 PAs then he could create around 80 runs. Lastly, what about Ibanez? Last year he had a wRC of 66. If he doesn’t come close to that next year then we should see CJ Cron midseason. I am going assume Ibanez is worse than last year but is still passable creating only 50 runs.

If we add up those three guys wRC we get 200. We had a 79 run deficit from players lost. This means the offense nets a 121 additional runs in 2014. This would mean a team wRC of approximately 862. This means this offense could conservatively be as good as Boston’s last year, the best in Baseball.

2014 Projection’s View

The two projections available on New Year’s Day are Steamer and Oliver. Oliver assumes 600 PA for each player while Steamer tries to project PA as well as numbers. The following chart is their predictions for next year.



Steamer has the Angels top 10 players creating 691 runs. When we compare it to last year’s top 11 players who only created 649 runs we see a 42 run improvement over last year. It is safe to assume the bench could at least create 50 runs to get the team to 741 runs. Last year the bench got more at bats and it produced 92 runs. Steamer has the Angels’ offense likely improving over 2013’s.

Oliver is harder to look at because it assumes a full 600 PA for each player. If we total up Oliver’s wRC we get 735 but we know Conger and Iannetta are sharing time and Ibanez is only part of a DH platoon. If we add up Iannetta and Conger’s wRC and cut it in half we get a wRC of 67.5. If we assume about 450 PA for Ibanez we get a wRC of around 40 according to Oliver. This reduces the 735 team wRC to 655. This is about 6 runs better than last year. According to Oliver the Angel offensive top 10 will be at least be equal to last year’s team.

Conclusion

I can’t wait to see what ZiPs says and I have a feeling that the ZiPs projections might even show a better outcome than these two. The final outcome of next year’s Angels will ultimately come down to the pitching staff. We all know this already. The good news is that next year’s offense should be able to at least replicate last year. It is within reason that the Angels hitters could be the top offensive team in the league. The outcome of all of these offseason moves is yet to be seen but again the Front Office has followed a logical and reasonable process to make them. Let’s hope Jerry can improve the pitching staff now and get the team back into contention. 


Los Angeles Angels Tickets

View the full article

Also, kudos to Angel25Fan for redesigning our banner logo and creating the one to go along with this article.
 
Eye candy type good, Brian. Well done!

Thank you all for your kind comments. It really means a lot to myself and everyone who has put an effort into the success that AngelsWin.com has reached.

It's really not that interesting. Teams sign 5-6 guys every year to deals just like this.
This one is getting more pub because of Mulder's history and the fact that his agent likes to read his name in the paper.

I rike it

Also, kudos to Angel25Fan for redesigning our banner logo and creating the one to go along with this article.
 
Eye candy type good, Brian. Well done!

I'll just echo the congrats that have already been posted here...
Congrats on a great run to Chuck and everybody else involved in keeping this community going!
I've long said that this is my first stop for news everyday; Angels or otherwise.  We have a lot of good people here that break news better than any of the "news" networks.
 
I'm thankful for AW, its members, content, news, arguments, GC, Angels-insights, and get-togethers for good causes (like the softball tourney to benefit the Miracle League).
 
I can't say enough good things, and resolve to try harder to help build the membership.

Thank you all for your kind comments. It really means a lot to myself and everyone who has put an effort into the success that AngelsWin.com has reached.

By Senior Writer David Saltzer, AngelsWin.com -  Happy New Years Angels fans & AngelsWin.com faithful. The Announcement you have all been waiting for is finally here! It's time to celebrate an anniversary, and one that will be celebrated over the entire course of the 2014 calendar year. (More details on that later)

Ten years. That’s a long time. In internet years, that’s almost an eternity.
Think back: where were you 10 years ago? What were you doing? Where did you go to talk Angels baseball?
They say that all it takes for good things to happen is that someone stands up and says I’ll do it. And that’s how AngelsWin.com started—Chuck Richter looked around the internet at the limited options for Angels fans and decided that Angels fans needed and deserved an internet site to call their own. He created AngelsWin.com: a website by Angels fans for Angels fans.
If you go back that far with AngelsWin.com, give yourself a gold star. Heck, go ahead and give yourself 5 gold stars—Lee won’t mind.
When AngelsWin.com started, it was a small group of friends who got together to talk Angels baseball. There was a lot to talk about: The memories of the 2002 Championship Team were still strong. Arte Moreno made a big splash by signing Vladimir Guerrero, Bartolo Colon, and Kelvim Escobar. The team seemed poised for a spectacular run.
Not one to be complacent, Chuck wanted to do more than just talk about the Angels. He wanted to help shape the conversation. So, he started reaching out to members on the site and leveraging contacts with the Angels to give Angels fans their own unique perspective where they would drive the course of the conversation.
By doing that, AngelsWin.com became dubbed the “Voice of the Fans” by KNX 1070 AM Radio. Whenever they, or for that matter any media outlet, needed an Angels fan’s perspective, they contacted AngelsWin.com. Whether it was providing commentary for USA Today during the playoffs, commenting on the Dan Haren trade on XM Radio, or giving a perspective on the ongoing negotiations between the team and the City on CNN Latino, AngelsWin.com has been there to be the voice of the fans.
As the website grew, Chuck wanted to branch out into all things related to Angels baseball. For hardcore fans, that meant branching out into all levels of the organization. AngelsWin.com started providing prospect lists, bios, and updates. As the connections between the website and the players grew, we got them to write blogs on our site to give fans a unique perspective into their lives. Over time, we began to advertise with Angels affiliates.
As the collection of writers grew, more possibilities opened for the website. At first it was a few interviews, almost all of which were audio recorded. Hours were spent transcribing them for fans to make them useful for fans. In time, it grew to video interviews and holiday greetings.
Through the steady and professional work put forth by the website, the Angels front office began to pay attention to AngelsWin.com. They became more receptive to our interview requests giving us the chance to truly shape the conversation. AngelsWin.com arranged for online chat interviews with Eddie Bane, the Director of Scouting for the Angels. He gave fans true insights into the development of players who would go on to become staples of the team. Soon, doors opened with Abe Flores, Tony Reagins and Jerry Dipoto.
With content like that, more fans kept coming. Soon AngelsWin.com was busting at the seams and the website needed to be redesigned to handle the volume of traffic. Shortly thereafter, a second redesign had to be done. And by 2013, we had already done our 4th expansion to handle all the Angels traffic. What had once been a little chatboard had become mainstream.
AngelsWin.com has always been about the community. And, there’s no better way to build community than to get people together in person. So, in 2006, a group from AngelsWin.com decided to meet up in Spring Training. At a bar called Hail Marys they met, ate food, drank suds, and relished in Angels’ stories. And thus, the Spring Training Fanfest was born.
But, as with the website itself, the Spring Training Fanfests grew until they too burst at the seams. Within a few years, the crowd could no longer fit into Hail Mary’s—a new location had to be found. Soon, getting together just once a year as a community wasn’t enough; a summer Fanfest at the Big A was added including charity events dedicated to raising funds for the O.C. Miracle League. Even that has grown in just a few short years to include a charity golf tournament, a golf tournament, and a whole weekend of fun.
In 2012, Arte Moreno, the Angel’s owner attended our Spring Training Fanfest to take questions directly from the fans. Since then, Jerry Dipoto, the Angels General Manager, Tim Salmon, and all the Angels reporters have come to speak with our ever growing community.
Along the way, AngelsWin.com got credentialed to sit in the press box. Then, we got credentialed to be in the clubhouse and conduct interviews. And, finally, we were invited to the press conferences where we were allowed to ask a question on live national TV!
But really, AngelsWin.com is all about you, the fans. It’s about the community that comes here daily, follows us on Twitter and Facebook, and engages with one another.
So, how shall celebrate our 10-year anniversary? By honoring you, our fans. Over the next year, we will be interviewing members of our community to tell their stories, to share their favorite memories, to relive their greatest moments.
Of course we will continue to do all that makes AngelsWin.com THE internet home for Angels fans. We will continue to debate all things that are Angels baseball. We will continue the Fanfests. We will continue to provide content, news, and prospect lists. We will have our game day chats and our interviews.

As we begin the second decade of our existence, we want to thank you, our fans for making it all possible. What started as an idea from Chuck Richter has grown into so much more. As each of you has joined our site and encouraged others to come, we have continued to grow and expand our offerings to make AngelsWin.com truly a 24/7 community by Angels fans, for Angels fans. View the full article

Mike Trout: The 400 Million Dollar Man?
by Joe Tevelowitz, AngelsWin.com Columnist -   At the halfway point between the end of the World Series and the start of Spring Training, now is as good of a time as any to look at the realistic possibility that Mike Trout becomes the first 400 Million Dollar Man in Major League Baseball.  After the Yankees got a slap on the wrist for even mentioning the value of giving a long-term contract to Mike Trout, discussing the matter purely hypothetically in comparison to not giving the decade deal to Robinson Cano, the fear of missing out on a career of Trout has to at least be in the pit of every Angels fan's stomach.   It's not every day the Angels bring a future Hall of Famer up through their system or that people are willing to speak of a guy who has only played two full seasons as a future Hall of Famer.  However, after two seasons that had Mike Trout being mentioned in the same breath as Mickey Mantle and nearly pulling off the Rookie of the Year/MVP double dose that has only been accomplished by Ichiro and Fred Lynn, predicting Trout's plaque in Cooperstown isn't insane.  However, the 400 million dollar question is: what hat will be on that plaque.   It's reasonable to suggest that most Angels fans would jump at the chance to lock up the Face of the Franchise (and maybe soon-to-be face of the league) for as many years as humanly possible.  To do so will likely require a contract that even A-Rod in his prime was never offered.  And A-Rod provides an important starting point in looking at the pros and cons of giving a baseball player a contract that would eclipse the GDP of an island nation, and ostensibly tie the fortunes of a team to the relative continued or predicted success of one player.   Alex Rodriguez left the Seattle Mariners for the Texas Rangers not because of any ties to the Texas region, any belief in the Rangers ability to contend, or any feelings of wanting to build something new away from rainy days of Seattle.  Rodriguez left for a $252 million dollar offer that was over 25% more than the deal received by his closest shortstop contemporary, Derek Jeter, that same year.  As ridiculous as it might seem in hindsight for Rodriguez to be valued so much higher than Jeter, Alex Rodriguez's accomplishments to that point and potential were enough for a team to put it all on the line to bring him in.  In signing A-Rod, the Rangers weren't just banking on a guy who, in his first full season, recorded the highest batting average for a right-hander since DiMaggio to go with 36 home runs and 123 RBIs. Nor were they paying for the third member of the 40-40 club.  Or even for the kid who took the Mariners to the ALCS, hitting over .400 in the playoffs, the season after the Mariners dealt Randy Johnson and Ken Griffey, Jr. to give Rodriguez the proverbial mantle as the team's superstar and foundation.   What the Rangers did by offering over a quarter of a billion dollars to a guy playing one of the most demanding positions in baseball was bank on the fact that Alex Rodriguez could change the entire perception of a team and transform the Rangers from a team with Texas as their prefix to THE Team of Texas.  And while Rodriguez was offensively great in Texas (200 hits and 50 home runs his first season, leading the league in home runs, RBIs and total bases his second, and winning his first MVP during his third year), the Rangers finished last in the West each year.  As exciting as A-Rod was offensively, the team sucked with him, and that record of losing made the Rangers decide he wasn't worth the investment.  And so, the New York Yankees, everyone's least favorite rich uncle, stepped in, picking up A-Rod and his enormous deal, aside from the $67 million Texas paid to send the shortstop/future third baseman away. And the Yankees, with their media deals and winning obsessed owner, would end up giving Rodriguez a new deal seven years later that eclipsed even that which A-Rod received from the Rangers, and would basically keep him in pinstripes past a point when anyone not named Julio Franco should still be playing baseball.   The interesting thing about Rodriguez is what happened to the teams he left. After watching the soon-to-be-deemed A-Fraud depart for Texas, the Mariners went on to win an American League record 116 games, thanks in large part to Ichiro's arrival, but also to an overall mindset change in a franchise that, after losing their three biggest stars in a three-year span, committed to team baseball and made the playoffs in consecutive years for the first (and only) time in the franchise history.  The Rangers, upon releasing the Alex albatross into the Hudson, won 18 more games than the previous season.  You would think losing a player deemed to be worthy of the largest contract in all of sports would hurt a team.  However, the Angels know from personal experience, this is not always the case.   The Angels have lost out on big free agents before.  The team has even saw players they thought would stay with the team move on for greener, dollar-wise, pastures.  However, Arte Moreno's purchase of the team has also accompanied some of the greatest free agent signings in team history, specifically Vlad Guerrero in 2004 and Albert Pujols prior to the 2012 season.  The Pujols signing in particular represents the Angels taking aim at being not just a team with Los Angeles now stuck on in front of their name, but becoming THE team of Los Angeles.  What better way to do that, then by signing a guy considered one of, if not the greatest hitter of his generation, and one of the few last great sluggers untainted by the brush of performance enhancers.  And after helping the Cardinals to the World Series during his last season in St. Louis, the Angels could find comfort in bringing a proven winner to their team.   Of course, Pujols' arrival, while exciting, delivered only three more wins than the previous year.  The Cardinals were not deterred by the departure of their greatest player since Stan Musial, making it to game 7 of the NLCS that season and returning to the World Series the following season. Obviously comparing the relative success of one team with another and basing it just on the juxtaposition of just one player is unfair, and not really that instructive.  However, two years into a deal that follows only the two A-Rod contracts as the largest in baseball history, the Angels no longer see Albert Pujols as the definitive face of the franchise, nor the guy who could remake the entire identity of the squad.  That mantle has passed to the fresh-faced kid from New Jersey, who could conceivably get a deal worth more than the 10 year Pujols contract and 5 year Josh Hamilton deal, combined.   So, is Mike Trout worth it?  If asked to do it again, would the Rangers pay $252 million for A-Rod, knowing they would end up paying just to trade him away after three years?  Would the Yankees have extended Rodriguez at $275 million on a deal they're now secretly hoping that steroid accusations and baseball suspensions will allow them to get out from under?  Would the Angels risk $240 million on a 32 year old who's consistency to that point was only setting them up for massive disappointment upon the first signs of injury?  The answer to all three is yes, because even if the results have shown that risk often outweighs reward, the success of the team, and a player's deal, can never be just directly tied to wins or losses.  Instead, in signing a Rodriguez, Pujols or Trout, teams are not simply banking on a leader to take them to a title, but instead a player to market and a legacy that becomes commodity.  The Rangers lost a lot of games, and money, on the Rodriguez deal, but the chance to sign a guy who might become THE GREATEST BASEBALL PLAYER OF ALL-TIME was too big to pass up.  It's the same reason why the Yankees worked to give a raise to that same player, and tied in bonuses related to the eventual breaking of records -- never a sure thing, but too much of a profitable opportunity to pass up.  In locking up Pujols for a decade, even knowing that the final years of that deal may be voided by retirement, the Angels were taking a stab in bringing in a sure-fire Hall of Famer who's future successes in the overall spectrum of baseball history would then be tied to the Angels brand.   The brand is why Mike Trout is now and, barring an injury or decision to retire from baseball and replace Paul Walker in the Fast and Furious 7, will continue to be worth an investment even exceeding $400 million.  There's no guarantee that any of Trout's future years will be as dynamic as his first two, but the potential is there that those future years could reach a level of greatness that even Pujols or Rodriguez never achieved.  More than that, Trout has the potential to be the type of player that clubs not only build around on the field, but off of it.  The Los Angeles Lakers giving an older and injured Kobe Bryant nearly $50 million for two years might not make a lot of sense in terms of finding the right places to get the team another title.  However, investing in the Kobe brand, and tying it eternally to the Lakers, will pay dividends far beyond any players' career.     As of now, no player has decided to have the Angels cap on their Hall of Fame plaque.  When Pujols enters, even if the Angels win seven titles in the next eight years and Pujols breaks every record imaginable under the lights of The Big A, he will enter the Hall as a Cardinal.  Maybe Vlad Guerrero gets in and becomes the first marked Halo in the Hall.  Yet, even he doesn't capture the possibilities that Mike Trout embodies.  It's dangerous to make a large investment in any single player, particularly in a sport where one player's overall greatness cannot lift an entire team, unlike the way a dominant center in the NBA or game-changing quarterback in the NFL can.  However, in a day and age where media money is as important to a baseball team's structure and finances as a winning season, and a time where so many great players fell from their positions on high due to accusations of cutting corners to take a shot at revered numbers, Mike Trout, the entity and the player, represents hope, as much for the league as for the team.     One team will make a ridiculous investment in him soon enough.  At some point during the length of that contract, people will question whether or not he was worth it.  Every losing season will raise questions of whether or not tying up so much money in one guy is prudent.  In the end though, potential and possibility trump prudence.  Somebody is going to pay a great deal to market and make money off that potential.  And even with all the downside and past lessons learned, I sure hope that team is the Angels.

Mike Trout: The 400 Million Dollar Man?
by Joe Tevelowitz, AngelsWin.com Columnist -   At the halfway point between the end of the World Series and the start of Spring Training, now is as good of a time as any to look at the realistic possibility that Mike Trout becomes the first 400 Million Dollar Man in Major League Baseball.  After the Yankees got a slap on the wrist for even mentioning the value of giving a long-term contract to Mike Trout, discussing the matter purely hypothetically in comparison to not giving the decade deal to Robinson Cano, the fear of missing out on a career of Trout has to at least be in the pit of every Angels fan's stomach.   It's not every day the Angels bring a future Hall of Famer up through their system or that people are willing to speak of a guy who has only played two full seasons as a future Hall of Famer.  However, after two seasons that had Mike Trout being mentioned in the same breath as Mickey Mantle and nearly pulling off the Rookie of the Year/MVP double dose that has only been accomplished by Ichiro and Fred Lynn, predicting Trout's plaque in Cooperstown isn't insane.  However, the 400 million dollar question is: what hat will be on that plaque.   It's reasonable to suggest that most Angels fans would jump at the chance to lock up the Face of the Franchise (and maybe soon-to-be face of the league) for as many years as humanly possible.  To do so will likely require a contract that even A-Rod in his prime was never offered.  And A-Rod provides an important starting point in looking at the pros and cons of giving a baseball player a contract that would eclipse the GDP of an island nation, and ostensibly tie the fortunes of a team to the relative continued or predicted success of one player.   Alex Rodriguez left the Seattle Mariners for the Texas Rangers not because of any ties to the Texas region, any belief in the Rangers ability to contend, or any feelings of wanting to build something new away from rainy days of Seattle.  Rodriguez left for a $252 million dollar offer that was over 25% more than the deal received by his closest shortstop contemporary, Derek Jeter, that same year.  As ridiculous as it might seem in hindsight for Rodriguez to be valued so much higher than Jeter, Alex Rodriguez's accomplishments to that point and potential were enough for a team to put it all on the line to bring him in.  In signing A-Rod, the Rangers weren't just banking on a guy who, in his first full season, recorded the highest batting average for a right-hander since DiMaggio to go with 36 home runs and 123 RBIs. Nor were they paying for the third member of the 40-40 club.  Or even for the kid who took the Mariners to the ALCS, hitting over .400 in the playoffs, the season after the Mariners dealt Randy Johnson and Ken Griffey, Jr. to give Rodriguez the proverbial mantle as the team's superstar and foundation.   What the Rangers did by offering over a quarter of a billion dollars to a guy playing one of the most demanding positions in baseball was bank on the fact that Alex Rodriguez could change the entire perception of a team and transform the Rangers from a team with Texas as their prefix to THE Team of Texas.  And while Rodriguez was offensively great in Texas (200 hits and 50 home runs his first season, leading the league in home runs, RBIs and total bases his second, and winning his first MVP during his third year), the Rangers finished last in the West each year.  As exciting as A-Rod was offensively, the team sucked with him, and that record of losing made the Rangers decide he wasn't worth the investment.  And so, the New York Yankees, everyone's least favorite rich uncle, stepped in, picking up A-Rod and his enormous deal, aside from the $67 million Texas paid to send the shortstop/future third baseman away. And the Yankees, with their media deals and winning obsessed owner, would end up giving Rodriguez a new deal seven years later that eclipsed even that which A-Rod received from the Rangers, and would basically keep him in pinstripes past a point when anyone not named Julio Franco should still be playing baseball.   The interesting thing about Rodriguez is what happened to the teams he left. After watching the soon-to-be-deemed A-Fraud depart for Texas, the Mariners went on to win an American League record 116 games, thanks in large part to Ichiro's arrival, but also to an overall mindset change in a franchise that, after losing their three biggest stars in a three-year span, committed to team baseball and made the playoffs in consecutive years for the first (and only) time in the franchise history.  The Rangers, upon releasing the Alex albatross into the Hudson, won 18 more games than the previous season.  You would think losing a player deemed to be worthy of the largest contract in all of sports would hurt a team.  However, the Angels know from personal experience, this is not always the case.   The Angels have lost out on big free agents before.  The team has even saw players they thought would stay with the team move on for greener, dollar-wise, pastures.  However, Arte Moreno's purchase of the team has also accompanied some of the greatest free agent signings in team history, specifically Vlad Guerrero in 2004 and Albert Pujols prior to the 2012 season.  The Pujols signing in particular represents the Angels taking aim at being not just a team with Los Angeles now stuck on in front of their name, but becoming THE team of Los Angeles.  What better way to do that, then by signing a guy considered one of, if not the greatest hitter of his generation, and one of the few last great sluggers untainted by the brush of performance enhancers.  And after helping the Cardinals to the World Series during his last season in St. Louis, the Angels could find comfort in bringing a proven winner to their team.   Of course, Pujols' arrival, while exciting, delivered only three more wins than the previous year.  The Cardinals were not deterred by the departure of their greatest player since Stan Musial, making it to game 7 of the NLCS that season and returning to the World Series the following season. Obviously comparing the relative success of one team with another and basing it just on the juxtaposition of just one player is unfair, and not really that instructive.  However, two years into a deal that follows only the two A-Rod contracts as the largest in baseball history, the Angels no longer see Albert Pujols as the definitive face of the franchise, nor the guy who could remake the entire identity of the squad.  That mantle has passed to the fresh-faced kid from New Jersey, who could conceivably get a deal worth more than the 10 year Pujols contract and 5 year Josh Hamilton deal, combined.   So, is Mike Trout worth it?  If asked to do it again, would the Rangers pay $252 million for A-Rod, knowing they would end up paying just to trade him away after three years?  Would the Yankees have extended Rodriguez at $275 million on a deal they're now secretly hoping that steroid accusations and baseball suspensions will allow them to get out from under?  Would the Angels risk $240 million on a 32 year old who's consistency to that point was only setting them up for massive disappointment upon the first signs of injury?  The answer to all three is yes, because even if the results have shown that risk often outweighs reward, the success of the team, and a player's deal, can never be just directly tied to wins or losses.  Instead, in signing a Rodriguez, Pujols or Trout, teams are not simply banking on a leader to take them to a title, but instead a player to market and a legacy that becomes commodity.  The Rangers lost a lot of games, and money, on the Rodriguez deal, but the chance to sign a guy who might become THE GREATEST BASEBALL PLAYER OF ALL-TIME was too big to pass up.  It's the same reason why the Yankees worked to give a raise to that same player, and tied in bonuses related to the eventual breaking of records -- never a sure thing, but too much of a profitable opportunity to pass up.  In locking up Pujols for a decade, even knowing that the final years of that deal may be voided by retirement, the Angels were taking a stab in bringing in a sure-fire Hall of Famer who's future successes in the overall spectrum of baseball history would then be tied to the Angels brand.   The brand is why Mike Trout is now and, barring an injury or decision to retire from baseball and replace Paul Walker in the Fast and Furious 7, will continue to be worth an investment even exceeding $400 million.  There's no guarantee that any of Trout's future years will be as dynamic as his first two, but the potential is there that those future years could reach a level of greatness that even Pujols or Rodriguez never achieved.  More than that, Trout has the potential to be the type of player that clubs not only build around on the field, but off of it.  The Los Angeles Lakers giving an older and injured Kobe Bryant nearly $50 million for two years might not make a lot of sense in terms of finding the right places to get the team another title.  However, investing in the Kobe brand, and tying it eternally to the Lakers, will pay dividends far beyond any players' career.     As of now, no player has decided to have the Angels cap on their Hall of Fame plaque.  When Pujols enters, even if the Angels win seven titles in the next eight years and Pujols breaks every record imaginable under the lights of The Big A, he will enter the Hall as a Cardinal.  Maybe Vlad Guerrero gets in and becomes the first marked Halo in the Hall.  Yet, even he doesn't capture the possibilities that Mike Trout embodies.  It's dangerous to make a large investment in any single player, particularly in a sport where one player's overall greatness cannot lift an entire team, unlike the way a dominant center in the NBA or game-changing quarterback in the NFL can.  However, in a day and age where media money is as important to a baseball team's structure and finances as a winning season, and a time where so many great players fell from their positions on high due to accusations of cutting corners to take a shot at revered numbers, Mike Trout, the entity and the player, represents hope, as much for the league as for the team.     One team will make a ridiculous investment in him soon enough.  At some point during the length of that contract, people will question whether or not he was worth it.  Every losing season will raise questions of whether or not tying up so much money in one guy is prudent.  In the end though, potential and possibility trump prudence.  Somebody is going to pay a great deal to market and make money off that potential.  And even with all the downside and past lessons learned, I sure hope that team is the Angels.

Mike Trout: The 400 Million Dollar Man?
by Joe Tevelowitz, AngelsWin.com Columnist -   At the halfway point between the end of the World Series and the start of Spring Training, now is as good of a time as any to look at the realistic possibility that Mike Trout becomes the first 400 Million Dollar Man in Major League Baseball.  After the Yankees got a slap on the wrist for even mentioning the value of giving a long-term contract to Mike Trout, discussing the matter purely hypothetically in comparison to not giving the decade deal to Robinson Cano, the fear of missing out on a career of Trout has to at least be in the pit of every Angels fan's stomach.   It's not every day the Angels bring a future Hall of Famer up through their system or that people are willing to speak of a guy who has only played two full seasons as a future Hall of Famer.  However, after two seasons that had Mike Trout being mentioned in the same breath as Mickey Mantle and nearly pulling off the Rookie of the Year/MVP double dose that has only been accomplished by Ichiro and Fred Lynn, predicting Trout's plaque in Cooperstown isn't insane.  However, the 400 million dollar question is: what hat will be on that plaque.   It's reasonable to suggest that most Angels fans would jump at the chance to lock up the Face of the Franchise (and maybe soon-to-be face of the league) for as many years as humanly possible.  To do so will likely require a contract that even A-Rod in his prime was never offered.  And A-Rod provides an important starting point in looking at the pros and cons of giving a baseball player a contract that would eclipse the GDP of an island nation, and ostensibly tie the fortunes of a team to the relative continued or predicted success of one player.   Alex Rodriguez left the Seattle Mariners for the Texas Rangers not because of any ties to the Texas region, any belief in the Rangers ability to contend, or any feelings of wanting to build something new away from rainy days of Seattle.  Rodriguez left for a $252 million dollar offer that was over 25% more than the deal received by his closest shortstop contemporary, Derek Jeter, that same year.  As ridiculous as it might seem in hindsight for Rodriguez to be valued so much higher than Jeter, Alex Rodriguez's accomplishments to that point and potential were enough for a team to put it all on the line to bring him in.  In signing A-Rod, the Rangers weren't just banking on a guy who, in his first full season, recorded the highest batting average for a right-hander since DiMaggio to go with 36 home runs and 123 RBIs. Nor were they paying for the third member of the 40-40 club.  Or even for the kid who took the Mariners to the ALCS, hitting over .400 in the playoffs, the season after the Mariners dealt Randy Johnson and Ken Griffey, Jr. to give Rodriguez the proverbial mantle as the team's superstar and foundation.   What the Rangers did by offering over a quarter of a billion dollars to a guy playing one of the most demanding positions in baseball was bank on the fact that Alex Rodriguez could change the entire perception of a team and transform the Rangers from a team with Texas as their prefix to THE Team of Texas.  And while Rodriguez was offensively great in Texas (200 hits and 50 home runs his first season, leading the league in home runs, RBIs and total bases his second, and winning his first MVP during his third year), the Rangers finished last in the West each year.  As exciting as A-Rod was offensively, the team sucked with him, and that record of losing made the Rangers decide he wasn't worth the investment.  And so, the New York Yankees, everyone's least favorite rich uncle, stepped in, picking up A-Rod and his enormous deal, aside from the $67 million Texas paid to send the shortstop/future third baseman away. And the Yankees, with their media deals and winning obsessed owner, would end up giving Rodriguez a new deal seven years later that eclipsed even that which A-Rod received from the Rangers, and would basically keep him in pinstripes past a point when anyone not named Julio Franco should still be playing baseball.   The interesting thing about Rodriguez is what happened to the teams he left. After watching the soon-to-be-deemed A-Fraud depart for Texas, the Mariners went on to win an American League record 116 games, thanks in large part to Ichiro's arrival, but also to an overall mindset change in a franchise that, after losing their three biggest stars in a three-year span, committed to team baseball and made the playoffs in consecutive years for the first (and only) time in the franchise history.  The Rangers, upon releasing the Alex albatross into the Hudson, won 18 more games than the previous season.  You would think losing a player deemed to be worthy of the largest contract in all of sports would hurt a team.  However, the Angels know from personal experience, this is not always the case.   The Angels have lost out on big free agents before.  The team has even saw players they thought would stay with the team move on for greener, dollar-wise, pastures.  However, Arte Moreno's purchase of the team has also accompanied some of the greatest free agent signings in team history, specifically Vlad Guerrero in 2004 and Albert Pujols prior to the 2012 season.  The Pujols signing in particular represents the Angels taking aim at being not just a team with Los Angeles now stuck on in front of their name, but becoming THE team of Los Angeles.  What better way to do that, then by signing a guy considered one of, if not the greatest hitter of his generation, and one of the few last great sluggers untainted by the brush of performance enhancers.  And after helping the Cardinals to the World Series during his last season in St. Louis, the Angels could find comfort in bringing a proven winner to their team.   Of course, Pujols' arrival, while exciting, delivered only three more wins than the previous year.  The Cardinals were not deterred by the departure of their greatest player since Stan Musial, making it to game 7 of the NLCS that season and returning to the World Series the following season. Obviously comparing the relative success of one team with another and basing it just on the juxtaposition of just one player is unfair, and not really that instructive.  However, two years into a deal that follows only the two A-Rod contracts as the largest in baseball history, the Angels no longer see Albert Pujols as the definitive face of the franchise, nor the guy who could remake the entire identity of the squad.  That mantle has passed to the fresh-faced kid from New Jersey, who could conceivably get a deal worth more than the 10 year Pujols contract and 5 year Josh Hamilton deal, combined.   So, is Mike Trout worth it?  If asked to do it again, would the Rangers pay $252 million for A-Rod, knowing they would end up paying just to trade him away after three years?  Would the Yankees have extended Rodriguez at $275 million on a deal they're now secretly hoping that steroid accusations and baseball suspensions will allow them to get out from under?  Would the Angels risk $240 million on a 32 year old who's consistency to that point was only setting them up for massive disappointment upon the first signs of injury?  The answer to all three is yes, because even if the results have shown that risk often outweighs reward, the success of the team, and a player's deal, can never be just directly tied to wins or losses.  Instead, in signing a Rodriguez, Pujols or Trout, teams are not simply banking on a leader to take them to a title, but instead a player to market and a legacy that becomes commodity.  The Rangers lost a lot of games, and money, on the Rodriguez deal, but the chance to sign a guy who might become THE GREATEST BASEBALL PLAYER OF ALL-TIME was too big to pass up.  It's the same reason why the Yankees worked to give a raise to that same player, and tied in bonuses related to the eventual breaking of records -- never a sure thing, but too much of a profitable opportunity to pass up.  In locking up Pujols for a decade, even knowing that the final years of that deal may be voided by retirement, the Angels were taking a stab in bringing in a sure-fire Hall of Famer who's future successes in the overall spectrum of baseball history would then be tied to the Angels brand.   The brand is why Mike Trout is now and, barring an injury or decision to retire from baseball and replace Paul Walker in the Fast and Furious 7, will continue to be worth an investment even exceeding $400 million.  There's no guarantee that any of Trout's future years will be as dynamic as his first two, but the potential is there that those future years could reach a level of greatness that even Pujols or Rodriguez never achieved.  More than that, Trout has the potential to be the type of player that clubs not only build around on the field, but off of it.  The Los Angeles Lakers giving an older and injured Kobe Bryant nearly $50 million for two years might not make a lot of sense in terms of finding the right places to get the team another title.  However, investing in the Kobe brand, and tying it eternally to the Lakers, will pay dividends far beyond any players' career.     As of now, no player has decided to have the Angels cap on their Hall of Fame plaque.  When Pujols enters, even if the Angels win seven titles in the next eight years and Pujols breaks every record imaginable under the lights of The Big A, he will enter the Hall as a Cardinal.  Maybe Vlad Guerrero gets in and becomes the first marked Halo in the Hall.  Yet, even he doesn't capture the possibilities that Mike Trout embodies.  It's dangerous to make a large investment in any single player, particularly in a sport where one player's overall greatness cannot lift an entire team, unlike the way a dominant center in the NBA or game-changing quarterback in the NFL can.  However, in a day and age where media money is as important to a baseball team's structure and finances as a winning season, and a time where so many great players fell from their positions on high due to accusations of cutting corners to take a shot at revered numbers, Mike Trout, the entity and the player, represents hope, as much for the league as for the team.     One team will make a ridiculous investment in him soon enough.  At some point during the length of that contract, people will question whether or not he was worth it.  Every losing season will raise questions of whether or not tying up so much money in one guy is prudent.  In the end though, potential and possibility trump prudence.  Somebody is going to pay a great deal to market and make money off that potential.  And even with all the downside and past lessons learned, I sure hope that team is the Angels.

Mike Trout: The 400 Million Dollar Man?
by Joe Tevelowitz, AngelsWin.com Columnist -   At the halfway point between the end of the World Series and the start of Spring Training, now is as good of a time as any to look at the realistic possibility that Mike Trout becomes the first 400 Million Dollar Man in Major League Baseball.  After the Yankees got a slap on the wrist for even mentioning the value of giving a long-term contract to Mike Trout, discussing the matter purely hypothetically in comparison to not giving the decade deal to Robinson Cano, the fear of missing out on a career of Trout has to at least be in the pit of every Angels fan's stomach.   It's not every day the Angels bring a future Hall of Famer up through their system or that people are willing to speak of a guy who has only played two full seasons as a future Hall of Famer.  However, after two seasons that had Mike Trout being mentioned in the same breath as Mickey Mantle and nearly pulling off the Rookie of the Year/MVP double dose that has only been accomplished by Ichiro and Fred Lynn, predicting Trout's plaque in Cooperstown isn't insane.  However, the 400 million dollar question is: what hat will be on that plaque.   It's reasonable to suggest that most Angels fans would jump at the chance to lock up the Face of the Franchise (and maybe soon-to-be face of the league) for as many years as humanly possible.  To do so will likely require a contract that even A-Rod in his prime was never offered.  And A-Rod provides an important starting point in looking at the pros and cons of giving a baseball player a contract that would eclipse the GDP of an island nation, and ostensibly tie the fortunes of a team to the relative continued or predicted success of one player.   Alex Rodriguez left the Seattle Mariners for the Texas Rangers not because of any ties to the Texas region, any belief in the Rangers ability to contend, or any feelings of wanting to build something new away from rainy days of Seattle.  Rodriguez left for a $252 million dollar offer that was over 25% more than the deal received by his closest shortstop contemporary, Derek Jeter, that same year.  As ridiculous as it might seem in hindsight for Rodriguez to be valued so much higher than Jeter, Alex Rodriguez's accomplishments to that point and potential were enough for a team to put it all on the line to bring him in.  In signing A-Rod, the Rangers weren't just banking on a guy who, in his first full season, recorded the highest batting average for a right-hander since DiMaggio to go with 36 home runs and 123 RBIs. Nor were they paying for the third member of the 40-40 club.  Or even for the kid who took the Mariners to the ALCS, hitting over .400 in the playoffs, the season after the Mariners dealt Randy Johnson and Ken Griffey, Jr. to give Rodriguez the proverbial mantle as the team's superstar and foundation.   What the Rangers did by offering over a quarter of a billion dollars to a guy playing one of the most demanding positions in baseball was bank on the fact that Alex Rodriguez could change the entire perception of a team and transform the Rangers from a team with Texas as their prefix to THE Team of Texas.  And while Rodriguez was offensively great in Texas (200 hits and 50 home runs his first season, leading the league in home runs, RBIs and total bases his second, and winning his first MVP during his third year), the Rangers finished last in the West each year.  As exciting as A-Rod was offensively, the team sucked with him, and that record of losing made the Rangers decide he wasn't worth the investment.  And so, the New York Yankees, everyone's least favorite rich uncle, stepped in, picking up A-Rod and his enormous deal, aside from the $67 million Texas paid to send the shortstop/future third baseman away. And the Yankees, with their media deals and winning obsessed owner, would end up giving Rodriguez a new deal seven years later that eclipsed even that which A-Rod received from the Rangers, and would basically keep him in pinstripes past a point when anyone not named Julio Franco should still be playing baseball.   The interesting thing about Rodriguez is what happened to the teams he left. After watching the soon-to-be-deemed A-Fraud depart for Texas, the Mariners went on to win an American League record 116 games, thanks in large part to Ichiro's arrival, but also to an overall mindset change in a franchise that, after losing their three biggest stars in a three-year span, committed to team baseball and made the playoffs in consecutive years for the first (and only) time in the franchise history.  The Rangers, upon releasing the Alex albatross into the Hudson, won 18 more games than the previous season.  You would think losing a player deemed to be worthy of the largest contract in all of sports would hurt a team.  However, the Angels know from personal experience, this is not always the case.   The Angels have lost out on big free agents before.  The team has even saw players they thought would stay with the team move on for greener, dollar-wise, pastures.  However, Arte Moreno's purchase of the team has also accompanied some of the greatest free agent signings in team history, specifically Vlad Guerrero in 2004 and Albert Pujols prior to the 2012 season.  The Pujols signing in particular represents the Angels taking aim at being not just a team with Los Angeles now stuck on in front of their name, but becoming THE team of Los Angeles.  What better way to do that, then by signing a guy considered one of, if not the greatest hitter of his generation, and one of the few last great sluggers untainted by the brush of performance enhancers.  And after helping the Cardinals to the World Series during his last season in St. Louis, the Angels could find comfort in bringing a proven winner to their team.   Of course, Pujols' arrival, while exciting, delivered only three more wins than the previous year.  The Cardinals were not deterred by the departure of their greatest player since Stan Musial, making it to game 7 of the NLCS that season and returning to the World Series the following season. Obviously comparing the relative success of one team with another and basing it just on the juxtaposition of just one player is unfair, and not really that instructive.  However, two years into a deal that follows only the two A-Rod contracts as the largest in baseball history, the Angels no longer see Albert Pujols as the definitive face of the franchise, nor the guy who could remake the entire identity of the squad.  That mantle has passed to the fresh-faced kid from New Jersey, who could conceivably get a deal worth more than the 10 year Pujols contract and 5 year Josh Hamilton deal, combined.   So, is Mike Trout worth it?  If asked to do it again, would the Rangers pay $252 million for A-Rod, knowing they would end up paying just to trade him away after three years?  Would the Yankees have extended Rodriguez at $275 million on a deal they're now secretly hoping that steroid accusations and baseball suspensions will allow them to get out from under?  Would the Angels risk $240 million on a 32 year old who's consistency to that point was only setting them up for massive disappointment upon the first signs of injury?  The answer to all three is yes, because even if the results have shown that risk often outweighs reward, the success of the team, and a player's deal, can never be just directly tied to wins or losses.  Instead, in signing a Rodriguez, Pujols or Trout, teams are not simply banking on a leader to take them to a title, but instead a player to market and a legacy that becomes commodity.  The Rangers lost a lot of games, and money, on the Rodriguez deal, but the chance to sign a guy who might become THE GREATEST BASEBALL PLAYER OF ALL-TIME was too big to pass up.  It's the same reason why the Yankees worked to give a raise to that same player, and tied in bonuses related to the eventual breaking of records -- never a sure thing, but too much of a profitable opportunity to pass up.  In locking up Pujols for a decade, even knowing that the final years of that deal may be voided by retirement, the Angels were taking a stab in bringing in a sure-fire Hall of Famer who's future successes in the overall spectrum of baseball history would then be tied to the Angels brand.   The brand is why Mike Trout is now and, barring an injury or decision to retire from baseball and replace Paul Walker in the Fast and Furious 7, will continue to be worth an investment even exceeding $400 million.  There's no guarantee that any of Trout's future years will be as dynamic as his first two, but the potential is there that those future years could reach a level of greatness that even Pujols or Rodriguez never achieved.  More than that, Trout has the potential to be the type of player that clubs not only build around on the field, but off of it.  The Los Angeles Lakers giving an older and injured Kobe Bryant nearly $50 million for two years might not make a lot of sense in terms of finding the right places to get the team another title.  However, investing in the Kobe brand, and tying it eternally to the Lakers, will pay dividends far beyond any players' career.     As of now, no player has decided to have the Angels cap on their Hall of Fame plaque.  When Pujols enters, even if the Angels win seven titles in the next eight years and Pujols breaks every record imaginable under the lights of The Big A, he will enter the Hall as a Cardinal.  Maybe Vlad Guerrero gets in and becomes the first marked Halo in the Hall.  Yet, even he doesn't capture the possibilities that Mike Trout embodies.  It's dangerous to make a large investment in any single player, particularly in a sport where one player's overall greatness cannot lift an entire team, unlike the way a dominant center in the NBA or game-changing quarterback in the NFL can.  However, in a day and age where media money is as important to a baseball team's structure and finances as a winning season, and a time where so many great players fell from their positions on high due to accusations of cutting corners to take a shot at revered numbers, Mike Trout, the entity and the player, represents hope, as much for the league as for the team.     One team will make a ridiculous investment in him soon enough.  At some point during the length of that contract, people will question whether or not he was worth it.  Every losing season will raise questions of whether or not tying up so much money in one guy is prudent.  In the end though, potential and possibility trump prudence.  Somebody is going to pay a great deal to market and make money off that potential.  And even with all the downside and past lessons learned, I sure hope that team is the Angels.

Mike Trout: The 400 Million Dollar Man?
by Joe Tevelowitz, AngelsWin.com Columnist -   At the halfway point between the end of the World Series and the start of Spring Training, now is as good of a time as any to look at the realistic possibility that Mike Trout becomes the first 400 Million Dollar Man in Major League Baseball.  After the Yankees got a slap on the wrist for even mentioning the value of giving a long-term contract to Mike Trout, discussing the matter purely hypothetically in comparison to not giving the decade deal to Robinson Cano, the fear of missing out on a career of Trout has to at least be in the pit of every Angels fan's stomach.   It's not every day the Angels bring a future Hall of Famer up through their system or that people are willing to speak of a guy who has only played two full seasons as a future Hall of Famer.  However, after two seasons that had Mike Trout being mentioned in the same breath as Mickey Mantle and nearly pulling off the Rookie of the Year/MVP double dose that has only been accomplished by Ichiro and Fred Lynn, predicting Trout's plaque in Cooperstown isn't insane.  However, the 400 million dollar question is: what hat will be on that plaque.   It's reasonable to suggest that most Angels fans would jump at the chance to lock up the Face of the Franchise (and maybe soon-to-be face of the league) for as many years as humanly possible.  To do so will likely require a contract that even A-Rod in his prime was never offered.  And A-Rod provides an important starting point in looking at the pros and cons of giving a baseball player a contract that would eclipse the GDP of an island nation, and ostensibly tie the fortunes of a team to the relative continued or predicted success of one player.   Alex Rodriguez left the Seattle Mariners for the Texas Rangers not because of any ties to the Texas region, any belief in the Rangers ability to contend, or any feelings of wanting to build something new away from rainy days of Seattle.  Rodriguez left for a $252 million dollar offer that was over 25% more than the deal received by his closest shortstop contemporary, Derek Jeter, that same year.  As ridiculous as it might seem in hindsight for Rodriguez to be valued so much higher than Jeter, Alex Rodriguez's accomplishments to that point and potential were enough for a team to put it all on the line to bring him in.  In signing A-Rod, the Rangers weren't just banking on a guy who, in his first full season, recorded the highest batting average for a right-hander since DiMaggio to go with 36 home runs and 123 RBIs. Nor were they paying for the third member of the 40-40 club.  Or even for the kid who took the Mariners to the ALCS, hitting over .400 in the playoffs, the season after the Mariners dealt Randy Johnson and Ken Griffey, Jr. to give Rodriguez the proverbial mantle as the team's superstar and foundation.   What the Rangers did by offering over a quarter of a billion dollars to a guy playing one of the most demanding positions in baseball was bank on the fact that Alex Rodriguez could change the entire perception of a team and transform the Rangers from a team with Texas as their prefix to THE Team of Texas.  And while Rodriguez was offensively great in Texas (200 hits and 50 home runs his first season, leading the league in home runs, RBIs and total bases his second, and winning his first MVP during his third year), the Rangers finished last in the West each year.  As exciting as A-Rod was offensively, the team sucked with him, and that record of losing made the Rangers decide he wasn't worth the investment.  And so, the New York Yankees, everyone's least favorite rich uncle, stepped in, picking up A-Rod and his enormous deal, aside from the $67 million Texas paid to send the shortstop/future third baseman away. And the Yankees, with their media deals and winning obsessed owner, would end up giving Rodriguez a new deal seven years later that eclipsed even that which A-Rod received from the Rangers, and would basically keep him in pinstripes past a point when anyone not named Julio Franco should still be playing baseball.   The interesting thing about Rodriguez is what happened to the teams he left. After watching the soon-to-be-deemed A-Fraud depart for Texas, the Mariners went on to win an American League record 116 games, thanks in large part to Ichiro's arrival, but also to an overall mindset change in a franchise that, after losing their three biggest stars in a three-year span, committed to team baseball and made the playoffs in consecutive years for the first (and only) time in the franchise history.  The Rangers, upon releasing the Alex albatross into the Hudson, won 18 more games than the previous season.  You would think losing a player deemed to be worthy of the largest contract in all of sports would hurt a team.  However, the Angels know from personal experience, this is not always the case.   The Angels have lost out on big free agents before.  The team has even saw players they thought would stay with the team move on for greener, dollar-wise, pastures.  However, Arte Moreno's purchase of the team has also accompanied some of the greatest free agent signings in team history, specifically Vlad Guerrero in 2004 and Albert Pujols prior to the 2012 season.  The Pujols signing in particular represents the Angels taking aim at being not just a team with Los Angeles now stuck on in front of their name, but becoming THE team of Los Angeles.  What better way to do that, then by signing a guy considered one of, if not the greatest hitter of his generation, and one of the few last great sluggers untainted by the brush of performance enhancers.  And after helping the Cardinals to the World Series during his last season in St. Louis, the Angels could find comfort in bringing a proven winner to their team.   Of course, Pujols' arrival, while exciting, delivered only three more wins than the previous year.  The Cardinals were not deterred by the departure of their greatest player since Stan Musial, making it to game 7 of the NLCS that season and returning to the World Series the following season. Obviously comparing the relative success of one team with another and basing it just on the juxtaposition of just one player is unfair, and not really that instructive.  However, two years into a deal that follows only the two A-Rod contracts as the largest in baseball history, the Angels no longer see Albert Pujols as the definitive face of the franchise, nor the guy who could remake the entire identity of the squad.  That mantle has passed to the fresh-faced kid from New Jersey, who could conceivably get a deal worth more than the 10 year Pujols contract and 5 year Josh Hamilton deal, combined.   So, is Mike Trout worth it?  If asked to do it again, would the Rangers pay $252 million for A-Rod, knowing they would end up paying just to trade him away after three years?  Would the Yankees have extended Rodriguez at $275 million on a deal they're now secretly hoping that steroid accusations and baseball suspensions will allow them to get out from under?  Would the Angels risk $240 million on a 32 year old who's consistency to that point was only setting them up for massive disappointment upon the first signs of injury?  The answer to all three is yes, because even if the results have shown that risk often outweighs reward, the success of the team, and a player's deal, can never be just directly tied to wins or losses.  Instead, in signing a Rodriguez, Pujols or Trout, teams are not simply banking on a leader to take them to a title, but instead a player to market and a legacy that becomes commodity.  The Rangers lost a lot of games, and money, on the Rodriguez deal, but the chance to sign a guy who might become THE GREATEST BASEBALL PLAYER OF ALL-TIME was too big to pass up.  It's the same reason why the Yankees worked to give a raise to that same player, and tied in bonuses related to the eventual breaking of records -- never a sure thing, but too much of a profitable opportunity to pass up.  In locking up Pujols for a decade, even knowing that the final years of that deal may be voided by retirement, the Angels were taking a stab in bringing in a sure-fire Hall of Famer who's future successes in the overall spectrum of baseball history would then be tied to the Angels brand.   The brand is why Mike Trout is now and, barring an injury or decision to retire from baseball and replace Paul Walker in the Fast and Furious 7, will continue to be worth an investment even exceeding $400 million.  There's no guarantee that any of Trout's future years will be as dynamic as his first two, but the potential is there that those future years could reach a level of greatness that even Pujols or Rodriguez never achieved.  More than that, Trout has the potential to be the type of player that clubs not only build around on the field, but off of it.  The Los Angeles Lakers giving an older and injured Kobe Bryant nearly $50 million for two years might not make a lot of sense in terms of finding the right places to get the team another title.  However, investing in the Kobe brand, and tying it eternally to the Lakers, will pay dividends far beyond any players' career.     As of now, no player has decided to have the Angels cap on their Hall of Fame plaque.  When Pujols enters, even if the Angels win seven titles in the next eight years and Pujols breaks every record imaginable under the lights of The Big A, he will enter the Hall as a Cardinal.  Maybe Vlad Guerrero gets in and becomes the first marked Halo in the Hall.  Yet, even he doesn't capture the possibilities that Mike Trout embodies.  It's dangerous to make a large investment in any single player, particularly in a sport where one player's overall greatness cannot lift an entire team, unlike the way a dominant center in the NBA or game-changing quarterback in the NFL can.  However, in a day and age where media money is as important to a baseball team's structure and finances as a winning season, and a time where so many great players fell from their positions on high due to accusations of cutting corners to take a shot at revered numbers, Mike Trout, the entity and the player, represents hope, as much for the league as for the team.     One team will make a ridiculous investment in him soon enough.  At some point during the length of that contract, people will question whether or not he was worth it.  Every losing season will raise questions of whether or not tying up so much money in one guy is prudent.  In the end though, potential and possibility trump prudence.  Somebody is going to pay a great deal to market and make money off that potential.  And even with all the downside and past lessons learned, I sure hope that team is the Angels.

Mike Trout: The 400 Million Dollar Man?
by Joe Tevelowitz, AngelsWin.com Columnist -   At the halfway point between the end of the World Series and the start of Spring Training, now is as good of a time as any to look at the realistic possibility that Mike Trout becomes the first 400 Million Dollar Man in Major League Baseball.  After the Yankees got a slap on the wrist for even mentioning the value of giving a long-term contract to Mike Trout, discussing the matter purely hypothetically in comparison to not giving the decade deal to Robinson Cano, the fear of missing out on a career of Trout has to at least be in the pit of every Angels fan's stomach.   It's not every day the Angels bring a future Hall of Famer up through their system or that people are willing to speak of a guy who has only played two full seasons as a future Hall of Famer.  However, after two seasons that had Mike Trout being mentioned in the same breath as Mickey Mantle and nearly pulling off the Rookie of the Year/MVP double dose that has only been accomplished by Ichiro and Fred Lynn, predicting Trout's plaque in Cooperstown isn't insane.  However, the 400 million dollar question is: what hat will be on that plaque.   It's reasonable to suggest that most Angels fans would jump at the chance to lock up the Face of the Franchise (and maybe soon-to-be face of the league) for as many years as humanly possible.  To do so will likely require a contract that even A-Rod in his prime was never offered.  And A-Rod provides an important starting point in looking at the pros and cons of giving a baseball player a contract that would eclipse the GDP of an island nation, and ostensibly tie the fortunes of a team to the relative continued or predicted success of one player.   Alex Rodriguez left the Seattle Mariners for the Texas Rangers not because of any ties to the Texas region, any belief in the Rangers ability to contend, or any feelings of wanting to build something new away from rainy days of Seattle.  Rodriguez left for a $252 million dollar offer that was over 25% more than the deal received by his closest shortstop contemporary, Derek Jeter, that same year.  As ridiculous as it might seem in hindsight for Rodriguez to be valued so much higher than Jeter, Alex Rodriguez's accomplishments to that point and potential were enough for a team to put it all on the line to bring him in.  In signing A-Rod, the Rangers weren't just banking on a guy who, in his first full season, recorded the highest batting average for a right-hander since DiMaggio to go with 36 home runs and 123 RBIs. Nor were they paying for the third member of the 40-40 club.  Or even for the kid who took the Mariners to the ALCS, hitting over .400 in the playoffs, the season after the Mariners dealt Randy Johnson and Ken Griffey, Jr. to give Rodriguez the proverbial mantle as the team's superstar and foundation.   What the Rangers did by offering over a quarter of a billion dollars to a guy playing one of the most demanding positions in baseball was bank on the fact that Alex Rodriguez could change the entire perception of a team and transform the Rangers from a team with Texas as their prefix to THE Team of Texas.  And while Rodriguez was offensively great in Texas (200 hits and 50 home runs his first season, leading the league in home runs, RBIs and total bases his second, and winning his first MVP during his third year), the Rangers finished last in the West each year.  As exciting as A-Rod was offensively, the team sucked with him, and that record of losing made the Rangers decide he wasn't worth the investment.  And so, the New York Yankees, everyone's least favorite rich uncle, stepped in, picking up A-Rod and his enormous deal, aside from the $67 million Texas paid to send the shortstop/future third baseman away. And the Yankees, with their media deals and winning obsessed owner, would end up giving Rodriguez a new deal seven years later that eclipsed even that which A-Rod received from the Rangers, and would basically keep him in pinstripes past a point when anyone not named Julio Franco should still be playing baseball.   The interesting thing about Rodriguez is what happened to the teams he left. After watching the soon-to-be-deemed A-Fraud depart for Texas, the Mariners went on to win an American League record 116 games, thanks in large part to Ichiro's arrival, but also to an overall mindset change in a franchise that, after losing their three biggest stars in a three-year span, committed to team baseball and made the playoffs in consecutive years for the first (and only) time in the franchise history.  The Rangers, upon releasing the Alex albatross into the Hudson, won 18 more games than the previous season.  You would think losing a player deemed to be worthy of the largest contract in all of sports would hurt a team.  However, the Angels know from personal experience, this is not always the case.   The Angels have lost out on big free agents before.  The team has even saw players they thought would stay with the team move on for greener, dollar-wise, pastures.  However, Arte Moreno's purchase of the team has also accompanied some of the greatest free agent signings in team history, specifically Vlad Guerrero in 2004 and Albert Pujols prior to the 2012 season.  The Pujols signing in particular represents the Angels taking aim at being not just a team with Los Angeles now stuck on in front of their name, but becoming THE team of Los Angeles.  What better way to do that, then by signing a guy considered one of, if not the greatest hitter of his generation, and one of the few last great sluggers untainted by the brush of performance enhancers.  And after helping the Cardinals to the World Series during his last season in St. Louis, the Angels could find comfort in bringing a proven winner to their team.   Of course, Pujols' arrival, while exciting, delivered only three more wins than the previous year.  The Cardinals were not deterred by the departure of their greatest player since Stan Musial, making it to game 7 of the NLCS that season and returning to the World Series the following season. Obviously comparing the relative success of one team with another and basing it just on the juxtaposition of just one player is unfair, and not really that instructive.  However, two years into a deal that follows only the two A-Rod contracts as the largest in baseball history, the Angels no longer see Albert Pujols as the definitive face of the franchise, nor the guy who could remake the entire identity of the squad.  That mantle has passed to the fresh-faced kid from New Jersey, who could conceivably get a deal worth more than the 10 year Pujols contract and 5 year Josh Hamilton deal, combined.   So, is Mike Trout worth it?  If asked to do it again, would the Rangers pay $252 million for A-Rod, knowing they would end up paying just to trade him away after three years?  Would the Yankees have extended Rodriguez at $275 million on a deal they're now secretly hoping that steroid accusations and baseball suspensions will allow them to get out from under?  Would the Angels risk $240 million on a 32 year old who's consistency to that point was only setting them up for massive disappointment upon the first signs of injury?  The answer to all three is yes, because even if the results have shown that risk often outweighs reward, the success of the team, and a player's deal, can never be just directly tied to wins or losses.  Instead, in signing a Rodriguez, Pujols or Trout, teams are not simply banking on a leader to take them to a title, but instead a player to market and a legacy that becomes commodity.  The Rangers lost a lot of games, and money, on the Rodriguez deal, but the chance to sign a guy who might become THE GREATEST BASEBALL PLAYER OF ALL-TIME was too big to pass up.  It's the same reason why the Yankees worked to give a raise to that same player, and tied in bonuses related to the eventual breaking of records -- never a sure thing, but too much of a profitable opportunity to pass up.  In locking up Pujols for a decade, even knowing that the final years of that deal may be voided by retirement, the Angels were taking a stab in bringing in a sure-fire Hall of Famer who's future successes in the overall spectrum of baseball history would then be tied to the Angels brand.   The brand is why Mike Trout is now and, barring an injury or decision to retire from baseball and replace Paul Walker in the Fast and Furious 7, will continue to be worth an investment even exceeding $400 million.  There's no guarantee that any of Trout's future years will be as dynamic as his first two, but the potential is there that those future years could reach a level of greatness that even Pujols or Rodriguez never achieved.  More than that, Trout has the potential to be the type of player that clubs not only build around on the field, but off of it.  The Los Angeles Lakers giving an older and injured Kobe Bryant nearly $50 million for two years might not make a lot of sense in terms of finding the right places to get the team another title.  However, investing in the Kobe brand, and tying it eternally to the Lakers, will pay dividends far beyond any players' career.     As of now, no player has decided to have the Angels cap on their Hall of Fame plaque.  When Pujols enters, even if the Angels win seven titles in the next eight years and Pujols breaks every record imaginable under the lights of The Big A, he will enter the Hall as a Cardinal.  Maybe Vlad Guerrero gets in and becomes the first marked Halo in the Hall.  Yet, even he doesn't capture the possibilities that Mike Trout embodies.  It's dangerous to make a large investment in any single player, particularly in a sport where one player's overall greatness cannot lift an entire team, unlike the way a dominant center in the NBA or game-changing quarterback in the NFL can.  However, in a day and age where media money is as important to a baseball team's structure and finances as a winning season, and a time where so many great players fell from their positions on high due to accusations of cutting corners to take a shot at revered numbers, Mike Trout, the entity and the player, represents hope, as much for the league as for the team.     One team will make a ridiculous investment in him soon enough.  At some point during the length of that contract, people will question whether or not he was worth it.  Every losing season will raise questions of whether or not tying up so much money in one guy is prudent.  In the end though, potential and possibility trump prudence.  Somebody is going to pay a great deal to market and make money off that potential.  And even with all the downside and past lessons learned, I sure hope that team is the Angels.

The angel of the Lord appeared to them and the glory of the Lord shone round them. They were terrified, but the angel said “Do not be afraid. Listen, I bring you news of great joy, a joy to be shared by the whole people. Today in the town of David a savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord.”


The shopping is over. The cooking is done. The presents are wrapped. It is time to gather with friends and family and focus on the true meaning of the holidays. Friends. Family. Peace and tranquility.
As another year draws to a close, we, at AngelsWin.com want to thank you, our friends, our family, our fans for making the website your internet home.
This year began with hopes and dreams. It weathered tough times and struggled through a long season. And yet, once again, we pause to reflect at all the good that is AngelsWin.com.
Though we debate and rehash issues, we are drawn together by our common bond—our love for the Angels. Through our passion for baseball comes friendship and devotion to many.
This year we did much good; We raised thousands for charity. We shared food, good humor and cheer. We helped those in need, offering physical and spiritual comfort to all. We were the #AngelsFamily.
Thank you AngelsWin.com for making our lives richer. Because of you, our work has a purpose.
May your holidays be truly blessed and bright. May you all find comfort and peace. And may you continue to call our website your home.

Holiday Wishes & Reflections from the Angels from AngelsWin.com on Vimeo.

On behalf of everyone, Merry Christmas AngelsWin.  View the full article

Merry Christmas Everybody!

The angel of the Lord appeared to them and the glory of the Lord shone round them. They were terrified, but the angel said “Do not be afraid. Listen, I bring you news of great joy, a joy to be shared by the whole people. Today in the town of David a savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord.”


The shopping is over. The cooking is done. The presents are wrapped. It is time to gather with friends and family and focus on the true meaning of the holidays. Friends. Family. Peace and tranquility.
As another year draws to a close, we, at AngelsWin.com want to thank you, our friends, our family, our fans for making the website your internet home.
This year began with hopes and dreams. It weathered tough times and struggled through a long season. And yet, once again, we pause to reflect at all the good that is AngelsWin.com.
Though we debate and rehash issues, we are drawn together by our common bond—our love for the Angels. Through our passion for baseball comes friendship and devotion to many.
This year we did much good; We raised thousands for charity. We shared food, good humor and cheer. We helped those in need, offering physical and spiritual comfort to all. We were the #AngelsFamily.
Thank you AngelsWin.com for making our lives richer. Because of you, our work has a purpose.
May your holidays be truly blessed and bright. May you all find comfort and peace. And may you continue to call our website your home.

Holiday Wishes & Reflections from the Angels from AngelsWin.com on Vimeo.

On behalf of everyone, Merry Christmas AngelsWin.  View the full article

The angel of the Lord appeared to them and the glory of the Lord shone round them. They were terrified, but the angel said “Do not be afraid. Listen, I bring you news of great joy, a joy to be shared by the whole people. Today in the town of David a savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord.”


The shopping is over. The cooking is done. The presents are wrapped. It is time to gather with friends and family and focus on the true meaning of the holidays. Friends. Family. Peace and tranquility.
As another year draws to a close, we, at AngelsWin.com want to thank you, our friends, our family, our fans for making the website your internet home.
This year began with hopes and dreams. It weathered tough times and struggled through a long season. And yet, once again, we pause to reflect at all the good that is AngelsWin.com.
Though we debate and rehash issues, we are drawn together by our common bond—our love for the Angels. Through our passion for baseball comes friendship and devotion to many.
This year we did much good; We raised thousands for charity. We shared food, good humor and cheer. We helped those in need, offering physical and spiritual comfort to all. We were the #AngelsFamily.
Thank you AngelsWin.com for making our lives richer. Because of you, our work has a purpose.
May your holidays be truly blessed and bright. May you all find comfort and peace. And may you continue to call our website your home.

Holiday Wishes & Reflections from the Angels from AngelsWin.com on Vimeo.

On behalf of everyone, Merry Christmas AngelsWin.  View the full article

By Joe Tevelowitz, AngelsWin.com Columnist -

As MLB Rules Committee announced that new rules eliminating home plate collisions would be introduced for the 2014 season, and before the rule itself is written, it was expected for traditionalists to be up-in-arms over a change to what some deem such a fundamental part of the game.  Images of collisions of the plate highlight many a scrappy player's career and become part of the mythology of those able to overcome natural born skills with grit and toughness.  Eliminating home plate collisions takes away the most physical element of a game that chooses to tag rather than tackle as a means of stopping opposing players.  However, lost in the talk of trashing tradition or "sissifying" the sport lies the real motivation for the removal of what some deem such an important part of the game.  Baseball may no longer hold the same sway as the increasingly-popular National Football League, but America's Pastime is definitely taking note of the issues facing their helmeted brothers in deciding that, for all parties, its better safe than sorry.

While Major League Baseball has experienced dips in popular, as well as corresponding medically induced rises, the game itself has remained largely the same.  It's that stability that lends greater importance to baseball records and greater affection for the traditions of the game.  It's the reason why the idea of playing games at night with artificial lighting seemed so revolutionary at the time or why some were appalled at the idea of interleague play.  Yet, while both of those decisions were motivated by growing the game and increasing profits, elimination of the catcher and pitcher collision and with it that final brawl that separates safe from out, stems more from a fear of loss -- for both player and league.

The recent revelation that former major leaguer Ryan Freel suffered from CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy) prior to his suicide marks the first baseball player to be diagnosed with the same concussion-inflicted ailment that plagued  deceased professional football players Junior Seau and Dave Duerson.  While alone among baseball players with the CTE diagnosis, Freel was not alone in the hard-playing style he demonstrated over nine seasons with the Blue Jays, Reds, Orioles, Cubs and Royals and it would be foolish to assume he would be the only player to have ever taken the diamond that suffered from the degenerative brain disease.  Eliminating home-plate collisions does not take away completely from the physicality of baseball, it simply eliminates that action must likely to bring about concussions among both players involved.

Now, there remains a monetary motivation for even this rule, as there does for most decisions in professional sports.  However, the economics at play involve MLB's recognition that concussions, CTE and other effects from colliding head first with another player are a bigger risk than the reward of a highlight play at the plate are worth.  As the NFL faces the possibility of a class-action suit from former players dealing with the effects of a sport that is almost entirely about barreling into the other player in a collision-at-the-plate manner, the biggest risk is not the size of a future settlement, but rather the fundamental changes the league will one day be forced to make to continue. 

Baseball, already the least physical of the Big 4 in American sports (football, baseball, basketball, hockey -- sorry NASCAR) has battled concerned that more and more children are gravitating towards soccer.  Football on the other hand is slowly dealing with the effects of more and more parents preventing their children from throwing shoulder pads on.  These safety concerns, and the findings relating football to concussions to CTE and other lifelong and life-altering ailments, leave many wondering where the NFL will be in 50 years, if it's even operating at all.  Baseball, by eliminating the most dangerous of plays, is protecting itself from those same concerns, and that league protection is as important to them as protecting the players who make up their teams.

The memory of Darin Erstad putting it all on the line for one more run will always remain vivid.  And it's understandable why Pete Rose would be so opposed to a new rule that would have effectively undermined what Charlie Hustle stood for.  However, the ban on home plate collisions, however it is written, will not remove all those most exhilarating moments from the game of baseball, nor will it remove all those responsible for concussions or other lingering effects.  Rather, Major League Baseball recognizes that this rule is the cheapest risk avoider for both league and players.  Fans may mourn the loss of those breathtaking moments, when runner and catcher collide, as the umpire searches for the white of the ball inside the dark of the glove and the determination of tough is made by either holding on or putting enough oomph into your to knock it loose.  Yet, that loss is far easier to accept than that of another mentally-diminished player who gave us so much to cheer for, but ended up taking his own life. 

By Glen McKee, AngelsWin.com Columnist/Satirist-
Somewhere between the ball field in Anaheim, the production houses in Hollywood and the Winter Meeting suites in Orlando, a script was born.  A script chillingly familiar.  A script no one wanted you to see. What follows is an outtake from that script …
“A Few Good Pitchers.”

                      A Few Good Pitchers
                                   INT.  ANGELS’ STADIUM - DAY
                                              SCIOSCIA
                                           I want the truth!
                                               DIPOTO
                                   You can't handle the truth!
                                            And nobody moves.
                       
                                                DIPOTO
                                              (continuing)
               
Scioscia, we have a team that needs pitching. And we have to get it on the cheap.  How are we gonna do it? Sign Garza?  Sign Colon?  I have the financial restraints you gave me! You tell me to get Santiago and you don’t say how.  You have that luxury.  You have the luxury of not knowing what I know: That to trade for Santiago, we’ll have to give up Trumbo and do a three-way.  This trade will probably win games.  And this trade, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves my job .
                                                  (beat)
You don't want the truth.  Because deep down, in places you don't talk about at the post-game spread, you want me on this job.  You need me here. 
                                                (boasting)
We use words like luxury tax, tERA, xFIP...we use these words as the backbone to a life spent crunching numbers to build a better team.  You use 'em as a punchline.
                                       
                                                  (beat)
               
I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who insists on starting Jeff Mathis, to the extreme that I had to trade him for scraps. I'd prefer you just said thank you and went with a sensible lineup.  Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a copy of Fangraphs and read it.  Either way, I don't give a damn what you think you're entitled to.
                                              SCIOSCIA
                                               (quietly)
                                   Did you trade Mark Trumbo?
                                               DIPOTO
                                                 (beat)
                                I did the job you sent me to do.
                                              SCIOSCIA
                                 Did you trade Mark Trumbo?
                                              DIPOTO
                                               (pause)
                                You're goddamn right I did.
                                   Silence.  From everyone.  
        ARTE MORENO, TIM MEAD, CHUCK RICHTER, they're all frozen.
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