Angel_In_Germany

Of the top 25 starting pitchers in all of baseball for WHIP, the Angels have . . .

. . . all 5 starters in the top 25! (Lowest is Santiago at #23) Out of a possible 150 starting pitchers that's pretty impressive. Now about the offense . . .

Saw a B/R article talking about who's doing well in Winterball and am so use to the Angels *not* having someone in these types of articles that it was nice to see someone doing well. .341 in 126 at bats - how's his defense?

There was an article on Fangraphs saying David Freese has the highest line drive rate of any player in the majors and that line drives have a .656 BABIP on average this year.  He's had a .304 average *and* he's been somewhat unlucky . . . 

Bill MacDonald creeps me out.  That fake bake tan is ridiculous and his announcing is horrendous.  The guy screams used car salesman.  The picture above this, does nothing to improve my perception of him.

I just saw a fascinating little blurb on ESPN about 12 position players that have already pitched this year.  I had no clue it was that common as I've never seen an Angel position player pitch in 3-4 years that I've watched pretty much every game.  It was usually a blow out situation, but the more I thought about it the more I realized, hey if you're down by 10 runs and you have one inning left with a tired pen, why not?  Saves the pen, entertains the fans and team, etc.

 

Last night on the HR by Cowgill you could see Shoemaker warming up in the pen.  But if we'd run out of pitchers who on the Angels do you think would be tabbed to pitch?  Calhoun?  Hamilton?  Freese?  Just curious, seems a fascinating subject to me . . .

I'm actually glad the Angels don't get all pissed off, angry and emotional when they lose.  Why?  Because frankly it shows that they're mature, they're professionals and they recognize that losses are going to happen.  Even the best teams in history have lost 1 game for every 2 they win, or had losing streaks of 3-4 games - losing is a part of baseball, and if you can't handle it you probably aren't at the majors level anyway.  Brushing off losses allows them to win 5 in a row after losing 4 in a row.

 

Now having said that, *I* get emotional about their losses . . . I get down . . . sometimes puts me in a bad mood when it's a tough loss.  But I'm glad it's not *my* emotional state that they're relying on headed into their next game or we'd have a losing streak of unimaginable proportions.

 

Now jogging down the 1st base line and still getting thrown out when the short-stop bobbles it because you didn't sprint, that's different.  THAT pisses me off and I hope that pisses off the player himself and his teammates, but that's different than just losing.

 

Losing's a part of baseball.

You guys all just aren't patient enough.  Scoiscia knows what he's doing.  I mean all you have to do is look at the past to know that vets eventually come around.  I mean Wells and Abreu eventually came around and hit over .300 right?  right?  Hello? . . . .Hello? . . .

I'll take hamstring over anything related to the arm or shoulder any day of the week . . .

Buster Olney 

Run differential by division: 1. AL West +74; 2. NL West +2; 3. NL Central -5; 4. NL East -10; 5. AL Central -27; 6. AL East -34.

 

This is crazy. Basically, the AL West has been beating up on every other division in the MLB.

Not only that, but our division is stronger than the rest of the AL combined . . . =/

Just focus all your prayers on the health of our starters . . . . 

Didn't see it was being followed in the "Around the Majors" thread, feel free to delete mods, didn't mean to violate any policy with spam . . .

Where we have been lucky is no injuries to the starters.  That could possibly be a back breaker if it comes to pass.

 

This.  We have great depth at positions.  Zero with the starters.

Interesting article on Insider for those who have it and want to check it out.  Short version:

 

Team Speed

The best and worst teams in terms of BsR thus far this season.

Best BsR Angels 7.0 Pirates 3.3 Braves 3.3 Rangers 2.9 Yankees 2.9 Worst BsR Giants -2.0 White Sox -4.4 Cardinals -5.9 Athletics -6.8 Red Sox -9.0

 

 

The Angels through a combination of intelligent baserunning and speed are more than 2x ahead of the 2nd best team in the Pirates (despite Aybar's gaff at first last night!).  Most of the credit apparently goes to Howie (who leads all 2nd basemen in WAR for the MLB by the way).

 

Apparently Boston's last because of Napoli, Ortiz and Pierzynski =)

At the end of the day, it's only W's and L's that determine the playoffs, but realizing that it's April, it's encouraging to at least realize that we're better than our record.  We blow out teams in our wins and lose by a run in our losses.  Unclutch?  Maybe, but you can't keep leading the league (AL) in runs, run differential, etc. without it turning around at some point.  My opinion.

We were 2-7 after 9 games . . . just helps me with some perspective . . .

You'd be hard pressed to find pitchers who are only looking to go 5 innings, most aren't happy with being pulled, so I think that's an unfair statement in the OP.

Well if the league is primarily motivated by financial concerns, all that means is that our legal system, which is so horribly broken in so many ways (here's looking at you coffee in the lap), actually has done some good in this case, since I would guess that if we had to depend on the league looking out for its player's health as the primary motivation instead of financial risk . . . we would still have home plate collisions which I think most here can agree is a fringe element to a game based on speed, finesse and skill rather than size, tolerance for pain and misplaced bravado.

For those interested:

 

http://www.northjersey.com/sports/Baseball_Ridgewoods_Jeremy_Zoll_earns_a_top_scouting_job_with_Angels.html

 

There has to be a clause in the CBA to stop this sort of thing.  Hockey tried to do it 2-3 years back by tacking on 3 years at $300,000 per year for a player's 39, 40 and 41 years and it was shut down in a hurry.  Why wouldn't any team close to the cap just *always* do this to get around the AAV thing?  I would have thought this loophole would have been caught already . . . .

"Bullpen: Frieri, Santiago, Smith, Burnett, De La Rosa; two of Kohn, Salas, Jepsen, Blanton, Maronde, Rasmus, Rapada, Coello, Morin, Alvarez, Shoemaker"

 

Coello elected Free Agency awhile back . . .

$112 million over 5 years . . . seriously!?! . . . (per ESPN)

It makes it look like

1) His agent's on crack

2) Weaver's and Wilson's deals were steals . . .

Pretty sure it's one from Sox one from Angels so the post is wrong.

Why is everyone so high on Skaggs?  His numbers were terrible last year . . . was he battling injury or something?

I think it's great what he's doing.  There's more to life than baseball - taboo to say on this board?  Probably.

 

His struggles at the plate aren't for lack of effort.

I think the expectations on Howie when he came up from AAA is what killed Howie on these forums.  He's always been an above average second baseman, and people still keep ragging on him.  Have I been frustrated by his propensity to hit into double plays?  Of course, but all things considered, we're lucky to have him.  I would say this even if he were hitting .250.