Hubs

Well, they don't play Tuesday…so….they won't be needing a starter. I'd imagine it's Weaver, Wilson, Vargas, Blanton, Hanson…but they like Richards more than I do, maybe they go with 6 to start the season for the first two turns. I highly doubt it, but you never know.

Now, I honestly am not in the camp where "Spring Stats don't matter" because they do…for hitters. Hitters need to get their timing down, work into shape, etc. Pitchers often use spring as a testing lab, working on new pitches, figuring out their windup motions, etc. They honestly only care about their ERA if they are on the bubble of making a team…or something like that. Veteran's who are coming off successful seasons don't really care. Also you have to consider Sample Size. With Relievers especially in spring, but also in the regular season, one or two bad outings make the ERA look ridiculous, which is why each appearance should be graded individually. If a guy gives up 3 runs in one third of an inning, his ERA is 90.00 Now say he pitches 17 more games in the rest of spring and gives up a total of 6 runs, in 17 2/3 innings. His ERA is now 4.50. Well down from that 90.00 point, but it makes him look like he has had a bad spring, which just isn't true. His ERA in the last 17 games is 3.06. And say in that first game he came in, walked a batter on a close pitch, got the next guy to strike out, next guy bunted for a hit, third guy came in and popped to shallow center but runner didn't score, and then he was removed with the bases loaded. Then another reliever came in and gave up a grand slam on one pitch. Yeah the first outing isn't great, but then he was pretty good the rest of the spring. And say he had one other bad game when he had food poisoning in that 17 2/3 stretch, where he gave up 3 runs himself, by leaving one pitch up in the zone after a guy got walked. Then in frustration, he tries to blow it by the next guy and gives up Back to Back HR? It's two bad outings, and 16 good ones. But ERA is a summary stat and it doesn't care. Instead of looking like a guy who gave up 3 runs in 17 innings, he gave up 9 in 18. So instead of having an ERA under 2, he has a 4.5 ERA. It's all sample size. ERA is useful for starting pitchers, and even then, not great. For relievers? WHIP is the one to watch.

As long as he keeps doing the excellent "Tim McCarver Show" If you haven't seen it, it's up there with Huell Howser.

C. Kimbrel #14 - I missed him. They must've listed Konerko way lower. (Edit. Yep he was #98…players on the lists by team didn't show up if they were ranked between 50-100 so I ranked him but I thought that was really high) So the top ten will be Trout, Cabrera, Braun, Cano, Price, Verlander, Kershaw, Hernandez, Votto and Buster Posey. (not in any order). It's a pretty good top ten.

In May, they face the A's once, on the road, then four with Baltimore at home. Then three with Houston and three with the White Sox on the road. Then they face KC for three at home, the White Sox for four and Seattle for two. Then it's to KC for four and across town for two with the Dodgers. Then two with the Dodgers at home and one with Houston to end the month. That could be a very good month. 29 games. 16 games at home. 13 on the road. Best teams that they face won 94 games in 2012 (A's, Orioles) but they also face several 70 win and less teams this month. Best case, 22-7, worst case 15-14. In June it's three with Houston, then two with Cubs at Home. They follow this with a three game trip to Boston then three in Baltimore. They come back to face the Yankees at home for three, Seattle for four, and Pittsburgh for three. Then it's off to Detroit for thee and Houston for three. 15 at Home, 12 on the road, The 10 game homestand in the middle of the month should net some wins, plus the five games at the beginning of the month against Houston and the Cubs should be games in which the Angels are favored. 21-6 best case, 16-11 worst case. In July before the break, it's three with St. Louis at home, followed by three with Boston, then two in Wrigley and three in Seattle at Safeco. 11 games. 6 at home. Win four of those, three on the road, and it's 7-4 worst case. They could go 10-1 best case or even, (GULP) 11-0 if they are on a roll. Best case scenario, 75 wins at the break (75-19). That's very optimistic. Likely impossible. Yet, since there schedule is much tougher in the second half of the season, they do need to do well in the first half. (13 games against Texas in the second half, 13 against Oakland, with just 6 games against Seattle and 6 against Houston….plus they get 7 against the Rays, 7 against the Jays, four against the Yankees. They play 6 against Cleveland, 3 against Minnesota, and three against the Brewers). My worst case scenario is not really the worst case, just more of an uninspiring season, 49-45 at the break. If they do that, the playoffs aren't looking good because of there second half schedule. Average them out and you have a 62-32 record. Which would be a 107 win pace. And what I expect in the first half.

3 Against Cincinnati, a team who won 97 games last year, went 50-31 at home, without Joey Votto for most of the year… That's a tough opening series. Last year against the Royals, they went 1-2. Then followed that up by losing series to the Twins 1-2, and the Yankees 1-2. This year, after 3 @ Cincinnati they go to Texas for three, before hosting Oakland and Houston. Follow that up with a shot three game trip to Minnesota, then a home stand against two playoff teams in Detroit and Texas. The a six game trip to Seattle and Oakland finishes the month out. So, going off the opponents, worst case 0-3 against CIN. 2-4 against TEX. 2-3 against OAK. 2-1 against HOU. 2-1 against MIN. 1-2 vs Detroit. 2-2 versus Seattle. 0+2+3+2+2+1+1 = worst case = 11-16. Best case 2-1 versus CIN, 4-2 versus TEX, 4-1 versus Oakland, 3-0 versus Houston, 3-0 versus MIN, 2-1 versus Detroit, 3-1 versus Seattle. 21-6 best case. So averaging those two out, and you end up 16-11.

Pen to open the season is likely: Frieri Downs Burnett Jepsen Williams and a sixth guy TBD. Lowe, Carpenter, Stetter, Richards. Certain members of the press are talking like they open with 7 spots in the pen, but seeing as they will need a fifth starter earlier than in years past, why do they carry 7? Don't you think Scioscia would rather carry 5 bench guys including a backups in INF, OF, and 2 C? I think Richards would be better served by pitching for a month or two in SLC. He needs starting experience if he is going to be a starter in the bigs. Not pen experience. I think this way he, not Williams, will get the first call if there is a starter that goes down with injury for more than just a spot start. It really depends on how close they think Madson is to being ready. If Madson will be ready near the end of April, they likely will put a guy with options into that 6th or 7th spot, because he's likely to be sent down when Madson returns. By the end of the year, the pen could have three or four new regulars. The only guys who start the season and finish the season are Burnett, Downs, Frieri and likely Jepsen, if he is the Jepsen of the second half not the guy we saw last April.

I hope he picks a quiet area of Newport, like the Balboa Peninsula. He doesn't need the distractions.

12th of 15? So the Twins, The Astros, and the Indians will be worse off? You expect the Royals, Red Sox, Yankees, Orioles all to have better pitching staffs than the Angels? Really?

Don't be concerned about Weaver. I see a Cy-Season out of him this year. He could've been trying a new pitch, new grip, experimenting in that game. That's what pitchers do in ST. Especially veterans. Hanson will win 12 games, in fact, the entire rotation will win 12 games or more and Richards, who I expect to get a bunch of starts, will win 7. Weaver and Wilson are both great pitchers, Vargas and Blanton may surprise people, and Hanson has potential as does Richards. Having four flyball pitchers and an OF of Trout, Bourjos, and Hamilton is a recipe for success.

Has U-Verse decided which games they weren't showing? It'd be one thing if they didn't list the game on their on-screen guide, but it seemed I tried to watch games last year and they weren't on, but games at 1:00 PM were. Attn U-Verse: Don't carry day games on the road. Or games against poor teams. Show every in-division game except maybe road day games, show all inter-league games and NY/BOS/TB/DET games I'm fine with just 125 on, but please fix the guide so I know ahead of time. It's BS! Also, anyone with MLB.TV that lives outside CA, that wants to let me use their subscription in exchange for a few bucks, let me know. Thanks.

None of these Experts picked the Angels to have a league championship? I understand the love for some of the other teams, but I have it shaking out this way: AL WEST = Angels AL EAST = Blue Jays AL CENTRAL = Tigers AL WILD CARD = Rangers AL WILD CARD = Rays Rangers lose their second straight one game playoff. Tigers beat the Rays, Angels over the Jays, Angels over the Tigers to face the... NL WEST = Giants NL EAST = Nationals NL CENTRAL = Reds NL WILD CARD = Dodgers NL WILD CARD = Braves Dodgers beat the Braves in the one game Playoff. Dodgers beat the Nationals, Reds beat the Giants, Reds beat the Dodgers, to face the Angels in the World Series. Angels over Reds in 6. AL MVP Trout faces NL MVP Votto to go along with AL CY Young Weaver. Hamilton (Billy) vs. Hamilton (Josh). It works.

Let's rank the other 14 in the AL to see where they'd be, then slot the Angels in. Worst 3: Houston, Minnesota, Cleveland Next 3: KC, Baltimore, Boston Next 3: NY, Texas, LA. Next 3: Detroit, Toronto, Chicago Best 3: Tampa, Oakland, Seattle An argument can be made for putting NY into the top five, but Toronto took a huge step forward with three new starters in Dickey, Johnson, Buerhle. Chicago could slip. Texas could move up. Detroit could move down. KC and Baltimore could move up. Boston could have a better year. Oakland could fall, Tampa could fall, but neither fall far, have been top 5 in pitching for a long time. Still, 7-9th place wouldn't be too bad here as the teams ahead of us, all could drop, and the two best offenses, are right near each other in this set. Best guess, they'll finish between 5th to 10th. Wilson, Vargas have to have great years to match the past three years, but less than 700 runs is possible, especially with an improved back of the bullpen.

I think you have 30 teams with about 40-45 major league players each year due to injury / trades etc. That's 1200-1350 players. The average point is not likely to be at 600, but 500 allows for the ranking of the top players, the regulars. I'd have rather they ranked the top 300 hitters (10 per team basically) and the top 300 pitchers but they just picked the top 500. The list was based on how well they'll do in 2013, not what they did in 2012. Only 25 of the 26-100 players were pitchers, roughly 1/3 of the players. I projected 8 guys to be top 25 pitchers, also roughly 1/3 of the players. That makes CJ Wilson the 34th best pitcher in the game, or basically right at the bottom of the top 10% of all pitchers. Vargas was in the 130-140th place range which is the top 40%.

905

Cayones is likely headed to Cedar Rapids or maybe Inland Empire. Sneed will go to Inland Empire. Neither are high ceiling prospects, but they're not going to get a great prospect if they got the Yankees on the hook for nearly 14 million.

On ESPN, they've been ranking the best 500 players in MLB. Today is 11-25, tomorrow is the top ten. Here's where they've ranked the Angels not in the top 25, from 26-500. 101 CJ Wilson 142 Mark Trumbo 145 Ernesto Frieri 161 Howie Kendrick 175 Erick Aybar 287 Alberto Callaspo 288 Peter Bourjos 306 Sean Burnett 307 Tommy Hanson 327 Scott Downs 335 Jason Vargas 347 Chris Iannetta 428 Joe Blanton 459 Kevin Jepsen Likely Top 25: Pujols, Hamilton, Trout, Weaver. Likely Unranked: Ryan Madson, David Carpenter, Garrett Richards, Hank Conger, Chris Snyder, Kole Calhoun, & Andrew Romine. Also anyone else I forgot. I'm guessing the top 25 to be: 1-3. M. Trout 1-3. M. Cabrera 1-3. R. Braun 4. R. Cano 5. B. Posey 6. J. Verlander 7. C. Kershaw 8. A. McCutchen 9. F. Hernandez 10. A. Beltre 11. D. Price 12. M. Cain 13. M. Kemp 14. J. Votto 15. S. Strausberg 16. E. Longoria 17. A. Pujols 18. J. Hamilton 19. J. Bautista 20. P. Fielder 21. G. Stanton 22. C. Hamels 23. J. Weaver 24. C. Lee 25. P. Konerko Some of these guys may already have been listed, but I can't find them.

I disagree Chuck if only because I expect Aybar to hit .290 and Callaspo to hit .250. They'll K about the same, and while Callaspo gives you 30 more walks Aybar is going to get 35-40 more hits and 20 more steals. He's faster, and can beat out a sacrifice if they decide to move Trout to third and the Shortstop hesitates at all.

On ESPN.com http://insider.espn.go.com/mlb/spring2013/story/_/id/9088208/why-erick-aybar-baseball-most-underrated-player-mlb It's an insider article, sorry I won't post it here, but basically it says that Aybar is the most underrated player in baseball. The writer says that he's a good hitter relative to his peers and good defensively too. Yet because he gets overshadowed by his more famous teammates, and doesn't show up on sportscenter a lot, he gets overlooked. Highlights of the article are the comparison to Jeter, which shows Jeter as a poor fielding shortstop again, good with the bat and a bad baserunner. By Comparison, Aybar is good with the bat, good on the bases, and a decent fielder. I'm thinking they underrate him here, as someone who watches him often. The writer says his wRC+ is 99 which as we know for the league average hitter is 100, but the average for shortstops is actually 86, which shows him to be a pretty darn good hitter relative to his position, which is scarce in MLB these days. Finally, at the end of the article "The Angels have just announced that Aybar is going to hit second in the order this year, putting him in between Trout and Albert Pujols, so he might get more attention than he has in previous years, and don't be too shocked if he takes another step forward offensively, with Trout opening up the right side of the infield for him on a regular basis. Of course, any step forward offensively now would just elevate him from good player to legitimate star, so perhaps we can start giving him credit for being a key part of the Angels' success now?" I didn't see an announcement for him in the second spot…but there it is. I think they hope he can take a step forward offensively and improve hitting in front of Pujols and behind Trout like Hunter did in 2012. I like it.

Normally, this is a bigger deal when they used top play 9 games in NL parks in a small part of the season in late May or June. Now, however, they open with the Reds, but then they don't see another NL park until two with the Dodgers in May (5-27 & 5/28) following that, it's two with the Cubs in Wrigley on the 9th and 10th of July, then three with the Brewers at Miller Park to end August and begin September. To start the year, they play Monday the 1st, then have Tuesday off, then play Wednesday the 3rd and Thursday the Fourth in Cincinnati. I'd expect Bourjos to start opening day for Weaver, then with Wilson pitching likely Wednesday, Trumbo starts in Left and Trout moves to Center. Thursday, Hamilton or Pujols sits, Trumbo plays their spot and Bourjos is back in CF for Vargas. In May against the Dodgers, it's the end of a 6-game road trip with no day off for 7 more games. 13 in a row. I'd imagine Trumbo and Bourjos each get a day off for those two, but again, Pujols, Hamilton, or Trout all could see a rare day off. When they play the Cubs in July, they have days off before the two games and after the two games. The All-Star game is the following week after a three game stretch in Seattle. I'd imagine Bourjos sits once and Trumbo sits once, seeing as they don't want to give either player four days off in a row, especially if they are hitting well. In August, against the Brewers, it again is the tail end of a 6-game trip, followed by a 7 game homestand. I'd imagine one sits Friday, depending on who is pitching for the Angels, one sits Saturday. Then on Sunday, it's a really early day game. I wouldn't be surprised again if Pujols or Hamilton gets a rare day off, or even Trout. They then play TB and TEX at home, so probably will be vitally important games. Also, any of these games could see Calhoun starting if they face a pitcher vulnerable to lefties, which would put both Bourjos and Trumbo on the bench. That likely only happens when Wilson starts for the Angels, but it is a possibility.

The #2 hitter should be Aybar against righties as a left hander, and Bourjos against lefties as a right hander. The other should hit #9 as to not break up the rest of the lineup. Look, we all know Scioscia will use a multitude of lineups. Just in the 10 inter-league games there will be likely 9 or 10 lineups. But those aside, the 1-9 everyday batting order will likely only have one regular who doesn't move positions. That's Trout at the top. After that, Aybar, Bourjos, Callaspo will all get looks at #2. Calhoun also may get a look here when the regulars are getting a day off. Pujols, Hamilton will probably both bat #3 (when Pujols gets a day off, which is going to happen at least 6-8 times) Trumbo, Hamilton, Pujols all bat #4 at some point. Trumbo, Iannetta, Kendrick all bat #5 at some point. Kendrick, Callaspo, Iannetta, all bat #6. Callaspo, Conger, Calhoun all will bat #7 if only to break up a bunch of right handers. Aybar may also bat here. Iannetta, Conger, Calhoun, Bourjos, Jimenez, Rodriguez, and who knows who else will all bat #8. Aybar, Bourjos, and Iannetta will all bat #9. By using the #2 batter to get Trout into scoring position (or to 3rd) you have one out and Pujols-Hamilton-Trumbo likely coming up. This is even better if Aybar/Bourjos was already on base from the #9 spot. By putting a batter who has a penchant for taking a lot of pitches in Callaspo at the #2 spot, you are inviting a runners on first and second with no outs situation to which you hope will turn into a big inning, but it's just as easy to lead the league in double plays. Callaspo hits a lot of balls to the infield, often for hits, but not the way you are hoping for.

It's certainly up there. The Angels only took on $81 Million for what it's worth, they owed $86 M not $89 M for four seasons. But still for $68 M, this is pretty bad. The Dodgers spending $55 M on Darren Dreifort and $105 M on Kevin Brown jump out, but I can't think of a non-pitcher that was a worse investment. Wells just wasn't a good fit…but to Reagins defense, they had just finished a really poor 2010 season where Bourjos didn't hit, Abreu looked bad, Rivera looked bad, Napoli played mostly 1st because he couldn't play C, Morales was lost for the year, Hunter looked like he regressed. They didn't know Trumbo could make the adjustment to the majors, they didn't know Bourjos would hit so well in 2011. They had lost out on Carl Crawford in FA…it wasn't looking good offensively. A year after nearing the franchise record for runs scored at 883, they had scored a measley 681 runs, over 200 runs less. They needed offense. There wasn't much out there or at their own AAA level. They took a gamble and lost.

I think it's going to be someone we've never heard of, or a defensive oriented catcher slated for their AAA-Columbus team. Like Bobby Wilson or Austin Romine. It won't include anyone who played yesterday for either team. Wilson did have one AB for the Yankees. It's really odd to me that they've not even rumored the prospect that will be coming back to the Angels. When the Red Sox did their Salary dump they were talking immediately which Dodgers prospects were going back, even if they did send some decent players the Dodgers way it was still a salary dump. Everyone assumes it will be a low level guy, but think as bad as Wells was in 2011 and 2012 with the Angels, in 2010, he was an All-Star for Toronto. The guy was vastly overpaid, but for an AAV of $6.5 M he is pretty much a good investment. And because the Angels are taking on quite a bit of money, and working with the Yankees desire to get under the luxury tax, there should be something coming back of some minor value.

Saving $13 M of the $42 M certainly helps, but it's not a huge upgrade. I'd imagine they are not getting anything back of substance, but maybe Dipoto did fool Cashman into giving up a diamond in the rough. That being said, it could be Bobby Wilson even if we are hoping for Austin Romine.

Conger will get the backup catcher spot. I don't think he has anything more to learn from AAA after spending most of the last three seasons there when he wasn't in Anaheim. He hasn't hit well in the majors, so honestly I feel the best thing for Conger is to get regular major league pitching, show he can hit and work on his defense daily with Iannetta, Sciocia, Soliz, and Gregario. If nothing else, he increases his trade value dramatically if he shows he can hammer major league pitching. He's hit .290-.300 in every level of the minors save for three games in Arizona in 2007 when he was 19 before he was moved to Cedar Rapids. In AA and AAA he's consistently had OBP higher than .365 with slugging percentages in the high .400's. The guy needs regular playing time in the majors and the only way that happens if he gets his defense under control. In his one regular stint in the majors he was having trouble with base stealers, but he's not had that problem in the minors, throwing out 27-30% of runners which is acceptable. The Yips has to work itself out. Otherwise, just run to the pitcher every time. (Kidding)