AngelsLakersFan

Not sure that is a fair assumption. Both teams enter into a trade agreement with the belief that they are getting a better deal for themselves. Long run, most trades should work out for both teams.

I think it will really come down to how confident DiPoto is in grabbing the right replacement arms as well as how much of a budget he's on. Last year I was quite concerned with our ability to completely overhaul the rotation, and while DiPoto was confident that he could do so for less money I think history has shown that it just isn't that simple. The big issue that no one has talked about relates to our strategy of acquiring other teams players. It seems that it might say something about the player when their team is wiling to give them up. Most orgs seem to overvalue their own players, and studies have shown a significant decline for players switching teams. We seriously need to start questioning our ability to pick up quality players when its their own organizations who seem to have soured on them.

i don't really get Hanson. He's had great stuff, great success but the worry about him was injury and if he could stay healthy. He staid healthy for the most part this year but really contributed nothing.

But would the Angels really risk going to arbitration with Hansen in a situation where they are offering a $3 mill pay cut at the risk of a $4+ million payout for a AAAA pitcher if they lose?

I think a move to DTLA would be foolish. In fact any move too far away would be foolish. LA already has the Dodgers, no matter how hard Art tries the Angels will always be second fiddle in that town, especially if they move there. The Angels have carved out their base in Anaheim and south Orange County. Are the wealthy season ticket holders from the area going to drive that far north? Is the fan base in this area really going to support the team at the same rate if there is an extra hour travel distance involved? Are people in LA who currently don't support the Dodgers really going to start supporting the Angels?

10 10 5 6 1 0 0 61.1 50 15 5 15 51 7.48 94.6 1.4 1.06 2.20 Dodger starts <-- That

It's pretty clear that steroids had a strong impact on the competitive level of the sport. With these stats you posted there is something of an indication that the guys running out there every day these days are not as good collectively as the guys that were playing back around 2000. This can be seen by the utter dominance of guys like Trout and Cabrera and simultaneously Kershaw, while the overall numbers for the league skew downward.

Makes me wonder what he can do next year. He looks poised to walk about as often as he strikes out, and he has gone a significant stretch of the season with an OBP over .500. I certainly wouldn't predicted it, but I could see him do it next season under certain circumstances.

To be fair to Iannetta, the study found that pitchers were vastly more important in their contributions to 'catcher defense' than the catcher himself is. At the same time Tommy Hansen and Joe Blanton were two of the worst rated pitchers in the study, and Hank Conger did make the 'worst' list as well. It would appear that Iannetta being rated worse is something of a perfect storm. He has had a terrible pitching staff to work with, and he has not been able to do much on his own to help it.

The schedule will always be a nightmare, especially for west coast teams.

WAR didn't really like Vladdy. He missed the cutoff man too often...

This difference mostly comes from BR using actual results for pitchers, vs FG using expected results. It is essentially FG being more conservative in their pitching/defense accounting. BR will correlate closer to W%, but with greater variance, FG will be more predictive and less prone to strange year to year results. For position players I prefer FG, and for pitchers I don't particularly care for either of them. I think BR over values pitchers and FG underrates a large segment of the leagues pitchers.

He needs an out pitch. No reason to expect him to develop one though. He is still a valuable reliever. A very poor man's Mariano Rivera!

I have no problem with Cabrera winning the MVP this year. He deserves it - even if the Angels were doing really well this year I would have no problem with Cabrera winning MVP (even if I would vote for Trout) because overall they have been pretty close. Last year that wasn't the case as Trout was way better and on an equally good team. Cabrera ended up winning due to a statistical anomaly. When you take the whole package, offense, defense, position, over the last two years Trout has been significantly better. The bulk of that came from last year. This year Cabrera has had the best offensive season of his long career, with his track record we can safely say that Cabrera has played a little over his head (no reason to expect a duplicate performance next year). His numbers have slowly fell back to earth as the season has progressed. This was an argument people made against Trout last year - his UZR was overly high and unreliable, his BABIP is high and unsustainable, he strikes out too much, etc. This year you can't make any of those arguments against Mike, he is having just as good of a season as last year but he has done it without the benefit of any statistical fortune. All that and he's still been a win or so better than Cabrera. At this point I'm surprised there is even any debate among Angel fans. I'd expect to have to make a post like this on an MLB forum, not on here.

Maybe that's exactly what he did. He isn't the type to lie.

Choo is not a bad idea. I love the idea of putting a super high on base guy in the lead off spot ahead of Mike Trout. We would score a ton of runs. If they do sign him I almost want to predict an extra 100 runs scored next year (insane prediction I know). Borjous is already our best trading chip at this point. I only hope his injuries this year haven't hurt his value.

Kotch put up seriously impressive minor league numbers, better than all of our other young players did. He showed a lot of flashes with the big club but always seemed to have some sort of set back. I never really understood why some guys always seem to have bad luck health wise. Between the mono, the concussion and looking to GA for advice on plate discipline I think he lost whatever spark he had as a top prospect coming up from the minor leagues.

Either one. The difference comes down to the information left out.

Scherzer will probably be a near unanimous selection. He leads the AL in pitcher WAR, he's about .10 points shy of the AL lead in ERA, fourth in ERA- just 4 points shy of the lead, second in strikeouts, third in SIERA (though way behind Darvish), and there is no one pitcher consistently ahead of him in any of these stats. And of course he is 19-1. Darvish, Sanchez, Kuroda, and Hernandez will all split the votes for second place.

This argument works with every player though :-) I think Trout currently has the highest career stolen base percentage as well.

You wont find that many recent players with that many years comparable to Trout, especially when you are taking out their four best seasons (as reasonable as that might be).

I don't really think they are all that comparable. Jeter is a great all around player like Trout, but Trout's early career performance makes Jeter look more like Cole Calhoun. Jeter has never been particularly good at any one thing. Always considered below average defensively, average+ power, relatively patient, good average, defensive first position, good baserunner. Trout on the other hand has been, at times, argued to be the best in the game at just about all of those, sans the power.

I'm more concerned with where he is going to play. His glove doesn't look like it can handle second base and the A's didn't seem to think he could play third. That said it's also possible that the A's do actually believe he can play third but no longer have any use for a third basemen. If he ends up needing to play OF he will need to start showing some power. For you guys watching all the games, does he look like he has the arm for third base?

I have been thinking this for awhile as well. Bonds is Trout's most similar comp. That said Trout is far better at the same age, and Barry didn't really break out until his age 25 season when he finally cracked 30+ homers. Bonds didn't strike out quite as much as Trout does, and it wasn't until his age 24 season that he walked as many times as he struck out - Bonds would continue that trend for another 17 seasons. I have a feeling that Trout might accomplish this feat next year.

Very good point. There have been a couple of noticeable lacks in advanced scouting this year as well. Have we thinned out the scouting department lately, cuz it sure seems like it.