acro2008

A few things:
 
1) The 116 win mariners made it to the ALCS, they weren't eliminated in the ALDS. Still, they lost to the Yankees so I guess that is a disappointment.
 
2) I don't believe this playoffs is a crapshoot thing. I do think that luck plays a factor, for sure. But why do the Cardinals, Red Sox, and Giants routinely have success in the playoffs? They may not always win it all, but they advance, they fight hard, and they don't routinely get swept out of the first round. The fact is, those teams know how to play when the stakes are high. The Angels from 04 onwards have shown they continually can't hit, make errors and dumb mistakes, and generally have poor energy.
 
3) This season was good but the only thing I'll really hang on to is how good Richards is and will be. 
 
4) In the words of our very own CJ Wilson, "I am not impressed". 

Anything can happen in the postseason, true. In a short series anything can happen. But it's not entirely a crapshoot. It's not a flip of the coin type thing and it's not entirely random.
For example, was Wilson sucking a result of pure randomness? Or was it a continuation of an ongoing problem that has been going on for 4 months now? How about Hamilton looking lost and awful? Random?
I am proud of the way the Angels played during the regular season and it was a fun season. But the goal should and will always be winning in the postseason.
Looking forward to 2015

Its not a crap shoot.  The same players repeatedly choke every postseason.  Kendrick has had several chance to prove himself, he always craps the bed every time we make it.  CJ and Hamilton have always been useless in October, but we signed them anyway and look what happened.  
 
You can try to call it a crap shoot as much as you want, but how many times do we have to get eliminated before people start realizing you dont just luck yourself to a championship.  Theres a reason the Cardinals and Giants have won.  The Red Sox won last year because they had a roster full of postseason performers.  Saying its a crap shoot is just a cop out for a team that always dominates the regular season but cant get it done when it matters.  

if he was on that short of a leash he shouldn't have started.
 
but since he did start, he should have been able to pitch the rest of the first and gone from there.

How dare our bullpen actually give up some runs? That's unacceptable and never happens to any other team in the playoffs.

It was one very big game. And it's not so much that we lost, it's how we lost, we've seen it time and time again this season. Offense struggling to get guys in and they end up paying for it. 

I was at the game; With Anaheim being the worst, the crowd behind home plate sucks in most stadiums worried about their smartphones and Panani. The crowd was rocking and I've been to a home Boston playoff victory. Much of the crowd did stand and cheer when Weaver had 2 outs 2 strikes. As the game went on and we crapped our pants each inning against a pitcher the Angels decided wasn't worth giving a contract to and it was obvious the fans grew frustrated. Judging a crowd that fails on all of their scoring chances isn't fair. They stood and cheered for the possible gamewinner which fizzled again. The Diamond club which is always being shown on TV needs fireworks up their @ss. I noticed Hambone's because of the sheer patheticism of the AB's with men on took life out of the crowd.
Of course Camdem yards kicked ass, THE O's Scored 12 RUNS.
Also, I have noticed for years now from TBS adjusts the crowd noise for each game. Eric Burns said a couple years ago, playing in Anaheim when with the A's, it's one of the loudest stadiums in BB once the fans get going(paraphrase). Weaver pitched playoff baseball and the lineup sucked.

I was there and my corner club level area was into it. We started the CJ Cron and Ianneta chants. Kind of hard to blame the crowd when the offense does absolutely nothing but let as us down every damn inning.

I can speak for the "AJ" eries and nWhat is funny is that I actually looked it up before I posted and found it as a word. I may have spelled it wrong.

I was at the game; With Anaheim being the worst, the crowd behind home plate sucks in most stadiums worried about their smartphones and Panani. The crowd was rocking and I've been to a home Boston playoff victory. Much of the crowd did stand and cheer when Weaver had 2 outs 2 strikes. As the game went on and we crapped our pants each inning against a pitcher the Angels decided wasn't worth giving a contract to and it was obvious the fans grew frustrated. Judging a crowd that fails on all of their scoring chances isn't fair. They stood and cheered for the possible gamewinner which fizzled again. The Diamond club which is always being shown on TV needs fireworks up their @ss. I noticed Hambone's because of the sheer patheticism of the AB's with men on took life out of the crowd.
Of course Camdem yards kicked ass, THE O's Scored 12 RUNS.
Also, I have noticed for years now from TBS adjusts the crowd noise for each game. Eric Burns said a couple years ago, playing in Anaheim when with the A's, it's one of the loudest stadiums in BB once the fans get going(paraphrase). Weaver pitched playoff baseball and the lineup sucked.

The best lineup would have Trout hitting 3rd and Pujols 4th. But the team doesnt want to hurt Pujols feelings so it wont happen.

And suddenly, in the summer of 2014, thousands of young children are making their way here, most of them without their parents or other family members? All of a sudden we're inundated with a tsunami of unaccompanied children, just like that?
 
Something's really wrong with this picture. It's not just "Central America". This thing is being engineered for certain purposes, and will not end well for America.

And this is the problem with Instant Replay. I'm an umpire so I get to be blinded by my own bias.
 
 
That being said, catcher should have stepped on the plate and tagged him just to be safe. 

I'm guessing very few of us are excited about that prospect.
 
However, it isn't like our government has been a benevolent force for good for the last 60 years or so.  It isn't also like we haven't seen rights disappearing over the last couple of decades either.

Outdated? No freaking way.
Americans may have to protect themselves from their own government someday, violently if necessary. That threat will never change, no matter what the times.

I have guns, so what. They haven't been used in the commission of a crime and I don't plan on using them for that. I enjoy shooting them and have no intent on giving up my right because some people don't like them. Some people don't like our other items in the Bill of Rights so we should let them go too? With that said I agree that there are a lot of people that should not own a gun at all. How do you know the people in those pics aren't good and decent citizens?

I'm the one who's minding his own business while you feed your desperate urge to control the actions of other people. 

He prays

The quote is not the only thing that informs that he didn't want to leave St.L. The fact that he, and his family, still live there is. Who signs a 20 year contract and then looks at it like a business trip? The quote merely has him calling St. L 'home' - and if I had been Arte, and Albert told me he didn't intend on moving himself and his family out here permanently then I wouldn't have signed him.
 
I don't know what Albert's problem is, but I know he has never been fully committed to playing here.

I have a feeling if Albert were still playing in St. Louis, he would not be playing this poorly, nor be anywhere near as delusional. 
 
Tony La Russa seemed to be a father figure to him.  They even did things together during the offseason as friends.  Tony isn't afraid to speak his mind and I think something would have been said by now, whereas Mike Scioscia is terrified of telling players the truth, instead stringing them along and letting them believe age and/or declining skills are not a factor. 
 
Remember Steve Finley, Gary Matthews Jr, Bobby Abreu, Vernon Wells, Jeff Mathis, Casey Kotchman, Chris Bootcheck, Justin Speier, and Brandon Wood just to name a few?  They thought exactly the same way, and Scioscia and Co. did nothing to speak any reality into their heads.  All of these players pretty much self destructed because of it, not that they wouldn't have anyway, but the Angels did them no favors.   Albert Pujols is on the fast track to joining that list unless something is done to fix his head.  

Please.
 
If he didn't want to leave St. louis he shouldn't have signed here. It's all ego with him. Signs with the team who offers him the most money even though he never wanted to leave in the first place. Runs through stop signs because he can't stand not being 'the guy' anymore.

Not trying to pick a fight, or an argument here, and it isn't just Brandon, but I am surprised by the tone of contempt or disdain that many posters here have for newspapers.
 
Hey, they don't have to be everybody's thing.  But please just remember, we have very few, if any, government watch dogs. 
 
The Bell scandal was brought to light by the LA Times.  That complete boondoggle of a school district - Centinela Valley, in Hawthorne area - was uncovered by the Daily Breeze.  Now the FBI is involved in that one.
 
Stomp on the graves of newspapers, and do it with glee, if you like.  But they serve a real purpose that nobody else is doing.

As an anecdotal counterpoint to Trout running and who is hitting behind him, Hunter logged his most productive season at the plate with Trout on base. He managed his highest batting average, obp and ops+ during Trout's rookie season.
Looking a little closer at Torii's numbers he was hitting .343 with a rediculous babip of .423 batting second behind Trout. Torii changed his plate approach to adapt to Trout's speed and took advantage of the second baseman covering by hitting to the right side instead of being a pull hitter swinging for fences. Pitchers will try going outside and low to induce pull hitters to roll over on the ball and ground out to short. Torii went with those pitches and Trout went first to third.
Now, this is anecdotal but with enough research it bears truth and it in turn asks back the question, who is hitting behind a guy like Trout that you can combine the two talents to maximize their abilities. I don't think putting Pujols behind Trout is justified simply because once every five or six games he may hit a home run. That is more of and Earl Weaver approach of wait for that moment rather than create momentum.
We don't have a veteran player to take on Torii's role so you have to play the game you bring to the field and that is the statistical averages that puts Trout hitting second and sacrificing his speed. Running Trout without a real solid bat behind Pujols means Albert will never see a pitch to hit when a team can bypass him with a walk and set up a double play.

Oh hey another superfan thread. Surprised to see someone as cynical as xboom try and convert to superfan status.
I guess he thinks he's better than people because he doesn't bitch during the game? Good for you bro.

There seems to be a correlation, you should miss more games.