I suppose some sort of analysis of the just completed season is in order. Then again, I’m a little tired of pointing fingers and all that. Truth be told, I’m kind of glad the season is over. The season was all kinds of frustrating and the year has been emotionally draining on many levels.
That being said, I do feel obligated to do a brief recap. Fortunately, I can sum up the season failures fairly easily.
The reason for the Angels poor showing can be directly tied to Brandon Wood’s epic failure at the plate, Erick Aybar’s inability to become a good lead off man, the continued horrible play of Jeff Mathis (and Mike Scioscia’s puzzling loyalty to him), Scott Kazmir’s miserable performance and a bull pen that was no friend to Smokey the Bear, let alone the Angel starting pitchers (they couldn't put out a match with a fire hose let alone a fire).
The list above does not represent all the reasons the Angels failed; however, they are the most significant outside of Kendry Morales’ injury in my opinion.
Let the Hot Stove Season begin.
Here’s the first shot heard around the Southern California scene, courtesy of Torii Hunter and the LA Times.
"Arte is [ticked off]," Hunter said. "And when he's [ticked off], great things happen."
Don’t tease me Torii. Please let me look back on that quote with fondness come next spring. I want to look back and say, "Arte really didn't mess around." I’ve been hearing a lot of "big" talk of late from Tony Reagins, etc. and I want to believe what I’m hearing. Time to walk the walk.
Let’s make Plan A, (whatever the heck it is) a reality. No stop gaps. No settling. Make some magic and let’s get back to winning. Make this off-season one to remember for all the right reasons.
Now, how do we fans stay tuned? Let me break it down for you.
Between now and the day pitchers and Molinas report (and beyond), I’ll be checking MLB Trade Rumors frequently (and you should too). When I say frequently, I'm talking about every ten minutes (just kidding... sort of).
Anything that might happen or actually does happen will be found there (it's not all rumors). Consider it your one-stop shop for all things Hot Stove.You wan to know who all the free agents are - check out MLB Trade Rumors. Need a list of Scott Boras clients? MLB Trade Rumors has it. Man, I should get paid for this plug!
You should also check in with the OC Register’s Angel Blog regularly. It's really the best source for Angels-specific information in real time. Sam Miller and Dan Woike along with a cast of thousands (give or take that many) keep Angel fans on top of all the action.
And add AngelsWin and Halos Heaven to your internet book marks. The two fan oriented sites are usually among the first to hear about any late breaking Angels news. Let me put it to you this way - if an Angel fan hears it, sees it or heaven forbid, smells it - they're likely to post about it at one of the two sites on their active message boards. Both also have great blogs, conduct in-depth interviews with players, front office people, other not-so-famous folks and much more.
LA Angels Insider is also another great resource for all things Angels (they even let me post a blog there once in a while). Eric Denton runs a first class site with lots of exclusive content.
If you use Twitter, you need to follow Sam Miller (@SamMillerOCR), Dan Woike (@OCR_DanWoike), Mark Saxon of ESPN (@markasaxon) and Lyle Spencer of MLB (@LyleMSpencer).
Be sure to check out all the Angel blogs (see my blog roll on the right) and please keep coming back to this site; after all, I’m not going any where and I get depressed when my site meter dips too low.
That should keep you on top of all the Angel news all off season long.
In closing today’s post, I’ll leave you with a few photos from the last home stand. Enjoy!
Photos: Top Row: Bobby Grich at the 50th Anniversary Announcement, followed by Ervin Santana. Second Row: Mark Trumbo followed by Peter Bourjos and in the last row: The Matsui faithful.
More:
Top Row: Bobby Wilson, Hideki Matsui, Torii Hunter
Bottom Row: Mike Scioscia, Howie Kendrick, Scioscia again
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