The 50 Greatest Angels (31-40)

Today’s list in the Orange County Register (OCR) of the greatest Angels (31-40) is very revealing. As I said yesterday, my list isn’t perfect and today’s list reveals some holes in my selections.

From the Register: Fred Lynn (40), Jered Weaver (39), Clyde Wright (38), Bryan Harvey (37), Scot Shields (36), Bob Boone (35), Bobby Knoop (34), Jim Abbott (33), Bengie Molina (32), and Torii Hunter (31).

You might be asking yourself how in the world did James leave Torii Hunter off his list? That’s a good question. How did I? When I was developing my list a couple months back, I had a reason for leaving him off the list; however, I can’t remember why now for the life of me. This is easily the biggest regret I have with my 50 greatest.

Hunter is easily my favorite current baseball player on the planet. It’s not even close. I goofed. What else can I say? At least I wasn’t alone. The OC Register’s Jeff Miller also left Hunter off my list. Then again, I’m not a fan of Miller’s at all, and being of the same mind set in this case is more than a little disturbing to me. Just saying.

Two others who didn’t make my list include Bryan Harvey and Fred Lynn. Both are probably deserving.

Enough about me… let me focus on the “blunders” of others!

Scot Shields was recognized as the set up man of the decade (2000-2009) and yet the OC Register’s Earl Bloom, Bill Plunkett and Mark Whicker left him off their list. So did AngelsWin’s Chuck Richter and Ellen Bell. Shame on all of you!

Then again, I should talk right? Hey, well it’s not about me. Let’s continue….

Keith Sharon of the OC Register left Jim Abbott off his list. Wow. Come on Keith, Jim Abbott? I’m trying to imagine Keith telling Jeff Miller (who ranked Abbott 11th) why he left Abbott off his list. I think we should be launching a full scale investigation into this (anything that will take the focus off my leaving Hunter off my list). By the way he’s #21 on my list.

Then there’s the case of Bengie Molina. Keith and Sam Miller (also of the OC Register) left Molina off their lists. Molina is one of my all-time favorites (yes, I have many) and I can’t imagine leaving him off this list. He might be the greatest catcher in Angels’ history (just a tick ahead of Bob Boone). The OCR’s Dan Woike ranked him 18th.

Speaking of Boone; Bloom and the OCR’s Dan Woike managed to leave him off their lists.

Highest ranked player on the list by our panelists? Jered Weaver was ranked 13th by Sam Miller. I’m betting Miller has a sabermetrics argument that will knock our socks off to justify this high ranking. Perhaps he should share it with Jenelyn Russo, Bill Plunkett and Jeff Miller all of whom left him off their lists. Go get ‘em Sam!

Kudos to Tim Mead and Randy Youngman who managed to have all of today’s players on their lists.

I’m afraid one of my 50 isn’t going to make the cut and that would be Joe Saunders. I admit he was a sentimental choice on my part (ranked him #49). If he’s not on the list by now, I doubt he’ll be on it at all. I am curious about Rudy May, who I ranked 47th. He has yet to appear and I would be surprised if he cracked the top 30. May is 9th all time in career strike outs by an Angels pitcher, among the top ten in complete games, and 7th in shut outs. It will be a shame if he’s not on the list.

Until tomorrow…

Blogging ain't easy... pass the turkey

Thanksgiving will be here in just a few days and I can’t help, but think about Torii Hunter whenever this holiday rolls around now. That’s because on Thanksgiving morning 2007, my wife Cheryl woke me up early in the morning to tell me that the Angels had signed Hunter to a five-year deal. I was a little groggy and didn’t believe her. I thought to myself that she must of heard wrong and the Dodgers probably signed Hunter. After all, the Angels had four more years of Gary Matthews, Jr. (GMJ) ahead of itself. I even told her as much (something she reminds me about from time to time).

I was beside myself when I finally confirmed the news. I couldn’t believe my favorite player in all of baseball was coming to my favorite team. It was a joyous day and the turkey even tasted extra-good that day, I’m sure.

Well, here we are three years later and I’m hoping Cheryl wakes me up Thursday morning to tell me some more unbelievable news. If that news happens to be about Carl Crawford; all the better.

It’s that time of the year and it always makes me a bit antsy. I wake up every day wondering if this is the day the Angels do something great.

Take today for example. It’s November 22 and this is somewhat of a significant day in Angels history. It’s actually the three year anniversary of the Torii Hunter signing I mentioned above. Talk about something to be thankful for!

It also happens to be the four year anniversary of the GMJ signing. Now that’s a real turkey. Somebody pass me some pie, I need to eat my way out of that memory.

Even though the days are technically shorter, they’re long days never-the-less - as we wait to see what’s going to happen next. It’s still very early in the off season and it may be a long while before anything significant happens. For some perspective, check out Sam Miller’s piece from November 17, 2010 when he outlined the dates that Arte has spent his money. Sam gives us a detailed timeline of all the significant moves and when they happened under Arte’s watch.

By the way, if Arte happens to spend some of his money on Adrian Beltre, I’d be pretty happy about that. I know, I know, I’ve already talked about this a couple times. I only bring it up again because I’d like to point you in the direction of Halos Heaven’s Matt Welch who does an excellent job of separating some of the facts from fiction in his “Adrian Beltre’s Walk Seasons, and Other Illusions.”

Speaking of illusions, I posted something last week about how the A’s seemed to be trying to corner the market on third basemen. Well, turns out their offer to Adrian Beltre was little more than a PR move according to reports on mlbtraderumors.com

Really? That’s the kind of PR the A’s do? I guess it falls in line with Money Ball on some level; I guess they’re making news without spending any real money. Whatever. I just hate the A’s.

Since it’s such a slow news day, err week… err month, I thought I’d spend a little time talking about the blogosphere.

I’d like to give a shout out to some Angel blogs out there. Blogging on a consistent basis is hard work. It takes a lot of time and dedication to try and keep a blog relevant and up to date. Here are some great bloggers who are doing exactly that:

Angels Nation broke in around April of 2010 and seem to be going strong.

AngelsWin has been around a while and is one of the gold standards in blogging. They’re much more than a blog, they’re more like a one-stop-shop for everything Angels. They have organized get-togethers, a message board, orginal content and much more.

L.A. Angels Insider is the handy work of Eric Denton. His site is striving to be much more than a blog as well. You can find great podcast interviews and other “insider” information on his site regularly. Eric has also told me that he’s developing other features on his site that are sure to be of value to Angel fans.

Monkey with a Halo is a blogging warrior. Garrett Wilson posts a lot of stuff on a regular basis. Nothing gets past this guy. He is currently taking a short break from blogging, but his site is always a great place to visit. He’s never lacking for an opinion on all things Angels and that's a good thing.

Halos Heaven is another of the gold standards in blogging. It is also much more than a blog with an absolutely huge following. Be sure to check them out for all the latest discussions, original content, news and much more.

The Angels Blog on the O.C. Register web site is easily one of my favorite places to visit on a regular basis. Sam Miller, Dan Woike, Bill Plunkett, Keith Sharon and the rest of the staff give you a little bit of everything. Fun videos, sabermetrics, news, interviews, photos, you name it – these guys are on it.

The Angels, in order is a very special blog. If you love baseball cards and the Angels than this blog is a little slice of heaven. The author goal is have a signature of every player who has ever been with the Angels. He’s posting his collection one player at a time starting with the first to debut as an Angel in 1961.

Last, but not least is a brand new entry into the blogosphere: This is a very simple game is penned by blithescribe who regularly comments on my posts here. Blithescribe provides some truly unique perspectives on the game of baseball and the Angels (of course). It’s a great blog and I hope this one sticks around.

There are a great many Angel blogs on the internet, the ones I’ve highlighted here seem to be the most consistent. In other words, they don’t disappear for months at a time. They’re also very good and each offers something unique for every Angel fan.

I have a more complete list on the right side of this blog, but again – consistency isn’t a strong point of all of them. Again, blogging ain’t easy. Just saying.

My hope is that we will continue to see Angel bloggers sprouting up all over the place because the more people we have talking about the Angels the better.

80-82

The headline says it all; the final tally for 2010.

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.

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Top Row: Bobby Wilson, Hideki Matsui, Torii Hunter
Bottom Row: Mike Scioscia, Howie Kendrick, Scioscia again