Lineup for the stretch?

1. Izturis
2. Cabrera
3. Kendrick
4. Guerrero
5. Rivera
6. Anderson
7. Quinlan/Morales
8. Napoli
9. Figgins

A brief comment on announcers

First, a clarification about the Stoneman debate--I basically agree with Wraith that not trading at the deadline was probably the best bet, in so far as we would have been forced to give up key players, which seems to have been the case. However, I've heard several veritable rumors (but rumors nonetheless) that we could have acquired Soriano, for example, for "second-tier prospects." I'm not quite sure what that term meant in context, but I imagine it meant we wouldn't have had to give up Santana/Weaver/Wood/Kendrick/Adenhart, but somebody like Aybar/Mathis/Bulger. Which is not to say those three players aren't someday going to be excellent sportsmen, but we have enough depth at each of those positions (possibly excepting Bulger) that it wouldn't have been the Apocalypse had we given them up. We also could have gone after temporary stop-gaps such as Casey or (Aramis) Ramirez relatively inexpensively, too. The problem, it has been so rumoured, is that Stoneman did not react fast enough to land the Soriano deal, meaning if he were a bit more attentive we would have had him. That's what frustrates me most about him.

OK, so my comments on announcers. It seems to be agreed that Steve Physioc and Rex Hudler are pretty horrible. I don't completely agree with that sentiment, as they do say some pretty intelligible things from time to time, but watching them day in and day out is pretty awful. However, I wonder how much better certain other announcers are. The White Sox announcers last night were extremely biased towards the Sox (try comparing the reactions to the Angel and Thome home runs), while Hud and Phys tend to show enthusiasm toward great plays by both teams (sometimes to a fault). Tonight, I'm ready to pull my hair out at listening to the Indians announcers--S and H may ramble from time to time, but I swear the Cleveland guys just like listening to themselves talk. They have not stopped spewing forth useless nuggets of verbosity for the twenty minutes I've been watching the game. The camera focuses on them, not the game. They don't talk about the game, they talk about general baseball stuff. Extremely annoying. So I'll take Phys and Hud over other announcers (with some exception) almost any day.

Wraith?

On Deadlines

I'm going to have to disagree with AAW here. I think that Stoneman's stonewalling on the trade deadline was a good thing, but only if you accept one fact: we're not going to the World Series this year.

This is a rebuilding year, not a contention year. True, we're not exactly wallowing in a pool of our own waste--the team has a perfectly good shot at winning the division this year. But let's remember a couple of facts:

We have a large number of rookies in our starting lineup. Our catcher and (temporary) first baseman are playing in the bigs for the first time. Napoli's bat has been a pleasant surprise after Mathis fizzled out, but he's been in a hitting slump that has allowed that wayward Molina brother a chance to grab a few starts. Howie Kendrick is on his way to becoming one of the great second baseman of this generation, but with Adam Kennedy hanging around and Scioscia's obsession with veterans of the 2002 campaign, he'll be relegated to first base. He's never played at that position, and the number of errors he's committed during his tenure there speaks to his inexperience.

Our rotation, which may be the best in baseball, has two rookies on it. Jered Weaver is a media-acknowledged phenom, though AAW is right that he has had trouble his past two starts. I don't think this is a problem of talent, however. During his last start against Texas, supposedly Weaver the Younger was hyperventilating; it was likely the pressure of the situation that was getting to him. The ability to deliver under fire is the trademark of a great pitcher, especially in the playoffs, and it remains to be seen if Weaver the Younger can avoid his elder brother's problem of allowing his emotions to consume him. Joe Saunders, while lacking the outright talent of Weaver, seems to have a lot of poise. In his last start against Texas, he got in several jams but got through them without much hand-wringing.

The rotation is the key, and second, point to mention here. Most of the deals involving marquis names like Tejada or Soriano involved our starting pitching, notably Ervin Santana. With Colon on the disabled list, it is key to keep our rotation intact.

This is not to say that we should be satisfied with complacency. The player market this season was simply unworkable--anyone we could have acquired that would have significantly helped out the team would have cost us a substantial part of our major league talent. However, with Kennedy and Erstad unlikely to return next year, we have a bit of money to offer the many free agents who will be available during the offseason.

I agree with AAW in that Stoneman, while making a wise decision during this trade deadline, should not consider himself blessed with invulnerable job security. This team is literally one big bat away from a serious shot at the Fall Classic. Stoneman has shown a tendency to opt for inaction instead of making the big deal, no matter how necessary. Despite the team's flaws, this is the best incarnation of the Angels since 2002. Stoneman cannot be the Stoneman of the past--unless he makes a huge move (something like acquiring Vladdy in 2004) in the offseason, I say boot him.

Well, here we go!

We've been regular readers/sometime posters over at HalosHeaven for a while now and figured it'd be good to get our own spin on events out there!

I won't go into the various details of the season thus far (considering that there's...less than fifty games to go now?), but I will say that the season is far from over and far from secure. I'm still not terribly convinced that Bill Stoneman did the right thing in standing pat at the 31, and I'm afraid that his decision is going to come back to bite us, either in September or in the off-season.
Let me put it this way--the situation with Stoneman and the elusive "power bat," I think, is like the kid who's fallen and hurt himself. He's scraped up pretty badly, and his parents (Stoneman) recognise that he needs some attention. Thing is, they've got a lot of money (prospects) and all the people selling first-aid supplies are demanding a lot of that. So instead of helping the kid out, the parents let his arm fall off. Does that make sense? I.e., there's clearly something wrong here, and Bill's acting like it's not the end of the work if we do jack squat--even though we saw in the ALCS (and the ALDS, to an extent) and then again throughout much of this season (pre-streak) that that doesn't work. Sure, we were on a great hot streak before the deadline, but that doesn't mean we're going to stay that way, as evidenced by our fairly mediocre performance since then. I just hope that we can get another tear going; otherwise it's time for Moreno to give Stoneman his pink slip.

Anyhow, on to tomorrow's (today's?) game! Cleveland's been struggling a bit, but so have we, and Weaver appears to have been struggling a bit in his last two starts (no thanks to the bullpen on one of those). I think he's still got one or five more wins in him before a loss, though, so let's see what he can do! I hope to see Napoli back in the line-up, 'cause quite frankly Molina may be doing better recently, but Nap's .238 average isn't going to improve unless he gets his ABs....

First Post--and onto Cleveland.

After much formatting and experimenting with the source code, this blog is up and running. Hopefully I'll be able to post about tomorrow's game against the Indians.