Irresponsible Analysis 

Posted 12:54 PM by Sean
Okay, so, it's been a week, huh? Time to dive right in and start making utterly random judgments about spring training performances. It's gotta start sometime, right?

Actually, let's just talk about the hitters for now. Given that some of the pitching staff have exactly one appearance under their belts, it seems premature to say anything other than it seems, from the limited evidence available, that the pitching has been performing pretty well. Bartolo Colon did indeed bounce back from his pasting at the hands of the A's, giving up no runs and only one hit in 3.2 innings of work against Arizona yesterday.

So let's see what jumps out at us from the offensive side. Ooh, here's a good one:

Guerrero, V.: .556 BA (5 for 9), 4 R, 1 2B, 1 3B, 1 HR.

And let's pair that with:

Guillen, J.: .400 BA (6 for 15), 2 HR.

I think they might break into the lineup this year.

Hmmm...how about the guys looking for rebound years?

Eckstein, D.: .400 BA (4 for 10), 2 2B, 1 HR
Erstad, D.: .214 BA (3 for 14), 1 HR
Glaus, T.: .222 (2 for 9), 0 HR

Well, it's early yet. Right?

The Tim Salmon watch update:

Salmon, T.: .333 BA (5 for 15), 1 2B, 0 HR

And a pair of guys looking to get noticed:

Wesson, B.: .500 BA (5 for 10), 2 2B, 0 HR
Specht, B.: .429 BA (6 for 14), 1 3B, 0 HR

And the "You'd Better Hope It's Just the Sample Size" Award:

McPherson, D.: .059 BA (1 for 17), 1 2B, 0 HR

McPherson's 17 at-bats, incidentally, is the most of any Angel so far this spring.

The Angels have split-squad games today against the White Sox and the Royals; Sele and Washburn are the scheduled starters.

Missing the signs 

Posted 4:24 PM by Sean
Today, both the Orange County Register and the L.A. Times mention the possibility that Jose Guillen will move into center field if Garret Anderson stays out much longer with his biceps tendinitis. Anderson would play left, a position that presumably would cause less strain, until he's ready to play center. This is silly on so many levels. Until Anderson is recovered, playing anywhere greatly increases his full recovery time. Yeah, it might be worse in center than it would be in left, but even playing left substantially increases the risk that it will become a chronic problem, causing him to miss more time down the road. And, more to the point, the Angels already have one of the best center fielders in the game, currently squinting in at the plate from 95 feet down the first-base line. Assuming we're talking about a matter of a couple of weeks rather than a couple of months, it makes more sense to plug Erstad back into center and move Guillen or DaVanon to first, rather than risk Anderson having to leave multiple times during the season.

Meanwhile, John Lackey got pounded yesterday by the Mariners, giving up four runs on six hits in three innings, while striking out three and walking one. The Angels managed to scratch out one run in three innings against Terry Mulholland, who is six years older than Moses, then were shut down the rest of the way by a couple of minor-leaguers and Julio Mateo. Guerrero, Salmon, Erstad, and Guillen all had base hits.

Fortunately, the Angels currently lead the Diamondbacks 5-0 in the top of the eighth, meaning that Bartolo Colon presumably pitched effectively.

Square pegs at a round table 

Posted 12:44 PM by Sean
Richard at The Pearly Gates links to this roundtable discussion of the A.L. West held at all-baseball.com. It's a good starting point for some issues that will be watched during the upcoming season, including Erstad's effectiveness (or lack thereof) as a first baseman, the A's questionable offense, and the stability of the Mariners' starting pitching. I raise a digital eyebrow in their direction, however, for failing to include an Angels or Rangers blogger while soliciting the opinions of Yankees, Dodgers, Cubs, and Twins fans...

Angels 10, Diamondbacks 3 

Posted 12:02 PM by Sean
Yesterday's game featured Tim Salmon, Jose Guillen, Ramon Ortiz, and a whole lot of guys who will be playing minor-league baseball in 2004. A quick note on some relevant individual performances:

- Ortiz pitched well for two innings in his first outing of the spring, giving up no runs on one hit, no walks, and no strikeouts. Scioscia is quoted in the L.A. Times as saying that Ortiz is a little ahead of where he would expect him to be at this time of year, which is always nice; if Ortiz continues to pitch well in his next couple of outings I'd hope that Scioscia would keep him on a pretty tight leash until the season starts. It's pretty much universally accepted that spring training is about ten days too long, especially for pitchers.

- Tim Salmon went 0-for-2 with a walk and a run scored. Salmon will be an interesting case; for many years he was a notoriously slow starter who didn't really put up decent offensive numbers until June. Then, in 2003, he started strong, but was inconsistent throughout the year. At age 35, I don't expect him to suddenly put everything together and have a monster year, but a good spring training would definitely be a boost for him.

- Derek Turnbow made up for his godawful inning of work against the A's on Saturday (1 IP, 6 H, 4 ER) by chucking two innings of two-hit, scoreless ball yesterday.

So, with the first six games of spring training under their belt, we've had good appearances from Washburn, Lackey, Ortiz, Sele, and Escobar, and one craptacular game from Colon. Wash will likely get the start in today's game against Seattle, while Colon's chance to redeem himself comes tomorrow against Arizona.

One final note: why, on God's green earth, would ESPN arrange their scoreboard by National and American league, instead of by Grapefruit and Cactus League? Is there any sense in making me look through two sets of results for the game I want? I suppose their logic is that people don't know which teams play in Florida and which play in Arizona as much as they know which are in the National and American leagues, but their system means you have to know which is the home team to have any certainty about where to look on the page, which is much less likely than knowing which state they train in.

Angels 5, Mariners 3 

Posted 10:28 AM by Sean
The Angels put up another spring training win yesterday, beating the Mariners 5-3. Thanks to ESPN and ReplayTV, I had a chance to watch the game last night, and came away mostly feeling pretty good.

Kelvim Escobar started and pitched fairly well for two innings. His fastball was between 92 and 94 miles an hour, with good location, and he featured some fairly nasty breaking stuff and a splitter. He wasn't mixing his pitches all that much, but, this early in spring training, I wouldn't necessarily expect him to. He gave up one hit, walked one, and struck out three.

In the field...well, it wasn't exactly Adam Kennedy's day. Two errors for AK, one sloppy catch on a flip toss from Eckstein and one tough chance on a grounder.

As for the lineup, the starting nine went like this: Eckstein, Erstad, Guerrero, Guillen, Glaus, DaVanon, Kennedy, Halter, Jose Molina. So Salmon, Anderson, and Bengie Molina sat out - Anderson with continued biceps tendinitis, Molina because "his entire body hurts," and Salmon, presumably, to give him a day off after a fairly adventurous day of playing left field. The starters stayed in for three spins around the batting order, and my overall impression was that they were really making good contact. Eckstein in particular, who started the game with a surprisingly powerful shot into left that was caught by a sprinting Raul Ibanez, seemed to be in good form. It actually seemed to me that he was a little calmer at the plate than he has been. In any even, he followed up that first-inning drive with a pair of base hits - a single and a double - to finish 2 for 3.

Vladimir Guerrero was also impressive. He demonstrated the basis for his reputation as a bad-ball hitter by golfing a pitch that was just under his knees way over the left-field fence during his third at-bat, and, during his first at-bat, he got a little under a pitch and popped it up into deep right. Guerrero's dinger was immediately followed by a home run by Jose Guillen, giving Angels fans a nice little one-two demonstration of how substantial the offensive upgrade might be this year.

As for the minor-leaguers, who had pretty much taken over the game by the sixth, Dallas McPherson and Nick Gorneault looked good at the plate, and Kevin Gregg, who has an infuriatingly casual delivery, went two scoreless innings, giving up one hit and striking out two. Chris Bootcheck, by contrast, looks exactly the way a pitcher is supposed to look...and threw in the high eighties, giving up two earned runs on six hits in the last two innings of the game. He also struck out three.

On Friday, we'll take our first look at what kind of spring the Angels are having, and what it might mean for the early weeks of the 2004 season. In the meantime, they take on Arizona today, presumably with Ramon Ortiz on the mound.

Prospectus Picks Prospects 

Posted 1:56 PM by Sean
Baseball Prospectus takes a brief look at the Angels' five top prospects: Santana, Mathis, Jenks, Kotchman, and McPherson.

Programming Alert! 

Posted 9:42 AM by Sean
Today's game against the Mariners is being broadcast on ESPN, beginning at 2:00 Eastern. It's the first of two nationally televised spring training games for the Angels, the other being on Monday, March 29, versus the Cubs on ESPN2 (starting at 3:00 Eastern).

I have yet to see anything official about who will be playing in today's game, but Ramon Ortiz or Kelvim Escobar will probably start, since they're the only two Angels starters who haven't pitched yet. Frankie Rodriguez should also get in a little work. In the lineup, all of the projected starters except Jose Guillen and Garret Anderson played yesterday, and Anderson may or may not be recovered from the shoulder pains he was having, so it's useless to predict who will get the at-bats.