A little song, a little dance 

Posted 1:51 PM by Sean
I'm headed down to Austin for South by Southwest tomorrow, so updates will be nonexistent until Monday. Until then, a couple of items of interest:

- Garret Anderson is supposedly hitting off a tee now, a decent step forward in his rehabilitation. Again, we're told he could make his spring training debut by the end of the week.

- Chris Bootcheck, who's been in the organization since 2001, has been reassigned to minor league camp, where he can contemplate his 10.00 spring training ERA at his leisure. He will presumably be starting the year in Salt Lake, where he spent all of 2003 and part of 2002. This is his put up or shut up year.

- Remeber when, coming into spring training, one of the general topics of conversation was that David Eckstein might have to fight Alfredo Amezaga for playing time? I don't think we need to discuss it any more:

Eckstein - .444 (8 for 18), 2 2B, 1 3B, 1 HR
Amezaga - .238 (5 for 21), 1 2B, 0 3B, 0 HR

- Troy Glaus seems to be turning things around. Since Friday, his average has jumped from .222 to .316 (6 for 19). I actually feel kind of dirty, trying to make anything out of such a small sample, but that's spring training for you. Glaus still hasn't gone yard, though.

- Jose Guillen leads the team in home runs, with three - that's one every seven at-bats.

We're not quite halfway through spring training games at this point. On Monday, we'll look at how the starting pitching is shaping up.

Is it time to panic yet? 

Posted 4:32 PM by Sean
Garret Anderson still hasn't played in a spring training game, despite some earlier indications he might take his first swings in anger on this past Monday. Now, his return date has been pushed back to "next weekend or early the next week." As much as I approve of the Angels and Anderson making sure he's completely healthy before he takes the field, this sure seems familiar...almost as if this team goes through it every single frickin' year...

Oh, THAT sixth starting pitcher! 

Posted 1:52 PM by Sean
Ramon Ortiz, Jarrod Washburn, and Aaron Sele are all mentioned in various places as prime trade-bait today. Ortiz is named by ESPN as more likely to go than Washburn, while The Orange County Register reports that Washburn and Sele seem to have been showcased lately. The logic for this latter proposition is odd - it seems to be that, because they've pitched on the same days as each other (in split squad games) for their last two starts, somehow they're on the block.

The word on Sele seems to be that he's healthy and pitching reasonably well. At this point, though, none of the potential starters have tossed more than a few innings, so it's probably still pretty difficult to evaluate who would be best kept, and who best trade. Complicating this is the fact that, at the moment, both Scot Shields and Kevin Gregg have posted better spring numbers than any of the six guys above them in line for a starter's spot.

The Angels are done with split-squad games for the spring, meaning the first round of assignments to minor-league camp. Eric Cyr, Tim Bittner, Ryan Budde, Jared Abruzzo, Alberto Callaspo, Erick Aybar, Nick Gorneault, and Tommy Murphy were all sent to join the minor-leaguers.