This is what the Internet was like in Roman times 

Posted 9:33 PM by Sean
Blogger appears to be funked up six ways to Jesus. The comments (not that I use them, since mine is the VOICE OF GOD at Purgatory Online, and thou shalt hear no other) seem especially addled, and so I cannot post this where it should be: as a response to the most recent post at Chronicles of the Lads, attempting to identify the currently active player most similar to the Angels' starters.

M. le Chronicleur avers that the inspiration for said project is the work of Bill James, who used to publish such comparisons. Interestingly, Baseball-reference.com actually has the similarity scores based on James's formula - each player entry lists the 10 most similar players in baseball history. Let us commence to examinin'.

Bengie Molina:
Chronicles - Toby Hall.
B-R - Tony Eusebio overall, Brook Fordyce among active players. Ouch.

Erstad
Chronicles - Doug Mientkiewicz.
B-R - Unsurprisingly, none of the top 10 similar are first basemen. The most similar active player is Shannon Stewart; most similar all-time is Roberto "Don't Call Me Bobby" Kelly.

Kennedy
Chronicles - Placido Polanco
B-R - Ron Belliard. Polanco is fourth (Tony Piet 2nd, Marlon Anderson 3rd).

Cabrera
Chronicles - David Eckstein
B-R - Deivi Cruz.

McPherson
Chronicles - Garret Atkins
B-R - Insufficient data. I note in passing that McP's middle name is "Lyle."

Anderson
Chronicles - Rondell White
B-R - Jeff Conine is 3rd; Moises Alou is 10th. Top match overall: Pedro Guerrero.

Finley
Chronicles - Ruben Sierra
B-R - Marquis Grissom is highest active at 2nd; Sierra is 2nd-highest at 5th. Top all-time is Ryne Sandberg (?!?)

Guerrero
Chronicles - Lance Berkman
B-R - Brian Giles.

DaVanon
Chronicles - Brian Buchanan
B-R - Brian Buchanan is 9th, otherwise no active players in the top 10. Most similar all-time is George Alusik. You remember George Alusik, right? Me neither.

Figgins
Chronicles - Ryan Freel
B-R - Tike Redman at 9th and Sean Burroughs at 10th are the only ones in the top 10 who played a game after 1927! Figgins's list reads like a roll call of the great nicknames of baseball history: Tex McDonald, Piggy Ward, Doc Prothro, Jocko Halligan...awesome. But the Redman/Burroughs similarities demonstrate how the system tends to break down for guys with low career ABs...

Anyway, as supplementary bonus material, here are the top active and all-time matches for the starting rotation:

Colon
Active - Jason Schmidt
All-Time - Jason Schmidt

Escobar
Active - Julian Tavarez, the ugliest man in baseball
All-time - Mark Leiter

Lackey
Active - Rodrigo Lopez
All-Time - Rodrigo Lopez

Washburn
Active - Mark Buehrle
All-Time - Mark Buehrle

Byrd
Active - Cory Lidle
All-Time - Cory Lidle