Knowing when to run 

Posted 12:39 PM by Sean
The Angels have been experiencing uncanny success so far in stealing bases, one of the cornerstones of their offensive philosophy. It's generally believed that a team needs about a 2:1 ratio of stolen bases to times caught stealing to break even; the Angels currently have a phenomenal 6:1 ratio, having successfully stolen 24 times while being caught just four times.

Even more amazing are the numbers on the Angels "regulars," those five individuals with attempted steals who have been in just about every lineup so far (Garret Anderson has no steal attempts). Between them, they've stolen 16 times, and been caught just once. As a thought experiment, I've recalculated their offensive stats as if their stolen bases had been an extra base for the purpose of SLG, while the caught stealing was considered an out made at the plate (reducing BA, OBP, and SLG accordingly):

Erstad
Old: .264/.316/.429 (.745 OPS)
+1 SB, -0 CS
New: .264/.316/.440 (.756 OPS)

Guerrero
Old: .361/.398/.639 (1.037 OPS)
+ 3 SB, -0 CS
New: .361/.398/.675 (1.075 OPS)

Figgins
Old: .284/.318/.457 (.775 OPS)
+7 SB, -1 CS
New: .272/.307/.531 (.838 OPS)

Cabrera
Old: .260/.329/.429 (.758 OPS)
+1 SB, -0 CS
New: .260/.329/.442 (.771 OPS)

Finley
Old: .173/.259/.373 (.632 OPS)
+4 SB, -0 CS
New: .173/.259/.427 (.686 OPS)

Of course, a single plus a stolen base isn't exactly the same as a double - it doesn't move runners along as far, so it's actually worth a little less. But by the same token, a single minus a caught stealing moves runners further than a large majority of outs made at the plate. No matter how you slice it, so far the running game has been a clear positive for the Angels overall, and a significant weapon in particular for the regulars.

I blinked, missed it 

Posted 1:18 PM by Sean
Jeanne's Angel Notes appears to have lasted just shy of a month, making it the shortest-lived Angels blog in history (that I know of). I'm of two minds as to whether it qualifies for inclusion in the Brief History of the Halosphere; on the one hand, she was an Angels blogger. On the other, do I really want to worry about everyone who slaps five entries on a page and then loses interest? It wouldn't surprise me to learn that there have been a half-dozen of these that no one ever found out about.

Right now, I'm leaning towards leaving it out. If anyone has an opinion one way or another, I'd be interested in hearing it.

Here's a thought 

Posted 9:47 AM by Sean
Much as the good Reverend misses Timothy James Salmon, ol' Timmy isn't coming back soon. Nevertheless, there's no question that the most obvious upgrade the Angels can make to their offense is at DH, where Jeff DaVanon and his .238/.313/.286 line have been sucking up most of the at-bats. The Angels' DHes have combined for a .587 OPS; only Oakland, posting an incredibly crappy .508, is worse. As the Times points out, the next home run by an Angels DH will be the first.

Obviously, this is a significant inefficiency. DHes provide no value defensively, so a DH that can't hit is more or less worthless.

Juan Rivera has performed little better. Though he has hit about 50 points higher than DaVanon in terms of batting average, his OBP and SLG percentages are almost identical, and he's had only half the at-bats.

So what's a ballclub to do? The solution on the horizon would appear to be making Chone Figgins or Dallas McPherson the DH once Adam Kennedy returns in a couple of weeks. Figgins isn't exactly in the mold of the traditional slugging DH, but he has started to produce a bit (.250/.282/.431), and his speed and bat-handling is certainly an asset in the lineup. Moving McPherson into the DH slot and allowing Figgins to take over third makes some amount of sense as well - assuming McPherson starts hitting the way he's supposed to - but I think it's generally a bad move to DH rookies. It's important for future flexibility that McPherson get significant experience at a defensive position.

There is, however, yet another possiblity that I haven't seen discussed yet, one that might make the most sense of all when balancing the offensive and defensive merits. Consider the following lineup:

Erstad (L) - 1B
Cabrera (R) - SS
Anderson (L) - LF
Guerrero (R) - RF
Finley (L) - CF
B. Molina (R) - DH
McPherson (L) - 3B
J. Molina (R) - C
Kennedy (L) - 2B

I've written before about why I think Guerrero and Anderson should switch places in the lineup, a move that's not germaine to my point here. Today, I'm more interested in exploring the possiblity that putting two Molinas in the lineup might be the right move.

To me, it makes sense on a number of levels. Although Bengie Molina started the season some twenty pounds lighter this year, one of the major problems with catchers is that it's virtually impossible to regain quickness behind the plate once it's been lost. Weight per se is only one of the factors that slow them down; a much more pernicious effect is the deterioration of the joints and connective tissue in the legs that weight exacerbates. You can lose the weight, but you'll still have the effects of years of strain on the knees, ankles, and back. That's why Bengie has been eclipsed by Jose in the last couple of years as the Angels' best defensive catcher:

2004
B. Molina - 762 innings, 6 PB, 51 SB, 18 CS, .261 CS%
J. Molina - 524 innings, 3 PB, 23 SB, 22 CS, .489 CS%

2005
B. Molina - 79 innings, 1 PB, 3 SB, 0 CS, .000 CS%
J. Molina - 63 innings, 0 PB, 3 SB, 3 CS, .500 CS%

But Bengie has shown some evidence of positive effects from weight loss as a hitter. Before going on the DL, he was hitting .323/.389/.581 with 2 home runs in 31 at-bats. Some of that, obviously, is sample size related - even at his best, Molina is not a .323 hitter - but I think that those are good enough numbers to warrant his being in the lineup everyday until we see what his true level is going to be. However, the more he catches, the more likely he's going to be to aggravate the quadricep injury that's knocked him out of action to begin with, or incur a new one. Bengie is a near-perfect candidate for DH, at least as far as the Angels are concerned: his defensive utility is down, playing defense can only hurt him, and he's still got some pop in his bat.

There are a couple of downsides, of course, but I don't think the downs are all that great. For one, Figgins is knocked out of the lineup, but that's misleading. Since Figgins plays so many positions, it would be easy to get him in several games a week while resting a "regular" player. For another, Jose Molina isn't that great a hitter: last year, in a career-high 203 at-bats, he hit .261/.296/.374, making his .670 OPS 13th out of the 17 AL catchers with 200 or more plate appearances. Then again, Bengie's .717 was only 11th, and the advantages in terms of defensive upgrade and upgrade at DH should more than offset. I realize I'm trying to have it both ways here - playing up Bengie's offense as a qualification for his DHing and disparaging it to suggest Jose could do almost as well - but I think that saving him from the wear and tear of life as a backstop will help a fair amount, and his weight loss will have a much more beneficial effect on his offense than on his defense.

And, really, what do the Angels have to lose?

Kennedy starts rehab assignment 

Posted 8:33 AM by Sean
Adam Kennedy went 1 for 5 with an RBI for Salt Lake last night, Saturday's game having been rained out. Curtis Pride went 2 for 4 and is hitting .390, Jeff Mathis went 2 for 5 and is hitting .375, and Nick Gorneault went 1 for 3 and is hitting .327.

Casey Kotchman, meanwhile, went 0 for 4 and is hitting .138.

What else is new? 

Posted 1:11 PM by Sean
So the Angels pulled Jarrod Washburn's nuts out of the fire again last night, after he surrendered five runs in the first two innings to a team that hadn't put a crooked number on the board since approximately the reign of Hadrian. If baseball were like Subway, I'm pretty sure the Angels would have enough holes punched in their "Bail Washburn Out" cards to get free twelve-inch combo meals. With chips AND cookies.

To his credit, Wash did settle down and pitch three reasonably competent innings thereafter; also to his credit, he walked no one and never seemd to lose it mentally. But dude is 30 years old now, and it's starting to get a little moldy, this "flashes of brilliance followed by implosions" crap. When's he gonna settle down and get respectibble, huh?

In any event, the offense looked like it was destined to put up another one of those "almost had 'em" efforts similar to the little comeback that wasn't a few days ago, when Byrd got lit up for six runs in six innings and a late inning comeback fizzled with the tying man at the plate in the ninth. Last night, the Angels bounced back fairly quickly, making it 5-3 in the fourth, but then:

Fourth inning - runners on second and third, one out, but DaVanon K's looking and Vlad grounds out;

Fifth inning - Finley on second with one out, but Cabrera grounds out and McPherson K's;

Sixth inning - Figgins on second with two out, but Rivera K's;

Seventh inning - Down without a fight;

Eighth inning - Izturis scores on a Jose Molina single, but Figgins grounds into a double play to end the inning.

Fortunately, that whole "game of inches" thing worked in the Angels' favor in the ninth, as Anderson blooped one into left-center, scoring Erstad from second with two outs. He didn't exactly hit it, as Eric Cartman would say, "with authori-tay," but it worked for me.

And I'm pretty sure I want Orlando Cabrera leading off the tenth from now on if at all possible. Last night marked the second time he's gone deep in that situation, the other being a - wait for it - bail-out job in Texas, in which Washburn gave up six runs in 5.1 innings, after which the relief corps held the line and the bats clawed back into it. Cabrera - whose new nickname is "Cabfare," incidentally - is eligible to upgrade to the steak and cheese or zesty chicken ranch sub, with unlimited toppings and free drink refills.

In other news, Dallas McPherson finally got his first hit of the season, an opposite-field single. Hopefully this will clear his head a little bit, as he had clearly been pressing at the plate. Meanwhile, Adam Kennedy starts his rehab assignment this weekend, well ahead of schedule, and looks to return to the team in about two weeks. Scioscia has said that the team will find a place for Figgins in the lineup, which means there's a realistic possiblity that the 5'7" Figgins will be the team's designated hitter. Good lord.

Dementia 

Posted 9:21 AM by Sean
The Times:

Colon threw eight shutout innings, giving up four hits and striking out six, to lead the Angels to a 2-0 victory over the Cleveland Indians, and as the burly right-hander departed after completing the top of the eighth, he basked in the glow of an Angel Stadium crowd of 42,531.

At this point, I'm almost positive that they have a "burly right-hander" macro defined. So I give. Bartolo, ad tuam dono nomine Burly in perpetuam. Use it in good health.

No pop 

Posted 1:12 PM by Sean
Back on January 18, I posited that, if Steve Finley and Orlando Cabrera performed at their normal levels, Dallas McPherson would need to have a Rookie 0f the Year kind of season to get the Angels back to their 2004 production. In a nutshell:

Ultimately, therefore, I think the Angels' offensive fortunes are going to depend heavily on the contributions they can get from third base and DH. They must get a solid year out of McPherson (or Quinlan, or whomever comes out of spring training with the job), and they must significantly improve at DH.

DH, of course, was a terrible position for the Angels last year, producing just a .240/.323/.401 line - unacceptable from anyone who contributes exactly zero to the defensive side of the game.

So far this year, however, just about every possible trend in the above analysis has gone the wrong way. For starters, there's Finley and Cabrera:

Finley, 2004: .271/.333/.490
Finley, 2005: .159/.275/.273
Cabrera, 2004: .264/.306/.383
Cabrera, 2005: .233/.327/.419

Cabrera has arguably come pretty close to what was expected, but Finley has been comically bad at the plate for the first twelve games of the season. This isn't exactly time to push the panic button - going back to 2002, Finley has a .229/.302/.454 line in April, with a substantial improvement in May - but it's certainly not helping in the moment.

As for the situation at designated hitter...look, I know some people like Jeff DaVanon. I mean, some people really, really like Jeff DaVanon. But Jeff DaVanon is a fourth outfielder. Competent, sure. But a DH he is not.

DaVanon, 2005: .194/.257/.226
Angels DHes, 2005: .234/.288/.255 (which goes to show you that Juan Rivera isn't helping much, either).

Completing the suckitude triangle, we have the third base situation:

Angels 3Bs, 2005: .163/.213/.326

Word on the street is that Dallas McPherson will be in the lineup as early as tonight, which will likely mean the end of Lou Merloni's career as an Angel. Even more than anticipated, however, McPherson will be thrust into a situation in which he will need to produce at a very high level, at least until Finley heats up or the Angels can find a real DH.

Back in January, I also said:

Of course, it's possible that the Angels could get increased offensive production from other places. Garret Anderson could bounce back and put up a .301/.345/.500 year for a full season; Bengie Molina could drop 40 pounds and go .280/.320/.410. But let's also remember that Vlad Guerrero had an MVP-caliber season in 2004, and the possibility of increased production from Anderson and Molina has to be balanced by the possiblity of a slight regression by Vlad.

Finally, some good news: Guerrero is putting up the same kind of numbers he did last year, and both Anderson and Molina are looking good at the plate (at least until Molina had to leave the game with thigh problems yesterday). So if, in fact, Finley is merely in his usual April doldrums and McPherson represents a substantial upgrade, the Angels offense is likely to get better soon.

Which would leave only the question of Chone Figgins, who is currently posting a .200/.260/.356 line. Frankly, considering the production from 2B, DH, CF, and 3B, it's a minor miracle that the Angels are even at .500. Figgins may be pressing a little too hard, hearing Adam Kennedy's footsteps as AK draws closer to an anticipated May return to the lineup. Certainly Figgins has looked overmatched at the plate in a way that he hasn't before.

Overall, I do think that there is some cause for cautious optimism in the next few weeks. The real question, however, is how well the Angels will do in the next few days: after a pair of games with Seattle, the Angels have series with Cleveland, Oakland, New York, and Minnesota.

Anderson milestone update 

Posted 10:32 AM by Sean
Garret Anderson is closing in on a couple of franchise records. Tim Salmon's career RBI total of 989 should fall in a few weeks; The Tustin Rhino presently sits on 958. Salmon's career total bases record, 2863, should fall even sooner: Anderson now has 2836. GA is already in possession of the all-time franchise records for at-bats, hits, and doubles, and, assuming he plays out the length of his current contract for the Angels and is reasonably healthy, will likely end up with the games played, plate appearances, and runs scored records, and has a shot at the home runs, too.

How many pitches? 

Posted 9:19 AM by Sean
Kelvim Escobar's rehab start Thursday night is being described as successful, since he went three innings, gave up just one hit, struck out seven, and - most importantly - felt good afterward. Curiously, though, those successful three innings took 58 pitches to accomplish. As it turns out, Eskie also walked two, and actually pitched to the leadoff batter in the fourth, so he faced twelve hitters. That's nearly five pitches per hitter - but, of course, he actually struck out the majority of the batters he faced, so it's understandable.

My own personal obsession 

Posted 9:13 AM by Sean
From today's L.A. Times writeup of last night's 6-1 win over the A's:

In his last start in the Coliseum, the burly right-hander beat former A's ace Mark Mulder 10-0 on Oct. 4, combining on the four-hit shutout.

Yo, Times copy desk! Check these out: sturdy, strapping, hefty, bulky, brawny, beefy, stocky, thickset, big, large, sizable, strong, ponderous, hulking...

...and bring a starter with you, okay? 

Posted 4:20 PM by Sean
The L.A. Times reports that Dallas McPherson is expected to be called up next week, having compiled a stellar four hits in seventeen at-bats at Triple-A Salt Lake.

It could be worse, however. He could be Casey Kotchman, who is 1 for 21 (albeit with 6 walks) after finally getting a hit last night.

This is why I love the first week of the season 

Posted 11:45 AM by Sean
Pat Burrell's projected stats, if he continues this pace:

.424/.447/.879, 81 HR, 284 H, 344 RBI.

344!

That would be pretty awesome. I think he'd be the MVP.

The reports of my death... 

Posted 2:09 PM by Sean
...are pretty much nonexistent, since anyone reading this blog has long since realized that occasionally I just disappear for a while. This time, though, I have something of an excuse, albeit a boring one: snowed under at work. Much of it is off my back, now, though, so regular blogging to recommence anon.

In the meanwhile, I was at the game yesterday, in which:

• Ersty stuck his thumb in the eye of everyone who doubts his ability to deliver
• Orlando and Fins made meaningful contributions at last
• Jarrod Washburn demonstrated that he's already had his one good start for the year
• Scot Shields reasserted himself
• Frankie stuck the bat up where the sun don't shine on some pretty good hitters
• I got sunburned like a motherf#^$#*.

Like I said, more to come. However, I think it's pretty clear already that the immediate future, for the Angels, is going to come down to (1) whether the starting pitching can give them innings, and (2) whether Figgins and the DaVanon/Rivera platoon can be expected to provide anything at all offensively.

I'm thinking there was a sale on thesauri 

Posted 2:03 PM by Sean
Today's Angels-Rangers preview at ESPN.com describes Bartolo Colon as a "burly righthander," "burly" being the selfsame epithet used to describe Kelvim Escobar a few days back by the Register. Time to start a burlywatch! Or maybe change the name: The Los Angeles Burlies of Anaheim.

This post brought to you by Kellogg's Irrelevant-O's, the Breakfast of Bloggers!

Alumni Notes 

Posted 4:39 PM by Sean
As Opening Day looms, a quick look at the springs put together by the dearly departed:

Eckstein (Cardinals): .393/.485/.518 (56 ABs), 1 HR. Bill Stoneman better pray this is a fluke.
Glaus (Diamondbacks): .424/.455/.847 (59 ABs), 7 HR.
Guillen (Natty Natty Nationals): .268/.292/.500 (56 ABs), 3 HR.
Ortiz (Reds): 3.78 ERA (16.2 IP), 21 H, 4 BB, 7K, 1 HR.
Sele (Mariners): 4.57 ERA (21.2 IP), 17 H, 6 BB, 11K, 1 HR.
Percival (Tigers): 3.46 ERA (13.0 IP), 12 H, 2 BB, 11K, 2 HR.

If it's Opening Day, this must be the DL 

Posted 8:59 AM by Sean
Kelvim Escobar will join Tim Salmon and Adam Kennedy on the DL to start the season, but appears to be recovering quickly from the right elbow soreness that landed him there. It's a little infuriating, however, to read something like this in the article:

Escobar, who could begin throwing again in a few days, might miss only one start because the Angels will not need a fifth starter again until April 19.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but use your freaking heads, guys. Escobar isn't a traditional fifth starter - it's not like they were planning on skipping him in the rotation whenever they had an off day. Had Escobar not been placed on the DL, he would have started on April 9 versus Kansas City, and then again five games later, April 15 at Oakland. The Angels don't technically need a fifth starter between the 9th and the 19th, but Escobar sure as hell will miss more than one start.

Update: As Halofan points out, Escobar is eligible to return from the DL on the 15th, so theoretically he could pitch on that date and only miss one start. But I doubt the Times people were contemplating that when they wrote that paragraph, or else why mention the April 19 date at all?

I double-dog dare them to go through with it 

Posted 8:53 AM by Sean
According to the San Diego Union-Tribune, the Lake Elsinore Storm are now the "Anaheim/Los Angeles/San Diego Storm of Elsinore," "and they swear it's no April Fool's Day joke."

Sure.

The team's splash page still carries the new name, for whatever that's worth. None of the other pages (including the news releases) mention it.