Prinz! 

Posted 5:03 PM by Sean
Talk about making your GM look good and yours truly look stupid...Bret Prinz threw two innings of one-hit ball against the Brewers (okay, yes, the Brewers), surrendering no runs or walks and striking out three. Jake Woods, called upon to save the game, gave up a three-run walk-off homer in the ninth.

Prinz? 

Posted 10:22 AM by Sean
I'm a little mystified at the acquisition of Bret Prinz for the bullpen. Though the Angels only gave up Wil Nieves, who was well down the depth chart at catcher, Prinz appears to be a real gamble:

2001: 41.0 IP, 33 H, 4 HR, 12 ER, 19 BB, 27 K, 2.63 ERA
2002: 13.1 IP, 23 H, 1 HR, 14 ER, 10 BB, 10 K, 9.45 ERA
2003: 3.0 IP, 7 H, 1 HR, 4 ER, 4 BB, 3 K, 12.00 ERA
2004: 28.1 IP, 28 H, 5 HR, 16 ER, 14 BB, 22 K, 5.08 ERA
2005 (ST): 5.1 IP, 10 H, 5 ER, 5 BB, 6 K, 8.44 ERA

Prinz's 2003 line can be excused because he missed most of that year with a groin injury. But after a terrific rookie season, he's pretty much stunk on ice in 2002 and 2004, too. And those numbers don't have anything to do with injury, they have to do with his command of the strike zone. If Bud Black can get Prinz's head screwed on straight, this could work out - but overall I'd rather have seen Woods get a shot at it. Woods has the added advantage of being a lefty, which I know isn't supposed to matter to Scioscia. But if Scioscia doesn't care about lefty-lefty matchups, then why do I still wake up at night hearing "Jarrod Washburn is coming in to face David Ortiz?"

Anyway, Prinz is scheduled to pitch in relief during the Angels' Cactus League finale against the Brewers later today. We'll see...

Retirement for the Big Cat 

Posted 4:16 PM by Sean
Andres Galarraga has announced his retirement after a somewhat poor spring training:

"I just wasn't playing up to the expectations that I have set for myself throughout my entire career, and I wanted to walk away on my own terms," the Venezuelan said. "I owe a lot of gratitude to the Mets organization, especially Omar Minaya, for giving me this chance.

"Playing has been a part of my life for so long, but I just felt this was the right time to give a younger guy a chance to play. I loved my time here with the Mets and I just hope in the future to come back to the organization in some capacity."

Galarraga, of course, hit his 399th home run during the Angels' 10-0 lashing of the A's on October 1. I don't know of any ballplayer more universally regarded as a class act than he; in his case, the 400 HR milestone is genuinely meaningless to how he will be regarded by history.

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