thoughts: ST starts, arbitration cases

Just some tidbits:

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Pitchers and catchers reported to Tempe yesterday. I could echo every other baseball fan in what a joyous occasion it is, but what it really means for angels&aimee is that it'll no longer be on life support!

When I began angels&aimee, I had a modest viewership, mostly cause I didn't really care to promote it - it was all for my own pleasure. I've been surprised and pleased to get the support of other bloggers and media, but now that I have actual readers, well it's been on me to actually produce stuff for them to read. And unfortunately, there hasn't been much Angels news for me to comment on. Unless of course, I really wanted to espouse about the Quinlan signing for a whole post. But now that Spring Training has begun, news should be free flowing, as evidenced by the bevy of stuff today. So new Angels news = more thoughts, opinions, comments = more posts!

This being my first season of angels&aimee, I'm especially excited.

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Arbitration cases are pretty much done with. Aybar settled for $2.05M before his hearing and Mathis's hearing occured this morning. I'm really glad that the FO settled with Aybar, but it really sucks that they couldn't settle with Mathis. Mathis needs some confidence to improve his production at the plate and an arbitration hearing is definitely detrimental to that. Furthermore, looking at their figures again, the FO may have low-balled him. Naps got $2M last year in his first year of arbitration and even if you account for the obvious difference in offensive production and arbitrations value on offense, is $700K really a winnable submission? BR lists Brandon Inge as a comparable at the same age and Inge recieved $1.35M in his first arbitration year, abeit when he was 28 and had improved his numbers. I think I'd feel better about the FO winning if they had submitted something closer to $900K, but I guess that's all a moot point now.

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The other Angels news today is that Rodney and Kazmir were kept out of pitcher fielding practice due to minor injuries. Irony aside, Kaz's injury is worrisome since supposedly his hamstring is what was bothering him last season. Sosh says its not serious, so let's hope that it won't be chronic either.