thoughts: ST games, Rojas, GA, etc.

It's about time for me to go into my finals-studying isolation, so posting here should be quite sparse for a few weeks.

Just some tidbits:

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Cactus League play started this past Friday and the Angels pulled out an exciting tie (can you sense the sarcasm?). Then followed with two less-than-exciting losses (to the Rockies and A's). I don't really care about spring training wins/losses (you figure they've gotta win sometime, right?), but the real treat was having the opportunity to see young prospects like Reckling, Chatwood, Amarista, Trumbo, Conger, etc. I'm still waiting to see Chaffee and Smith in action, so it's not so fun that yesterday's game wasn't televised and today's game got rained out.

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Victor Rojas, the newly hired Angels play-by-play announcer, explained why he decided to leave MLB Network to come to the Angels. Well, mostly it was him explaining how he got the MLBN gig in the first place and how he grew into the role. Two thoughts - first, it speaks really well of him that, although he didn't have any broadcasting experience, he dove right into the work, was amendable to adapting on the fly, and never really shied away from trying new things. Secondly, that as much as he professes to have loved his work on MLBN, Arte got him to come to Anaheim. Specifically, "...most importantly [I left] because ... Mr. Moreno (I promise I will learn to call you Arte) wanted to make a commitment to me and the family." When the announcement was made and the resultant feedback in the halosphere was positive, I kinda wondered how the Angels enticed a national broadcaster to leave a network he helped build to come to Anaheim, where the west coast bias is in full swing. All indications point to it being a great hire and for all you doubters out there, here's another instance where Arte is doing all he can to make the Angels experience a great one.

I'm looking forward to seeing Rojas in action!

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I'm probably one of the few Angels fans that like to read T.J. Simers's Page 2 column in the LA Times. I don't always agree with him, but he's entertaining and he isn't afraid to ask the kind of annoying questions that we all secretly want to know. He makes his subjects uncomfortable to try to really find the answers and writes about them in a way that makes you pause and think. Which makes his most recent column so out of character and yet still though-provoking. He wrote about how GA is trying to make a Dodger squad as a left-handed bat after spending most of a fantastic career with the Angels. This is quite something to think about, seeing as the new movement in baseball is a youth movement and older players, despite their past allocades, are hard-pressed to find jobs. The Angels are participating in this shift, and as much as I advocate and support letting the youngins play, stories like GA's put a face on those discarded veterans.

Much of the good teasing about GA in the halosphere focus on his apparent "laziness," but growing up, he was one of my favorites, along with Eckstein and Erstad. When others saw lack of passion, I saw a coolness about him, where nothing seemed to rattle him. Watching his struggle in his latter years in Anaheim was difficult, and I certainly kept track of him in Atlanta. Simers notes that "He's a Dodger now, but probably always an Angel..." and there's no arguing that. Sure, I wish that things could've ended differently, but I understand (and according to that article, he does too) that the number one priority of the FO is to put on the field the best team that they can. The rumor earlier that Erstad was going to sign with the Angels was more alarming than exciting to me. Erstad was a great player and a great Angel, but sadly, he's no longer a fit in Anaheim. And as much as it is sad and painful, deviating from the plan to split with aging and declining veterans would be foolish and short-sighted. So we've said our goodbyes to GA, Ersty, Vlad, etc. And I wish them well - and hope that they'll prove everyone wrong.

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I was looking at some of my past entries I wrote this offseason and was surprised to find this:

"My recommendation for this offseason?
(1) Ignore all the crazies
(2) Trust the youngins
(3) Don't overpay Lackey
(4) Search for reasonable bullpen help (Oliver!)
(5) #1&2 are good enough to be repeated five times over"

And this:

"So what TO do? I really have got no answers.. And that makes me think that the best option is to not do anything major.
Shore up the bullpen.
Find a veteran #5 for one/two years.
Lock up some of that young core.
Save your money for the monster 2010 FA class.
Play/trust the youngsters (none of this Izzy is gonna play 3b crap).

And please, please, please, don't do anything stupid."

I'd forgotten I'd written that, but it amused me to see that the FO did very close what I had suggested. It's great to see that my opinions aren't completely off-base. Though, I do wish they'd done more of "Lock up some of that young core." The most important thing though, is that the FO avoided doing anything stupid. OCR ranked the Angels offseason as #20, and that's probably about right. Though, it's tough to really say if the Angels got better of worse when the offseason strategy is to let the young core develop.

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Came across some interesting tidbits in some articles across the interwebs.

First, I think it's great that Weaver, Kaz and Saundo are golfing together. Besides the good news that Kaz is settling in nicely, its quite funny to think of Saundo in such a crazy get-up. Unlike the other countless "Who will be the Angels' ace?" stories, I like that Crasnick looks at it in terms of forging a new rotation dynamic. It mirrors the team's road ahead, in that the Angels are looking to create a new dynamic with the young core in the lead. But I gotta say, I really like the rotation and I find this storyline of who's-gonna-step-up? as very interesting, rather than worrisome.

Secondly, there's two bits at the end of this article. The first is "When Jered Weaver is good, he’s really good: In his 16 wins last season, he had an ERA of 1.84 and a 0.905 WHIP. But in his eight losses, he had a 6.99 ERA and a 1.835 WHIP." Not that hard to see, considering that he'd have some starts (including those in August where he was apparently going through some dead arm) where he'd get absolutely shelled and I'd think "What the hell is going on?" and then he'd alleviate those concerns with a spectacular outing. The second made me laugh and exclaim: "Mark Teixeira has never had a successful sacrifice bunt in his career." Now I guess that makes sense, since most managers would rather he swing than bunt, but still, it says successful not attempted. So maybe he wouldn't have been such a great fit in Anaheim after all!

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Last week I complained that there was no Angels news (or really any significant Angels news). It occured to me later that I was being quite a hypocrite to the Japanese media. In the course of my frustration, I was belittling their fervor when really, I was just as desperate for Angels news. So a sincere gomen! (See, 4 years of high school Japanese wasn't for naut!)