Triple B - Bjoern's Baseball Blog

Moving on

2006-03-10T18:21:00.001+01:00

The Pearly Gates have done it, League of Angels has done it and the Halo Herald did it, too. Now I'll do the same. :)

As I hinted in my last post, this blog will move to a different location. And it will also get a ~~way cooler~~ less stupid name in the process.

My analysis of the Jeff Weaver signing got me an invitation to join the At Homeplate community. So for the future, my blog's URL will be http://athomeplate.com/angels (at least until they decide I don't satisfy their quality standards. :) )

My first post is an analysis of the Angels' lineup in 2006 and there will be a preview of the Angels season shortly.

It would be great if those of you who have a link to my blog on their site could update it. Thanks!!!

So, see you at homeplate!

Bjoern

Favorite Spring Training Quote

2006-02-27T14:12:00.000+01:00

Not from an Angel though, but from the Big Unit:

"I'm throwing everything that I throw right now"

I guess that makes sense.

Not much else to write for me at the moment, I'm still busy with my thesis. But once I've finished that, it looks like my blog will move to another location and even get a real name in the process.

Got Weaver!

2006-02-17T12:11:00.000+01:00

Now that Jeff Weaver finally is a Halo, I digged a little deeper into his stats to see how he'll do next year. This is what I found out:

Much will depend on how Weaver fares at home. During his career, he played in seven games in Angels stadium, starting six. This is his line:

G-GS---IP--H-HR--R-ER-BB-SO-W-L--ERA
7--6-44.2-39--1-10-10-12-32-4-1-2.01

Pretty good, actually. I was very surprised that he gave up only one homerun. Although the sample size is small, this might be a good omen after all.

So how about our division rivals?

Team-----G-GS---IP--H-HR--R-ER-BB-SO-W-L--ERA
Oakland--5--5-29---38--7-25-23-11-24-2-1-7.14
Texas----2--2-11.1-16--0-11--9--3--8-0-2-7.15
Seattle--3--2-15.2-22--2-11-11--0-13-1-1-6.32
---------------------------------------------
Total---10--9-56---76--9-47-43-14-45-3-4-6.91

Not really that encouraging. It's strange that he allowed that many homeruns in Oakland, but none in Texas, but all this is probably due to small sample size as well.

The one thing everybody agrees on is that Weaver can eat innings. Well, maybe he ate a little to much of them. From 2003 to 2005, his OPS against when throwing 106-120 pitches rose to .948. Also, his OPS against in inning 7-9 is .871, while it is .733 from inning 1-3 and .755 from 4-6.
Other stats that indicate that Jeff shouldn't be trusted in the clutch (all stats 2003-2005):
.971 OPS against with bases loaded
1.242 OPS against with first and third
1.091 OPS against in situations close and late

It has been said that Jeff sometimes has problems controlling his nerves and these stats certainly support that statement. But some of his other stats are really good (see my last post) and now he has a great bullpen behind him. So if Scioscia pulls him early enough, i.e. after 100 pitches, in close situation and with a lefty at bat, and lets the pen finish the game, Jeff Weaver might actually have a chance to hold his ERA under 4. I'd rather see him do that and pitch 30 innings less than have 220 IP with an 4.50+ ERA at the end of the season.

Want Weaver?

2006-02-08T13:17:00.000+01:00

Not much happening in Angels Country right now except some ridiculous trade proposals from the Red Sox and rumors that Jeff Weaver will come to town to warm up a seat in the Halos' bullpen for his brother.
When I first heard about the Weaver rumor, I was excited and thought that this would be a very good signing. It would push Carrasco back to pen where he probably belongs (although I have the feeling that he might surprise us) and give us very solid starters from 1-5.
But Weaver has the reputation of a guy who just can't get his act together, so I checked some numbers to see what his problem was.
Some of stats are pretty good. He strikes batters out at a decent clip, doesn't walk many, his 3.65 K/B rating was 7th in the NL last year and oppents just bat .256 against him. But Jeff's problem was, that when they hit him, they hit him hard. 35 HR allowed (T-2nd behind Milton), .435 slugging against. That's right in the neighbourhood of guys like Aaron Harang, Chris Capuano and Tom Ohka. Not the company you want to keep as a pitcher, at least not statistically.
Weaver's problems obviously are lefthanders, who managed to hit .297/.356/.511 and 22 HR against him in 2005 compared to .208/.241/.345 and 13 HR from righties. Maybe he should become a ROOGY in the pen? At least this would make the decision when to pull him easy for Scioscia. Just wait for the next lefty masher.
On the plus side, he pitched much better after the break going 7-3 with a 3.97 ERA after 7-8 with a 4.44 ERA in the first half. While his slugging against stayed about the same, he increased his Ks a little while also lowering the walks. But that's not necessarily a sign that he starts getting a grip on himself as he showed the same improvement in the second half of 2oo4 (while he totally collapsed in the second half of 2003).
He actually benefitted from playing in Dodgers Stadium and from his defense, as his stats are better at home and his defense independent ERA is a little higher than is actual ERA (4.55 to 4.22). Also, his groundball to flyball ration last year was close to 1, which explains the high number of homeruns.
All in all, in my opinion, he's not a really good fit for Angels Stadium and $9 million / year are way too much for him, so Mr. Stoneman might be better off saving the money to possibly take some contract in a deal later (at the deadline, maybe).
Sorry Jeff, but I'd rather wait for your brother.

That hurts!

2006-01-26T02:33:00.000+01:00

So the A's signed Frank "Big Hurt" Thomas for just $500.000. This figure might go up to $2.6 million, but that's still pretty cheap for a guy who will most likely put up an OPS of .900+ if he stays healthy. If you look up "low risk, high reward" in wikipedia, I'm sure this deal is already cited there.
I keep asking myself: why couldn't the Angels make this deal? They have the money, they have a DH spot just as comfortable as that one in Oakland and they even have better weather, which is always nice for an oldtimer like Thomas. Why didn't anybody in the organisation seriously think of it when the team so clearly lacks power?
Well, there's always old mafioso Mike Piazza, some might say. While he's probably as cheap as Thomas at this point and a little more likely to stay healthy, the last two years he put up an OPS around .800. While this is still above average for the Angels, it is much less than what Thomas might and, I believe, Juan Rivera or McPherson should provide. So signing Piazza doesn't make much sense for the Angels, but Thomas might have. But, he's with Oakland now and it doesn't take a genius like Billy Beane to know this was a good move for them and it might hurt the Angels in the end, when (better: if) Oakland edges away with the division.

Steve Finley, good hitter

2006-01-21T16:30:00.000+01:00

I know, I know, he's gone (thank god!), but the Giants apparently weren't watching last year, or they strongly believe in ~~second~~ third springs. This quote comes from an article from MLB.com about the Giants thinking about batting Bonds 2nd in the lineup:

The reasoning now is that Bonds will likely be taken out of games in the late innings -- to rest his legs and help keep him healthy -- and Alou would prefer inserting a good hitter, the caliber of Steve Finley, as a replacement rather than an on-the-bench leftover.

Well, if I had just one word to describe the 2005 Steve Finley, "on-the-bench-leftover" would be it. But more and more I get the feeling, that next year, he will have a solid season, Erstad will be injured most of the time and we'll be stuck with El Fonzi on the bench.

Baseball Scrabble

2006-01-14T19:36:00.000+01:00

Over at Halos Heaven I found a link to this great site where they tell you how many points baseball player's last names are worth in Scrabble.
Who's name is worth the most? My guesses were *Pierzynski (28)* and *Mientkiewicz (32)*, but *Vazquez* scored *37* Points.
Last name worth the fewest points? There are four different names. One of them is relativly easy, but can you name all four? It's *Lee*, *Orr*, *Loe* and *Seo*.
And yes, I am bored.

What's WHIP?

2006-01-12T00:26:00.000+01:00

Yesterday, Bruce Sutter was elected into the Hall of Fame. His stats are pretty good, but not really that great, he only played in 12 seasons, but considering he invented or popularized the splitfinger-fastball, I'm okay with this decision. The Hall shouldn't be all about stats. I do not think he deserved it more than some other players on the Ballot though, but since he had only three years of eligibility, I understand why he was voted in now.
Tom Verducci from Sports Illustrated also thinks that someone else, Goose Gossage, should have been voted in instead of Sutter. And he gets a little carried away with his argumentation:

Remember, Gossage pitched most of his career in the AL, with the DH, and Sutter never faced a DH.

Well, this point certainly applies to starting pitchers, but Closers usually don't face pitchers, but pinch hitters. Although the average DH might be a little bit better than the average pinch hitter, I don't think the difference is that big that this is a real argument against Sutter.
But it gets better:

And yet look who was the tougher pitcher to hit, as defined by opponents' batting average and walks plus hits per inning pitched (see chart, right).

This sound like a solid argument, at least as long as you don't look at the actual chart:

Pitcher BAA WHIP
Gossage .228 1.232
Sutter .230 1.140

If even Members of the BBWAA like Verducci don't know that a smaller WHIP is actually BETTER, no voting result is going to surprises me anymore.

Erstad back in Centerfield

2006-01-11T11:06:00.000+01:00

The Angels announced that Daren Erstad will move back to center, leaving first base in the hands of Casey Kotchman. Chone Figgins will play third, which means that Dallas McPherson will be the DH most of the time (except against lefties, I guess).
While I, like most Angels fans probably, am happy that I don't have to endure any more Steve Finley in Centerfield and that Kotchman gets his shot at first, Erstad playing center again reminds me of why he was moved in the first place: His proneness to injury. I somehow can't image Erstad starting more than 100 games in center next year. But plans for the worst (?) case are already made:

"... if Erstad got hurt and Figgy had to play center, Dallas could play third."

I bet Scioscia had to bite his lip not to say "when" instead of "if" when he gave that interview. However, when the inevitable happens, Dallas' back is hopefully completely healed and he can play the rest of the season in the field. That will free up the DH spot for Juan Rivera (vs RHP) and Robb Quinlan (vs LHP) or even Tim Salmon. As much as I like Daren and his gritty play and all his intangibles and his leadership and his running over catchers, at least offensively, this will probably make the Angels better.

Still, opening day and even spring training are still far, far away and there is a lot of time to spin a deal or sign a free agent. It doesn't have to be Manny or Tejada (although that would be really, really nice). Why not take a shot with a one-year contract on Frank Thomas or Mike Piazza. At least think about it. If the A's do it, so should the Angels.

It's good that these times are over

2006-01-08T11:06:00.000+01:00

I'm still not sure he was the problem down there. It's more like a day-care center than a major league clubhouse. Somebody said to me, "You can't trade 25 guys." I said, "Why not?"

In shifting the blame for a sub .400 last place 1999 from fired Manager Terry Collins to the players.
Tony Tavares

Wrong Strategy?

2006-01-05T19:22:00.000+01:00

Didn't we all wonder why the Angels' offense sputtered so much last year? It certainly wasn't the batting average of .270, 7th best in the majors. It rather was the OBP of .325 (19th) and the SLG of .409 (18th). As far as I know, the Angels offense strategy is to make contact and put the ball in play. This obviously is the reason for the OBP problem, but did you know it might also be responsible for the low slugging percentage? In 2005 Angels batters only struck out 848 times (just behind Oakland for 29th or 2nd place, however you see it) and as the guys from the Hardball Times found out, there is a positive correlation between strikeouts and the value of your outfield flies, i.e. the flyballs are more likely to leave the park. Ok, saying the Angels should strike out more probably oversimplifies things, but isn't it possible that some players don't reach their power potential because they focus too much on putting the ball in play?

Do you remember?

2006-01-05T18:24:00.000+01:00

It's easy to stay in the majors for seven and a half years when you hit .300. But when you hit .216, like me, it's really an accomplishment.

Joseph Michael Lahoud (played in the outfield and DH for the Angels from 74-76 and had his career year with them, hitting .271, .367, .458 in 1974. He wound up playing ten years in the major after all, but never more than 38 games a season after he left the Angels. His career average is .223)

Stepping to the plate, hitting somewhere, the Third Baseman ...

2006-01-04T17:18:00.000+01:00

... Edgardo Alfonzo???
Are you kidding me? ESPN reveals the current AL Rosters and our starting Third Baseman is Alfonso. Absolutely ridiculous!
D-Mac had an .744 OPS last year, EA just .672. Although he is better (that is: less bad) than D-Mac against southpaws (.646 to .474), the Angels won't platoon him because they have Quinlan sitting on the bench (.860 OPS vs lefties).
Let's hope we don't actually have to see a game in which that guy starts.

---

I've always been little, even back when I was little.

Commenting on his height of 5 feet, 6-1/2 inches
David Eckstein

Happy New Year!

2006-01-04T01:02:00.000+01:00

Happy New Year, Halosphere! Farewell Sean and all the best! Thanks again for linking to me! :)

So the Angels finally traded away Finley and what did they get? A guy who, if we are lucky, won't play a game at all next year.
Finley was bad last year, really, really bad, but he was good once and he was a centerfielder. I really think we should have gotten a better deal. Not much better, but a little better. Save some money, get a long shot prospect, use him as part of another deal, something like that.
And why are the Angels hardly ever mentioned in Ramirez/Tejada rumors?

By the way, I'm playing a draft-dynasty-game in MVP Baseball with the Angels and after winning the division the first year and losing the ALDS to Toronto in three games, I'm now in the World Series against the Giants in my second year. The Angels have just managed to climb back from a 0-2 hole to make it 2-2. One game left in Anaheim.

---

Dodgers and Angels highlights at 11. Please watch anyway.

Bill Weir, Cutting a promo during the 1999 season when both teams were having mediocre sub-.500 seasons.

Damon signs with Yankees

2005-12-21T11:38:00.000+01:00

No, we certainly didn't expect Damon to sign with the Angels, but now that he's with the Yankees, the Red Sox need a centerfielder and a shortstop. How about Steve Finley/Darin Erstad and Orlando Cabrera? Damon's signing probably means the Manny-Trade-Talks are heating up again.
The Red Sox certainly want a bat to compensate at least a little bit for the loss of Manny's production, so a third team (or Garret Anderson?) must be involved/included. Still, I can't see the Red Sox fill their needs without trading Manny, they have nobody in the minors who could play short or center in the bigs.

---

I said, "I'd be pissed too, if a guy was throwing at my head like that." He thought that was pretty funny. It kind of lightened the mood.

Greeting Oakland's visibly upset Frank Menechino at first base after he'd been hit in the foot by Angels pitcher Scott Schoenweis for the second time in the game.
Scott Spiezio

Nothing ever happens, nothing happens at all

2005-12-18T13:17:00.000+01:00

Booo-ring!

You can't really say the Angels are having a busy off-season.

Yesterday however, while searching for a good signature for my new forum, I found out that this great quote

Baseball Is Life, Life Is Baseball!

belongs to Angels Great Tim Salmon. He is such a profound philosopher, isn't he?

So, instead of shutting the blog down until Mr Stoneman gets a deal done worth talking about, I'm going to post my favorite Angels quotes here from time to time.

Bjoern

Three's A Charm

2005-12-10T18:58:00.000+01:00

Someone on a German (!) us-sports-forum suggested that the news about a disgruntled Tejada in Baltimore might not result in a Tejada for Manny trade but rather in a three team deal involving the Angels, Orioles and Red Sox. I find that idea very intriguing...

Tejada -> Red Sox
Manny, $$$ -> Angels
Cabrera, Erstad, ??? -> Orioles

This looks like it needs some minor tweaking, but it might be easier to work out than a two way deal.

Horay, we have a LOOGY!

2005-12-10T13:00:00.000+01:00

The Angels traded minor league infielder Alexi Casilla (never heard of him) to the Minnesota Twins for J.C. Romero, who will get $2.2 mill. next season.
I'm not too happy with the fact that Romero felt "disrespected" by the Twins Organisation (which, as far as I can tell, seems to be a pretty good one) and clashed with his manager, because that might mean that he'll bring some unhealthy attitude to the clubhouse.
Also, he reportedly has trouble keeping inherited runners from scoring and his 2005 numbers aren't all that great: 3.47 ERA, 48 K, 39 BB, 6 HR in 57 innings.
BUT, his lefty split is a line of beauty: 2.54 ERA, .198 BAA, .308 OBA, .267 SLG, 28 K, 10 BB, 2 HR in 28.1 innings pitched.
So I guess this is a good addition after all. It addressed a major weakness (no lefty in the pen) and didn't cost us too much.
Casilla (21) started the season in AA Arkansas and hit .211, .286, .211 in 19 AB, then went to AAA Salt Lake, where he played 13 games, hitting .256, .310, .256. On May 16th, he was sent down to A Cedar Rapids, playing in 78 games, hitting .325, .392, .409 and stealing 47 bases in 59 tries. Not bad, but not great for a 21 year old playing Single-A ball. And with their depth in middle infielders, the Angels won't miss Casilla much, I expect.

Finley on his way out of town?

2005-12-07T12:39:00.000+01:00

Ken Rosenthal says:

The Angels are trying to move center fielder Steve Finley in a salary exchange. Among their possible targets: Padres outfielder Ryan Klesko and Giants third baseman Edgardo Alfonzo.

Although neither Klesko (.248, .358, .418, 18 HR) nor Alfonso (.277, .327, .345, 2 HR) are players I want the Angels to trade for, if this gets us rid of Finley, I will gladly take it . Klesko can be a descent fourth or fifth outfielder, who can get on base (75 BB, that tops everybody on the current roster) and Alfonzo can be, ah, might do, ah,... I'd rather have Klesko.

To Be Manny Or Not To Be Manny?

2005-12-03T01:38:00.000+01:00

Nothing new on the Manny front.
I suggest Finley, Kennedy, Yan and some prospect other than Wood, Morales, Santana or Mathis. Maybe Callaspo or Kendrick? Plus some Cash, of course.
OK, the Red Sox won't bite.

Bye the way, did anyone knew that OC was the best player in the majors when it came to hit a sac fly? Me neither.

No Konerko

2005-12-01T13:39:00.000+01:00

As everybody already knows, Paul Konerko really did take a hometown discount and resigned with the White Sox for a paltry $60 mill for five years. I agree with Joe Florkowski from League of Angels that it's good to see a star player show some loyality towards his old team.
So we might see some CK at 1B after all.

In totally unrelated matters:
Check out this story about a homeless senior softball player.

Bjoern

The Paul-Konerko-Domino-Effect

2005-11-30T12:00:00.000+01:00

If the Angels really offered 65$ for 5 years to Konerko, he will most certainly be a Halo next year unless he takes a hometown discount to play with the White Sox. I can't see any team matching this kind of offer.
This would kick off a big reorganization.
Erstad would move back to center, which means Figgins will have to play second. The team wouldn't need neither Kennedy, nor Kotchman, nor Finley anymore. Which team needs a second baseman, a center fielder and a first baseman? The Red Sox.
They are desperate to trade Manny (I guess) and the Mets have already spent to much money this winter to afford him. Where else could he go? Seattle? I don't think so.
So we move Kennedy ($3 mill), Finley ($6 mill), Kotchman and another mid-level prospect to the Red Sox and they give us Manny and take $5 mill/year of his contract.

Our lineup would be:

2B Figgins (S)
CF Erstad(L)
RF Vladdi (R)
DH Manny (R)
LF GA (L)
1B Konerko (R)
3B Mc Pherson (L)
SS Cabrera (R)
C Molina/Mathis (R)

Bench:
Corner Infielder: Quinlan
Middle Infielder: Izturis
4th Outfielder: Rivera

Rotation:
Colon
Lackey
Santana
Escobar
Saunders/Byrd

Bullpen:
K-Rod
Shields
Donnelly ?
Woods
Gregg ?

Boy, I can't see how such a team would not reach the World Series. And we can still trade DaVanon for another arm in the bullpen, maybe.

Gold Gloves Ridiculous & the Range Factor

2005-11-29T11:41:00.000+01:00

It's been a while since the gold glove awards have been announced and I know that most people don't really care about them, since on many occasions, the gold glove goes to a player, who is good offensively and doesn't hurt himself on the field, but it's not really a sign of defensive excellence any more (was it ever?).
But some decisions are so outrageous, that I can't just accept them quietly. I'm talking about, of course, the decisions to give the AL shortstop gold glove to Derek Jeter over Orlando Cabrera (and, to a slightly lesser degree, Mark Teixeira over Daren Erstad).
I'm not going to argue here since I'm totally biased, I just let the stats speak for themselves:

Stat        Jeter - Cabrera
Errors         15         7
Fielding%    .979      .988
Zone Rating  .830      .844
Range Factor 4.76      4.18

Obviously, you just need to look at the error totals to realize who has the better glove. In the last five years in the AL, Omar Visquel is the only other SS who had 7 or less errors and played in more than 140 games (Good old David Eckstein came close in 2004 with only 6 error in 138 games).
The only stat where Jeter bests Cabrera is Range Factor and this is one of the most stupid stats out there. It simply adds Putouts and Assists and divides them by Innings. So if a team's pitchers strike out a lot of batters or allow many flyball, the team's shortstop will have a poor Range Factor, how stupid is this???
This year, Angels pitchers pitched 1464.1 innings and faced 6084 hitters, while Yankees pitchers hurled 1430.2 innings and faced 6105 batters.
Of these 6084 (6105) hitters, 1126 (985) struck out, 443 (463) walked and 48 (84) were hit by a pitch, which means that there were 4467 (4573) balls in play. The Angels had a 1.08 groundball-to-flyball ratio, which means that there were approx. 2319 groundballs in the infield, while the Yankees had a 1.34 G/F rate and therefore 2618 groundballs to field.
Cabrera played in 141 games, while Jeter appeared in 157, so they saw approx. 2018 and 2537 groundballs fielded by their teammates or themselves, respectively.
If we forget about putout (because they are grounders fielded by another player) and just look at the assists, Cabrera fielded 229 of 2018 balls that were hit anywhere in the infield for a percentage of 11,35%, while Jeter only got a percentage of 10,32% (262 of 2537).
I know that for these percentages to be a meaningful way of comparison, one must assume that the average of grounders hit towards the shortstop is the same for each team. I don't think that's the case, since this probably depends on the handedness and type of pitchers on this team and the opposing batters, but at least it shows what a completely useless stat Range Factor is.

If you believe David Gassko's fielding system, Derik Jeter actually had the fourth worst range in the AL after Michael Young, Russ Adams and Angel Berroa.

Relocation?

2005-11-27T17:56:00.000+01:00

No, not my blog this time.
There's a story in the LA Times that Arte Moreno would think about relocating the Angels if the city of Anaheim appealed a court decision on the name change in january, setting up a "lengthy process". Since hardly anybody in the Halosphere wrote anything about that, I guess it's mostly hot air, but still... Bureaucrats are bureaucrats after all.
Sometimes I get the feeling, all this name-change-court-thing is just a public relation trick to get some media attentions in slack season. Arte and the city probably have already settled this difference some time ago and are putting up a show right now.

Redesign!

2005-11-27T07:58:00.000+01:00

Relaunch is followed by redesign. Hope you like it.
Now I have to think about something to write about...