Gang, at the risk of unseemly self-promotion, I've written this year's "Looking Forward To" for the Angels over at Baseball Think Factory.  Due to the oddness of the publishing schedule there and the ad hoc nature of the preview writing, it's a season "preview" actually written twelve games into the season.  But given all we've gone through so far this year, it probably makes more sense to take a breath and reassess now, anyway.

(Also, I don't post here much anymore, so most of you are probably unfamiliar with me, but I maintained the now mostly dormant Chronicles of the Lads Angels blog for some years.)

UPDATE: This is as good a summary of where the team is at as I have read and I insist that you visit The Chronicler's piece linked above. (RevHF)

 

Cross-posted at Nestor's request:

This was an ugly loss, certainly, but was it any uglier than our late-season loss to $C two years ago or our Pac 10 Tourney loss to Cal last season?

One reason (not excuse) for this loss was that the loss of Luc lined up with U-Dub's strength:  rebounding the ball.  The one chance the Huskies had to run with us was beating us on the boards.  Per Ken Pomeroy's numbers, Luc rebounds 14% of opposition misses and 9% of our own misses; the only players that do better in these categories for us are our centers.  Luc is substantially better than Aboya in this respect (amongst many others).

And while some may point to effort in the rebounding deficit, and it may have been a factor on some plays, the fact is we were facing a very good rebounding team, one that has been statistically better than ours this season.  Brockman did beat Love sometimes; but other times Love had Brockman boxed out and the ball went too high and far off the rim for Love to reach, allowing Brockman to grab it himself or bat it back to one of his teammates.  U-Dub got some bounced, but excels at this part of the game and deserves some credit.

The other big factor, of course, was the performance of Darren Collison on both sides of the ball.  While some are saying he lacked effort, I thought it was more related to focus.  He was also tentative once he got his fourth foul, and I think Coach Howland was too slow to switch his defensive assignment with Russell Westbrook's; Dentmon's ability to drive and create down the stretch was essential for them to outpace our comeback efforts, and Collison's hands were tied by the foul situation.  If Collison plays an even average game (for him), we probably win that game.

So, yes, it's a bad loss, and an ugly one.  Effort may have been lacking at certain points.  And while there are certainly things to correct and lessons to learn, I don't think this is the end of the world.  I think this is still one of the four best teams in America, despite the lack of a consistent outside threat.

Continue reading this post »

How does Bill rack up against past Angel GMs?

I ran the numbers, of course.  You can see the full list there, but the highlights:

• 1st in wins (703, ahead of Fred Haney's 614);
• 1st in winning percentage (.542, ahead of Mike Port's .517 -- the only two Angel GMs with a winning percentage above .500);
• 1st in divisional titles (3, Bavasi I had 2, and it's not just a product of the smaller divisions, as he's also:)
• 1st in .500+ seasons (6, ahead of Port's and Bavasi I's 4 apiece);
• 1st in 90+-win seasons (4, ahead of Port's 3); and
• 1st in 95+win seasons (2, no one else had any).
• And, it goes without saying, first in World Championships.

Nobody's perfect, but that's nothing to be ashamed of.

Thank you, Bill.

Poll

Who is the greatest GM in Angel history?

4%

Whitey Herzog (1993)

4 votes

2%

Bill Bavasi (1994-1999)

2 votes

89%

Bill Stoneman (2000-2007)

77 votes

0%

Fred Haney (1961-1968)

0 votes

1%

Dick Walsh (1969-1971)

1 votes

1%

Harry Dalton (1972-1977)

1 votes

1%

Buzzie Bavasi (1978-1984)

1 votes

0%

Mike Port (1985-1991)

0 votes

0%

Dan O'Brien (1991-1993)

0 votes

86 votes | Poll has closed

MOVED OVER FROM THE DIARIES...

Hey gang.

It may be gauche to link oneself, but I mentioned Casey's frequent groundouts to second in last night's chatter, so I thought I'd take a deeper look at where he's hitting the ball and if that's affecting his relatively poor numbers thus far.

Here's my post on the subject:

L I N K -to- Chronicles of the Lads

There's a lot of numbers there, as the 15 of you who read my blog would guess, but the basic summary is:

1.  Casey hits the ball on the ground a lot, and
2.  Casey is better when he gets the ball in the air.  

In my nonprofessional opinion, Casey's swing is top-hand dominant (much like Ersty's), which leads to a lot of weak, ineffectual grounders to the second baseman (much like Ersty). Casey's shown the ability to drive the ball before (and did so for his double last night), so I think he can do it again.

He's a big strong guy, with a good eye, and he shouldn't be afraid to drive the ball and put it in the air. He's not going to get a bunch of infield hits topping it to second, given that he can't even outrun two out of three Molinas.

Anyway, I break it down at the link ...