Greetings fellow HHers.  As a fanatic (hence the name), I'm constantly researching, studying upcoming opponents and so forth. I've been noticing that since the season started the Angels have been thrown up against some heavy opponents while the Rangers, A's (who cares about the M's really? they're not going anywhere) have gone up against mediocre competition with sprinkles of Rays, Yankees (I don't even think they've gone up against the Yankees as we have thus far). All in all, I always fear going down the stretch in the second half of the season being right there with the other AL West rivals so i've taken a look at the second half competition for the Halos vs. Rangers (not so much the A's because they're gonna start to fade soon) and noticed that Texas, are real rival this year, is going to be tested and tested REAL GOOD!  here's a look at the schedules for both teams right out of the chute post July:

Angels: http://espn.go.com/mlb/team/schedule/_/name/laa/half/2/los-angeles-angels

Rangers: http://espn.go.com/mlb/team/schedule/_/name/tex/half/2/texas-rangers

Well Rangers, no more baltimores, astros, brewers, pirates, m's!    

Does anyone know which players will be coming off the books for 2009 and how much freed up money the team will have to be able to pursue future players??

Here is a salary overview for 2008:

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/baseball/mlb/salaries/angels.html

99 bottles of beer on the wall 99 bottles of beer. I want the halos to atleast go to the world series. I love this team and am very excited to see them in the playoffs with a lineup that has pop for the first time since 2002.

He needs to trade for:

• A catcher who can throw out runners (We need a good defensive catcher who can hit higher than .208 BAD!).
• A couple of bullpen guys for the 7th and 8th innings with power arms.
• Two power arms for the rotation (the Colonel, Weaver and Judy ARE NOT going to cut it come playoffs!)
• A back up center fielder who has adequate defense and a solid bat.
• A solid back up utility infielder

Any suggestions on any candidates for these positions???

Here are some ideas from me:

For the catching position (trade for Ivan Rodriguez from the Yankees or bring back JOMO)

Rotation Arms: Roy Halladay and A.J. Burnette (for Saunders and Weaver and minor leaguers)

Back up CF: Aaron Rowand  (for HGH and Reggie)

Bullpen: Joakim Soria (33 saves/ 1.96 ERA)<FOR SHIELDS>  Scott Downs 58.2 Innings pitched, 18 Holds, 5 saves/1.38 ERA) <FOR SPEIER OR ARREDONDO>

OK...Have at it!

As a daily ritual (mostly after a halos win) I look at the standings on Espn.com to find gratification in how my beloved team is beginning to put distance between division foes and also how their record looks in comparison to the rest of baseball as each day passes.  Furthermore, espn, has a fun features when comparing win/loss columns amidst the rest of MLB. These features include: League, Overall, Wild Card, Power Rankings.  I much like the feature "Overall" because it is just one "standings" column that aligns all of MLB. Moreover, as I deeply analyzed the statistics (i'm a stats fan there i said it), I looked at the probability which is somehow calculated for each team of whether or not that team will win either the Division, WC (Wild Card), POFF ( Make the Playoffs) and I noticed that they had my beloved team at a 65% chance of making the playoffs in comparison to the Rays (84%) and the chisox (73%). I stared in disbelief at the probability ratios (with exception to the Rays which have the best record in all MLB) and couldn't find a decent excuse as to why the chisox had a higher chance of making the playoffs considering their record is worse (51-37) and only having a 1.5 game lead in that division. Furthermore, the Cubs (the redsux nation of the NL),  has an 84% chance of making the playoffs allthewhile having such an insignificant 3.5 game lead and factoring in that they have the hard charging (never count us out) Cardinals nipping at their heals. With that said, (Rev..enlighten me with your inmense baseball wisdom) is there something that I don't know when it comes to calculating such probablities??? Or, is this just the most BLATENT form of HOMERISM???? I'm really losing it.....please help!

I came across this really funny article in which SI interviews Tori Hunter. It mentions a really intense game of dominoes between him and side salad (Napoli). To which Tori addresses himself as Hula Dula the Domino Rula because he kicks butt and takes names. So with that said, we all should refer to him now as Hula Dula the domino Rula. LMAO.

Here is the article:

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2008/writers/holden_kushner/06/27/torii.hunter/index.html

Has anyone noticed that there is ABSOLUTELY no article that mentions this. Furthermore, all I heard on ESPN this morning as I got ready for work was Joba and his bid to fit into that oh so mediocre. Why must the media be so biased??? This really chaps my hide. I know for certain that if Saunders (the colonel) were to play for the Stankees or the RedSuckers there would be repeats of last nights game over and over and over. Someone please enlighten me on the possible good excuse the media might have as to why there is no news on the AL's first NINE GAME WINNER.

According to MLBTRADERUMORS.COM it is confirmed that Jones IS in Baltimore going through a physical exam and that the trade should be announced sometime this evening.

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I stumbled across an interesting diary posted over at lonestarball in which a community member of LSB ran into cousin oliver at the gym and basically asked him whether or not he was returning to the Angels for 2008 and to which he responded, "No! I'm done..over the hill".

Does anyone know this to be true?? He wasn't as effective at the begining but he was good-to-great in the second half of the season. Rev...? could you confirm??

Here is the link:

http://www.lonestarball.com/story/2008/1/8/1470/05041

There is a big article on the franchise' most solid lefty. I'm one of the biggest Chuck Finley fans on this planet probably and can't me any more happier. Moreover, he is the best candidate to being the first hall of famer to go in with an Angels cap. We definitely need to get behind him and have our first representative.

Here is the link to this story:

http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20071219&content_id=2333548&vkey=news_mlb&fext=. jsp&c_id=mlb

According to mlbtraderumors.com the braves have asked about Willits. But what do they have to offer?? I wouldn't mind Chipper Jones and a fine hard throwing reliever (if they have something like that to offer) for Willits and say GMJ??? We need some new warriors in the pen and he would make up at 3rd base for mcab...We definitely need bullpen arms...I just think it hasn't been quite the standard we've been used to post 2002. Here are Chipper's stats for 2007 337/29/102 (and may I add 42doubles and 173 hits and he played 134games??) Let's do this!!!!

Strolling through the mlbtraderumors.com page there is a headline stating that they're close to making this happen. I hope this isn't true or i'm gonna be mad at Dave Dombroski for being a jerk. Here's what it says:

Marlins/Tigers Cabrera/Willis Blockbuster
Ken Rosenthal has an update with a whopper of a trade rumor.

The Marlins and Tigers are talking about a monster deal that would send Miguel Cabrera and Dontrelle Willis over to the Tigers for Andrew Miller, Cameron Maybin, and others.  Dave Dombrowski has always worked well with the Marlins, his former team.

Well, maybe we can go after Mike Lamb...I think that dude is a stud! Any comments fellow halo bros?

Greetings fellow halo bros!

I came across an interesting stat (although you can find just about any stat to back up most claims)as I searched through the many MLB rumor sites on an every day basis. In the ESPN rumblings and grumblings section they had "One baseball man" that said this week, "Put Cabrera in the middle of that lineup, and he and Vlad [Guerrero] would have to be damned close to Manny [Ramirez] and Big Papi, wouldn't they?"

I salivated at the sight of the stat line put down:

Here are the 2007 stat lines of those two tag teams:

Ramirez-Ortiz: .315 avg., .419 OBP, .561 SLG, 55 HR, 205 RBIs
Cabrera-Guerrero: .322 avg., .402 OBP, .556 SLG, 61 HR, 244 RBIs

Am I the only one thinking, "I hope Arte see's this statline and makes it happen so we can get back at those F#$%@s!!!" I'd like to hear your comments!

As the bright lights go on tomorrow and the elite baseball season commences, I am EXTREMELY excited and antsy for tomorrow's game to come around. There's only one problem. I'm not quite sure where halo nation comes together at mostly. Nationals??? Some other alternative watering hole???? Could anyone tell me where everyone will be rooting their little bum bums off at??? Could HH get together and rally around at a particular place??? What do you say HH???? LET'S GO HALOS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Defense wins championships

I'm not sure if i'm the only angels fan who was blind to this because I was almost certain that we ranked in the top 10 atleast. I looked up the stats yesterday and noticed that as far as fielding % went, we ranked 21 out of 30 in that stat. That's nothing to be proud of. One can only imagine, as we trail Boston by two games for home field advantage, how many more games we could chalk up in the wins column if we'd been in the top ten in this category rather that the bottom ten.

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It's getting down to the final weeks in the season and they've already won their 80th win. With that said, it's pretty fair to say they'll be in the 90's as far as wins go. But how many?? Could this team actually out do the 2002 World Series Championship team that set the bar for wins in a season with 99??? If any team is going to be the first to outdo the 2002 team my humble opinion is that it's going to be the 2007 version because of the pitching. This is the first time in my 25+years of being a true fan that I've seen two pitchers (John Lackey and Myspace) compete for the CY award. Any thoughts?