SBNation.com User Blog: Kernel

Preview of Angels' 2013 BP Cap

Kernel — Thu, 27 Dec 2012 12:51:15 -0000

Preview of Angels' 2013 BP Cap

I've been rocking the same (well, two caps, same design) Halos cap for years now, the old BP cap with the blue crown and red squatchee and brim, and now the Angels are busting out a reverse design that I think looks pretty sweet. I love the Angels, but all-red isn't for me. What does everyone think?

And how sad should Braves fans be about theirs? Yeesh.

Trout is Angels' fans very own Angel

Kernel — Thu, 09 Aug 2012 11:49:02 -0000

Trout is Angels' fans very own Angel

ESPN doing a piece that should warm your heart after games like yesterday's, a paean to the wunderkind that brings us all joy even in the darkest of times. Read it, smile, and remember that Mike Trout is an Angel, now and for years to come.

Mike Trout - Best in MLB By 2013

Kernel — Fri, 25 May 2012 19:26:39 -0000

Mike Trout - Best in MLB By 2013

Veteran evaluator on Mike Trout: "If he's not the best player in the game by the end of this season, he will be by the end of next season." - @Buster_ESPN (Buster Olney)

Angels Lineup 5/18 at San Diego Padres

Kernel — Fri, 18 May 2012 23:37:53 -0000

Angels Lineup 5/18 at San Diego Padres

Trout 8, Izturis 5, Pujols 3, Trumbo 9, Kendrick 4, Wells 7, Aybar 6, Wilson 2 & Weaver 1.

Lineup 5/17 - BOURJOS!

Kernel — Thu, 17 May 2012 16:57:18 -0000

Lineup 5/17 - BOURJOS!

Trout 9, Izturis 6, Pujols, 3, Trumbo DH, Kendrick 4, Wells 7, Callaspo 5, Bourjos 8, Hester 2 & Wilson 1.

SI.com Predicts Angels in 2012 - And It's Good

Kernel — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 20:25:05 -0000

SI.com Predicts Angels in 2012 - And It's Good

SI.com has predicted the Los Angeles Angels as the team with the best regular-season record, the AL champions, and in a delicious slice of second helpings, champions of baseball over the upstate San Francisco Giants.

Also, the Halos stomp the Wild Card survivor Rangers in the first round.

What a perfect year that would be. I couldn't ask for better. Except for Albert, Jered, and Trout collecting some well-deserved hardware.

How Vernon Wells Can Help the Angels

Kernel — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 11:43:37 -0000

How Vernon Wells Can Help the Angels

It's behind the ESPN Insider paywall, but if you're a subscriber (what? I got it for free with some promotion), it's a good article by FanGraphs' Dayn Perry about how a smart, modern team would use Wells for what he's good at, and not set him up to fail by repeating last year. It is my hope that DiPoto will be the kind of GM to encourage this type of thinking and strategy, instead of letting Scoscia do What Has Always Been Done all the time.

Jered Weaver chooses comfort over dollars

Kernel — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 16:13:20 -0000

Jered Weaver chooses comfort over dollars

SI's Lee Jenkins breaks down Weaver's decision to stay in Angels red. He also brings up a pitch I've never even heard of, describing it as a "no-seamer" or "dry spitter."

Angels 2012: What Needs to Happen

Kernel — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 11:05:31 -0000

The Angels are now headed for a second straight October of watching baseball instead of playing it. Here's what needs to happen to get them back on the right track.

First and foremost, Tony Reagins has to go. A good GM lets the manager manage, but also makes sure the right pieces are in place, and the Vernon Wells for Juan Rivera and Mike Napoli swap will likely go down as the worst player-for-player trade in baseball history (I figure taking cash for Babe Ruth will always be the worst). With Rivera and/or Abreu in left and Napoli splitting time at first and catching, the Angels are in a tight race with the Rangers and aren't grossly over budget. He's made a few good moves over the years, but the early wisdom of letting Figgins and Lackey go while snagging charismatic Torii Hunter and acquiring Mark Teixeira on the cheap are distant memories. Now it's the salary-chugging deals of Reagins' tenure that are killing the team, as well as Mike Scoscia's nigh-unlimited power. He trots Jeff Mathis out there every day because he's on the roster, and an easy way to fix that is simply to choose not to sign him.Hhire Kim Ng, maybe, to replace Reagins. Get someone in who understands baseball is about getting the best value for your money, both on the field and at the bank.

The Angels need to turn the page at starting catcher. Jeff Mathis needs to go. He has no business being in an every day lineup. If Jered Weaver wants a more defensive-minded backstop, Bobby Wilson can pick up those duties, but the other four games per rotational cycle should go to Hank Conger. Despite Mike Scoscia's insulting comparison of an outfielder to Hank Conger behind the plate, it's time to let a kid who can hit (and watch a bad ball go by) go for it. At this point, a .700 OPS catcher would be a massive boost behind the plate, and Conger's ceiling is much higher than that. Even if his throws aren't perfect, he can improve, and the positional value of having a catcher who can hit in baseball right now is worth some defensive shortcomings.

The Angels also need to be willing to let the best players play in the outfield. Counting Bobby Abreu, the Angels are paying an exorbitant amount of cash for three players that are all in obvious decline. Torii Hunter still brings value as a corner outfielder, and his offense, while subpar, will probably be just good enough to stay out there for the last year of his contract, after which it will be time for a fond farewell. Peter Bourjos' offense is good enough for the tremendous defensive value he brings, so he's still worth keeping in center. Vernon Wells, the big splash in the middle of the toilet bowl, needs to ride pine as the fourth outfielder. Sure, it stings to pay $20 million or so a year for a role-player, but if the point of the game is to WIN, he needs to be on the bench, not soaking up boos in left field. It makes no sense to dump him entirely due to the Angels' lack of organizational depth, but he shouldn't be starting. Mike Trout should be out there in left field, because even if his offense hasn't come around to Major League pitching yet, his defensive value is enough that it can make up for it while he comes along. Bobby Abreu might end up the odd man out, but he might be movable if the Angels take on some salary. He could still DH somewhere, perhaps a place like Kansas City, where he can pass on his wisdom to a new, young class of hitters. He's not ready to retire yet, but getting Abreu in as hitting coach would be great, and as soon as he retires, the Angels should be knocking on that door.

The Angels also need to stop counting on Kendrys Morales to come back and be the force he was in 2009. It is possible that he will, and if so, that can be figured out when it happens. For now, the Angels have a good young player in Mark Trumbo, but his light-tower power obscures his cringe-inducing on-base numbers. The Angels need to make a move this offseason and get that middle-of-the-order bat they've been missing since Vladimir Guerrero's decline. They need to get either Albert Pujols or Prince Fielder. One is younger and one is more fit, but both will bring an offensive presence to the club that will give them a fighting chance against a Rangers team in its prime while also letting the young class mature into support roles. If one were so inclined, they could even try Pujols at 3B to keep Trumbo and/or Morales at first, though I'm not sure it's a wise move defensively. One of the great fallacies of 2011 was counting on Kendrys Morales to return when all signs pointed to either no return or a diminished presence when he did.

The rest of the infield and the rotation is fine. Jose Reyes is sure to be a big name this season, but he has some pretty big durability issues, and going hog wild in the offseason after signing Prince or Pujols is a fast way to repeating the same problems the Angels are facing right now. Erick Aybar could be more consistent, but he does a much better job of staying on the field than Reyes. Signing a fourth starter to a 1-2 year deal would make some sense, but I'm also not opposed to letting Trevor Bell get another crack at the starting rotation while keeping Tyler Chatwood up. With Garrett Richards waiting in the wings, the Angels would be able to weather an injury (or suspension) next season without completely falling apart. I'd like to say Scott Downs should be closer, but knowing how rigid Scoscia is with his relievers, having him around when games are close in the earlier going is of more value than waiting until the 9th inning, when a game could be lost due to poor relief prior and his talent is wasted.

I think the Angels are fixable, and I think they're fixable relatively quickly. There's a desert of talent left over after the team pushes its last few young stars through and the new draftees start to move up through the system, but if the Angels want to challenge the Rangers in the first half of this decade at some point, promoting the last few stars of this wave of talent is their best shot at doing so. And while I normally abhor overpaying for free agents, the Angels have to do something big to keep up with a very good team in Texas, and signing Albert Pujols or Prince Fielder would not only put butts in seats, it would give their engine some horsepower. 2012 may be the last year Jered Weaver dons Angels red. Dan Haren and Ervin Santana are in their prime. The time to make the push is NOW.

I Can Finally Rest For The Winter

Kernel — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 14:12:59 -0000

I had resolved not to watch any more baseball this season, and for a while, my resolution held. But with the Red Sox, the stupid red-legged, navy-capped New England Master of Clutch clawing their way back ( a feat I grudgingly had to tip my cap to), I knew that I'd have to watch last night's game. I saw the BoSox threaten the Rays bullpen time and time again, and each time, instead of breaking through as they did against my Angels, Tampa Bay came through with the stop. And with David Price playing the role of the rookie phenom that K-Rod played to such perfection in the 2002 postseason, my night ended watching those in red nad navy trudging down the hallway to spend a long fall and winter wondering how they could come bac, play so hard, all for naught, and watching the boys in blue and white dogpile like I've never seen before.

The Phillies and the Rays are both clubs that have played hard and won against all odds at times this season, and both franchises (and one city) are starved for championships to bring them back to legitimacy. The Rays are looking like a dynasty in the making, even if they don't win the championship this year, and may soon be hated as much as the Red Sox and Yankees are by non-fans of those clubs, but for now, all I can say to Halo scion Joe Maddon is thank you.Thanks, Joe, for managing to hammer that final nail into the Red Sox coffin.

It wasn't intentional, merely a by-product of your success, but thanks for avenging the Angels, who couldn't avenge their own past and continaully choked away games in the ALDS. The Angels, who secured home-field advantage by winning a franchise-best 100 games before losing both home games and stumbling to a mistake-filled end, who left runners on bases without so much as a "bon voyage" while watching strikes slide past them and swinging like amateurs at big curves.

The Angels couldn't do it, not this year anyway, but at least SOMEONE could.

This baseball fan, heart-broken not so long ago, can finally rest and enjoy the off-season, free from reading the sports pages every night, until next spring. The Red Sox are dead. Long live the Rays.

For now, at least.

The Angels couldn't do it, not this year anyway, but at least SOMEONE could.

For now, at least.

Baseball Should Expand and Re-Align

Kernel — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 20:48:41 -0000

I have a problem with the disparity between leagues and divisions, and it has bothered me ever since the Brewers went all National on everyone. As an Angels fan, I'm tired of hearing about how the West is small and soft, and as a proponent of fair play I don't get how it's remotely fair for one league to let about 28.5% of its teams into the playoffs and another to only let 25%. While the American League is probably a more competitive division at the top, it's hard to say how things would shake out if you had added two new clubs to the bigs (my picks would be Portland and the rapidly growing OKC, personally), of course to the AL to give each league 16 teams.

One of my favorite things about baseball is that it's never been easy to make the playoffs. In the NBA, a vast portion of teams sneak into the playoffs; in fact, the 1983-1984 season saw 16 of the 23 clubs make the playoffs. In other words, so long as you weren't godawful, you managed to have a shot. Washington, the #8 seed in the Eastern Division, had a sparkling .427 winning percentage, generally good enough for last place in baseball (though a few teams always aspire to be even worse). Other than giving the top seeds a pseudo-bye, all it seemed to do was extend the playoffs needlessly while also glorifying a playoff hunt that rarely paid off. Football is a bit more even-keeled, as each 16-team conference sends 6 teams to the playoffs.

The road to the World Series is much more difficult, however, and I've always loved that. When I was a kid, you could only win the West by clambering over six other teams. But as baseball expanded, adding a whopping four teams in the '90s, it also evolved, splitting the game into the current formation, which is nothing short of bizarre. Divisions with varying team counts, leagues with a 2-team difference, and the Wild Card, a playoff role not native to baseball. You don't have to be the best team in your division to make the playoffs, after whcih all bets are off anyway in the microscopic 5-game series that tests a team's 3-man rotation and hot streaks more than a team's overall depth. By adding two teams, baseball could go to an NFL-style split with a baseball-style playoff system. Split divisions into North, South, East, and West, and give each division a champion who moves on to the playoffs. Forget this Wild Card thing, which only serves as a playoff footnote (like when the Angels and Giants played in the WS, when their status as Wild Cards got more play than anything else, save Barry Bonds and the Rally Monkey).

Maybe I'm crazy, but divisional and league symmetry, as well as crowning champions only, sounds best to me. Baseball likes the Wild Card, though, because it extends the validity of the season for many teams that would otherwise have faded away (like Milwaukee). By keeping more teams in the "mix", baseball gets more games on prime TV slots, more butts in seats, and more of that playoff chase glow when many division races just wouldn't be that interesting.

Baseball should get back to crowning champions, not second-place teams. Go 4x4x2 and have a representative team from each region. You may have more jockeying for home-field advantage and less for real playoff spots, but you're almost guaranteed to represent more areas of the country (though baseball did pretty well on that front this year, especially in the AL), and when two teams meet in the World Series, the greatest of championships, they both arrive as winners, not second-bests who underdogged their way to a championship game they would have had no place in 20 years ago. Restore champions to baseball, and stop giving second-place teams a ticket to the playoffs they only earned because baseball didn't know what to do with 30 teams (since keeping an interleague series going at all times was apparently some kind of nightmate). Get it done now, before the wild card settles in too much more as some kind of "tradition." If a team here or there has to move (say, out of Miami), you don't even have to change the alignment. And t'll even tell you how to do it, Bud, just so you can agree with me.

NL East
Mets
Phillies
Pirates
Nationals

NL South
Braves
Marlins
Cardinals
Astros

NL North
Cubs
Brewers
Rockies
Reds

NL West
Dodgers
Diamondbacks
Padres
Giants

AL East
Yankees
Red Sox
Orioles
Blue Jays

AL South
Royals
Rays
Rangers
Oklahoma City/Nashville/Louisville/Des Moines Franchise

AL North
White Sox
Twins
Tigers
Indians

AL West
Angels
A's
Mariners
Portland Expansion

There. Done. Fix baseball like this.

NL East
Mets
Phillies
Pirates
Nationals

NL South
Braves
Marlins
Cardinals
Astros

NL North
Cubs
Brewers
Rockies
Reds

NL West
Dodgers
Diamondbacks
Padres
Giants

AL East
Yankees
Red Sox
Orioles
Blue Jays

AL South
Royals
Rays
Rangers
Oklahoma City/Nashville/Louisville/Des Moines Franchise

AL North
White Sox
Twins
Tigers
Indians

AL West
Angels
A's
Mariners
Portland Expansion

There. Done. Fix baseball like this.

What Happened? Well, A Lot

Kernel — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 17:46:34 -0000

While there is the tiniest bit of reassurance that at least the Angels beat the Red Sox in the postseason, the general feeling from this Angels fan is one of frustration. From lineup changes never made to player mistakes, the Angels lost themselves. They've been beaten by Boston in the past for sure, but this year, the Angels pretty much just handed the Red Sox their tickets to the ALCS.

I think Mike Scoscia is the best coach the Angels have ever had and expect him to continue to helm the club for many years to come, but I can't help but point out that Howie Kendrick should've never started past Game Two. I'll give him Game 1 to get the jitters out, but he stayed jittery all the way through, and this oft-touted "future batting champion" looked totally overmatched, swinging at awful curve balls in the dirt and falling behind in every count. If he had provided stellar, game-changing defense I could have overlooke dhis ability to kill rallies just by taking the plate, but his bobbles, late jumps, and general mediocrity in the field made me sorry he'd made the postseason roster. In short, Kendrick was a major factor in another first-round bump for the Angels.

While Vlad Guerrero's stat line doesn't look terrible, I can't believe the Angels' offensive hero for the entire series was Mike Napoli. Now, when Nap's hot, he's on fire, and he put that heat on display in Game Three, but I can't help but wonder when Valdimir Guerrero will show up in the postseason. The free-swinging beast of a player let pitchers get ahead by being too cautious on the first pitch, facing many 0-1 counts after Lester and Okajima would groove one right into the wheelhouse, and when he did make contact, it was for piddly singles. The worst of it, though, was the looks he was giving throughout the series. He was looking frustrated, confused, and hopeless, without that competitive fire that drives a team. Instead of carrying these guys on his back like he did in 2003, that role was left to mark Teixera. While Tex didn't swing for power either, his eye was excellent, and when he swung out of the zone, it seemed to be with a knowledge of what the ball would do every time. In Game Five, his strikeout against Lester, a pivotal moment, was not even his fault - the pitches six inches off the plate (as verified by TBS) were simply bad calls by the home plate umpire. Watching Vlad and Tex play, I found myself wondering if Guerrero's best days are behind him and he's headed towards even more power and contact reduction, and if maybe the Angels shouldn't be pursuing their mid-season acquisition with everything they've got. I've not seen such a steady mid-lineup presence since Garret Anderson's glory days.

And let's go there, shall we? I love Garret Anderson; he's Mr. Angel to me, and always will be, even moreso than Tim Salmon. But his performance in Game 4 was what set up the middle of the order to be at a direct disadvantage all night long. I know his swing and stance make good left-handed sliders tough on him, but he looked like a 9-spot hitter, like he should've been on the bench waiting for a right-handed pitcher to pinch-hit against. Left field would have been better with Willits, who finally got a chance to make a difference before being hung up to dry on the failed suicide squeeze.

It's hard to talk about the series and not get angry, but what's important to draw from it is the experience that Aybar and Kendrick soaked up; give them a healthy 2009 and I guarantee they'll be much better prepared next playoffs. Record aside, it's obvious that K-Rod is merely an above-average reliever prone to struggle with his control and his dropping velocity. The Angels need to just let him go and move ahead with 'Dondo or Shields shutting the door. Or perhaps Escobar can come back as a closer for the remainder of his contract.

Garland should probably head elsewhere, because the salary he wants isn't what the Angels should give a player obviously struggling to make that next step. Moseley, Green, and Adenhart should compete for a starting spot next year, and the other four Angels starters should form the core of one of the Major Leagues' best rotations yet again.

Anderson should be bought out but also re-signed as he and Vlad take turns with DH and playing the field. He starts off ice cold, but GA's second-half surges prove invaluable when others tail off in the summer swelter. Bring him back with the understanding that 300-400 ABs is more realistic than 5-600, and hopefully he'll take it. He should finish his career in Anaheim, and I think his veteran presence is needed on a team that's infusing so much youth into the everyday lineup.

As for the free agent talk, the Angels should pursue Mark Teixeira with everything they've got. His calm, cool demeanor, incomparable batting eye, and well-rounded defense make him one of baseball's very best, and unless your starting 1B is Pujols, Tex is a major improvement. The Yankees can bid all they like; if Arte Moreno really wants a championship, making Teixeira the new centerpiece of his offense is the way to do it. Let him clean up after Guerrero, since he's got the better eye and contact bat, and let Guerrero deal with pitchers who don't want to get to this Scott Boras client.

And plesae don't got for CC. He's a great pitcher, but thepitching staff is very strong as-is, and overloading on great arms is nice unless you can't score, in which case every game is tight and nerve-wracking, becuase 2-1, while still a win, isn't the kind you want day-in, day-out.

The Angels came up short because too many players made basic mistakes in the field and at the plate, but if the Halos can bring back a similar offense, the extra experience (and a few hundred million towards a free-agent rental) should be all they need to get over the hump. Get Wood into the game, probably at 3B, put Figgins in left field and let him work all over giving guys some rest. I will say that the recent love for Kendry Morales baffles me. He had a few good at-bats in the ALDS, but I don't think he's a starter for a division-leading team.