The Limey

Behind the B-pro paywall, but well worth a look if you have a subscription. Short version: Offense - awesome Defense - awesome Rotation - disappointing on many levels Bullpen - total clusterfuck 2013 - plenty to be excited about so long as Dipoto does his thing

Here you go. Some stats to wallow in while the current misery bath of Angels baseball is occupied by your fellow fans.

I have no words for this...

...for a full time role at Baseball Prospectus. His gain, our loss. Congratulations Sam, good to see your skills being recognised.

Nice piece looking at Walden's struggles with a two-strike count. Among the 19 closers with 30+ saves last season, Walden ranks 18th, 17th and 19th for BA, OBA and SLG when he has two strikes on the batter, and that is when the wheels tend to fall off. Tl/dr version - he needs to work on his slider

I'm quite pleased to see this. Perhaps more so for Kendrick than for Aybar, but these two have been one of the more solid (and taken for granted) parts of the team for the last few years. 3-4 years allows them to hit FA again at 31-32.

...but Eppler is asked back for a 2nd interview

...according to his brother, anyway... Hat-tip to our good friend Mr Miller at the OCR. Update: Bill Plunkett agrees with Mike Trout's brother: #Angels will have another roster move before tonight’s game. Mike Trout coming up from Double-A again. No word yet on other half of move UPDATE: Per OCR Legend Sam Miller, Pitcher to DL, Wells in lineup, Sam even has a photo of the lineup. UPDATE: Mike DiGio Tweets Ho-Ram takes his W back SLC, Wells in LF, Trout in RF.

Money quote: "At least three legitimate Rawlings Gold Glove Award candidates are in the mix -- Mathis, Aybar and Bourjos" I can buy the last one, not so sure about the middle one, and as for the first...

This made me laugh a lot...

Charlie Sheen's life drifts (further) into self-parody...

Granted, these prospects are from Boston and New York's low-A ball clubs - so feel free to ignore - but the write-up is hilarious...

Ken Rosenthal gives a quick insight into Trout's baptism into AA. He's pretty much doing to AA what he did to A ball... namely whatever he damn well pleases. Roll on Salt Lake City

Peter Gammons is reporting this on twitter... thoughts?

How can you tell the Angels are finding their stride this year? Because there is a Mariners fan somewhere on the Sabr-side of the blogosphere who has declared the Angels the luckiest team in the league with numbers hinted at (but not actually shown) that demonstrate it definitively. In this month's addition, Matthew Carruth quotes this years chosen statistic - Baseruns - to highlight why the Angels are rubbish and why it's different from other years, since this year the usual excuses of baserunning excellence and a fine bull-pen don't apply. According to this mystical metric, the Angels should be sitting at 29-37 and heading for a record of 72 wins Good luck with that Matthew and have fun with your Mariners this year - I'm sure they'll give you plenty of joy. If you're lucky they may even give you 72 wins worth. If you're lucky... Full article is behind a pay-wall, but fear not, you've missed bugger all.

So in unsurprising news of the day, among the 36 'experts' that ESPN have rolled out to prognositcate on the forthcoming season, they have come up with the following: 35/36 believe the AL East will represent the AL in the World series 22/36 believe both teams in the World Series will be from the East 12/36 believe the World Series will be exactly the same match-up as last year (something that has happened only 8 times in 105 years and only once in the last 50 years) (On the positive side of the ledger 19/36 picked the Angels to win the West, thus demonstrating that at least half of them have some vague semblance of common sense. Perhaps the situation is not totally irretrievable)

Finally, after the communal press geekgasm over the Mariners off-season, a little analysis on what they've actually got to play with in Seattle. Answer - not a great deal.

Who would have thunk it?

Vlad seemed like a fairly safe bet, though it's good to see Scot with one T picked out as the decade's top set-up man...

The latest iteration of the Halladay to Angels rumour. I suspect they'll want Santana, a catcher, A.N.Other...

Enjoy - a little love at last from the mainstream media...

Looks like he's squared away his play-off rotation. No surprises - the last 4 starts of the season (and presumably the first 4 of the play-offs) will be in order: 1. Lackey 2. Weaver 3. Kazmir 4. Saunders ...with presumably Santana beefing up the 'pen. Works for me.

The eminently quotable all-starslugging centre fielder turns analyst to explain why the AL west is far and away the best division in baseball...

As you may be aware, Tom Hicks, owner of the Texas Rangers, is also co-owner of Liverpool FC in the English Premier League. This duplicitous turd bought his share in the club by mortgaging it up to the hilt with his co-conspriator George Gillett and the terms of that loan were due today. Fortunately for Angels fans (less fortunately for Liverpool fans, who were hoping that the loan would be foreclosed on and the club sold to someone with the team's best interests at heart), the terms of the loan were renegotiated on the condition that Hicks and Gillett stump up a further £60 million ($100 million) this year - 2/3 now, 1/3 later. The up-shot of this all being that Hicks, who has had more difficulty raising the cash, is unlikely to be a buyer between now and the trade deadline unless the Rangers can unload payroll.