Oh, Wells. I wrote this on April 6 2011 in a Halos Heaven postgame thread: "Wells will be fine..." fully in anticipation of a second half turnaround. And guess what! He really wasn't bad last year, in the end. He was horrific! Plate appearance after plate appearance I would hope and ever so slightly wince in anticipation of Vernon giving us something... anything... But he hit like he was visibly wearing his 20+ million dollars contractually owed in a suitcase chained to his wrists. At the ripe old age of 32, Vernon hit 25 homers but batted .218 with a .248 OBP. By nearly all measurements, it was the worst offensive season of his career. Wells is under contract for 3 more years at a cost of over 60 million dollars. I could go on, but writing these sentences is stressing me out.

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We better get used to Mike Scioscia saying these five words, "pitching and defense wins championships". We certainly aren't going to be winning anything without our pitching and defense showing up in 2011. The good news (!) is we probably have one of the best rotations in the American League. Wear it like a badge Angel fans. Weaver and Haren are awesome. Fact. I could get into how awesome they currently are - and should be in 2011 - but I fear I would get carried away by all the awesomeness and just end up not finishing my analysis and going surfing instead. So obviously, for productivity reasons, I decided to take a look at our slightly less awesome number #3 starter (and a personal favorite) Ervin Santana. He of the curious "on-off" seasons and skinny beard. He of the splendid, "f*ck it, lets pitch" video.

What We Know

• Rookie year, good year, crap year, fantastic year, injured year, good year.
• Santana is really a two-pitch (fastball and slider) right-handed pitcher. Sometimes he will throw in a changeup. His slider is his 'wipeout' pitch, and when he has command of his fastball, watch out.
• Magic beard and winning smile
  

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The Trout Train really is getting uncomfortable. Whereas before, I could perhaps get a seat, i'm now resigned to either standing in the aisle or finding some room on the top of the train, slumdog millionaire style. Here is how Trout was viewed by some major scouts/publications coming into the future's game that took place in our own back yard yesterday:

Baseball America Midseason top 25 prospects: 2. Mike Trout

Frankie Piliere Midseason top 25 prospects: 1. Mike Trout

Keith Law Midseason (updated) top 25 prospects: 3. Mike Trout

Kevin Goldstein (Baseball Prospectus) top 11 prospects Still in the Minors: 2. Mike Trout

Here is a rundown of the impression left by our very own star prospect from the futures game...

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The king is dead*, long live the king!

Oh Billy Beane, some of the sheen (it rhymes!) has certainly been dulled by three losing seasons. As a reflective Angel fan a curious thing has happened recently. Statistical fawn-dom has seamlessly passed from one emperor (Billy Beane) to another (Jack Zduriencik). There are many questions I want to ask about the decade gone – and hope a better blogger or sportswriter than myself will answer – such as, was Moneyball a symptom of the steroid era? Would Moneyball be written about Billy Beane (and his three years of sub .500 final standings) today? Sky Andrecheck posted an interesting article on Thursday if you’re into such topics. In any case you do have to wonder what Theo Epstein thinks of all of this torch passing, as the most successful member of the old SABR four (Ricciardi, Beane, DePodesta, Epstein), not to be confused with the Oceanic five (I’m very excited about the final season of Lost...).

*Not really, Beane actually has had a pretty good 2010 offseason...

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