I heard a few things around the same time, put them together and got me wondering.

Supposedly congress is going to vote whether to extend unemployment benefits past 99 weeks.  And I heard Jeter's grandmother was joking with him about having no job (and contract) for the first time in 15 years.

Do unsigned FA's get unemployment checks?  Do they have to submit a report to the unemployment office with all the teams they have been in contact with about getting work?

Congrats to the Yankees and the umpires on the well earned victory.

While not taking anything away from our great season, in this country when things go wrong, we love to place the blame somewhere.

CC was named LCS MVP, and we lost so the question is who gets blame of the series for the LCS (other than the umpires).  You are welcome to let the heat of the moment cool and vote after thinking it over.

Wise A** answers are welcome in the comments.

I loved him while he was in his prime, but with so few spots on the active roster for backup position players, I don't think we can carry him anymore.

The best of use of Q was as a backup at the 4 corners, and platoon player versus LHP.  He was particularly useful when some of our starters at the 4C were LHP who struggled against lefties.  His OPS versus LHP for the last 3 years was 764, so he did OK, but it is downhill from here.  BP projects him for a 253/306/349 line this year.  He only hit .282 against lefties last year, and that was an empty 282 with 0 HR.

But now we have plenty of good players to back up in the OF and at 3B, so when Vlad is back I think Wood has to stay and Q has to go.

I mentioned before about how win shares are great but they need to be adjusted for context (basically how many losses are generated too).  So I've been entering the numbers in a database of every Angels pitcher season ever, and I want to share some preliminary results to see if I'm on the right track.  So without further ado, the 20 best seasons for Angels pitchers:

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Well, since the season has now moved onto that time when you play the young guys and let anybody that is hurting just go home, how about posting your top 10 for NL MVP!  Last year, many people thought Hanley should have won, while others disqualified him because he could not really play SS.  This year he seems better out there, so he can legitimately be in the conversation.  My list follows, go ahead and post yours.

1. Berkman

2. Pujols

3. Beltran

4. Hanley

5. Reyes

6. Wright

7. Utley

8. Aramis Ramirez

9. Webb

10. Manny being Manny

Obviously we have been spending a lot of time wondering if he is going to be resigned and how much he should get, but I think first we have to know: Where does he rank among baseball's best closers?

We all hope he sets the all time record for single season saves, but his peripheral numbers don't seem mind boggling.  I mean his ERA is almost 3, but 4 of the other closers in the top 10 in saves have ERA's under 2.  ERA is not exactly the best stat for relief pitchers, of course, you also need to account for how they do with inherited runners, and if they are in the National Minor League or not.

So, my question is, where do you put K-Rod?

Based on current standings and run differential from 2007 and 2008.  These are very accurate power rankings, I think.  These are projected wins at the end of the regular season.  I posted once before at the end of an old thread.  I'm curious if you would like an update from time to time as the season goes along.

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Our old buddy cracked 3 HR's in a game yesterday.  He is leading the PCL in HR's with 15, and is 6th in the league in OPS with a 1.056

Curiously 6 of the top 8 hitters in OPS in the PCL are third basemen.  I think he'll make the Marlins proud when he gets a good shot to platoon in the NL.

Praise little baby Jesus we are in first place and Figgy was doing well at 3B and will be back soon, otherwise I might cry.

In 2007 the biggest problem with the Fish was their awful D as hits were dropping in everywhere as measured by DER and team zone rating.

It's too early in the season to focus too much on any one player, as they don't have enough AB's to have a good sample.  But the team stats have enough events that we can start to see what is going on with the whole team.

In 2008 the D is much better, as they are no longer worst in the league.  Houston, Milwaukee, Pittsburgh and San Francisco are all arguably worse.  Maybe Hanley's health and having a real 3rd baseman are helping.

But the one thing that jumped out at me is that they are 29th in all of baseball in team OPS versus LHP.  As you guys see more games than me, what is going on there?  I thought the Marlins were loaded with RH batters.

How much money will the highest paid Marlin make in 2008?  (best guess)

I figure this would be good to have on the right, it should be awhile before it drops off.  You can post your guess as a comment, or vote too.

I think they still have a couple of guys up for Arbitration.  Is Olsen scheduled for the most now?

Plus we're not getting Cliff Floyd, but at least he is returning to Florida.

I'll say 1.5M

From the KLAW's chat today:

Jock Thompson, The OC: Keith, not that I disagree with you that Scioscia needs to find ABs for Willits, but with respect to Anderson, you obviously haven't checked the stats since the All-Star break. Among other things, Anderson is third in MLB RBI and completely healthy for the first time in four years.

 Keith Law: Well, RBI are meaningless, so I'm not buying that argument. And I just saw the Angels for four games - Anderson's bat speed has slowed, he can't hit lefties at all, and he's limited in left. Trust me, there's no way they'll do anything to limit his time, but I think it's the rational move.

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A few weeks ago there was a poll on what result we wanted from the 4 game Mariners / A's series, and I voted that I hoped the Mariners kill them.  The A's tendendency to roll in the 2nd half concerned me more than the M's getting close to us.

Anyway, today everyone's favorite ESPN writer has a blog up on the Mariners, titled "M's success could be short-lived".  Here is one paragraph:

"What's the point? The point is that the Mariners are incredibly lucky to trail the first-place Angels by only two games. So lucky, in fact, that if you were running the Mariners in a computer simulation, you might give up on this season and start thinking about next season and the seasons beyond. But this is a real-life team playing real-life games for real-life fans, so giving up on this season is actually the last thing the Mariners will do. Or should do. They have to try as hard as they can to win, as improbable as winning might actually be for them."

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OK, with a few days off, I imagine the Angels are working on setting their rotation the best they can to open the 2nd half.  After Black Magic's disaster in Yankee stadium, I hope they make an effort to maximize his home starts and minimize the road starts (especially in tough stadiums).

So after the break, we have this:

3 vs Tex
3 at TB
3 at Min
3 vs Oak
3 vs Det
3 at Sea
4 at Oak

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I imagine many of you may have already seen this article, but if you are interested in fielding then you need to see it:

http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/d-fence/

This is basically discussing the best fielding analysis that is publicly available.  I guess it's not exactly Angel-centric, as not one of our players is amoung the 3 best or the 3 worst at their position.  But every once in awhile it comes up here as to exactly which defensive stats are good, and this is the best one.  (For day to day numbers you can use unadjusted zone rating, but you need to take that with a grain of salt.)

P.S. I still say the best defensive CF I have ever seen is Gary Pettis.  He even won a gold glove in his 2nd full season, which is basically unheard of.

We all know Nipples stared slow this year, but anything can happen in 100 to 200 at bats.

I wonder if we realize just how good of a hitter he is as a catcher.

Over the last few years I think there are 4 catchers that clearly stand out as the best hitting backstops and they are:

Jorge Posada
Victor Martinez
Joe Mauer
Brian McCann   (my 7th cousin, 6 times removed)

Not sure what order they go in, but I think those 4 are clearly proven to be the best.  Some other guys are almost in that group, but have shit the bed in at least one season recently (Varitek and I-Rod).

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It looks like the one position that is a mess for us is the hot corner.  Everywhere else we have something going on at least.  The Angels are 30 out of 30 in OPS by their 3rd basemen, more than 100 points behind the 29th place Dodgers.

It looks like Wood is about a year away from being MLB ready, Lord knows when D-Mac will ever be healthy, Figgins has completely forgotten how to hit, and Izturis is good for a utility infielder.

To give us some background I figure I would post a list of the 14 3rd sackers with a weighted OPS of over 800 over the last 3 seasons.  (Triple weight for 2007, double weight for 2006, single weight for 2005):

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This is from ESPN (non-insider), hopefully I am not breaking rules and only bending them.  GMJ had a crappy Zone rating last year for some reason, and yet he is not doing so hot this year either.  I almost never get to see the Angels games, so I wonder if you guys can tell me what is going on.  I know he is catching all kinds of balls by the fence, but does he play very deep and are tons of singles dropping in front of him?  Also intersting that Erstad still seems to be the man out there.

NAME GP GS INN TC PO A E DP FPCT RF ZR
Dave Roberts, SF 12 11 102.0 33 32 0 1 0 .970 2.82 .969
Johnny Damon, NYY 12 10 90.0 27 27 0 0 0 1.000 2.70 .964
Darin Erstad, CWS 13 12 109.2 33 33 0 0 0 1.000 2.73 .939
Juan Pierre, LA 16 15 134.0 45 44 0 1 0 .978 2.96 .935
Vernon Wells, Tor 15 15 133.2 38 37 0 1 0 .974 2.51 .925
Kenny Lofton, Tex 14 14 117.0 45 43 1 1 1 .978 3.38 .913
Curtis Granderson, Det 15 14 129.1 47 44 2 1 0 .979 3.20 .911
Torii Hunter, Min 12 12 104.0 32 32 0 0 0 1.000 2.77 .889
Carlos Beltran, NYM 14 14 124.0 31 30 1 0 0 1.000 2.25 .875
Chris Duffy, Pit 14 13 119.0 40 37 2 1 0 .975 2.95 .875
Andruw Jones, Atl 15 15 137.0 44 44 0 0 0 1.000 2.89 .872
Aaron Rowand, Phi 14 14 126.1 37 34 3 0 1 1.000 2.64 .872
Coco Crisp, Bos 13 13 113.0 35 34 1 0 1 1.000 2.79 .872
Jim Edmonds, StL 12 12 107.2 28 27 1 0 1 1.000 2.36 .862
David DeJesus, KC 15 15 131.2 33 33 0 0 0 1.000 2.27 .861
Corey Patterson, Bal 13 12 111.2 30 29 0 1 0 .967 2.36 .853
Alfonso Soriano, ChC 12 12 100.1 29 29 0 0 0 1.000 2.60 .848
Ryan Freel, Cin 14 12 108.0 31 30 0 1 0 .968 2.50 .839
Willy Taveras, Col 12 12 97.1 37 36 1 0 0 1.000 3.42 .837
Gary Matthews Jr., LAA 15 15 128.0 45 42 1 2 0 .956 3.02 .837
Ryan Church, Was 16 15 137.0 47 47 0 0 0 1.000 3.09 .810
Mike Cameron, SD 15 15 141.0 44 42 2 0 0 1.000 2.81 .788
Chris Burke, Hou 13 13 109.1 27 25 1 1 0 .963 2.14 .781
Bill Hall, Mil 12 12 106.0 36 31 1 4 0 .889 2.72 .775
Chris B. Young, Ari 12 12 108.1 27 25 1 1 0 .963 2.16 .774
Glossary
Qualified for Fielding (P: 1 IP per team GM, C: 1 GM per 2 team GM, Others: 2 GM per 3 team GM)
GP Games Played  
GS Games Started
INN Innings
TC Total Chances
PO Putouts
A Assists
E Errors
DP Double plays
FPCT Fielding Pct.((PO + A) divided by (PO + A + E))
RF Range Factor ((PO + A) divided by innings)
ZR Zone rating. The percentage of balls fielded by a player in his typical defensive "zone," as measured by STATS, Inc.

I just signed up for the service where you can watch minor league games (mostly AAA) on your computer, only $30 for the year.

I wonder how many of you have or had this and what you think.

I see it's not as fully developed as their MLB package, and I was a little suprised to only have 4 or 5 games a night.  Also, it seems to mostly be the same few teams.  It's cool seeing New Orleans, but I want to see some Salt Lake City.

On some other website someone was posting about the best #1 pitchers, and they left Lackey off there which kind of pissed me off.  Also, it seems as far as proven AL SP, there is Johan then everybody else.  Also I was curious, was Zito one of the best lately or what?

Anyway, all that led me to put together a little chart to kind of predict which starters are likely to be the best in 2007, based on AL starters of the last 4 years.  I used win shares which account for park effects and durability.  I imagine most of you know something about them, but all you need to know is 20 WS is about the same as a 20 win season for pitchers.  I weight the last 4 seasons, 4x for 2006, 3x for 2005, 2x for 2004, and 1x for 2003.  Then I divide by 10 to see what to expect for 2007.  A couple of things, this is based on on what these pitchers did in the AL, not the NL or minors.  Also we all know Zito moved onto the NL, and it looks like Radke missed out on some major $$$ since he retired due to arm trouble.

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About a year ago a motion almost passed that would have had most (if not all) teams cut back to 5 minor league affiliates.  I know that AAA, AA, and high A are filled with good prospects.  And it seems that each low A team averages about 1 decent prospect.  I also know that most serious analysts don't put much stock into short season league statistics, even if they adjust them as best they can.

My question is, How many real prospects are produced from the lowest level leagues?  I would like to see some examples of players that have made good from the GCL, Arizona and Appy leagues.  The Pioneer league doesn't really fit with those 3 anymore, because for most teams that is their 2nd lowest, not lowest now.

I know Derek Jeter started in the GCL, and I am not really talking about players like that, since he was a first round pick and he was going to play somewhere.  I mean players not drafted in a high round, that starting proving themselves at the lowest level, the kind of players that never would have made the majors if not for the existence of these teams that are six levels down.

Here in NYC the media is going batshit because it has come to their attention that A-Rod has an out clause in his contract after this season (ala JD Drew).

Alex was asked about it and if he had any intention of invoking that out under any circumstances and he basically said "no comment", which was smart.  I believe Boras will find a way to get money into their pockets based on that clause.  A-Rod is due $27M for each of the last 3 years of his contract, I believe (some deferred).

Knowing he should not invoke the clause unless he could get more money, here is the poll question:

I am just fascinated with this whole Pulaski Blue Jays story and when the GM's took a vote on going to 6 affiliates instead of 5.

First of all I think teams should be able to run their minor league operations as they like.  If they want 8 teams then fine, if you want 5 then knock yourself out.  They should just never have 2 teams in the same league.

Now a lot of people crapped on the Blue Jays saying you could never have a NYP team as your lowest level and this new GCL makes perfect sense to me as they already have a facility in Florida anyway, so they may as well use it.  I can see more teams doing this in the future and dropping their Appy league team and going to complex teams for their lowest level.  (MLB is specifically allowed to close down all Appy teams.)

My question is if you had to go with 5 teams, what levels (or leagues) would you place them in?  If the ML team relied on college players and free agents as their team building strategy, it seems 5 would be more than enough, and they might even be able to get by with 4.

I am always playing around with spreadsheets, and I believe I came up with a good system to rate offensive impact. I won't bore you with too many details yet, but check this list and see if it makes sense to you. I rank the top 30 hitters each year, so the number is that hitter's ranking that year in the AL. Players with the same ranking are sorted by raw score. So see if you agree with the list at least:

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I've been thinking about which FA's should sign with which teams, and I think I have a good match for you:

What about Cliff Floyd?

He would be a good more or less platoon with Willingham.  Josh is baseball's worst baserunner after all, and I can't imagine his D is any great shakes.  The Fish can find a way for them both to get 400 ab I figure.

I figure you work him into the LF/RF/PH mix.  Bring back one of the best Marlins of all time eh?

He is 4th or 5th in most all time hitting charts for the Marlins and is 3rd in OPS+ at 134.  It could be fun to watch him move up the lists.

OK, we've all seen the arguments for which OF we need to get.  Make your choice for which dude it should be.

Assume the trade or contract costs will be about what we are all talking about and then a little more.  Also assume that if we trade for someone, we lock them up for a few years.

Let's also assume this would be for the next 3 or 4 years, don't worry about 8 year contracts.

Now that we have seen some of the enormous numbers being thrown around and see that basically every team has money to spend, how much money is Soriano going to get?

I don't really know how long his contract will be, I suspect 7 years, but I figured we would do a poll and just try to guess his average yearly salary, since that it is what it really comes down to, so:

Not sure how many of you get down to San Diego, but I am going this weekend and I would like some advice if there is any one thing I have to see.

I've only been to California one time about 20 years ago, so it will be nice to see the Pacific again.  My bro who is in the navy is getting married, and I think I'll have one day free to see stuff (with the wife).  I was thinking maybe the San Diego Zoo.

Only 3 games left and we have a shot at the 6th best record in baseball, better than every team in the NL except the Mets, and the top team in the AL on the outside looking in.

I would be thrilled to finish better than all those AAAA (NL) teams and 9 AL teams.  What about everyone else, do you care or think that is a nice goal too?

I was wondering where we stack up on O at each position because it didn't seem to me that we were horrible anywhere except 1b, so lets take a look.  I'm using OPS, which is not perfect of course, but the best thing I can access easily:

AL rank
C: 7/14 (740) way behind the top 6
1b: 14/14 (676) 12th was 723, OW
2b: 8/14 (712)
3b: 12/14 (737) only Cleveland is truly awful
SS: 5/14 (748) well behind top 4
LF: 7/14 (793) middle of the pack, seeing a trend
CF: 12/14 (688) I like Chone better at supersub
RF: 3/14 (868) White Sox then everybody else
DH: 5/14 (824) better than the Yankees, cool.

1st, 3rd and Center being the big problems.  I guess you don't learn something new everyday.