6-4-2 — an Angels/Dodgers double play blog: Today's Birthdays

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Monday, August 21, 2006

Today's Birthdays

Mike Bovee ANA b. 1973, played 1997. A throw-in on the Mark Gubicza/Chili Davis trade.

Craig Counsell LAN b. 1970, played 1999. He hit .275 as a 30-year-old in the Diamondbacks' 2001 title year; it must have shocked the Dodgers to death to see him hitting .316 for the Diamondbacks after they released him, especially since they got him for cash and a PTBNL. He scored the game-winning run in Game 7 of the 1997 World Series, and took one for the team just ahead of Luis Gonzalez's clutch RBI bloop in Game 7 of the 2001 World Series.

Jerry Davanon CAL b. 1945, played 1973. Jeff's dad; Jay Jaffe wrote a nice little piece about the duo a couple years ago.

Steve Eddy CAL b. 1957, played 1979

Shawn Hillegas LAN b. 1964, played 1987-1988

Lou Pote ANA b. 1971, played 1999-2002. Now toiling in the Texas Rangers' minor leagues, he was one of several guys who didn't make it onto the postseason roster. One of those was pitcher Steve Green, who threw all of six innings all year. Well, we all know about that guy who replaced him.

Ismael Valdez LAN,ANA b. 1973, played 1994-2001. The walking definition of a fifth starter. Lousy for both the Angels and Dodgers (though he had at least one good year for the Dodgers), he was the reason the Angels ended up with Aaron Sele in the 2001/2002 offseason. Given the results with Sele, they probably should have stuck with Valdez, or Valdes as he used to be known.

John Wetteland LAN b. 1966, played 1989-1991, All-Star: 1996, 1998-1999. I'm short on time these days, so I couldn't tell you exactly why the Dodgers traded Wetteland for 30-year-old Eric Davis; but you do have to ask yourself why they would let go of a guy who had strong strikeout numbers in the minors, and who was about to become a stud with Montreal; certainly, his absence led to the disastrous Paul Konerko for Jeff Shaw deal.

Woody Williams BRO b. 1912, played 1938, d. 1995-02-24. Not that Woody Williams.

// posted by Rob @ 10:15 AM link // 6 comments

Comments:

Ismael Valdez as a Dodger:

http://tinyurl.com/kyqw4

1,065 innings
3.48 ERA
6.6 K/9
2.5 BB/9
0.9 HR/9

His ERA+:

1994 - 124
1995 - 125
1996 - 116
1997 - 146
1998 - 98
1999 - 111
2000 - 71 (40 innings)

Good enough for me.

# posted by

Jon Weisman : 8/21/2006 11:34:00 AM

Ah, the John Wetteland trade. At the time, I remember Wetteland was just a name in the trade of Belcher for Davis. The headlines implied "we got Eric Davis!"

I called into a talk show hosted by Eric Tracy and Steve Edwards aka perhaps the worst talk show hosts this town has ever seen which is saying something. Tracy said the Dodgers got rid of Wetteland because of his personality. Jeebus...

# posted by

Anonymous : 8/21/2006 02:24:00 PM

Like Gagné, his K rates were strong (though not as strong a Game Over's). Using him as a closer or at least in relief should have occurred to someone in the Dodger organization.

# posted by

Rob : 8/21/2006 03:05:00 PM

I will never consider the Aaron Sele signing a bad one. Yes, he was subpar the whole time for a lot of money, but they picked him up just days after Paul Pressler nixed the Erstad for Garland trade. These two moves (combined with the Moo for Appier trade, which I think happened a little later) were the ones that turned the Angels from rebuilding to competing. And not just in a "the players we now have aren't ones to rebuild with" sense, but in a psyhological sense. The 2002 team won the World Series in small part because of regular season contributions from Sele, but that team only competed in the first place because management told the players that they could be competitive with what they had by picking up people like Sele.

# posted by

Unknown : 8/21/2006 06:51:00 PM

I was going to make a snarky retort about Sele, but the Angels were actually 8-1 in his no-decisions that year; four of those were quality starts (including the one loss), three games where he gave up four runs over six or more, and one real implosion where he surrendered a five-spot (against the Tigers, and even then, the Angels turned it around for a 7-6 win). Whether you hated him for his subsequent performance — and there's no question but that he was awful for the balance of his contract starting in 2003 — the Angels would have had a tough go without him.

# posted by

Rob : 8/21/2006 08:34:00 PM

Let us not forget, also, that one of the main reasons for Sele's post-2002 suckage was that his shoulder gave out in late 2002, and he never fully recovered through the rest of his Angel tenure.

Thing is, he'd been a workhorse for several years prior.

# posted by

Anonymous : 8/21/2006 09:57:00 PM

6-4-2 — an Angels/Dodgers double play blog

Monday, August 21, 2006

Today's Birthdays

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