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

I confess, thanks to lingering and intractable login problems on my main computer, I had largely stopped reading Halos Heaven, but they've got a good Halolinks piece today citing something I really think needs emphasis: Josh Hamilton is a raging jerk. He blames the Angels for a lack of an accountability partner (when he was the one to cut that cord). He didn't thank his Angels teammates, and of course there was his childish refusal to take accountability for anything.

It's ironic, perhaps, that this episode had the side effect of Mat Gleason's exiting Halos Heaven. Nobody knows this but me, him, and Tyler Bleszinski, but Blez offered me the job of running the HH blog before it started; I basically turned him down, and it went to Mat. Nobody was more surprised than me at the time, but I think Blez made the right choice. Halos Heaven is the success it is in large part because of Mat's dedication to the task; irascible, tendentious, and pugilistic, Mat was always interesting to read, and he kept going through some awful seasons. (This blog, as you know, has largely gone dormant after 2010.) I haven't spoken with Jim Gardner and don't know him; shortly after the news broke yesterday, he wrote a piece introducing himself and announcing his new position as interim ringmaster; one of the comments therein suggests Mat wrote a goodbye letter, which was subsequently yanked. I briefly spoke with Mat yesterday via e-mail, encouraging him about the situation. He was characteristically incendiary. I still think he was right, though.

Labels: angels, blogs, drugs, rangers, trades

I know, I haven't said much about the many bigger deals — the Angels picking up Andrew Heaney from the Dodgers was likely more important to 2015 — but this one is such a puzzler that even I can't make heads or tails of it. The Angels traded Kevin Jepsen to the Rays for left-handed-hitting outfielder Matt Joyce. Joyce has typically manned the corners for the Rays, and has never surpassed 20 home runs, though he has some decent pop (.383 SLG in 2014, career .441). As expected, he hits righties well (career .261/.356/.463) but is largely powerless against lefties (.189/.258/.316). It seems likely he'll spell Josh Hamilton when he gets injured or is otherwise unable to play.

What's puzzling about this deal is why the Halos would do it when they possess both C.J. Cron and Cole Calhoun. Calhoun, especially, looks superficially like a younger version of Joyce, who still has three years of team control ahead of him and is putting up similar numbers. I expect this means Calhoun may be trade bait, or Cron will find himself optioned back to Salt Lake, whence he will return if Hamilton or Calhoun find themselves on the DL. Depth in the outfield is nice to have, but dropping pitching that has been a mainstay of the bullpen seems like a poor choice.

Labels: angels, rays, trades

• Yesterday was so intense — all of it — that I can only say I believe it was the craziest 24 hours of any offseason in my memory. Jonah Keri's piece at Grantland mostly encapsulates my at-the-moment take on the deals as well:
  • Matt Kemp:

    L.A. may well have sold Kemp at exactly the right time. Friedman and GM Farhan Zaidi aren’t slaves to the recency effect, recognizing that Kemp’s strong finish in 2014 didn’t really change any of the other factors that had led to the longtime trade rumors, including the outfield logjam and his hefty contract. Instead of viewing Kemp’s elite .311/.372/.561 performance over the final 99 games of the season as a sign of rebirth, they viewed it as a boost in trade value that would allow them to more easily move a guy still owed $21 million–plus a year for five seasons.

  • Dee Gordon:

    Gordon is a fun guy to watch, but comparing his projections to, say, Emilio Bonifacio’s should help assure Dodgers fans that they might not be giving up all that much.

  • Howie Kendrick:

    Kendrick is one of the best second basemen in baseball, and he’ll make the Dodgers significantly better in 2015. ... To get Kendrick, of course, the Dodgers had to give up Heaney, whom they possessed for a nanosecond before flipping him to the Angels. Though Kendrick should be a big gain, Heaney could prove to be an even bigger loss, as he has a chance to be good … really good.

    Here, I'm relying on Keri's prospect smarts, but it's a rare case of getting a quality prospect for an established veteran with only limited control. It's important to note this kind of deal rarely happens anymore.
  • Jimmy Rollins:

    Like Kendrick, Rollins offers the Dodgers only one year of guaranteed team control. But in this case, the lone year is a feature rather than a bug, since L.A. has 20-year-old top shortstop prospect Corey Seager not far from the Show.

  • Brandon McCarthy:

    McCarthy is the riskiest of all the moves, considering the length of his contract and his past health concerns.

  Read. It. All. I'm a big fan of moving Kemp, even with the big salary ditch; it strikes me as an example of Branch Rickey's maxim that it's better to move a player a year too early than a year too late.
• No comment on the Angels moves as of yet, but I generally find myself in agreement. My comments on Kemp? Apply equally to Howie.
• I cleaned out a mess of stale sidebar links; if your blog hasn't been updated in two years, or if you aren't named Tommy Lasorda, you don't get special consideration. I practically don't update this one, but I'm the king of this here domain. Angels blogs especially took a lot of hits; it seems generally that blogs are an affectation of the 2000's, to vanish in this decade. My heart haz a sad.

If I don't see y'all until next year, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

Labels: administrivia, angels, dodgers, trades

Reuniting old Cal State Long Beach teammate Jered Weaver, the Mariners have traded Jason Vargas for fifth wheel DH Kendrys Morales. Morales couldn't really hit lefties in 2012 (.229/.289/.471), though he did manage to do better earlier (career .250/.286/.416). On a typical late Scioscia-era team full of DH candidates who will need to rotate into that spot as a "day off" position, this move makes a ton of sense; it gives the Angels some much needed rotation depth, if mothing else, and makes someone like a Jerome Williams (is he even still in the picture?) at least superfluous so far as the starting staff is concerned.

Vargas was better at striking out righties than lefties, but lefties hit him worse last year than righties. A big red flag, though was his home and away splits, where he earned a 2.74 ERA in Safeco but a 4.78 ERA on the road, almost twice as high. Still, I can grit my teeth through the road if his 2.27 career ERA at Angel Stadium is any indication of how he'll pitch. Welcome aboard, and go Dirtbags!

Update: Weird paragraph from this Alden Gonzalez piece at MLB.com:

The Angels used the flexibility afforded to them with the Josh Hamilton signing, sending switch-hitting designated hitter Kendrys Morales to the Mariners on Wednesday in exchange for left-handed starting pitcher Jason Vargas.

Usually when one discusses "flexibility", the word "payroll" is in the same sentence. While the Dodgers have gotten all the press for the spendy spendy, Jerry Dipoto hasn't exactly taken his foot of the fiscal gas pedal, either.

Labels: angels, hot stove, mariners, trades, transactions

Per MLB.com and countless other media, though the first mention I can find so far (cribbed from Halos Heaven) is a Jon Heyman tweet from CBS Sports. Hanson has been said to have lost considerable zip on his fastball, which dipped below 90 MPH for the first time on a regular basis this year. Fangraphs is first out of the post with analysis, and it basically matches my own thinking:

The question, then, is exactly how much better Tommy Hanson makes them. He makes them at least a little better, because he’s a fifth starting pitcher on the roster. Previously there was no one in that slot. But there’s a reason the Braves didn’t have Hanson in their projected rotation, and there’s a reason the Braves gave him up for a reliever, even though he’s under team control another three years. The Tommy Hanson that exists now is similar in many ways to the Tommy Hanson that used to exist before, but when it comes to pitching, there are alarming differences.

For my money, and given the Angels' dire situation with the bullpen early in the 2012 season, sending Jordan away is no small matter. I don't like recent acquisition Ryan Madson's inability to stay healthy. Madson had Tommy John surgery this year, so he's going to be back at some point in the 2013 season, though just when that might happen is still an open question. Even though my rule of thumb for UCL repairs is 18 months, that number is now down to a year, but we'll see how it goes. Even then, there's no guarantees, and while I didn't like Jordan's lack of movement — he could throw hard but not fool anybody — it seems we are deeply into "devil you don't know" territory here.

I'm okay with getting rid of Ervin Santana — the Brandon Sisk deal was exactly the sort of thing you can do, though it was risky exercising his option and then trading him. On the other hand, Santana showed an elbow ligament tear on an offseason, post-trade MRI, so this could easily have been the beginning of his own Tommy John surgery and perhaps a shot at redemption. But that won't be in the Angels rotation. Likewise, I'm fine with the prospect of Haren going away, and Greinke (though the jury is still out on whether that happens, the Dodgers are apparently the lead team there). For this to work, we have to believe that Hanson is at least going to fill out the fifth starter role effectively, and I'm not entirely sold on that.

Labels: angels, braves, royals, trades, transactions

Details on the Greinke deal later, but the return includes Jean Segura.

Update: NBC Hardball Talk says it's RHP Ariel Pena and Johnny Hellweg.

Labels: angels, trades, transactions

Mark Saxon of ESPN reports that the Angels have traded minor league INF Alexi Amarista and RHP Donn Roach for Padres RHP reliever Ernesto Frieri. Amarista hit .292/.337/.419 last year with Salt Lake as a 22-year-old, predominantly at second base. Roach had a 2.16 ERA this year with high-A Inland Empire, a 6.3 K/9, and an outstanding 9.67 K/BB ratio. As for Frieri, he had a 2.71 ERA last year in 59 games, all in relief, with a 10.9 K/9 and a 2.24 K/BB ratio. I like this deal for the Angels and the Padres, as the Pads get some kids with good upside, and the Angels get a solid relief man.

Labels: angels, padres, trades, transactions

CBS Sports' Jon Heyman reports that the Angels are near a deal to send Bobby Abreu to Cleveland, in which they will eat virtually all of his $9M salary for 2012.

Update 3/29: ESPN's Jim Bowden says there is no deal at present.

Labels: angels, indians, trades, transactions

• Turns out the Dodgers have a first baseman in the news, too: James Loney wrecked his Maserati November 14, and was arrested for drunk driving. A song for you, James:

  You are now allowed to make jokes about Loney finally hitting something.

  Update: Those of you with long memories may recall that was the day the Dodgers announced their new long term deal with Matt Kemp. Jealousy? Out of control celebration?

• Sam Miller has a roundup of how Ken Rosenthal was right and everyone else was wrong about the Angels' pursuit of Pujols. Amazing, and good work, Robo!
• One of my friends on Facebook mentioned that for Astros fans, this has to be pretty ridiculous: their team changes leagues and he's still in their division. Nice...
• Matthew Poulliot projects Pujols' 2012 and comes up with a .310/.429/.605 year with 42 HR.
• The terms of Aaron Harang's deal have been released; he's getting a backloaded 2-year/$12M contract with a mutual option for 2014.
• In more Dodger trades, the team traded Dana Eveland to Baltimore for LHP Jarret Martin and OF Tyler Henson, neither of whom look especially interesting. Martin is 21 and had a 5-12 record with a 4.96 ERA for single-A Delmarva. Henson is 23 and hit .247/.313/.321 with AAA Norfolk last year.
• Jon has some thoughts on the consequences of the new TV deal for the Angels as it will eventually affect the Dodgers.

Labels: angels, dodgers, hot stove, trades, transactions

Things are moving along quite smartly this offseason, as the Angels unloaded Jeff Mathis for LHP Brad Mills to Toronto, which means the Halos have managed to trade both their 2010 receivers to the same team. Mills was actually fairly interesting in the lower minors, but he spent three years at AAA posting uninspiring numbers (4.32 ERA with a 21-23 record, 7.8 K/9, 2.63 K/BB). If he sticks with the Angels — and apparently, he has an option left — he'll be fighting for a role in the rotation, though Rotoworld seems to think he's better suited to relief.

Obviously, the upside of this deal is getting rid of Jeff Mathis, whose Angels career has been mainly a case of mistaken identity, i.e. Mike Scioscia took him for a starting catcher. The Napoli schism has tended to be overdone (even by me):

Angels Catchers Games Started At Catcher

Year	Jeff Mathis	Mike Napoli
2006	14	77
2007	52	68
2008	90	71
2009	78	84
2010	62	59

Only two of those years — 2008 and 2010 — did Scioscia start Mathis in more games than Napoli. Yet, as Bill Plaschke pointed out earlier, Napoli only got 57 starts at catcher for the Rangers this year, a surprise for people who defend him as a good defensive receiver. (For the record, my position isn't that he is or is not good, just that Mathis can't be shown to be superior by any metric I am aware of.)

Mathis' major league career may already be over; his days as a starting catcher are probably over, anyway, and if it turns out that the Jays jettison him, too, I won't be terribly surprised. All in all, a necessary trade to keep Scioscia from playing Mathis.

Update: Any time you can link to a Grant Brisbee piece about a trade involving a team you follow, you totally should, because he is teh awesome.

Update 2: Sam Miller is predictably great:

Brad Mills has an 8.57 ERA in 48 career Major League innings. That’s actually only the 29th worst ERA in history, minimum 25 innings. Stu Flythe had a 13.04 ERA in 1936. “Hey, Alex, what’ll you give me for Jeff Mathis,” Jerry Dipoto asked. “Hmmm,” Alex Anthopoulos said. “I’ll give you Stu Flythe.” “But he’s dead. He’s been dead for, like, forever. He’s not on your team. Your team didn’t even exist when Stu Flythe died.” “Sorry, Jerry. That’s the best I can do.”

Labels: angels, blue jays, hot stove, trades, transactions

Per Sam Miller of the Register, who gets it from MLB Trade Rumors. Chatwood made his major league debut as a 21-year-old, and it's hard for me to conceive of how you unload a guy like that as a youngster. For the Rockies, Ianetta has been their starting catcher since 2008; his 2013 option is now voided thanks to the trade. In a sense, it looks like Tony Reagins continues to curse the team by making this deal (or one like it) necessary. Couldn't the Angels have signed the similarly meh Ramon Hernandez — as the Rockies are said to be doing — without taking the hit to their starting rotation? Why does Jerry Dipoto suddenly start to look a lot like Tony Reagins?

Update: A tweet from the Angels confirms the deal. Mark Saxon sounds an optimistic note by observing Ianetta's OBP is no less than .370 in each of the last three seasons. I can live with that.

Mike DiGiovanna of the Times also reminds us this makes it a certainty that Jeff Mathis won't be tendered a contract — another reason to be optimistic.

Update 2, Reasons To Be Pessimistic: Ianetta's career road splits sux0rz, .172/.321/.266 .208/.338/.369. (Update 12/2/11: Corrected, per jjackflash in the comments below.) Contrast that with Jeff Mathis' career line of .194/.257/.301. Let's hope Ianetta doesn't suck as much as all that. At least his .321 OBP provides grounds for hope. Hat tip to Tim Brown on teh Twitter.

Update 3: Bill Plunkett's full report in the Register.

Labels: angels, rockies, trades, transactions

Can we fire Tony Reagins again? It would really feel good.

Labels: angels, blue jays, rangers, stupid ideas, trades

Sad, really:

"If you say our organization didn't value Mike Napoli, it's absolutely wrong," he said. "The hindsight of this trade is 20/20 vision, and right now, obviously in the playoffs, that vision carries lot of weight. But I still think there is a lot of upside of what our team can become with Vernon."

This is delusional. Vernon Wells, 2010 road slash line: .224/.299/.400. 2011 regular season: .218/.248/.412. Nobody could have predicted the levees would fail. Scioscia has learned nothing, and while I get that as an employee of the Angels he has to maintain a certain face about bad news, this becomes more and more obviously duplicitous. Yes, it is true that Scioscia actually played Napoli more than the Rangers did this year, but at the same time, it's hard to avoid the "bad hands" comment he made in an interview with the Dallas Morning News earlier this year:

"I always felt like I was looking over my shoulder to see if I was doing things right," Napoli said. "I had 'bad hands.' I was so worried about my setup and the mechanics all the time. I learned a lot. I learned a lot of what I do there, but playing there just wasn't much fun."

Scioscia has been thus far pleased to throw both Arte Moreno and Tony Reagins under the bus for the Napoli trade ("some decisions were made by Tony and Arte", as though he had nothing to do with them). I re-upped my season tickets, but I don't know if that was a good idea, still.

Labels: angels, stupid ideas, trades

• The Rockies shipped Ubaldo Jimenez to Cleveland for a package of four minor leaguers, right-handed pitchers Alex White and Joe Gardner, and 1B Matt McBride. LHP Drew Pomerantz is also expected to be traded once his signing anniversary of August 16 is past (players can't be traded within the first year of signing).
• As announced Friday, Rafael Furcal's Dodger career came to an end with a trade to St. Louis. Vinny waxed poetic during Saturday's broadcast, something I have never heard him do previously. It was a sweet moment for a player who really had a very mixed bag of success and injury with the Dodgers.
• The M's shipped Eric Bedard to Boston in a three-team deal involving the Dodgers that ended up with Trayvon Robinson going to Seattle. Robinson hit 26 homers in his first pass at AAA this year as a 23-year-old, so this is at best a head-scratcher; MSTI called it a swap for "organizational depth", and it strikes me that this should be a deal that calls directly and unequivocally Ned Colletti's competence.
• A lot has gone on in my late vacation from blogging; Ervin Santana pitched a no-hitter against Cleveland (as my friend Kelly observed, the one thing the Tribe needs is a bat, so they go out and get... a dodgy starter?). Texas hasn't stumbled, the Angels have done well but not overly so, and so two games out will have to tell the difference. That's competitive, anyway, which is better than I thought they'd do.

Labels: dodgers, indians, mariners, red sox, rockies, trades, transactions

Multiple tweets about the Brewers acquiring K-Rod for cash and two PTBNLs; I'll just use this Andy McCullough tweet as representative.

Matthew Pouliot at Hardball Talk notes that because Rodriguez has a $17.5M 2012 option that vests if he gets 55 games finished this year, it is likely he will be an eighth inning man for the Brewers.

Labels: brewers, ex-angels, mets, trades, transactions

The Dodgers acquired Juan Rivera and cash from the Toronto Blue Jays for a player to be named later, and gave Marcus Thames the heave-ho. MSTI has the full skinny, and he sets out a good case that this represents a positive incremental change. Also, the cash has to be useful for a guy running out of dough, what with the stadium looking ever so empty these days.

Labels: blue jays, dodgers, trades, transactions

As if you didn't know: the Jays are looking to move Juan Rivera.

Labels: blue jays, hot stove, rumors, trades

Dan Szymborski replaces Tony Reagins with the robot GM in PS3 The Show game. Hilarity (and tragedy, from a real-world perspective) ensues.

Related: Napoli signed a 1-year, $5.8M deal with Texas.

Labels: angels, funny, haha, hot stove, stupid ideas, trades, transactions

• Tragically, Christina Kahrl's impertinent analysis of the Vernon Wells/Mike Napoli/Juan Rivera trade is now instantly obsolete on the Toronto side of the ledger, but I wanted to draw your attention to the following, in a devil's advocate sort of way:

  Well, at least he has been fairly durable, right? No, as a matter of fact, he hasn't been durable. He had repeated injury issues in both 2008 and 2009: In 2008 he lost time to hamstring and wrist issues, and had continuing problems with both in 2009 (the hammy in spring training, the hand and wrist during the year). And in 2007, there was that shoulder issue he had to have operated on after the year, and reportedly hampered his hitting all season. So that adds up to quite the tally of handicapped performance while playing, as well as a couple of DL stints and injuries that, if they hadn't been repaired at season's end, would have involved DL time.

  Speaking as one of the few observers who hasn't damned the trade outright, this is a key problem I missed. Wells appears to be one of those guys who plays straight through injury, performance be damned. Now, maybe you could make the argument that on the Angels he would be shipped off to the trainer's room and the 15- or 60-day DL, but that would subtract from his alleged durability. This is enough to make me sour on the deal overall, and once again bring into question Tony Reagins' abilities as a GM.
• Can someone please explain to me how Jay Jaffe managed to write a post about the majors' worst regulars that did not include Jeff Mathis? Mathis had a -1.1 WARP in 2010, lower than two of his cited examples — Rob Johnson (0.9 WARP) and Josh Bard (0.3 WARP), while getting more plate appearances (205) than Bard (126) and almost as many as Johnson (209). Is there no injustice?

Labels: analysis, angels, blue jays, hot stove, trades, transactions

Okay, this offseason just became a paper cut. For reliever Frank Francisco.

Labels: blue jays, ex-angels, hot stove, rangers, trades, transactions