Headline should be two words long.

True AROM. August 1, in retrospect, killed this team.

Unreal.

I'm stunned the Angels might actually miss the playoffs. I kept assuming they'd get their #### together--and they seemed to for a while--but it's been a mess lately.

I suspect the impact will be nil but if the Angels miss the playoffs that might not be good for the free agent market. It would be the second straight year the off season champion had missed the playoffs. Add in the Marlins disaster and teams might at least be a bit hesitant to dip into the market with gusto.

Like I said, in the end teams will spend but I'll be curious to see how it plays out.

Like I said, in the end teams will spend but I'll be curious to see how it plays out.

I guess it depends on what is written about the Angels not making it. I haven't heard anything about their lack of clubhouse chemistry, or other stuff that would point out that just adding good players might have hurt the harmony of the clubhouse. If they miss the playoffs, it's going to be pointed at Albert's first month or so as the cause, sure they rebounded and got close to first place after that, but it's going to be one or two wins that they miss out on, and that is easily something you can point to one player and say "bad luck, bad first month adjusting to the league"

Who was the offseason winner the year before?

The Red Sox.

I don't think ballclubs will react to this irrationally. Top quality free agents really are worth loads of money.

Who was the offseason winner the year before?

I assume the Red Sox with Crawford and Gonzalez

Seems remarkable that a team with Weaver and Wilson starting all year would have a staff WAR (starters + relievers) of 1.0 (per BRef).

Coke to MCoA

Headline should be two words long.

S*** sandwich?

Seems remarkable that a team with Weaver and Wilson starting all year would have a staff WAR (starters + relievers) of 1.0 (per BRef).

Weaver, Wilson, and Haren!

What the hell happened to Dan Haren?

This team would have won 120 games two years ago.

Haren is a mess. Bad back, loss of velocity and tons of suck. It's a shame because he was nails last year. And Ervin Santana has completely blown up too.

A front four of Weaver, Wilson, Haren and Santana with Pujols, Hunter, and Trout should not be struggling this badly. This is on Scioscia. He is a poor decision maker and his magic bullpen usage prestige has worn off as Bud Black, Roenicke, Maddon and the good arms have dried up.

I'm ready to see another manager in LAAoA. We shall see if Arte and Dipoto feel the same way. Missing the playoffs with this collection of top tier talent is tough to take.

This team would have won 120 games two years ago.

Meanwhile the Yankees are coasting to the playoffs with a roster made up entirely from members of the 2003 All-Star teams.

According to an LA Times piece from Aug 17, the Angels' bullpen ERA from July 30 to that date was 8.39.

Yeah, the pen has been awful. Who would have thought the ghosts of Isringhausen and LaTroy Hawkins would suck in 2012? Oh yeah, most everyone.

Too bad Walden and Downs got hurt at the same time, also.

Good thing Freiri was acquired by Dipoto.

Downs and Walden are both coming soon, supposedly. The Angels may not be totally dead yet; I could see them putting together a little hot streak and pulling back into the WC scrum.

I watched last night's Angels game, and of course Fernando Rodney and his 0.81 ERA closed for Tampa Bay (Not second-guessing the Angels there. They had him for two years, but still).

Detroit, which also lost a tough game last night, is in better shape than the Angels are but has also been a bit disappointing even though Fielder has hit very well.

Downs is back. But Scioscia used him as a LOOGY for FOUR pitches last night. The best arm in the pen was completely wasted last night. Then turned it over to Jepsen for 2 innings. He of course imploded in the 2nd inning.

But, Scioscia has been making weird decisions re: the pen all year. One person on Halos Heaven actually thought it might be Scioscia sticking it to Dipoto. He is continually running Hawkins and Izzy out in important situations as if to say, "these are the guys you gave me."

Crazy, but I could see it if I squint real hard.

Thank god Jepsen rebounded a bit. I would have never thought I'd utter those words when the season started.

Downs is back.

Right. He was there so briefly that I sort of forgot him.

Thank god Jepsen rebounded a bit. I would have never thought I'd utter those words when the season started.

Except for that really long homer he gacked up last night. Yeah, Jepsen's been pretty good lately, but the bullpen was weak and we all knew it would be. I don't really blame Scioscia for that. Haren's just not right, and Santana's almost total ineffectiveness have crippled the back end of the rotation, and made a weak bullpen look even weaker. I'm not saying that Scioscia's been brilliant with the pen, but the root of the pitching issues stem from the rotation, and those guys have just melted down. It's also hard to blame Scioscia for Pujols' empty April, or the offense vanishing every other game. The manager can only do so much; at some point the players have to play, and the Angels just stink.

Last night was the worst loss of the season, but with so many "worst loss off the season" lining up — Greinke's brewing up another disaster right this moment — it's completely dispiriting. There were legit playoff expectations for these guys, and the drop-off from all the hope generated by their good play before the All-Star break to now has just about broken me. This is about as painful as 1995 was. Given the hopes and expectations, perhaps more so.

Signed the greatest hitter of his generation and best FA. pitcher; called up the second-coming of Mays; already had one of the top 3 pitchers in the league; traded for best pitcher on the trade block. How is this a still a race?

I know that Bill James is considered to be a joke by many now, but one of the things I learned from the early Abstracts is how much you need everybody to contribute to have a really good baseball team, even if you have a few awesome players. That seems obvious if you think about it a second, but one of the good things about the early James is that he made basic stuff seem obvious that wasn't being treated as such.

The Angels are a good example of this, and of course, Pujols has been just good, not awesome.

Ryan Roberts just went yard; it is now 6-1 TB.

Signed the greatest hitter of his generation and best FA. pitcher; called up the second-coming of Mays; already had one of the top 3 pitchers in the league; traded for best pitcher on the trade block

Yeah, that's all good, but is it enough to compensate for trading away Jeff Mathis?

robin

on pujols the guy had a rocky start but since june he's been awesome. he's slugging .674 since the break

yes, yes i know the whole season counts.

on a another angels note i think you can make a case that almost every team that disappointed in 2012 did so because their bullpen failed them, sometimes in specatcularly bad fashion. or as you kids like to write, craptacular

angels bullpen hurt them
brewers bullpen since june has been a train wreck. as in going over a rail bridge only a section is not there so it's crashing to the bottom of what seems to be a 1000 foot drop type train wreck
philly couldn't trust anyone but papelbon

I know that Bill James is considered to be a joke by many now, but one of the things I learned from the early Abstracts is how much you need everybody to contribute to have a really good baseball team, even if you have a few awesome players. That seems obvious if you think about it a second, but one of the good things about the early James is that he made basic stuff seem obvious that wasn't being treated as such.

Absolutely. The Mariners of the late 90s are one of the best examples of this phenomenon.

on a another angels note i think you can make a case that almost every team that disappointed in 2012 did so because their bullpen failed them, sometimes in specatcularly bad fashion. or as you kids like to write, craptacular

It's worse than it sounds. The Angel bullpen is weak, yes, but it matters even more when the very expensive starting rotation can't get past the 5th inning half the time. The Angel rotation's meltdown exposes the bullpen in the worst way.

Top quality free agents really are worth loads of money.

Top FAs:
Hamilton, Napoli, BJ Upton, S Drew
Greinke, C Lewis, McCarthy, A Sanchez, E Jackson, probably Zambrano, maybe Haren
no big name closers (well, Rivera)

2 potential bank-busters there but not a big year.

on a another angels note i think you can make a case that almost every team that disappointed in 2012 did so because their bullpen failed them, sometimes in specatcularly bad fashion. or as you kids like to write, craptacular

The Red Sox bullpen has actually been pretty good. Their problems lie elsewhere.

I suspect the impact will be nil but if the Angels miss the playoffs that might not be good for the free agent market

Tell that to Zach Greinke.

Signed the greatest hitter of his generation and best FA. pitcher; called up the second-coming of Mays; already had one of the top 3 pitchers in the league; traded for best pitcher on the trade block. How is this a still a race?

It's not. They're basically out of it after this weekend.

Absolutely. The Mariners of the late 90s are one of the best examples of this phenomenon.

Looking at those rosters though, you say "How could this team have improved?" Every hitter is good enough that replacing him with someone better would be really difficult. (except the left fielder ... Rich Amaral, Stan Javier, Brian Hunter, Rickey Henderson at age 41 ... how was this such a hole?)

Year after year they just can't get another All-Star candidate starting pitcher beyond Randy Johnson. But you don't want to get rid of Aaron Sele, Paul Abbott, John Halama, Jamie Moyer, Jeff Fassero, because they are so much better than replacement level. And indeed they had 116 wins with an entirely good-but-not-great starting rotation.

What the hell happened to Dan Haren?

He's been fighting back pain all year. He is clearly hampered physically, you can see it in his motion. He really shouldn't be out there, but there's no one else, and until a week or two ago there was a race to win.

Lounginistas know that I watch pretty much every Angel game via DVR, as they start before I get home and I can fast-forward between commercials and batters and often catch up by the end. I am now at the place where I don't watch the bullpen. At all. Any time a reliever enters the game for the Angels, I watch in fast-forward until the Angels are back up again (and if it's a big deficit, I fast-forward to Trout and Pujols). It took me a month to realize Walden had been on the DL.

Pujols' first five weeks are not the problem here. The problem is a bullpen that can't get anyone out, a rotation where 60% of the guys can't get past the 5th (and CJ Wilson, who started strong, has been slumping lately), and -- I hate to say this, but -- a manager who really seems to take games off (HINT: when you have a four-game series on the road against your divisional rival, you're not taking it seriously when 50% of those games have Andrew Romine in the starting lineup).

I'm also beginning to worry about Mike Butcher. Scott Kazmir completely went to hell -- okay, things happen. But now Ervin has imploded. Zack Greinke isn't pitching up to his standards. The only guy in the bullpen who can do anything on a consistent basis is a guy who was just managed by our old pitching coach. No pitching prospect has succeeded since ... well, Weaver, I guess, who was in the minors for, what, a long weekend? Maybe that last part's more on the organization than Butcher ... but of course Butcher has been a part of the organization for every year except one going back to the days of Mike Port. But, then again, what can Butch do? Tell these guys, "Hey, stop pitching like ########?" I don't know.

This team would have won 120 games two years ago.

By that, do you mean if the players they have now performed like they did in 2010 they would win 120 games? I don't see it. The lineup would be worse overall, what with Trout still in A ball and Trumbo in the minors as well. Pujols would be better, Kendrick and Hunter about the same, Callaspo and Aybar worse, and Morales missed over 2/3 of the season..

{Pitching wise, Yes Haren and Santana were better, but only slightly above league average. Wilson was loads better. Weaver is about the same.

Still, I don't see how that makes them an historically great team. A little better sure, maybe even a division winner, but that's it.

This team would have won 120 games two years ago.

It might be a team that wins 90+ games next year. A lot of things have gone wrong (balanced in some measure by the fact that Trout has been way better than anyone could have expected).

The offense has an OPS+ of 115 with a SB% of 81%. Even if you remove Trout from those numbers, they're 108 and 75%. The only guy outside of Trout who has performed notably above career norms is Trumbo.

It's all the pitching. Even in the rotation, the four main guys (Weave, Haren, Ervin, and CJ) came into this season with a career ERA+ of 117; that's skewed a bit because of CJ's time in the bullpen, but even if you knock, say, 15 points off his career mark (down to 110 from 125, an increase in ERA of about a half-run), their collective career mark would be 115.

This year, they're at 98. From 115 to 98 is a swing of .57 points of ERA; even if those four guys pitched that much better in the same amount of innings (they would likely have pitched more had they been more effective), that's 35 earned runs -- about 3.5 wins -- right there. Doesn't sound like a lot, until you realize they're 4.5 games out of the wild card, and we haven't even discussed the bullpen's underperformance.

It's amazing that the Angels are wasting such a great team offensive performance this year. The worrisome thing is that I figure their pitching will be better next year. They'll spend on their bullpen and the starters are good.

Haren's been injured pretty much all year. Is Santana hurt too?

Spivey - the starters ARE good, but only Weaver and CJ are under contract past 2012. This was the year to go for it.

Haren and Santana have club options for 2013, but I don't see them both being retained - maybe one, possibly neither. Santana's decent streak in August has helped him, but he is very inconsistent. Haren is injured. He has looked awful since May, and Garret Richards will likely be in the rotation next year, so...

Weaver
Wilson
Santana or Haren
Richards
Profit?

They will either go with J. Williams again or go to the FA pool which will suck unless they spend on Greinke.

We shall see - but this team was built for 2012 until a shitty April slowed them down. Then the pitching #### the bed.

Depressing.