The 2008 draft has produced Tyler Chatwood, the rookie who has effectively replaced Scott Kazmir in the starting rotation, but little else so far. The 2010 draft is barely a year old.

The 2008 draft also brought in Michael Kohn, who has been up as a reliever and probably will be back again if he can improve his control a bit. Also Will Smith, who was part of the deal that brought Alberto Callaspo back to the Angels. This is more than acceptable for a draft where the Angels had no first round pick - surrendered to the Twins in the Hunter signing.

The 2009 draft would be outstanding for Trout alone, but they got three pitchers who look promising. Not mentioned above is Pat Corbin, who also went to Arizona in the Haren trade, and has maintained very good K-W ratios as he's moved up to AA.

2010 doesn't look as good, especially considering the team had 5 picks before the start of the second round. Cowart and Lindsey have hit well, but in perhaps the most hitter friendly place in all the minor leagues. Cowart has moved himself onto some top-50 prospect lists. Bolden and Clarke have shown no ability to hit while repeating the Arizona league, and Cam Bedrosian had to have surgery (TJ I think).

they took too few overpriced 30 + year old center fielders in the draft.

My favorite pet theory is that the 2010 debacle -- team's first bad year since 2003, in the 50th anniversary/All-Star season -- required a scapegoat, and since so much of the badness was related to prospects wildly underperforming expectations (not just Wood, but also Kendrick & Aybar), it somehow made sense to can the scouting director ... even though, um, he didn't draft any of them. There was chatter from the Scioscia/Reagins camp that the talent the organization thought they had didn't somehow translate into the majors.

Could also be that Bane is loud-talking GOB in an organization whose public face is generally made out of gray cardboard. Also, there was a scouting/corruption scandal of sorts in the Dominican.

Didn't that minor leaguer who wrote a book (that some found factual errors in) also accuse Reagins of being less than diplomatic? Is this a recurring theme? And what does Tony Bernazard think?

Apparently I'm in before Mat, but it seems like the media is still willing to give Bane a free pass on the wholeClay Danile thing. It's kind of murky, but there were rumors of international scouts skimming from the bonus pool under Daniel's watch, who answered to Eddie Bane. Not sure if there's anything to it, but I certainly wouldn't expect Bane to bring it up in a interview.

Like most, I'm pretty unimpressed by Reagins, though the Callaspo and Haren trades look decent. His inability to get any cash in the Wells deal doesn't speak well for his negotiating ability, and if he's still around next season, a large part of the success of his tenure will ride on his ability to hang to Weaver. I'm not optimistic. I'm 99% convinced that Weaver will hit the market, and if he does, he's gone. Stoneman beat Boras in 2005. Not sure that will happen again.

(not just Wood, but also Kendrick & Aybar)

If true, it's especially silly. Kendrick and Aybar had acheived at least some level of success in MLB before having down years in 2010. They didn't meet expectations if you were expecting Aybar to be Jose Reyes and Kendrick to have 3 batting titles by now, but they were pretty good players.

If you looked for someone to blame for their 2010 seasons (besides the players themselves) it is quite curious to focus on someone connected with the minor leagues, instead of the major league coaching staff which has overseen these two players since 2007.

The extreme case of Brandon Wood aside, most of the supposed failure of Angel hitting prospects results from not temporing expectations coming from an extreme hitter's environment in an extreme AAA hitting league to a ballpark and division (remember 25% of their games each year are against Oakland and Seattle) where runs are scarce.

As I recall, Bane was fired by the Angels less than a year after he interviewed for a GM job elsewhere. I had never seen that happen before.

Didn't that minor leaguer who wrote a book (that some found factual errors in) also accuse Reagins of being less than diplomatic? Is this a recurring theme? And what does Tony Bernazard think?

What book was that?

What book was that?

Probably "Odd Man Out" by Matt McCarthy. Perhaps best known for picking on Bobby Jenks.

Could also be that Bane is loud-talking GOB

You've made a huge mistake.

Didn't that minor leaguer who wrote a book (that some found factual errors in) also accuse Reagins of being less than diplomatic?

Mostly, I remember Reagins crying when releasing a player. Enjoyable book.