Escobar is even more dominant than I thought

Escobar was great last night, even though the Angels lost 2-0. He pitched a complete game, walked one while striking out 7. His one bad pitch was the triple to Ichiro, the other run scored on a bad hop that should have been the third out of the inning. So I was thinking, even losing it, that must have been one of Escobar's top 5 games of the year.

So I checked his game log on B-Ref. He's had so many great games, I'll have to revise it and say last night's just barely makes the top 10. By game score it comes in at #9.

MLE's for selected AAA hitters

Other than Nathan Haynes, they are not pretty. Salt Lake City is a hitters park, in a hitters league, and most of the players there are not hitting.

MLEs on google docs

Anderson goes deep

Garret Anderson's 3 run homer puts the Angels up 4-3. A fan reaches over the scoreboard for the catch. The Angels probably get a gift here, as if interference was called GA would have had a double. It still would have given us the lead, and with Jeff Mathis following with a double, we'd still be up 6-3. But the amazing thing is the kid who caught it.

He looked exactly like a 12 year old Bartolo Colon. Bart's mini-me, perhaps.

Trades that could have been

We could have Mark Teixiera right now if only we'd part with Kotchman, Saunders, and Brandon Wood. Can you believe Stoneman is once again being so stingy with prospects that he fails to bring in the big bat?

Using Linear weights runs above average, plus UZR (you can get that from Tango and MGL's Book site, though if you are reading this you already know that):

Teixiera +22
Kotchman +16

That's quickly slapped together and I haven't even done a park adjustment. Not a big enough difference considering we need Saunders, cost, and Kotchman being 4 years from free agency, not 1 1/3.

How about Paul Konerko? Could we trade Kotchman for that big expensive bat?

Konerko: +12. Lets hope not.

As I type Kotchman is scoring the tying run against Detroit, after driving in a run with a long double. I love this kid.

We could have, either of the last 2 offseasons I suppose, traded Santana, Shields, Kendrick and Wood to the Red Sox for Manny Ramirez. Leaving aside that Shields and Kendrick are very valuable, Santana might find himself, and Wood is still a fine prospect, how would this affect the Angel's 2007 outfield? I suppose Manny in left would mean we wouldn't have to put up with the powerless Reggie Willits. Again, offense + UZR:

Ramirez +9
Willits +12

Wow. Reggie has actually outplayed the Hall of Fame slugger. Sure, we'd score more runs with Ramirez, but give up more too. And that's with Manny at -14 UZR, which is right in line with other bad outfielders (Griffey, Carlos Lee, Josh Willingham) and not some outrageaous -47 figure that pretty much nobody believes. I don't know if its random variation of MGL making some big adjustments to his park factors.

Actually, Manny would have helped the team if we take his +23 hitting and assume he's the DH, which means we never sign Hillenbrand, but its probably not enough of a gain to make up for losing Kendick and Shields. Certainly not worth paying 20 million for.

Mr. Stoneman, you rule, and I don't care if you make a trade before the deadline or not.

A Badly Needed Win

Maicer!

After K-Rod blows a 6-3 lead in the 9th against the hated A's, Maicer Izturis comes through with a 2 out single to score Casey Kotchman from 3rd base. Not a pretty win, but we'll take em any way we can get em. This breaks a 5 game losing streak to the A's, who have been playing terrible baseball against pretty much everyone else they face. Mike Piazza has only 3 homers all year, and all of them have been against the Angels, actually all in Anaheim.

There have been some rumors of Piazza coming to the Angels in a trade, but this seems to make little sense. Getting a pure DH means one of Vlad, Matthews, Anderson, or Willits has to sit. Anderson would be the logical choice, though his bat is actually showing signs of life recently, yet his contract pretty much means if he's healthy he plays. Then we've got Rivera coming back, probably within the month. We can make room for a big bat DH, like Adam Dunn, but the only value to getting Piazza would be to keep him from facing our pitching staff. As long as we only give up a token prospect and pay the rest of his salary, it might be worth it, but I'd hate to see the A's get a real prospect from us. I don't like any players I've become attached to wearing their crappy uniform. Shea Hillenbrand can sign with the A's and receive my blessing any day though.

Next we play the Tigers, while the A's and Mariners face each other. Good news about that series: One of those teams is going to lose. The bad news: They can't both lose.