After Dipoto leaves, Angels nab Aaron, Killebrew

The Angels broke out their bats during the July 4 weekend in Arlington, scoring 33 runs in a three-game sweep of the Texas Rangers. We won't say for sure that the Angels players were glad to see general manager Jerry Dipoto go, but we're pretty sure they weren't upset to see him leave.

Angels slugger Albert Pujols reportedly had words with general manager Jerry Dipoto shortly before the latter resigned (Marianne O'Leary [UC International crop]/Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license).

By BILL PETERSON
Big Leagues in Los Angeles

It's easy to say the wheels are coming off the Angels' season now that general manager Jerry Dipoto has left the building after a much-reported dust-up with the fellows in baseball uniforms. It's much harder to say the wheels are staying on.

We prefer to do things the hard way, so we're going in that direction. An air clearing like this isn't the worst that can happen with a baseball club that's really been flat-lining all season, just winning a couple and then losing a couple, ad nauseum, all the way from the start of April until now.

Not a bad idea to roll a head or two under the circumstances, and Dipoto ended up rolling his own.

In a short run of games since Dipoto gave way on July 1, the Angels have performed well, demolishing the Texas Rangers three straight in Arlington during the July 4 weekend by a combined score of 33-8.

Incidentally, the three-game sweep gave the Angels possession of the Harmon Killebrew Award
and the Henry Aaron Award.

It's easy to say Dipoto's departure must have made the Angels bats happy, at least immediately. How this plays out in the long term is anyone's guess, though it's hard by now to believe the players were thrilled with their former general manager.

One can imagine how it went over with the players when the guy in the polo shirt – the guy who didn't provide a lead-off hitter, or a clean-up hitter, or even a No. 6 hitter, the guy who traded away the old second baseman and didn't replace him, the guy who worked harder at poor-mouthing Josh Hamilton than at replacing him – when that guy went into the clubhouse and told players that the real problem was that the coaches weren't giving them good enough information. One can imagine.

But we don't have to imagine, because the reports tell us that what happened is what we would imagine. At least we know now who's the boss, and it isn't Mike Scioscia, the 15-year manager who's still under contract through 2018 at $6 million per year. Scioscia won the power struggle with Dipoto when Hall-of-Fame-bound first baseman Albert Pujols got his back. When the GM enters the clubhouse to run a meeting with the players and the most expensive and accomplished player on the team basically tells him to do his own job better, it's over.

So, the boss is Pujols, and everyone kind of knew that the moment he signed that 10-year deal for $240 million before the 2012 season. Angels owner Arte Moreno has much more invested in Pujols than in Scioscia or Dipoto. Now Pujols leads the American League with 25 home runs, his credibility is high and the general manager went across him. Cross Scioscia? Part of the general manager's job. Cross Pujols? Probably not the general manager's job.

Compare the situation with what happened last year in Oakland. Reports say a huge conflict arose between their general manager, Billy Beane, and their best player, Josh Donaldson, with manager Bob Melvin in the middle. After the season, Beane traded Donaldson to the Toronto Blue Jays. Beane has said the conflict did not motivate the trade, and it doesn't even matter. The Athletics will never be so invested in a player that Beane can't trade him for any reason he wants.

By the reports, Dipoto was dissatisfied at how basic scouting information was filtering through the coaching staff to the players. By the reports, Pujols told Dipoto that the roster this year just isn't as good as the roster last year.

We can't judge if Dipoto was right, but we definitely can judge that Pujols was right. The most obvious problem is a dreadful lack of depth in the batting order. When your lineup has Pujols and Mike Trout, but you still have one of the worst offensive teams in the Major Leagues, that's almost an achievement. Even after their hitting explosion in Texas, the Rangers still are 11th of 15 American League teams at 4.10 runs per game.

One doesn't have to be a player to see that the front office has failed his team. Time will tell, for example, if young left-hander Andrew Heaney is ultimately a good return for popular and productive second baseman Howie Kendrick. So far, though, time is saying the Angels are significantly downgraded at second base.

In so many ways, the Angels front office performed terribly throughout the Josh Hamilton saga. When you commit $125 million to a known and admitted drug addict, a constructive approach to a relapse has to be part of the equation. But the Angels didn't see it that way, because they never thought they were committed to $125 million. They thought Hamilton's drug problem would get him suspended without pay, the way performing enhancing drugs (PEDs) are, and that they could weasel out of his contract if he relapsed. When they learned otherwise, they were petulant and indignant.

We don't suppose for one second that Moreno's chaotic leadership isn't behind all of this, but Dipoto got in front of the microphones and played the heavy, and that couldn't have gone over well with players who are sympathetic to Hamilton. The Angels management reacted to Hamilton's problems with outrage, as if a drug addict's relapse somehow defied the moral and physical laws of the universe.

The Angels already knew Hamilton would miss the start of the season with shoulder trouble, even before we all learned of his relapse. Yet, they did next to nothing – they signed Matt Joyce – to account for Hamilton's absence in left field and the middle of the batting order. The problem isn't that the Angels don't have Hamilton, who OPS-plussed 114 last season. They can replace that with someone about as good as Juan Rivera used to be. The problem is that they don't have anybody.

So, the Angels figured all along that they would be rid of Hamilton's contract with a relapse, they rooted openly for him to be suspended because of the relapse, when they didn't get their way they sent Hamilton back to the Rangers for almost nothing and, all this time, they didn't make a serious bid to replace him. And they have a big whole in their lineup now because of it.

One day a couple of weeks ago, the general manager entered the players quarters and told them he was going around the field manager to fix the club's mediocre performance. If you're a player on that team, maybe the general manager can go to hell. The Angels happen to have a player who can tell him that.

We're not saying Pujols told Dipoto where to go. All we know is that Dipoto went somewhere.

Angels order mostly weak through June

Last season, the Angels won 98 games and led the American League with 4.77 runs per game. This season, they averaged only 4.10 runs per game through June before general manager Jerry Dipoto resigned. Here's a look at the Angels' batting order, spot through spot, through June.

Kole Calhoun has performed quite well for the Angels this year leading off, and not as well batting clean-up (Dave Sizer [UC International crop]/Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license).

By BILL PETERSON
Big Leagues in Los Angeles

Let's go through the Angels' batting order, using numbers from baseball-reference.com to illustrate how easy it must be for opposing pitchers to work this lineup. All numbers account for games through July 1, the day Jerry Dipoto stepped down as general manager and was replaced by Bill Stoneman.

The bottom-line takeaway is this: In two-thirds of the positions in the batting order, the Angels are in the bottom two-thirds of production across the Major Leagues, based on OPS. Any place where Mike Trout or Albert Pujols bat, the Angels will be strong, Johnny Giavotella gave them more in the No. 9 spot than most clubs are getting, and though Kole Calhoun might not be your ideal leadoff hitter, he's not bad there, either.

But the offensive talent in the midsection of this order is so thin that manager Mike Scioscia has tried papering it over by mixing in Calhoun, which hasn't worked out, then replacing Calhoun at the top with Giovatella, and that hasn't worked, either.

Anybody watching this team knows the Angels would be considerably improved if they can find someone to stick in left field who can catch the ball and produce something offensively. He doesn't have to be a multi-dimensional threat offensively, but he has to do something – either get on base from the top of the order or drive the ball from the middle. Ideally, he's someone who enables you to put the best hitters, Trout and Pujols at No. 2 and No. 3.

Remember when guys like Juan Pierre and Kenny Lofton were floating the game around looking for work? Someone like that would be just about right. Through the July 4 weekend, Marlon Byrd is batting .245 (108 OPS-plus) with 14 homers for the Cincinnati Reds. He might be available and he probably would help. The Angels also have reportedly been in trade talks with the Milwaukee Brewers for Gerardo Parra, who also would be an upgrade. The Angels don't need a star, but they do need a threat.

As it happens, left field isn't as strong of an offensive position across the game as it has been in other years. As of July 1, left fielders were OPSing .715, behind first base (.791), right field (.759), designated hitter (.758), third base (.749) and center field (.725). Typically, left fielders will produce a little more than center fielders offensively. Last season, for example, left field OPSed .724, behind first basemen (.757), DHs (.736) and right fielders (.735), but ahead of center fielders (.719) and third basemen (.715). It's just slightly down year so far for left fielders.

Anyway, here's how the Angels were performing in all of the positions in the batting order, one through nine, compared with the other 29 Major League clubs through July 1.

Leading off, the Angels have a .619 OPS, 29th out of 30 Major League teams. The most frequent lead-off hitters have been Erick Aybar (35 games) and Cole Kalhoun (28 games). Calhoun began the season as the lead-off hitter, and actually was pretty good in the batter's box – .306 batting average with an .806 OPS. But he doesn't exactly fly around the bases and Scioscia can't put the game in motion the way he'd like with Calhoun batting in front of Trout and Pujols. With those two hitting behind him, Calhoun still scored only 14 runs in 28 games leading off.

Additionally, the Angels needed support down the order, and a line-drive machine like Calhoun stands to be useful that way. Last year, the Angels most frequently had Hamilton batting fourth, Howie Kendrick fifth, Aybar sixth and David Freese seventh. This year's middle order, as we shall see, is not nearly so strong.

By mid-May, Scioscia dropped Calhoun down the order – to fourth through mid-June and to second from mid-June to now – moving Aybar to the top. Aybar's energy is one of this team's most valuable qualities, and he has been a decent lead-off hitter at times during his career. But he's batting only .206 from the top spot this season. Historically, Aybar is better the more you can drop him down the order. Aybar is back now to batting fifth or sixth and the most frequent lead-off hitter for the last two weeks is Giavotella, who is batting .196 with nine hits and three walks in 51 plate appearances from the top spot.

At No. 2, the Angels are fourth across the big leagues with an .853 OPS because the guy there has mostly been Trout. Nothing more needs to be said about him. In the last couple weeks, though, the Angels have dropped Trout from second to third and Pujols from third to fourth, placing Calhoun in the two hole. Calhoun has struggled there, batting .200 (12 for 60) as the No. 2 hitter.

At No. 3, again, the Angels are riding high – third across the game with a .923 OPS, behind only the Arizona Diamondbacks (Paul Goldschmidt) and the Detroit Tigers (Miguel Cabrera). The spot has belonged to Pujols, then Trout. No problem.

At the clean-up spot, we start seeing big problems. The Angels have a .686 OPS from their clean-up hitters, 27th across the Major Leagues. By the way, that's with Pujols kicking in a 1.001 OPS in 15 games from that spot, which has been his alone since June 15. Pujols is, however, batting only .223 (11 for 50) cleaning up, though with six homers. Before Pujols, it was Calhoun, who OPSed .689 as the cleanup hitter. Before Calhoun, it was even worse – a combination of Freese (clean-up OPS .691) and Matt Joyce (clean-up OPS .344).

From here, it only gets little better, and maybe a little worse. At No. 5, the Angels OPS .698, 23rd in the Major Leagues. Freese has the most time there, OPSing .703 in 191 plate appearances batting fifth. But Aybar has the better performance, batting .342 with an .820 OPS in 77 plate appearances as the No. 5 batter. All others: .207 batting average (11 for 53) no homers, three RBI.

At No. 6, the Angels OPS .651, 23rd in the Major Leagues. They actually have a couple of players who have succeeded a little there. Joyce is hitting only .227 in 106 plate appearances from the six hole, but he has walked 15 times, so he has a .352 on-base percentage. Freese has been there for the last couple of days and has six hits in 19 at-bats hitting sixth this season. The Angels have run a dozen other guys to the six hole this year. Between them, they have 195 plate appearances with 41 hits, 14 walks, no homers and 13 RBI.

At No. 7, the Angels have a .615 OPS, 24th out of 30 Major League clubs. It has been a good spot for the catchers. Chris Iannetta has really declined at the plate this year, batting .184 with a .558 OPS. In the seven hole, though, he has a .703 OPS in 71 plate appearances. And the new back-up catcher, Carlos Perez, is OPSing .778 in 49 plate appearances batting seventh (Overall, Perez is OPSing .583 in 109 plate appearances). Iannetta and Perez account for about 40 percent of 304 plate appearances for the Angels batting seventh. Everyone else with any kind of trial there has failed miserably.

At No. 8, the Angels OPS .474, 29th of 30 Major League clubs. Only the Chicago Cubs (.358) are worse, and that's because their manager, Joe Maddon, likes to bat his pitcher eighth. Kyle Kubitza (.769 OPS in the position) and Efren Navarro (.878) both have performed well there, but in a combined 30 plate appearances. Of the players with 10 games or more, Perez leads the way at .511.

The Angels have good news at No. 9, where their .608 OPS is seventh in the Major Leagues. Giavotella was batting .311 with a .789 OPS from the bottom position, but he was moved to the top of the order and the Angels have no one else who has distinguished himself as the ninth hitter. Naturally, the top 14 teams are American League teams. The Seattle Mariners, 17th at .509, are the only AL team in the bottom half of the Major Leagues, trailing the New York Mets and Philadelphia Phillies.

Dick Allen Award: Marlins making runs matter

With Giancarlo Stanton having his best year and Dee Gordon adding juice to the top of their lineup, the Miami Marlins are much improved offensively. They are defending their first Dick Allen Award in two years this weekend against the Cincinnati Reds.

Giancarlo Stanton has 10 homers in June, approaching his own Miami Marlins records for most home runs in a month (Arturo Pardavila III/Creative Commons Attribution Generic 2.0 license).

By BILL PETERSON
Big Leagues in Los Angeles

The Miami Marlins are defending the Dick Allen title for the first time in two years this weekend, which makes this a worthwhile time to look at two players on that club who really are ripping it up.

The Marlins took the Allen by winning three of four at home against the Colorado Rockies June 11-14 before going into four interleague games against the New York Yankees. The Marlins picked up their National League schedule this weekend in Cincinnati, where they were 35-55 all-time against the Cincinnati Reds.

The Reds won the opener Friday night, 5-0, marking the 11th straight time the Reds held Miami to four runs or fewer going back to May 14, 2013, about a month before the Marlins last won the Allen. The Marlins returned the favor Saturday with a 5-0 win against the Reds behind seven shutout innings by Justin Nicolino, who allowed only four hits in his Major League debut.

So, the Marlins and Reds will meet Sunday for the Dick Allen. The Reds are taking their third crack this year at the Allen, but they have yet to win it and they are 2-6 this season in Allen games.

After giving the impression of being a team on the rise last season, the Marlins are only 30-40 overall this season playing in the weak National League East. The problem is not their offense.

In 2013, the Marlins ranked last in the National League with only 39 games in which they scored five or more runs. Last year, they improved to 56 such games, raising their ranking to ninth in the NL. This year, they have reached five or more runs in 28 games, which ties them for fifth with the Arizona Diamondbacks.

Their best hitter is Giancarlo Stanton, who is one of the best hitters anywhere. Stanton leads the Major Leagues with 25 homers, reaching that mark in only 67 games. Stanton became the fourth player in the last 10 years to reach 25 homers that fast, behind Albert Pujols (who did it in 49 games in 2006), Alex Rodriguez (63 in 2007) and Jose Abreu (67 in 2014).

Stanton has 10 home runs in June, approaching his own club record for most home runs in any month (12 in May 2012). The most home runs in a month by any player this year is 13 by Bryce Harper of the Washington Nationals in May.

Then, there's Dee Gordon, who went to Miami from the Dodgers in a batch of trades that ended with the Dodgers getting Howie Kendrick from the Angels to play second base. A lot of people around the Dodgers like Kendrick at second base, but it's hard to say they're better off without Gordon.

Friday night, Gordon reached 100 hits this season in his 65th game, becoming only the sixth player in the National League since 1961 to get there that quickly. The fastest was another speed merchant, Ralph Garr, who reached 100 hits for the Atlanta Braves in his first 62 games of the 1974 season. Gordon entered this weekend's series on a pace to have 131 hits at the All-Star break, averaging 1.5 hits per game. He had one hit in each of the first two games of the Cincinnati series.

The Marlin last won the Allen June 20-23, 2013, on the road, taking three of four from the San Francisco Giants. The Marlins defended the prize twice before losing three straight on the road to the St. Louis Cardinals July 5-7 that year. Historically, the Marlins are 24-24 in games for the Allen, winning the prize three times and defending it in three of five attempts. This weekend's series is their 15th series for the prize all time.

Between their last successful title defense and this year's Allen victory against the Rockies, the Marlins were 4-12 in Allen games, failing four attempts to win it.

All-time in the Allen games, the Reds are 53-53. This weekend's series is their 36th for the Allen. They have won nine titles since the prize began during the 2011 season.

Royals surge shows no trouble for Angels

The Angels might lament that they didn't last longer in the American League playoffs, but it's hard to argue that anyone in the AL was going to beat the Kansas City Royals, who are headed to the World Series. The Angels are headed to 2015 with a strong club with a good chance of making that trip.

The Angels need a big bounce back from Josh Hamilton if their five-year, $125 million contract with him is to be vidicated (Keith Allison/Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license).

By BILL PETERSON

Big Leagues in Los Angeles

An old saw in sports says that offense fluctuates and defense is a constant. The saw doesn't exactly explain what happened to the Angels in their American League Division Series (ALDS) loss to the Kansas City Royals. But it's a pretty good description.

The Angels finished the regular season with the best record in the game, 98-64, and they did it with hitting. And they lost the ALDS in three games because hitting fluctuates. 

That's really all there is to it. The Angels didn't hit for three days, and they lost three games. They batted only .170 in the series and scored only six runs, despite hitting four homers. It can happen to anyone, and it happens all the time. Playoffs magnify that, but they do not make it remarkable. It's probably, indeed, more likely to happen to a good team in the playoffs than the regular season because, in the playoffs, you're not playing the Houston Astros or the Minnesota Twins. No one gets to the baseball playoffs without being good enough to win them, and that's even after expanding the playoffs to five clubs in each league.

Thus, we find no deeper meaning in the Angels' rapid playoff demise. Explanations? It's three games. The season is a marathon containing many moments, good and bad. If the good moments outnumber the bad, you win in the end. The playoffs are only a moment, and, if the moment isn't right, you lose, right now, and it's over. The End.

The flip side to all of that is the Royals, who were sky high when they played the Angels and have remained that way ever since. After sweeping the Angels in a three-game ALDS, they swept the Baltimore Orioles in a four-game American League Championship Series (ALCS). The Royals will begin the World Series tonight at home against the San Francisco Giants.

The Angels are just going to have to process all of this. It can't be easy, but it's not as if they rolled over against a club they should have beaten. As well as the Royals are playing, it's ridiculous to say anyone should beat them.

During the six-month grind, the Angels were the best team in the game, only to be dispatched in three games by a club that couldn't even win a division. Responses along the lines of "So what?" are in play here. What's not in play is any notion that there's some flaw in the club's design that make it unsuitable for going deep into the playoffs. Perhaps, should the Angels flop in the playoffs the next couple of years, we might detect patterns, but, right now, it's just three games in the dumpster.

The Angels remain an outstanding club, and they took a huge step forward in 2014. They added two very good starting pitchers to their mix, Garrett Richards and Matt Shoemaker, entirely from within their organization. Missing Richards for the postseason certainly didn't help. At the very least, a healthy Richards would have enabled the Angels to delay C.J. Wilson's dreadful Game 3 start until Game 4. Might have harshed the Royals' high a little bit, changed the energy and given the Angels a chance to come back in the series. But maybe not.

Angels general manager Jerry Dipoto should get a nod or two for rebuilding the bullpen on the fly during the regular season. That was some fine work. Bringing in Huston Street to replace Ernesto Frieri for holding ninth-inning leads gave the whole operation a new breath of competence and confidence. With offseason free agent Joe Smith around to carry the eighth, the sixth and seventh innings become opportunities for mixing and matching the limited abilities of certain relievers against the limited demands of those circumstances.

Cole Kalhoun became the regular right fielder this year, and he probably is the guy we saw. Mike Trout finally will win his MVP award. Erick Aybar and Howie Kendrick once again were the players we've been seeing for a few years. The top catcher, Chris Iannetta, is a good baseball player. 

It quickly became irksome to hear the television commentators during the playoffs talk about the greatness of Albert Pujols in the postseason when anyone with just a lick of sense knows he isn't even approximately the same guy who used to win all those big games for the St. Louis Cardinals. Pujols once was the greatest player in the game. Now, he might be one of the best five first basemen in the American League. Still a very good player. But he won't build his Hall of Fame case on his years with the Angels. That doesn't mean he won't help the Angels win, or that the Angels need to upgrade at first base. He will make the day a little better, but he will not save the day. Those days are long gone.

Going forward, the Angels have the pieces together to win the division again in 2015, but there are a couple of red flags. Josh Hamilton and C.J. Wilson each will be in his age 34 season with lots of contract left and decline almost certainly in the future. The Angels received good value in the first couple years of Wilson's deal, but he fell off badly in 2014 and now has two years and $38 million of contract remaining. The Hamilton signing can only be characterized as a grievous mistake. He has delivered almost nothing in two seasons with the Angels and he enters 2015 with three years and $89 million of contract left.

Those are two old players eating a lot of salary and diminishing the club's flexibility by that much. Word from Anaheim has it that the Angels will work their club around the edges. They certainly want to come in with a payroll beneath the taxation threshold of $189 million and, according to the estimates on baseball-reference.com, they figure to come in around $160 million if the pick up all their contract options and go through arbitration with all who are eligible. So, they have a little room.

The club is set in the outfield with Calhoun in right, Trout in center and (lamentably) Hamilton in left. They've got Pujols at first, Kendrick at second base and shortstop Aybar all under contract for 2015. They've also got catcher Iannetta under contract and his backup, Hank Conger, is due for arbitration.

The only pending free agents of much interest are utility infielder John McDonald and reliever Joe Thatcher, both of whom would be well worth signing and neither of whom figure to be expensive. McDonald earned $850,000 in 2014 and he's well worth a million. Thatcher is a hard-throwing left-hander who would really give the Angels a lift if he's healthy. Questions about Thatcher's health and effectiveness, as well as the direction of the market, might take signing him out of the question for the Angels, but they do need a left-handed specialist out of their bullpen.

The Angels still have the pieces, and the question now is whether the pieces will fit again. A productive fitting of the piece would include left-hander Tyler Skaggs continuing his development and being around the whole year, and there's still the matter of how Richards will come back. But it's all there. It's still just a matter of fitting together.

Moreno: LA's unsung baseball hero in 2014

After taking the heat for over-reaching his baseball operation to saddle the Angels with a poor club in 2013, Angels owner Arte Moreno doesn't receive enough praise for reversing his own course and giving the baseball people room to operate in 2014. The Angels are back to being an elite club this season, and Moreno's new patience has a lot to do with it.

Angels owner Arte Moreno has left his baseball club to his baseball people in 2014, and the results are obvious (public domain image).

By BILL PETERSON

Big Leagues in Los Angeles

They don't give an annual award for the most reviled person in baseball across Los Angeles. If they did, they'd have to retire it, anyway. Frank McCourt would win it every year. Still.

If, however, active participation were a requirement, then it's hard to imagine a more likely winner in 2013 than Angels owner Arte Moreno.

As of one year ago right now, no rhetorical task across the game would have been much tougher than defending Moreno's leadership of the Angels' baseball operation. In short, he was an ignoramus and a busy-body, the proverbial  – and all-too-real – rich guy with a baseball club for his plaything. These guys never understand the game because they think baseball is like other sports, replete with game faces and outcomes dictated by brute force.

Moreover, Moreno is a marketing guy who saw his club as a marketing project because, you know, when you're a hammer, everything is a nail. Thus, Moreno reached past his baseball people for two consecutive offseasons, signing the likes of Albert Pujols, C.J. Wilson and Josh Hamilton to $500 million worth of free-agent contracts while the organization's player development operation languished as one of the least promising across professional baseball.

It wasn't really until last season that the entire mess came home to roost. Pujols produced his worst season ever before finally going on the disabled list with a plantar fasciitis in his left foot, the Angels made the characteristic error of thinking Hamilton could whisk into a new position (right field) just because he was on a deal worth an annual $25 million, the club decided to sign Joe Blanton  instead of giving those starts to Garrett Richards, and a disjointed club turned in a disjointed season.

The Angels finished 78-84, their worst season since 2001, when they finished 75-87 in Mike Scioscia's first year as the club's manager. The Angels that had been built by Bill Stoneman had run their course, and the new direction was not promising. Some fans believed Moreno should respond with something big, like firing Scioscia, or firing general manager Jerry Dipoto.

But Moreno did nothing of the sort. In his darkest moment as the Angels' owner, Moreno instead did something really big.

He pointed the finger at himself. In interview after interview across the national media (since he deals so seldom with the local media), Moreno made himself accountable, said he's the owner and it's on him. Moreno couldn't be led into selling out his high-priced players for under-producing. He refused to pin it on his manager, and he said outright that he wanted to give Dipoto's systems a chance.

So, when the 2013 season ended amid speculation that Moreno might actually eat the last five years of Scioscia's contract, there was, indeed, no news. And throughout the offseason, there was little news – just a couple of trades and a couple of changes on the coaching staff, the kind of events to characterize an ordinary offseason for any club. But there was no news, no headline news, no big initiative designed to scream across the media. 

It was, in fact, rather a dull offseason, an offseason of baseball people making baseball decisions. The owner kept his hands off.

Now, if we didn't want to give Moreno credit for seeing the light, that would be easy to do. Surely, it wasn't an attractive proposition for the Angels to go into the big free-agent market again, since the club opened the season with a $155 million payroll and has so much money committed to future seasons that another big contract would remove any remaining flexibility, particularly with the club angling for a long-term deal with Mike Trout. Additionally, anyone looking at the talent on this club had to know it really wasn't as bad as the 2013 season showed.

In fact, the Angels enter Wednesday's game against the Dodgers at Angel Stadium with a 67-45 record, the second best across Major League Baseball. And it has a lot to do with the fact that the owner didn't make a chaotic situation even more chaotic by going crazy on his top people. Instead of pressing the baseball operation with marketing initiatives, Moreno let the baseball operation operate a baseball club. 

Everyone around the Angels, it seemed, could take a deep breath, which is for the best because the Angels run like mad and they needed a breath. The Angels are back to playing baseball a lot like we remember from their best days under Scioscia. The focus is on players already with the club. The new guys giving new blood to the club are their own guys.

There's Richards, starting every fifth day instead of some mediocre free agent. There's Erick Aybar at his demonic best, and Howie Kendrick hitting at his best, and Trout having his best year ever, and Jered Weaver getting hitters out without his old stuff, and C.J. Cron up from the minor leagues to lend a bat, and so on.

The owner has left the club alone, and the club is responding with a fierce brand of baseball unlike any other club around the game today. No club in the major leagues is more aggressive on the bases or on the field or, for that matter, in the batter's box. 

Credit the players because they are playing, and credit the manager because he dictates how the game is going to be played, and credit the general manager because he assembles the playing roster.

But also credit the owner for allowing all of that to happen just by staying away. It's not an easy thing to do. If any of us owned the Angels, or any other club, we'd probably have our mitts all over it. Some of us might figure out when the bottom goes out that we don't know what we're doing, but you can look around sports and find plenty of owners who never get the picture. Moreno has.

A year ago, Moreno was the most reviled man in baseball across Los Angeles. This season, Moreno is the city's unsung baseball hero.

Richards, big arm, keys to Angels contention

The Angels have the big right arm other clubs have paid for dearly. After making a huge error in 2013 by making Garrett Richards wait while signing free agent Joe Blanton and watching him give up home runs, Richards is getting those starts in 2014, and he's making them count. 

Angels right-hander Garrett Richards is capitalizing on his first real opportunity in the Angels' pitching rotation this season (EricEnfermero/Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license).

By BILL PETERSON

Big Leagues in Los Angeles

Of all the reasons for the Angels to enter today's games with the second-best record (67-44) in baseball – and there are many – none is so striking as the emergence of Garrett Richards as a big arm in that starting rotation. Time and again, we've seen Richards own his games this season, though none have been better than his five-hit shutout against the Dodgers at Dodger Stadium Monday night.

A year ago, the Angels seemed to have no confidence in Richards, their 2009 first-round draft pick from the University of Oklahoma They might have had their reasons, but those reasons weren't good enough. Rather than stick Richards in the rotation and let him try to swim, they thought it would be prudent to sign Joe Blanton for two years at a total of $15 million and give those starts to him. We saw how that turned out.

Blanton finished 2-14 with a 6.04 ERA in 2013, allowing two home runs for every nine innings pitched. No Angels starting pitcher has turned in a worse campaign since Jim Abbott's regrettable 1996 season, which ended 2-18 with a 7.18 ERA. While Blanton couldn't keep the ball in the park last year, Abbott just couldn't get the ball over the plate in 1996, walking 4.9 hitters per nine innings.

With Blanton taking those starts, the Angels decided to try Richards as a power arm from the bullpen. But relief pitching has never suited Richards. As a reliever, he has taken the ball 55 times in his career, throwing a 4.57 ERA, with hitters hammering out a .736 OPS and a .327 batting average on balls hit in play. In 63 innings as a reliever, he has a WHIP of 1.492. 

Whether he's better equipped psychologically to be a starting pitcher – we should leave that to a psychologist. But the results are clear. He has taken 52 career starts now, covering 320 1/3 innings with a 3.51 ERA and a 1.223 WHIP with a .281 batting average on balls hit in play.

A good portion of those numbers as a starter, of course, are from this season, when he has been a starting pitcher from the beginning. And it isn't just because he's a starter that he's performing so much better. His approach to hitters is improved because he obviously has more confidence in his stuff. That, and his stuff is better.

In years past, Richards would enter a game and everything would be hard, everything would be away. We should say everything was relatively hard, because even his slider averages 87.49 miles per hour and his change up averages 89.83, according to Brooks Baseball. Either of those is a pretty good Jered Weaver fastball these days. 

The key, though, is that he is spotting with greater variety against right-handed hitters and left-handed hitters, and he is throwing those off-speed pitches more often. By the reckoning at Brooks Baseball, Richards is throwing the off-speed pitches 35.82 percent of the time in 2014, compared with 31.53 percent of the time in 2013. Out of every 100 pitches he throws, which basically amounts to a start, Richards is throwing four or five more off-speed pitches than last year.

It's a big difference. His control is good, but it certainly isn't better (2.9 walks per nine innings this year against 2.7 last year), and he's striking out 9.0 batters every nine innings (compared with 63 in 2013). But when hitters make contact, it's not as solid. We can see that not just from watching, but also from noting that batting average on balls hit in play against him is down from .308 in 2013 to .258 this season.

Along with that, all of his pitches are harder, again, per Brooks Baseball, compared with 2013. His four-seam fastball is up from 95.38 mph to 97.19, his sinker is up from 95.43 to 96.84, his change up is up from 88.71 to 89.83, his slider is up from 86.24 to 87.49, and his curve is up from 78.18 to 79.56.

Don't know if there's a correlation here, but Richards leads the American League in two categories: wild pitches (21) and fewest home runs allowed per nine innings (0.294)

A much more obvious improvement to the naked eye is seen by simply watching how left-handed hitters now encounter Richards, which is not comfortably. He's not afraid to go in on left-handed hitters, and they're not dealing with it. Left-handed hitters are batting .190 with a .516 OPS against him. Last year, those numbers were .281 and .751.

Which is to say that Richards is putting it all together. Add it up, and he's 12-4 with a 2.58 ERA this season. Richards, at this moment, has the biggest big right arm – the hardest, at least – of any starting pitcher in the American League. Other clubs have paid deadly to add starting pitchers this season. The Angels gave a chance to a guy who they had lying around. After Monday night's game, Albert Pujols was, in the presence or reporters, putting the name of Garrett Richards in the same breath with the Cy Young Award.

One question frequently posed about Richards concerns his durability. He has consistently pitched 145-150 innings in his five full-season years as a professional, and never more than 157. With his five-hit, nine-strikeout performance in a 5-0 win against the Dodgers Monday night, Richards now has worked 153 1/3 innings in 2014.

With 51 games remaining in the regular season, Richards stands to take the ball 10 more times before the end of September. Then come the playoffs, when the Angels are certain to depend on him. He's 26 now, well into his professional career, and well past the age when we would expect the Angels to go easy on him.

Can Richards put up 10-15 more starts this season and load, maybe, another 100-plus innings onto his arm?

There's only one way to find out.

Editor's note: All numbers in this piece, except those specifically attributed to Brooks Baseball, are from Baseball-Reference.com.

Torrid Trout could succeed (finally) in MVP bid

No one has questioned Mike Trout's greatness in his first two years with the Angels, but that never got him an MVP award. This season, the way he's going right now, there might not be any stopping him. The Angels are winning, and Trout is a key reason.

Mike Trout robs J.J. Hardy of a home run in Baltimore in 2012 (Keith Allison/Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 2.0 Generic license).


By BILL PETERSON
Big Leagues in Los Angeles

Arguments have raged for the last couple of years as to whether Mike Trout was or was not the best baseball player in the world. The arguments against him boiled down to this: Miguel Cabrera's Detroit Tigers were one of the best teams in the world, while Trout's Angels were not.

Sensible enough. There's only one true value in sports. Winning. Thus, good players on winning teams are more valuable than good players on losing teams.

In 2014, though, the Angels are a winning club, 36-28, contending closely in the American League West and holding the league's top wild card position. Trout is a great player building another great season. Might be too early to say so, but this could be Trout's year.

Cabrera's batting numbers merited the American League triple crown in 2012 and those numbers were, on the whole, even better in 2013, though not good enough for the triple crown in the later case. In each case, though, the Tigers won their division.

Trout's batting numbers weren't as good in either case, but he brought so much more to the table as a defender and base runner that he truly was at least as good overall. Unfortunately, for Trout, the fortunes of his club took him out of the running for serious MVP consideration. Cabrera won it both times.

Famously, Trout still was farming in Salt Lake when the Angels went off to their terrible start in 2012, coming up a month into the season and still making enough of a mark to win Rookie of the Year. In large part because of Trout, the Angels rallied to the fringe of the AL wild card race and Trout entered the MVP conversation. Last season, the Angels started even worse and never recovered, dooming Trout's MVP candidacy.

The last month has seen a re-birth of the Angels as a contender and made Trout, once more, a front runner for the league's MVP award. Through games of June 10, Trout batted .294, and he’s rising quickly. His power numbers of 12 homers and 45 RBIs put him on schedule to surpass his previous highs of 30 and 97. He's the everyday center fielder, where he is a plus performer.

What's more, Trout is becoming a game breaker, not merely a great player. On May 15, hit a three-run homer in the bottom of the ninth against the Tampa Bay Rays, giving the Angels a 6-5 win. It was Trout's first walk-off RBI of any kind in the big leagues. On June 6, Trout hit a grand slam with the Angels down, 5-1, in the bottom of the eighth. It came against White Sox left-hander Chris Sale, who, up to that moment, had allowed only two runs in 31 innings against the Angels during his career. The Angels ended up beating the Chicago White Sox, 6-5.

And Trout is hot. Through June 10, Trout batted .386 (22-for-57) in his last 16 games, raising his average from .264 to .294. He hit in 17 of his last 18 games, reached base in 29 of his last 30 games and drove in 24 runs in his last 25 games.

All that production is coming with plate discipline. For the season, Trout has 68 strikeouts and 35 walks, so he stands to strike out 160 times, which would be a career high, and he's only walking about half as much. But he has 14 walks and 16 strikeouts in his last 20 games. He's finding it.

When we look in the numbers at why the Angels are 20-11 starting with May 9, it's clearly the pitching, especially the starters. The Angels' staff is putting up a 3.54 ERA during that run, compared with an ERA of 3.96 across the AL this season. The Angels this year are second in the AL in starter ERA (3.61) and their 27 wins by starting pitchers also is second. Opponents are batting .231 against the Angels, which is another second-best mark across the league.

Offensively, the Angels have been nothing special during their 20-11 surge. Their long slash during that period is .259/.328/.405/.733. The AL's long slash for the season is .253/.321/.395/.715.

Thus, the Angels are just a tinge better than the average AL offense during this hottest period of their last three seasons. And where would they be without Trout? During that period, Trout is .303/.393/.586/.979. Trout has scored or driven in 35 of the club's 134 runs during that period, accounting for 26 percent of the club's offense (16 runs and 25 RBI, minus six homers).

Unlike the last two seasons, the Angels are an interesting, exciting and successful club in 2014. They've rallied to within 2 1/2 games of the Oakland Athletics in the AL West.

This club has many success stories. Albert Pujols still isn't nearly the player he used to be, but he leads the club with 15 homers and he's running well. Erick Aybar is once more a dynamic player. Colin Cowgill is a pleasant surprise, as the Angels are 34-21 when he plays and 2-7 when he doesn't. Garrett Richards has become a force in the starting rotation, allowing only one earned run in his last two starts (15 innings) to feed his total output of 6-2 with a 3.09 ERA.

But Trout is in the middle of the whole operation. And the way he's going right now, he's going to finally win that MVP award, so long as the Angels keep winning with him.

NL Central: Cardinals, until someone else

The St. Louis Cardinals have transitioned comfortably out of their Tony LaRussa-Albert Pujols period, taking their run to the World Series in 2013. The Cardinals have challenges from within the division in the Cincinnati Reds and Pittsburgh Pirates. All three went to the playoffs last year.

Michael Wacha is emblematic of the St. Louis Cardinals these days, a young pitcher who mows them down (Eric Fischer/Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license).


By BILL PETERSON
Big Leagues in Los Angeles

At the end of the 2013 World Series, the St. Louis Cardinals already had been to the Fall Classic without Albert Pujols and they had the unmistakable mark of a young club getting better.

So, it's going to be hard to pick against the Cardinals in the National League Central until someone beats them. The Cincinnati Reds, who have shared division titles with the Cardinals for the last four years, are still around. And now they are joined by the Pittsburgh Pirates. Together, those three clubs presented the best divisional race across the game in 2013.

By 2013 WAR, the Cardinals have seven of the best 120 pitchers in the game, well more than their fair share, and six of them are kids. And they've added 6.3 in 2013 WAR to their infield by bringing in Mark Ellis and Jhonny Peralta.

If Ryan Braun can come back with a big year for the Milwaukee Brewers, they could enter the mix. The only club in this group with no chance of playoff contention is the Chicago Cubs.

Following is a list of each team in the division, giving each club's "top half" position players by 2013 WAR, its "second-level" position players, its top-level pitchers and second-level pitchers. For the top-half position players, we give the player's position and where he ranked at the position across big league baseball in 2013 WAR, then the actual WAR value for the player. For every other category, we give the player's overall 2013 WAR ranking, understanding that pitchers and position players are ranked separately.

More about all of this, including some important clarifications, can be found here. Bear in mind, though, that the 2013 WAR totals for each club only include these top players, and every club will have players with little, no or negative WAR value that actually would drag down its totals.

St. Louis Cardinals (50.3 in 2014 WAR)

Top-half position players — 2B: Mark Ellis, 10, 3.0; SS: Jhonny Peralta, 8, 3.3; 3B: Matt Carpenter, 2, 6.6; RF: Allen Craig, 15, 2.3; LF: Matt Holliday, 9, 2.7; C; Yadier Molina, 1, 5.7. Totals: six players, 23.9 WAR.

Second-level position players — Jon Jay, 167, 1.5; Matt Adams, 187, 1.2; Shane Robinson, 208, 1.0; Peter Bourjos, 227. 0.8. Totals: four players, 4.5 WAR.

Top-level pitchers — Adam Wainwright, 8, 6.2; Shelby Miller, 32, 3.4; Joe Kelly, 61, 2.6; Kevin Siegrist, 95, 2.0; Lance Lynn, 102, 1.8; Michael Wacha, 111, 1.7; Seth Maness, 114, 1.6. Totals: seven pitchers, 19.3 WAR.

Second-level pitchers — Trevor Rosenthal, 135, 1.4; Randy Choate, 165, 1.2. Totals: two pitchers, 2.6 WAR.

Of this club's players, 19 were top-half performers by WAR in 2013. They might miss the magic bat of Carlos Beltran, who tided them over for a couple of years without Pujols, but the Cardinals seem to be doing well as a team without stars.

Well, they have one star. Molina might be the best baseball player in the world right now. The Cardinals' young pitching staff very likely isn't as good without him. Molina may be the one player who his club can least do without. If he were to go missing, this club might be a house of cards.

Pittsburgh Pirates (44.0 in 2013 WAR)

Top-half position players — 2B: Neil Walker, 6, 3.9; 3B: Pedro Alvarez, 11, 3.4; CF: Andrew McCutchen, 3, 8.2; LF: Starling Marte, 1, 5.5; C; Russell Martin, 6, 4.3. Totals: five players, 25.8 WAR.

Second-level position players — Jordy Mercer, 133, 2.1; Jose Tabata, 191, 1.2, Clint Barmes, 201, 1.1; Gaby Sanchez, 225, 0.8. Totals: four players, 5.2 WAR.

Top-level pitchers — Francisco Liriano, 49, 3.0; Mark Melancon, 94, 2.0; Justin Wilson, 108, 1.7. Totals: three pitchers, 6.7 WAR.

Second-level pitchers — Tony Watson, 146, 1.4; Gerrit Cole, 151, 1.3; Jeff Locke, 172, 1.1; Vin Mazzaro, 190, 0.9; Jason Grilli, 206, 0.8; Brandon Cumpton, 209, 0.8; (6, 6.3)

The 2013 numbers don't reveal an ace pitcher, but Cole will become one very soon. With Liriano behind him, the Pirates are good at No. 1 and No. 2. But the next three spots in the rotation are iffy. Fortunately for the Pirates, Melancon, Wilson, Mazzaro, Watson, Wilson, Crumpton and Grilli make up one of the deepest relief staffs around.

Hard to believe there were two center fielders more productive than McCutchen last year. Alvarez ranked only 11th among third basemen, but he was the big bopper in this lineup. Martin is a plus behind the plate wherever he goes.

Cincinnati Reds (40.1 in 2013 WAR)

Top-half position players — 1B: Joey Votto, 3, 6.4; 3B: Todd Frazier, 13, 2.7; RF: Jay Bruce, 2, 5.1. Totals: three players, 14.2 WAR.

Second-level position players — Brandon Phillips, 160, 1.7; Zack Cozart, 161, 1.6; Ramon Santiago, 214, 0.9; Billy Hamilton, 232. 0.7; Derrick Robinson, 241, 0.7. Totals: five players, 5.6 WAR.

Top-level pitchers — Mat Latos, 27, 3.8; Homer Bailey, 43, 3.2; Mike Leake, 51, 3.0; Tony Cingrani, 75, 2.2; Aroldis Chapman, 93, 2.0. Totals: five pitchers, 14.2 WAR.

Second-level pitchers — Sam LeCure, 126, 1.5; J.J. Hoover, 131, 1.4; Johnny Cueto, 135, 1.4; Alfredo Simon, 161, 1.2; Manny Parra, 237, 0.6. Totals: five pitchers, 6.1 WAR.

The Reds only have three position players in the top half across the majors in 2013. The average club has four. Problem here is that Phillips apparently began his decline in 2013, and Frazier doesn't seem likely to repeat as a top-half third baseman. Shin Soo Choo was a good player for the Reds last year. Now, they're counting on Hamilton to take his place.

But the Reds are very strong across their pitching staff, with five good starters and five tough relievers. The preseason injury to Chapman figures to be a terrible blow to this club.

Milwaukee Brewers (35.0 in 2013 WAR)

Top-half position players — SS: Jean Segura, 5, 3.9; CF: Carlos Gomez, 2, 8.4; LF: Ryan Braun, 15, 2.0; C: Jonathan Lucroy, 9, 2.9. Totals: four players: 17.2 WAR.

Second-level position players — Scooter Gennett, 130, 2.1; Khris Davis, 180, 1.3; Jeff Bianchi, 203, 1.1; Logan Schafer, 235, 0.7. Totals: four players, 5.1 WAR.

Top-level pitchers — Kyle Lohse, 40, 3.3; Tyler Thornburg, 97, 1.9. Totals: two pitchers, 5.2 WAR.

Second-level pitchers — Marco Estrada, 121, 1.5; Matt Garza, 126, 1.5; Jim Henderson, 143, 1.4; Brandon Kintsler, 158, 1.2; Francisco Rodriguez, 169, 1.2; Donovan Hand, 225, 0.7. Totals: six pitchers, 7.5 WAR.

Braun and Gomez are excellent players with warts. If they can put it together, and if Lohse, Estrada and Garza are a bit better, this team figures to win some games. But they do not appear capable of matching the Cardinals, Pirates or Reds in general weaponry.

This club also needs a first baseman worse than any other club across the game. On those frequent days when they were writing in Yuniesky Betancourt at first base, they were punting.

Chicago Cubs (25.1 in 2013 WAR)

Top-half position players — 1B: Anthony Rizzo, 14, 2.6; C: Welington Castillo, 5, 4.4; (2, 7.0)

Second-level position players — Luis Valbuena, 163, 1.6; Nate Schierholtz, 171, 1.4; Emilio Bonifacio,184, 1.3; Donnie Murphy, 207, 1.0; Junior Lake, 222, 0.8; (5, 6.1)

Top-level pitchers — Travis Wood, 17, 4.4; (1, 4.4)

Second-level pitchers — Jose Veras, 135, 1.4; Carlos Villanueva, 144, 1.4; Jeff Samardzija, 185, 1.0; Chris Rusin, 211, 0.7; Wesley Wright, 214, 0.7; Blake Parker, 222, 0.7; James Russell, 225, 0.7; (7, 6.6)

It's easy to tell that the Cubs are sadly lacking in top-half position players and top-level pitchers. The Cubs have three total. The average club has eight.

One might expect to see a concentration of talent on those second levels for a rebuilding club, but it's not obvious that the Cubs can expect much growth from the names we see here. Of this club's position players, Castillo is the best. Rizzo receives much critical praise, and he might settle into a long career as a top-half first baseman, but it's not obvious that he will reach the upper echelon. Lake looks like a nice player, kind of the way a lot of guys look like they might be nice players.