Haren hangs on with big start at Big A

Dodgers pitcher Dan Haren is a Los Angeles-area product who formerly pitched for the Angels. Haren returned to the Big A Wednesday night and shut down the Angels, helping the Dodgers to a 2-1 win and securing, for the time being, his place in the city team's starting rotation.

Pitching for the Dodgers, Dan Haren returned to his old haunts at Angel Stadium Wednesday night and actually looked something like this (Keith Allison/Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license).

By BILL PETERSON
Big Leagues in Los Angeles

The Los Angeles area produces more Major League Baseball Players than any other region in the world. That's not a bulletin, of course. The population base is enormous and the weather is great.

A quick look at the player biographies on baseball-reference.com reveals that 185 players who have appeared in big league games this year were born in California, many more than any other state. Of those, 107 are natives of the Los Angeles area, which we're counting here as all of Los Angeles and Orange Counties, plus nearby portions of San Bernadino and Riverside Counties. If we throw in three guys from Bakersfield, which is 100 miles out in Kern County, it becomes 110.

By comparison, the entire fertile state of Texas has 100 natives who have appeared this season in the major leagues, and the entire state of Florida has 79 players. So, the Los Angeles area is king when it comes to producing big league players, hands down. Watch the Dodgers games on television (if you can) and Vin Scully is constantly pointing out that some player is a local kid.

(As a side note, and with absolutely nothing to document it, a writer recalls from past research that Texas generally produces the most football players who sign Division I scholarships out of high school, but California produces the most NFL players.)

Anyway, Los Angeles is where it's at for generating Major League Baseball's players. And, still, we seldom see an event quite like what happened Wednesday night at Angel Stadium.

Then and there, we saw a Los Angeles player who has pitched for both Los Angeles clubs throw a nice game for one against the other. It was 33-year-old Dan Haren, born in Monterey Park, a player on the back end of his career (he turns 34 on Sept. 17), taking a two-hitter into the eighth inning for the Dodgers, who produced a 2-1 win against the Angels.

Haren finished the game with no walks in 7 1/3 innings, allowing only three hits. He threw 87 pitches, 57 of them for strikes. Haren left the game after Erick Aybar scratched out a bunt single with one out in the eighth. Dodgers relievers J.P. Howell and Brandon League couldn't keep Aybar from scoring, so there was that blemish. But so what?

It remains a huge night for Haren, who blew up a 10.03 ERA and an 0-5 record in his most recent five starts. This time, the Angels couldn't touch him for most of the night. He took a perfect game into the sixth inning, when Hank Conger, a former battery mate with the Angels, reached him for a single.

Haren has pitched well throughout his career at Angel Stadium, where he is 20-18 with a lifetime ERA of 3.20 in 46 games (45 starts). It's a bit of a different story for him lifetime at Dodger Stadium, where he is 6-6 with a 3.80 ERA in 18 games, all starts. At Dodger Stadium this year, Haren is 4-3 with a 4.05 ERA in 10 games, all starts.

Of course, Haren was in a different phase of his career when he took most of those starts at Angel Stadium. He was a premium guy then, good enough that the Angels traded Patrick Corbin, Joe Saunders, Tyler Skaggs and Rafael Rodriguez to get him from the Arizona Diamondbacks at the non-waiver trading deadline in 2010. Haren did what the Angels brought him in to do for the rest of that season, going only 5-4 but with an ERA of 2.87 and a pitching WAR of 2.7 in just those 14 starts.

It wasn't actually Haren's fault that the trade blew up on the Angels. Entering games of July 25 that year, the day they made the trade, they were 52-48, second place in the American League West and six games behind the Texas Rangers. They were trying to make a move. But they immediately lost four straight and eight of their next 10 to fall 10 games behind. They just shut down offensively. From the day of the trade to the end of the season, the team fashioned a long slash of .234/.297/.370/.666 as it went 28-34. The Angels finished 80-82, 10 games down.

Haren also was terrific for the Angels in 2011, finishing 16-10 with a 3.17 ERA and 4.3 WAR in 238 1/3 innings to finish seventh in the AL's Cy Young voting. Again, though, the Angels didn't have it offensively, finishing 10th in the league with 667 runs scored. They finished a distant second, 86-76.

Haren hit the age of 31 in 2012 and we began to see his decline. Back troubles started getting the better of him as he finished 12-13 with a 4.33 ERA and a WAR of minus-0.4. His contract expired and he went to the Washington Nationals in 2013. As he struggled there, Corbin made the NL All-Star team for Arizona with a 14-8, 3.41 performance, and some commenced with the easy second guess about whether the Angels should have made that trade.

But events in baseball have a way of working around. Corbin is out for the 2014 season after Tommy John surgery on his left elbow in spring training. The Angels brought Skaggs back in the winter deal that sent Mark Trumbo to Arizona, and the young left-hander, injured now, has been pretty solid as No. 5 starters go. Haren signed a deal last winter with the Dodgers, sealing his return to Los Angeles.

But the 2014 season has not been an easy ride for the aging right-hander, either. Through last week's games, Haren was 8-9 with a 4.71 ERA in 22 starts. He actually looked like a nice add through May, his first 11 starts, which added up to 68 2/3 innings, a 5-3 record and a 3.28 ERA. But his next 11 starts put all that to question – 3-6, a 6.52 ERA and 14 homers allowed in 58 innings. In the last seven of those starts, he lasted more than five innings only twice. Everyone knew his spot in the starting rotation was in peril.

And then, on Wednesday night, Haren reappeared at Angel Stadium, had the Angels eating out of his hand and reclaimed, for the time being, his tenuous spot in the Dodgers rotation.

Haren pitched high school ball at Bishop Amat in La Puente, graduating in 1998. He went up the coast for college at Pepperdine, from which the St. Louis Cardinals selected him in the second round of the 2001 June draft. The Cardinals brought him up in 2003 and bounced him up and down for a couple of years, but he was good enough to make all of their postseason rosters as the Cardinals went to the 2004 World Series, which they lost to the Boston Red Sox.

That winter, the Cardinals traded Haren, Daric Barton and Kiko Calero to the Oakland Athletics for Mark Mulder. Haren flourished with the Athletics – 43-34 with a 3.64 ERA and 11.4 WAR in 102 starts over three seasons. Being a good player who was getting into arbitration at that point, Haren became too expensive for the Athletics and they dealt him to the Diamondbacks in an eight-player deal that sent six players to Oakland.

Though everyone should agree that Oakland general manager Billy Beane has done a fine job with limited resources, we can't say he ended up with much from that deal. The best player he got back was Carlos Gonzalez, who he packaged with Huston Street and Greg Smith (another player from the large trade) a year later to acquire Matt Holliday from the Colorado Rockies. Gonzalez and Street have gone on to become All-Stars. The A's basically rented Holliday for 93 games before flipping the impending free agent to the Cardinals for three players who will amount to nothing.

Meantime, Haren pitched All-Star seasons for the Diamondbacks in 2008 and 2009, a combined 30-18 with a 3.23 ERA and 12.6 WAR in 66 starts. That's why the Angels were willing to pay high for him in the middle of 2010, his age 29 season.

Wednesday night, the Angels and their fans saw the guy for whom they traded way back then. The Dodgers saw a guy who is hanging on to his career at age 33, and making a serious bid to do so.

If Wednesday night is an indication, Haren will hang on for a bit longer. He vests for 2015 with the Dodgers at $10 million if he pitches 180 innings this season. Wednesday's performance brings him up to 134 innings, meaning he needs just another 46 innings. With the Dodgers trying to maintain a 2 1/2 game lead on the San Francisco Giants in the National League West, they will not bench that kind of  production just to save $10 million next year. It remains for Haren to keep producing it, or something enough like it.

Editor's note: All advanced statistics in this piece are from or are extrapolated from Baseball-Reference.com.

Kershaw K's Nats: Dodgers 2, Washington 0

Washington Nationals manager Davey Johnson threw a "what the heck" lineup out there Tuesday night at Dodger Stadium, and Dodger left hander Clayton Kershaw did what he's supposed to do against a group like that. He shut it down, striking out 11.

Clayton Kershaw's 2.70 lifetime ERA is the best of any starting pitcher in the major leagues since 1920 after he blew through a rag-tag Washington lineup Tuesday night at Dodger Stadium (SD Dirk/Creative Commons Generic 2.0 license).

By BILL PETERSON
Big Leagues in Los Angeles

The game: Washington Nationals at Los Angeles Dodgers, National League. Washington entered 21-17, second place NL East, one game behind Atlanta. Los Angeles entered 15-22, fifth place NL West, 7 1/2 games behind San Francisco.

The pitchers: Washington, Dan Haren, right hander (4-3, 5.17). Los Angeles, Clayton Kershaw, left hander (3-2, 1.62)

The result: Los Angeles 2, Washington 0.

Summary: Washington starter Dan Haren was next to unhittable, but Dodgers starter Clayton Kershaw was even better against a patchwork lineup created by Nationals manager Davey Johnson, apparently in the belief that his real players wouldn't hit Kershaw, anyway.

The pitching: Los Angeles starter Clayton Kershaw threw 29 pitches in the first inning and loaded the bases with two outs before striking out Tyler Moore. After that, Kershaw blew the Nationals away, piling up strikeout after strikeout with a psychedelic curve ball. Only two runners for the rest of the game made it to second base against Kershaw. So, four runners reached scoring position against Kershaw, but none of them scored. He struck out 11 hitters and walked one, allowing five hits in 8 2/3 innings. Washington starter Dan Haren allowed only three runners to reach scoring position, but two of them scored. Haren allowed four hits in seven innings, striking out four and walking no one.

The hitting: So, was the pitching that good, or was the hitting that bad? In the case of Haren against the Dodgers, the pitching definitely was that good. For all their trouble scoring runs and their 2-9 May record entering the game, the Dodgers also were batting .290 in May, third best in the major leagues. Haren all but shut them down. The Dodgers got one big hit, Andre Ethier's two-out single with runners on second and third with two outs in the third inning. The hit knocked in both Los Angeles runs ... On the other side, Kershaw against the Nationals, it's not as if he were facing a championship lineup. With Bryce Harper feeling nauseous after running into the right field wall Monday night and right fielder Jayson Werth already injured, Nats manager Davey Johnson also sat center fielder Denard Span against Kershaw. The Nats outfield ended up being Steve Lombardozzi in left, Eury Perez in center and Tyler Morse in right. The Nats catcher against Kershaw, Wilson Ramos, is another backup. So, Kershaw didn't face the team picked to win the NL East, but he also did what he should have done against such a lineup. He shut it down ... The only exception against Kershaw was Ryan Zimmerman, who picked up the majority of Washington's five hits with a three-for-four night. Lifetime, Zimmerman is seven-for-13 (.538) against Kershaw ... The difference in hitting for this game was simple. With runners in scoring position, Washington was zero-for-four and the Dodgers were one-for-four.

The base running: In the National League, where the pitcher is some kind of an offensive player, it's always worth noting the effect of running the bases on a starting pitcher. Leading off the third, Clayton Kershaw took a broken pitch off his right foot and went to first base. Kershaw took second on Matt Kemp's single, then advanced to third on a wild pitch. Kershaw scored on Andre Ethier's single. Running the bases didn't bother Kershaw, and might have invigorated him. At the moment Kershaw crossed the plate, he took the lead. And, after that, he retired 17 of the next 18 batters he faced.

The fielding: It's too bad Nick Punto doesn't hit very well, because he usually plays a nice third base. Unfortunately, because he doesn't hit well, Punto has to be a utility player to stick. So, he ends up playing some second base, where he's not very good. But he was at third Tuesday night, and he made a nice play there, coming up the line on a bouncer by Washington's Ian Desmond to field it and throwing to first in time for the out. There's always a lot of chatter about who should play third base for the Dodgers, but if you just want to take care of the defensive side, Punto is good enough.

Strategic moves: Dodgers fans booed loudly when manager Don Mattingly came to the mound with two out in the ninth after Washington's Ian Desmond singled against Los Angeles starter Clayton Kershaw. The Dodger left hander was brilliant, but he was up to 132 pitches and had to be exhausted. Mattingly let Kershaw start the inning against Ryan Zimmerman, and Kershaw got him out for the first time all night with a fly out to right field. Mattingly pointed out that he would have been compelled to lift Kershaw if Zimmerman came up in the eighth, because that would have made Zimmerman the tying run, Zimmerman already had three hits and the Dodgers simply could not let this one get away … Dodgers fans were glad to see Kershaw replaced by Kenley Jansen, rather than Brandon League, who appears to have lost his closer status. Jansen struck out Tyler Moore (no relation to Mary Tyler Moore) to end the game.

What now: The Dodgers are 16-22 with three wins in their last four games, still fifth place in the NL West, but bringing themselves to within 6 1/2 games of San Francisco. Washington is 21-18, still second in the NL East and still one game behind Atlanta ... Kershaw reached 1,000 career innings with the first out Tuesday night, making him eligible for several career records where the rate stats are concerned. His lifetime ERA of 2.70 after the game makes him third all-time among big league pitchers since 1920, the start of the live ball era. He trails only Mariano Rivera (2.21) and Hoyt Wilhelm (2.52), two relief pitchers ... For 2013, Kershaw's ERA is 1.40, best in the major leagues ... Wednesday night at Dodger Stadium, blue is bringing back right hander Zack Greinke (1-2, 1.59), who will pitch for the first time since fracturing his left clavicle in the infamous confrontation with Carlos Quentin on April 11 in San Diego. The Nationals will start lefty Ross Detwiler (2-3, 2.53).

Angels going great, but others are just as good

Since falling to 62-60 on Aug. 19 and all but eliminating themselves from the playoff race, the Angels are 18-7. And it has been barely enough to keep them alive, because Oakland and Baltimore have been as good or better. Now, the Angels are righted with about two weeks left, but Baltimore has a clear schedule advantage for the second wild card.

By BILL PETERSON
Big Leagues in Los Angeles

When last we left the Angels four weeks ago, they had suffered three weeks of unfathomably poor pitching, lost 13 of 18 and fell from wild card leader only two games down in the AL West to 62-60 and 4 1/2 games short of any playoff spot.

With 12 of their next 15 coming on the road, including a series each at playoff contenders Detroit and Oakland, the obituaries were being written for the Angels when they began that run on Aug. 21.

Since then, the Angels are playing about as well as anyone in the game, 18-7, including 11-4 on the road. And they've needed every bit of it. If the Angels were 15-10, we would be saying it's too little too late. The Angels would be about six games down for the second wild card with three teams to jump. As it is, they are 2 1/2 behind Baltimore for the second wild card, and no one stands between them.

One has to love how the Angels are playing while also lamenting that it hasn't helped very much. Often enough, a club goes on a hot streak and some feeble nemesis helps out by going on a cold streak. But it doesn't go like that for the Angels.

All the clubs the Angels are or would be trying to catch are as hot as they are, including AL West leader Texas (17-9), first wild card leader Oakland (19-7) and second wild card leader Baltimore (16-9). Thus, for going 18-7, the Angels have only gained 1 1/2 games in the AL West (they are down 7 1/2 games now), they have gained only one game on the first wild card (they are down 4 1/2 games) and they have gained two games on the second wild card (they are down 2 1/2 games).

But the good news runs deeper for the Angels, because they now have their starting rotation back in order, making those wins possible. Since Aug. 19, Zack Greinke has a 1.70 ERA, eating 37 innings with his five starts. Since then, Dan Haren has a 2.35 ERA in five starts covering 30 2/3 innings. Jered Weaver has a 2.73 ERA in four starts. Ervin Santana has a 3.00 ERA in five starts. The worst of the lot is C.J. Wilson, who has a 4.40 ERA in his last five starts, but the Angels have won all five of those starts.

And, again, the Angels will need all of it to stay in the race to the end, because outside factors are not in their favor. It seems they never are this year.

The Angels play three at home this week against the Texas Rangers, then three at home against the Chicago White Sox. That’s two division leaders. Baltimore, the team the Angels are trying to catch, stays on the road this week for three at Seattle and three at Boston. That’s two teams that are playing out the string. Next week, the Orioles go home for four against Toronto and three against Boston. The Angels start next week at home against Seattle, then they go to Texas for three.

Remember, the Angels need to gain 2 ½ games on the Orioles, basically in the next two weeks. Those schedules are not promising. The Orioles will close out their season with three at Tampa Bay, while the Angels will close with three at Seattle. But it’s hard to believe the Angels will be in striking distance as the last series begins.

The playoff race is shaping up as something of a hard luck story for the Angels. The moment they went to the trouble to trade for Greinke, the pitching rotation tanked. Then, the Angels righted themselves and went on a roll, but everyone they needed to catch matched them practically win for win since Aug. 20. So, now the Angels have crawled into view of the playoffs, but that view is obstructed by Baltimore’s very easy schedule.

Wait ‘til next year for the Angels? Probably, but with all the talent they’ve put together, we’ve still got two interesting weeks of this year. This club still has a chance. It just isn’t a very good one, unless Baltimore unaccountably collapses.

Angels starters sputter through August

On paper, and often on the field, the Angels have featured one of the best starting rotations in baseball, from the back to the front. Now, all of a sudden, their veteran starting superstars are falling behind hitters. The Angels have 40 games to climb into the wild-card playoff, but the next 15 are critical.

By BILL PETERSON
Big Leagues in Los Angeles

Less than a week after the non-waiver trading deadline, the Angels had all of the baseball world thinking they were about as good as it gets. And they were.

The Angels were, and remain, a club with jolting offensive capacity, very good defense and a starting rotation of front-line talent.

But there was something about the Angels that gave pause going back into July. Because the Texas Rangers are so strong atop the AL West, the Angels were going to the playoffs as a wild-card team, meaning as a road team. And July taught the Angels that they would not succeed that way. They lost three of four at Detroit, two of three at New York, then two of three at home against Tampa Bay.

To succeed in the playoffs, the Angels knew they needed another piece, so they added Zack Greinke. We think they overpaid for Greinke because a wild-card playoff position isn't worth the talent they gave up. However, we totally understand the serious motivation for bringing in Greinke. This organization is trying hard to win.

The next big indicator of road warring would be a four-game series at Texas July 30-August 2. The Angels won the first two. Good sign. And at the end of business on July 31, they were 57-47, a mere two games out of first place in the American League West. This space said right as the series started that the Angels had no chance of catching Texas. But after winning those first two games, the Angels could have left Arlington tied for first place.

What has happened to the Angels since Aug. 1 almost defies any possibility that it could have been predicted. Veteran pitchers who know how to pitch and who have been top-level producers suddenly are falling behind hitters. The manager, Mike Scioscia, says the pitchers aren't "controlling counts."

Since that high point of their season, the Angels now have lost 13 of their last 18, falling all the way to nine games behind the Rangers. Indeed, the Angels also have fallen beneath the Oakland Athletics in the division and the wild card race, where the Angels led at that high point. But they now have dropped also behind Detroit, Tampa Bay and Baltimore and they must now make up 4 1/2 games just to nudge into the second wild card.

In August, C.J. Wilson is 0-2 in four starts, allowing 24 runs (20 earned) in 21 2/3 innings. Opposing hitters are torching him for a .326 batting average and a .972 OPS. In August, Dan Haren is 0-2 in three starts, allowing 13 runs (11 earned) in 13 innings. Against 61 batters in August, Haren has allowed four homers. In August, Greinke is 1-1 in four starts, but he has allowed 20 runs (all earned) in 25 innings, allowing a .316 batting average and an .892 OPS.

Even the great Jered Weaver has kicked in a bad start, giving up nine runs in three innings on Aug. 17 against Tampa Bay. Oddly, the only reliable Angels starter in August is Ervin Santana, who is 1-0 three starts with 19.1 innings, a 3.26 ERA, and a .192 OBA.

Haren has struggled all year with a bad back. Wilson's trouble is more recent, as is Greinke's. On the whole, then, the collapse of the Angels' starting rotation is a very new development. Perhaps, also, it is to be short-lived.

But it can't live for any longer if the Angels are to remain serious contenders. They now face 12 of their next 15 on the road, including trips to Detroit and Oakland for wild-card scraps. One hates to think of the Angels pitchers, with their recent failures, taking on the green monster in Fenway Park, but that's the task, Tuesday through Thursday.

If these starting pitchers don't come around right now, the Angels are going to bury themselves in a hurry. Kind of a strange ultimatum for a pitching staff that has always been four deep in quality pitchers (if not quality results), then added a fifth.

Of all that might have side-tracked the Angels this year, is it going to end up being big-salaried starting pitchers losing track of the strike zone and throwing up home runs? Sadly, we might soon find out.

Angels go way too deep for Greinke

If the Angels go to the playoffs at all, they're going in as a wild card team facing a one-game elimination. Then, if they win that game, they go to the next round of playoffs handicapped. So, the Angels just gave up three prospects to acquire Zack Greinke in a bid for the one-game playoff berth. We're thinking they gave up too much.

By BILL PETERSON
Big Leagues in Los Angeles

The expanded playoffs in baseball will add a new layer of one-and-done urgency to the postseason. But what will it do to the trade deadline?

Under the new format, we get two wild-card teams instead of one, which has the welcomed effect of diluting the wild-card entry. Before, wild card teams entered the playoffs on exactly the same footing as division winners, so they won their fair share of the world championships. The commissioner has attempted to redress that by splitting the wild card between two teams and making them duke it out in one game. Now, at least, the wild card winner has to jump through a couple hoops. After winning that game, it's on to the road against the league's best regular season record, and down an ace pitcher from the wild-card game.

Put in short, a wild-card position isn't as valuable as it was just last year. Until now, clubs could calculate whether it actually would be advantageous to go to the playoffs as a wild card, rather than as a division winner. Now, there's no question about it. You're not going in as a wild card unless there is absolutely no other way.

It stands to reason, also, that a team looking at a one-game playoff as its only realistic postseason possibility can't be recklessly trading off prospects for two-month star rentals. A one-game playoff simply doesn't secure a team in the playoffs enough to make the acquisition worthwhile. Who would be silly or desperate enough to trade off good prospects for two months of a player who can't get you any more than a one hit-or-miss playoff game?

Enter now the Angels, who traded three prospects to Milwaukee last week for pitcher Zack Greinke. Maybe the Angels think they have some kind of realistic shot of overtaking Texas to win the American League West, but that is not a widely shared opinion. In order to believe the Angels have any kind of a chance to overtake the Rangers, you would have to believe that the Rangers suddenly aren't going to be what they have been for two years -- a solid .590 club that's strong in all aspect of the game.

Most likely, the Rangers will finish up with their usual 37-25 pace, come in with 96 wins and take the division. Even if the Rangers were to slip, maybe go 31-31 the rest of the way, the Angels still would have to finish 35-25 just to catch them. Put it this way: the Angels are pretty good in their last 60 games, 37-23, and that surge has still enabled them to cut only three games off their gap, reducing it from eight games to five.

So, the Angels aren't in that game, and they haven't been for three years. Since the 2009 season, the Angels have spent one day after July 4 in first place. That was July 5, 2011, when they were tied with Texas. But the Angels lost the next day and they fell five games off within two weeks.

Their on a different flight, a tight fight with four other clubs for the privilege of going to a one-game playoff. Right now, Oakland (55-46) holds the top wild card spot, followed by the Angels (55-47) with the second. Following right behind them are Detroit (54-48), Baltimore (53-49) and Tampa Bay (53-49). That's the league the Angels are in right now. Every tiny edge will make a difference in a race like this.

At some point, though, one has to balance the benefit of winning this one-game wild card spot this year against the potential for lost opportunities from dealing away minor leaguers with good long-term prospects. All three of the players the Angels gave up are quality, young Class AA players, guys who are getting it done against the other top prospects. Their numbers indicate that all three could be quality big league players. Not stars, probably, but an everyday shortstop and two pitchers who can win in the big leagues. How many wins have the Angels traded away for a one-game playoff?

If you're going to the playoffs as a division winner, that's a different story. You can't be eliminated so flukishly. Somebody has to beat you three times. You'll trade solid prospects for that chance. But one wonders how much is too much when you're trading solid prospects for a playoff spot that goes -- poof!  -- in one game.

Greinke is here for two months, unless the Angels play for him as a free agent this winter. But if his long-term signature were their goal, the Angels could have waited until November and signed Greinke without giving up prospects.

Unquestionably, acquiring Greinke makes the Angels better. If they can make it past the one-game playoff, the Angels can go to their playoff series against the Yankees with a starting rotation headed by Greinke, C.J. Wilson and Dan Haren, then they can still come back with Jered Weaver in Game 4.

But still. It's a one-game playoff. If you run into Justin Verlander on one of those days, you're done and you never had a chance. Any opponent who has a shut-down ace is going to use him in that game. You're not just facing one-game elimination. You're likely to be facing an elite pitcher in a prestige situation. Your chance of getting through that certainly is no better than 50-50. True enough, the Angels now can match any other team's ace -- except Verlander -- three or four times. Unfortunately, the one-game playoff doesn't play to th‏eir depth.

Here's what the Angels gave up for a one-game playoff:

1. Shortstop Jean Segura is a 22-year-old who has conquered every level he has reached offensively. Baseball America ranked Segura the No. 55 overall prospect this preseason. Segura batted .294 this year for the Angels' Class AA team at Arkansas (Texas League), where he held a .749 OPS in a league averaging .723. If minor league numbers are an indication, he could be a big league shortstop approaching an .800 OPS. Nice player. Prospect expert John Sickels ranked Segura as the Angels' third best prospect.

2. Pitcher Johnny Hellwig, 23, a 6-foot-9 right hander pitching for the Angels' club in Arkansas. The profile of a tall youngster with control problems (60 walks and 14 wild pitches in 119 2/3 innings) indicates that he is a project. But he may not be too far away. Among Texas League pitchers with at least 100 innings in 2012, Hellwig was fourth with a 3.38 ERA at the time of the trade. Hellwig was only 5-10 pitching for a terrible offensive team in Arkansas. Young pitchers with tall frames usually struggle with control. If the Brewers can straighten Hellwig out, they'll have a nice pitcher on their hands in a couple years. Sickels tabbed Hellwig as the Angels' seventh best prospect.

3. Ariel Pena, a 6-3, 190 pitcher from the Dominican Republic is 23 years old with six years of professional experience and a very solid minor league track record. Pena already is a nice pitcher, striking out 111 in 114 1/3 innings this year for Arkansas, where his 2.99 ERA is the second best in the Texas League among pitchers with 100 or more innings. Sickels named Pena as the Angels' 15th best prospect.

By our reckoning, the Angels have really gone a long way in this Zack Greinke deal. They've upped the ante on this season. It's beyond making the playoffs. The Angels are making a bid to be strong all the way through their rotation all the way through the playoffs.

But it all could go ka-boom in one game, maybe a game that nobody was going to win against Verlander or Chris Sale or David Price. Is that little chance worth all those prospects?

The Angels, apparently, have made a different calculation. Their starting rotation already has three front-line guys when they're going well. Adding a fourth gives them that pitcher they were going to cook in the one-game playoff. If they can squeeze through the season and through the one-game playoff, their chance is as good as anyone's because of their starting rotation.

But if they can't get through the one-game playoff, then they've given up three prospects for, essentially, nothing. And if they can't even get into the playoffs after trading three prospects for Greinke, that's even worse.

When the Angels make the kind of deal they've made for Zack Greinke, we can't say they aren't trying. We might say, though, that they're trying a little too hard.

Angels hits, missing in April, showing up now

Weeks ago, the Angels couldn't hit, and they lost more than they should. Now, the Angels can't pitch, and they win more than they should. What happened to all those hits the Angels didn't get in April? They are getting them now.

By BILL PETERSON
Big Leagues in Los Angeles

For sheer versatility in a baseball team, you can't beat the Angels. About six weeks ago, it seemed every game they were in was a pitchers duel, and the Angels lost more than they should. Now, every game they're in is a slugfest, and the Angels win more than they should.

It's not the optimum situation for the Angels, who will fight with the Baltimore Orioles three more times at the Big A this weekend before taking a breather for the All-Star break. They would like more security about their starting rotation, which used to be about 80 percent reliable and now is more like 50 percent reliable. One figures that Jered Weaver and C.J. Wilson will succeed in their turns, but the rest has become trouble.

Dan Haren finally had to give in and go to the disabled list with back trouble that has plagued him all season. His effectiveness has been limited to 6-8, 4.79. Ervin Santana's effectiveness has been even more limited, to 4-9 and 5.75. The bad news there, perhaps, is that Santana's trouble doesn't have a physical explanation, so far as we know. Haren and Santana have, between them, pitched 207 innings of the 735 1/3 innings logged so far by the staff, about 28 percent of the innings. But they have combined to give up 36 homers, nearly half of the 75 home runs allowed by the entire staff.

Further into the rotation, we find Garrett Richards, a young right hander who is going to struggle from time to time. And the Angels still don't know when their No. 5 starter, Jerome Williams, is coming off the disabled list.

But the Angels still won the first of four with the Orioles Thursday night, 9-7. Finally, the Angels' offense is paying them back for all those misfires at the start of the season. They weren't as poor of a hitting club as they appeared when they were losing 3-2 all the time, and now they're not as good of a hitting team as they appear while they win 9-7.

Angels pitchers have allowed 60 runs in their last eight games. In the general run of baseball, that's an eight-game losing streak. At best, one would expect six losses in those eight games. But the Angels actually have won four of them, even though they scored only 46 runs.

Though the Angels began the year with starting pitching as their strongest component, the bats are carrying them through this most victorious stretch of the season. In the last four weeks, June 8-July 5, the Angels are batting .308. In those 25 games, of which the Angels won 17, they have flashed a well rounded offense with 33 homers and 26 steals in 31 attempts. The only downside to their offense is an average of 2.7 walks per game, which is up very slightly from the 2.4 walks per game they were averaging when they fired hitting coach Mickey Hatcher in mid-May.

This surge in the Angels' offense coincides with the installation of Torii Hunter as the No. 2 hitter in Colorado on June 8. A month earlier, of course, along came Mike Trout, the closest thing we have in the game to Rickey Henderson right now, and he took over the leadoff position. Then, Albert Pujols began to hit in the No. 3 hole. And then it became a really sharp idea to slide Hunter into the No. 2 position, because he doesn't just hit the ball to right field, but he hits the ball hard to right field.

Now, with Kendrys Morales hitting cleanup and Mark Trumbo in the No. 5 position, this top half of the Angels batting order can produce with anybody. Behold the numbers for Trout through Trumbo, one through five, from June 8 until now:

Player	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	BB	IBB	SO	HBP	SH	SF	GDP	SB	CS	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS	BAbip
Trout	104	29	39	6	0	5	16	10	0	24	1	0	2	0	17	0	.375	.427	.577	1.004	.442
Hunter	94	18	29	1	0	4	18	5	0	21	1	0	1	4	2	0	.309	.347	.447	.793	.357
Pujols	94	18	32	8	0	5	18	11	4	9	2	0	2	3	3	0	.340	.413	.585	.998	.329
Morales	71	6	21	5	0	1	9	3	0	18	2	0	0	2	0	0	.296	.342	.408	.751	.385
Trumbo	100	13	25	1	2	8	24	6	2	20	1	0	0	3	0	1	.250	.299	.540	.839	.236

On the question of whether replacing Hatcher with Jim Eppel has made a material difference in the club's offense, we offer no answers. However, at least coincidentally, the Angels are a much different and better offensive team in the seven weeks since the change. Take a look at this table showing the Angels' per-game averages and rate stats in games through May 15, when Hatcher was fired, along with the same numbers for the games since then:

Games	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	BB	IBB	SO	HBP	SH	SF	GDP	SB	CS	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS
Through May 15	33.4	3.6	8.4	1.6	0.1	0.9	3.4	2.4	0.1	6.7	0.1	0.2	0.1	0.8	0.5	0.1	.250	.301	.379	.680
Since May 15	34.6	5.1	9.9	1.7	0.2	1.2	4.8	2.9	0.2	6.3	0.3	0.4	0.5	0.8	1.0	0.3	.287	.344	.451	.795

Between hits and walks, the Angels are putting two more men on base every day, and now they're hitting an extra home run for every three they used to hit. If one or two of those extra runners is on when one of those extra homers comes up, it changes a game. Notice also that the Angels are way up in their base stealing efforts, which is getting them over, and their sacrifice flies, which is getting them in.

Of course, Hatcher and Eppel have less to do with this than Trout, Hunter, Pujols and company. If you were ever worried that the Angels would get back those hits they didn't get in April, they're getting them back now. And just when they need them.

Angels still in hunt -- for wild card spot

We suppose by now that the Angels probably won't put enough of it together this year to catch the Texas Rangers in the American League West. But can they finish with the 85-90 wins they need to make the easy new standard as a wild card team?

By BILL PETERSON
Big Leagues in Los Angeles

Much doom is spoken these days about the Angels, who have failed to meet not just the super-powered expectations that came with Albert Pujols, but even the more reasonable expectation that they might win around 92 games and contend for a wild card position.

The Angels have put their public to sleep with a 20-25 performance. At the very moment when they signed the top offensive producer of the last ten years, they became one of the very worst offensive teams in the major leagues. The Angels have been shut out eight times, the most in baseball. Last week, they were twice outscored by the San Diego Padres, 3-2 each time, at Petco Park.

No question, the Angels have been disappointing. They seem sleepy because they don’t hit. But from a pitching and defense standpoint, they’re wide awake. They’re not doomed. Viewed realistically, the Angels are just a little behind schedule for a postseason bid, which was all we should have expected in the first place.

Can the Angels roar back to win 100-plus games, make the baseball world forget the Texas Rangers and rally to the World Series championship? Of course not, but that kind of prediction always depended on too much going right. Two years of results have shown us clearly that the Angels were ten games worse than the Rangers. Signing Pujols and C.J. Wilson wasn't going to get them all the way there.

In an off-handed way, the optimistic scenario added up. The Angels last season won 86 games. Figure that the Angels' most significant moves since the end of last season consist in clearing out Bobby Abreu, Jeff Mathis, Tyler Chatwood and Joel Pineiro, and giving those innings or at-bats to Pujols, Wilson, Chris Inannetta and Jerome Williams, which is close enough to right. Just off the 2011 numbers, the second group combined for 13.0 Wins Above Replacement (WAR), while the first group combined for a WAR of minus 0.5. So, the Angels should have been 13 wins better right there.

Of course, that's only if everybody does exactly what they did last year. But everybody isn't even the same everybody. So, being cautious and splitting the differences, figure on half of that gain if all goes badly, six or seven wins in a worst case scenario. That would put the Angels at 92 or 93, which was a reasonable expectation for this club. Even if the Angels wouldn't thereby overtake the 96 wins Texas might be expected to repeat from 2011, the Angels would be in the mix for the wild card, which now is expanded.

(All numbers herein either are or are extrapolated from the numbers on baseball-reference.com. Any errors in the extrapolations belong to the author.)

So, what's happened? With a few obvious exceptions, the Angels are under-performing their 2011 WAR numbers across the board (Is that really what's happened?). The new group of players mentioned has a combined WAR of 1.7. We're a nudge past the quarter pole, so multiply that by four and they would come in at 6.8. The Angels have certainly gotten the worst case scenario, but even that should have them in playoff position. Why, then, are the Angels five games below .500 when they should be making a bid to win 92 or 93 games?

Take a look at the following group of players: Erick Aybar, Peter Bourgos, Alberto Callaspo, Dan Haren, Maicer Izturis, Howard Kendrick and Ervin Santana. Three of these players are in the lineup every day, two are starting pitchers and another is a key utility player. All are holdovers from the Angels of 2011. Their combined WAR last year was 23.9. Their combined WAR so far this year is 1.4. Multiply by four and you have about five WAR for the season. Thus, that group of Angels players is a good 19 games worse than they were in 2011.

Add it all up, then, and the new players are six or seven games better than the guys they replaced and the guys who weren't replaced are about 19 games worse than a year ago. In the aggregate, the Angels drop from an 86-win team to a 74-win team, if unmentioned pluses and minuses are equal.

That's how WAR puts it, by this rough application. The Angels' winning percentage of .444 projects to 72 wins in 2012. The Rangers are paced to win 99 or 100.

So, forget about catching the Rangers. The Angels weren't going to be that good, anyway. Now that they have left no doubt about it, we might embrace the new reality, which is a playoff format that puts the postseason reasonably in reach of teams going as badly as the Angels.

Can the Angels still attain the more realistic benchmark of having, in effect, the fifth-best record in the American League? That's an invitation to participate in the new wild card round with the first wild card team. It's a one-game playoff, so getting in either way is just as good. But you have to cook your best starting pitcher to win that one game, so, if you win, you go to the playoffs as a road team with a disconfigured pitching staff.

That's the bad news. The good news? Today, Toronto holds the fifth position with a .533 winning percentage (24-21). Supposing that much remains equal and .533 is the magic number, then that's 86 wins, maybe 87. Can the Angels still get to 87?

They would have to go 67-50. Is that really hard? And can the Angels do it?

It's not really hard. Through Wednesday, the Angels were 13-10 in their last 23 games. They've taken some lumps, had disappointments, played the rich and the poor, and they're 13-10. Nothing spectacular. But 13-10 is .565. If the Angels do that for the rest of the season, they come in at 86-76.

They need to win at that rate of 13 of every 23 games. And then, once every month during the rest of the season, they need to win one more game. That gets them to 90. That's all there is to it. If the Angels were ever going to be any good, they would have to play that well.

That pace isn't out of the question for any team that aspires to the playoffs. Lots of teams go to the playoffs with a stretch like 20-25 during the season. They make up for it when they're going well. Last year, recall, the Dodgers at one point were 37-51, then they finished 45-28 to reach a winning record. The Angels won't have to do nearly that well to reach the playoffs.

As the above references to players remind us, though, the Angels have a lot of players who aren't going well. However, they have done better -- 19 games better between those players just last season. So, there is room for improvement. And most teams they have to catch on the way to the wild card can't say that. Look at the rosters for Oakland, Seattle, Toronto, Tampa Bay and the Chicago White Sox. One doesn't see so many proven veterans underperforming.

As it stands now, Tampa Bay holds the first wild card spot at 27-18, a 60 percent victory rate. But the Rays aren't a .600 club. They have a good pitching staff and an average offense. Like two other wild card contenders -- the Tigers and the Yankees -- the Rays are a poor defensive team right now. Joe Maddon is doing it with mirrors. How long can it last? The Rays are five games ahead of their Pythagorean prediction and they're 11-3 in one-run games. They're winning more than they're producing, and those good times don't often last long. If Maddon can keep the wolf away from their door, then he's the manager of the year again.

Toronto is a solid club all the way through -- top four across the American League in runs scored per game, fewest runs allowed per game and defensive efficiency. Toronto has the second wild card spot right now, but the Yankees, Athletics, White Sox, Red Sox, Tigers, Mariners and Angels all are within four games.

The Angels, Yankees and Red Sox should be better than they are. Can Toronto hang tight with these other clubs that have recently been in the playoff mix? The Tigers have been dropping fast, losing two of three like clockwork for the last month.The Athletics, White Sox and Mariners all figure to stay camped around .500, if that. So, the Angels have some teams to pass, but a few will drop off naturally and, in the end, we could be looking at the Angels in a wild card division with the contenders from the AL East. The Angels, badly as they started, are within one good week of jumping right into the middle.

The Angels also are way ahead of the other wild card contenders with their pitching. They were fifth in the American League with a 3.60 staff ERA. If only they could crank up their hitting. In their last six games, the Angels have allowed 11 runs. They still lost three of those games. If their bats crank it up just a little, those become wins. That’s been the “if” with this club from the start.

To make the playoffs, the Angels will need more than they've been getting from everyone they've got. But history tells us that much of what they need to be getting is in there somewhere. The question is whether they will find it. But the question is not whether the 2012 season is a lost cause. It isn't.

Two games gone bad: One of those days

The Dodgers and Angels both had pitching mismatches in their favor Tuesday night, and both clubs lost. For the Angels, it was one of those days. For the Dodgers, it has to count as a bad day.

By BILL PETERSON
Big Leagues in Los Angeles

In the movie, "A League of their Own," Tom Hanks said, and many have since repeated over and over, "There's no crying in baseball." There are no upsets, either. At least, not one-game upsets.

So, we checked out the pitching probables for Tuesday evening. At Dodger Stadium, the Dodgers sent 2011 Cy Young Award winner Clayton Kershaw at the San Francisco Giants, who played infield the night before like the last-place team in Little League for a 9-1 loss to the blue ones. Pitching for the Giants was 34-year-old Ryan Vogelsong, who couldn't even find a spot in the big leagues from 2007 through 2010. He did make the National League All-Star team in 2011, reaching 13-7 with a 2.71 ERA for the Giants. So, he's made a nice comeback in his career, but he's no match for Clayton Kershaw.

In Minneapolis, the Angels sent Dan Haren, one of the most consistent pitchers of the last seven or eight years, at the Minnesota Twins, a last-place major league team who the Halos held to three hits in a two-game span last week. The Twins countered with Scott Diamond. Not even Thomas Diamond. Scott Diamond.

Looks like a win for the Dodgers and a win for the Angels. Open and shut case. You don't even have to play these games.

But, of course, you have to play these games. And you're going to win games that you shouldn't win, and you're going to lose games that you shouldn't lose. You know this before you start.

A terrible baseball team will win one-third of its games. The worst baseball team of the last four or five generations, the 1962 New York Mets, still won 25 percent of its games. In the NFL, you can count on three or four teams doing worse than that every year. In the NBA this year, we saw one team, the Charlotte Bobcats, win fewer than 11 percent of its games. Last season in the NBA, two teams won fewer than 25 percent of their games.

So, the losers don't lose as frequently in baseball, which means the winners don't win as frequently, either. There are no single-game upsets in baseball.

We saw what happened.

Take away his first two pitches of the fourth inning Tuesday night and Kershaw was every bit the Cy Young Award winner, and he was still pretty close to it. But Buster Posey knocked the first pitch of the inning for a single and Brett Pill knocked the second for a home run. The Dodgers had about a dozen ways to score in Kershaw's support, but they misfired into four double plays and lost, 2-1.

Kershaw entered the game with 12 straight wins at Dodger Stadium. Last year, he finished 5-0 against the Giants. The last time any pitcher beat the Giants five times in the same year was 1961, when two other lefthanders, Cincinnati's Jim O'Toole and Milwaukee's Warren Spahn, went 5-3 and 5-1, respectively.

The Giants entered the game as the third-worst team in baseball at hitting with runners in scoring position, going .207. Tuesday night, they were zero-for-one. The Giants entered the game having made 33 errors in 29 games, worst in the big leagues. Tuesday, the Giants made no errors and cranked out those four double plays.

So, Kershaw finished the game with eight innings, allowing five hits, walking one and striking out seven. And he lost.

Scott Diamond is a 25-year-old lefthander from Canada who the Twins picked up from Atlanta in the 2010 Rule 5 draft. Diamond rewarded the Twins' judgment in 2011 with a 5.56 ERA -- for Rochester. Tuesday night, though, Diamond painted the outside corner like Tom Glavine, allowing four hits in seven shutout innings.

Meanwhile, Haren didn't make it through the fourth inning and later said that lower back pains that usually work themselves out simply didn't go away, so he had trouble finishing pitches. Makes a little sense. Haren lives off his cut fastball. Tuesday night, right handed hitters for the Twins repeatedly reached across the plate and laced looping liners to right field. If Haren's cutter were a little sharper, the Twins probably missed a lot of those pitches. The Angels lost, 5-0.

Both LA clubs had to be disappointed, though the Dodgers had to be more disappointed.

Figuring that you’ll send your starter to the post, say, 33 times per year in these days of five-man rotations, you expect him to have his best game 11 times, a medium game 11 times, and then there will be another 11 times when he just doesn’t have it and he’ll have to fight through his start.

In the case of the Angels, Haren just didn’t have it. Chalk it up to one of those bad starts. And they faced a kid who obviously had his best game. It  happens. Turn the page.

In the case of the Dodgers, Kershaw turned in a very fine start, maybe even one of his Grade A games that he will pitch this season. We can credit Vogelsong for pitching at the top of his game, but we also can say, at the same time, that the Dodgers needed to hit just a little bit, and they didn’t. So, they wasted a good start. And that hurts.

But Wednesday is another day.

The Dodgers will send Chad Billingsley (2-2, 3.19), who is having a nice year, against San Francisco’s Tim Lincecum (2-2, 5.68), who is walking too many people and has lost about seven miles per hour from his top fastball. It’s going to be a very interesting night at Dodger Stadium.

The Angels are in Minnesota behind starting pitcher Ervin Santana (0-6, 5.59), who is having a very tough time. The Twins will counter with Carl Pavano (2-2, 4.62). See what happens. That’s what it’s all about.

Pujols debut marks just the start for Angels

Despite frequent predictions of imminent glory, the real payout from the Angels' acquisition of Albert Pujols should come some time after 2012.

By BILL PETERSON
Big Leagues in LA

The Angels aren't the Angels anymore. They are Albert Pujols and whatever the Angels can put around him. It's a proven approach. The St. Louis Cardinals won two world championships that way.

How the Angels build around Pujols will be their story for this and the next several seasons. The Angels take on big contracts every year. The whole promise of Pujols is that he is a different kind of contract, a different kind of player, an anchor who can hold a team through rough waters. But he is not a one-man team and the team he joins now is two years removed from its last finish less than ten games down in the American League West.

The Angels start their season at home Friday night against the Kansas City Royals. Pujols will bat third and play first base. He will be the best player on the field. But he's not, yet, the definitive centerpiece of his team. He is a solution in the midst of a problem. Right now, he's a huge contract added to the Angels' stack of contracts, some of which are among the worst in the game. When you realize the Angels are on the hook to Vernon Wells for $21 million in each of the next three years, that $240 million over ten years for Pujols doesn't sound like such a desperate overbid.

According to Cot's Contracts, the Angels are paying Pujols only $12 million in 2012 -- less than they are paying Wells, Torii Hunter ($18 million), Jered Weaver ($14 million) and Dan Haren ($12.75 million). Close behind is Ervin Santana ($11.2 million).

After 2012, contracts for Hunter, Bobby Abreu ($9 million in 2012), Erick Aybar ($5.08 million) and Maicer Izturis ($3.8 million) expire. The Angels will have 2013 options for Haren ($15.5 million), Santana ($13 million) and Chris Iannetta ($5 million). They also will have arbitration decisions to make about Kendrys Morales, Jerome Williams, Alberto Callaspo and Hisanori Takahashi.

If the Angels pick up all of those 2013 contract options, they would end this season with around $450 million in salary exposure for future years ending in 2021, the last year of the Pujols deal. That's about $50 million per year for the next nine years. Their new television contract with Fox, reportedly $3 billion over 20 years, pays $150 million per year, $100 million per year more than their old deal. They can cover it.

For all their big contracts right now, in other words, the Angels have incredible flexibility for the future seasons of their contact with Pujols. If the Angels play their cards right, this 2012 club won't be close to their best club in the next ten years. Once the Angels shed their contractual commitments to decaying veterans and replace them with live players, they will take off.

The task of building these clubs nominally goes to General Manager Jerry DiPoto, hired last October, six weeks before the club signed Pujols. With the Angels, though, who calls the shots is as interesting as the shots that are called. Owner Arte Moreno is a big-picture, strong-willed sort who has been influential in recent free agent signings. Manager Mike Scioscia also is known as a strong voice in player personnel moves.

That process has only just begun. Fans should not be surprised if the Angels can't overtake the Texas Rangers this year. They still have a distance to cover. The Angels who Pujols joins have less punch than the Cardinals he left behind.

The Angels who Pujols joins are a solid ten games inferior to the Rangers, as demonstrated by two consecutive seasons ending exactly that way. So, that ten-game difference isn't some random fluxuation of statistical probability. It's the difference between the Rangers and Angels when Pujols signed.

Pre-Pujols, the Angels had one, and only one, strong feature -- the starting rotation front three of Weaver, Haren and Santana. The bullpen was shaky, and still is. Around the regular lineup, the Angels had one, and only one, position -- second base with Howie Kendrick -- for which they did not need an upgrade to average major league productivity for a regular at that position. Pujols brings them up to two.

It's true that the Angels signed C.J. Wilson off the Rangers, improving themselves while weakening their nemesis. We'll see if the Rangers made up for it on their end by going to Japan for Yu Darvish. And don't be too surprised, by the way, if Wilson ends up closing games for the Angels, because a chance remains that they will need someone to do it, and Wilson has done it well.

The Rangers aren't going away quietly. They are an angry, hungry group after two straight pennants without a world championship to show for it. They came within one out of winning it all last year. They've got the ethos to get it done, starting at the very top with the great Nolan Ryan, and they have assembled a much better club for doing it. They’re a serious operation. They're not packing it in over a good offseason for the Angels. They have money, too.

The Angels have just begun to build a true challenger by signing Pujols. They've got intriguing young talents like Mark Trumbo and Mike Trout, and aging pieces like Hunter, Wells and Abreu are starting to fall away.

Pujols will put a jolt into this staggering offense this year. But he doesn't have enough help.  We all remember that he one-manned the Cardinals to gold in 2006, but that was an 82-win team in a weak division prevailing by guile. The more formidable Cardinals of the Pujols years included one or two additional top-notch producers. The Angels don't have that. They won three straight divisions, 2007-2009, basing their offense on expensive veteran star outfielders whose decline we have since witnessed with our own eyes. Only when that team crumbles away and we see a new team built around Pujols will we see the Angels with whom he makes his true mark.

The 2012 season will be a year of transition in Anaheim. It might even be victorious. But for that to happen, Pujols will not be enough and the Angels still probably don’t have enough to go with him. They still need some players reversing the aging process, or some other players accelerating the maturation process. That’s this year. Next year and beyond, they’re going to need new players to go with Pujols.