Here is a little piece of a larger article from ESPN titled, "Pairs who've really shone", by Jerry Crasnick. It is a good one, but I was just happy to see a couple of Angels getting some credit from ESPN. Enjoy.

Best starting pitching duo: Joe Saunders and Ervin Santana, Angels

There was a reason Seattle emerged as a fashionable AL West pick late in spring training. With John Lackey and Kelvim Escobar out for an extended period with injuries, the Angels' big advantage -- depth in the rotation -- was all but nullified.

Then Saunders and Santana stepped in and put an end to that nonsense. With the help of pitching coach Mike Butcher, they've tightened their mechanics and posted a combined 20-6 record with 21 quality starts. Most impressive, in a brutal year for road teams, they're 11-2 with a combined 2.57 ERA away from Anaheim.

Saunders throws a fastball in the low 90s, makes deft use of his changeup and breaking ball and rarely throws anything down the middle. Santana routinely hits 96-97 mph on the gun and complements his fastball with a terrific slider. His stuff is so overpowering, you wonder how he went 7-14 last year.

"A lot of teams are kicking themselves for not ponying up for Santana," said an American League executive. "I think if you were willing to trade value for value, you could have gotten him, but a lot of teams tried to pay 75 cents on the dollar. Who'd have guessed if you had stepped up on Cliff Lee and Ervin Santana this offseason, you'd have two All-Stars?"

The best news of all for the Angels: Lackey has been superb since his return from a triceps strain, and Escobar is about to head out on a rehab assignment in his comeback from a torn labrum.

This is just plain rediculous. Brian Runge has completely lost his mind. I don't really have too much to say about this, other than the fact that I hope he is punished accordingly for his total lapse in judgement. I don't mean to make any crazy speculations, but this guy must be having some troubles at home. Be a man, and just do your job.

Beltran, Manuel speak out on ejections

06/25/2008 12:06 AM ET

By Jon Blau / MLB.com

NEW YORK -- Jerry Manuel understands Carlos Beltran to be the quiet type, so when the Mets' manager perceived home-plate umpire Brian Runge as "baiting" his center fielder during a balls-and-strikes argument in the fourth inning of Tuesday's 11-0 loss to the Mariners, he jetted toward the batter's box.

"I wanted to go out and make sure things were OK," Manuel said about his debate with Runge, which eventually resulted in both his and Beltran's ejections. "And things got a little heated, you saw what happened."

Shortly after the count moved to 0-2, Beltran had a few words for Runge concerning the strike call. Runge then stopped play, began sweeping home plate and, according to Beltran, used the time to try and "show me up."

Manuel would then come to his player's aid, and replays clearly showed Runge bumping Manuel after he had already given the ejection signal, which Beltran said he took exception to. During his face-to-face exchange with Runge, Beltran said he told the umpire what he did to Manuel was "weak," and he had to be restrained by his teammates before walking off the field.

This was Manuel's first ejection as the team's manager, and Beltran, up until Tuesday's game, had never been thrown out of a contest by an umpire.

"He came out, took his mask off and really tried to show me up," Beltran said. "And that's how I [saw] it. And that's when Jerry came out. I didn't say really anything until I saw him bump him, Jerry. That was a weak move by him.

"I just didn't like how everything happened right there. He made Jerry look bad, because he acted like Jerry was the one who bumped him, and it wasn't that way. He was the one who came to him, to have some contact, so he would have an excuse to throw him out of the game, because Jerry didn't say anything bad to him. I just didn't like that part. Like I said, when somebody is wrong, he's wrong, and [Runge] was wrong."

Manuel said after the game that most managers would get fined and suspended for bumping the umpire, but the skipper felt he was not in the right state of mind to offer his opinions on how Runge should be dealt with by the league. He made it clear, though, that it was Runge who stepped into him and not the other way around.

"Well, I think what instigated Carlos to continue was that he saw the contact, and I don't think he appreciated that," Manuel said. "That wasn't a good thing to be doing. That didn't seem proper."

Runge gave word after the game that he would not comment about the incident. Beltran, on the other hand, had plenty to say.

"This is the first time I have been so angry in my career," Beltran said, "but at the same time, I feel like I have reason, because if I get punished by my actions, he should get punished by his actions also, the umpire, because that was awful."

My hat goes off to this guy....what a story. I couldn't imagine how hard it would be to change your whole mental aproach after an event like this. Well, cheers to Adam Greenberg, and hopefully we'll see him in the big leagues again soon. Though, good luck with the outfield surplus the Angels have. Either way....I'll be following this guys progress for sure.

Greenberg eyeing Major League return

06/23/2008 6:32 PM ET

By Nick Zaccardi / MLB.com

CHICAGO -- Nearly three years have passed since then-Cubs outfielder Adam Greenberg got hit by a pitch in the back of his head, inducing a collective gasp through baseball. Greenberg doesn't dwell on July 9, 2005, much anymore.

He likes to think about a different day, the day he will return to the Majors.

"It's going to be the best day of my life, that's the best thing that I can say," Greenberg said. "Because of what I've gone through over the last few years, it's going to be a special day. I'm looking forward to it. I have worked so hard and dealt with so much stuff, it's just going to be the greatest moment ever."

Greenberg, granted a release by the Royals in Spring Training, is back with a Major League organization after manning center field for the Bridgeport Bluefish of the independent Atlantic League to start the season.

He is hitting .297 in 25 games since signing with the Arkansas Travelers, the Double-A affiliate of the Angels.

"There's no question, as a whole at this point in my career that I'm a better all-around player than even when I was called up three years ago," Greenberg said. "It's exciting."

Greenberg's stay with the Cubs lasted 45 one-hundredths of a second in 2005. That's how long it takes a 92-mph fastball to travel the 60 feet, 6 inches from the mound to home plate.

In this case, it was from Valerio De Los Santos' left hand to behind Greenberg's right ear. Greenberg was hit on the first pitch of his only Major League plate appearance and has yet to make it back with the Cubs, the Dodgers, the Royals or the Angels.

He was originally placed on the disabled list with a concussion, but the after-effects included blackouts and doctors' visits. Eventually, he was diagnosed with vertigo.

Greenberg estimated he has been plunked at least 10 times this year, once at the top of one of his shoulders. It doesn't faze him anymore, which allows more time to focus on him hitting the ball instead of the other way around.

"At this point, it doesn't weigh on me like it used to, because I'm more at peace as a player," Greenberg said. "I made a lot of adjustments and improvements over the last couple years. Last year was a stepping stone, getting back on track. I worked hard this offseason on mental and physical changes, concentrating more on hitting the ball on the ground and getting the base hits instead of hitting the ball out of the ballpark."

From Jacksonville, Fla., to Wichita, Kan., from ESPN to the New York Times, everybody everywhere asked Greenberg about that half-second and the ensuing years of a feel-good comeback story.

The comparisons to "Moonlight" Graham from "Field of Dreams" are getting old. So is Greenberg, once an Upper Deck-baseball-card-worthy prospect and now a 27-year-old Minor League journeyman.

"The older you get, the harder it becomes to stick as an everyday guy," Greenberg said. "At the end of the day, I made it up when I was 24 years old. I don't feel like I'm getting older, just mentally smarter, more intelligent and a better ball player. There are many guys starting their careers getting to the big leagues at 27, 28. I've got a lot of years left in me."

He and the Royals mutually parted ways because of what Greenberg called a "numbers game." His odds of moving past other highly drafted outfielders in the farm system were not worth a gamble.

Greenberg found a better opportunity to re-reach the Majors when the Angels called. He is under contract through the end of the season, and the team is already interested in re-signing him, director of player development Abe Flores said.

Don't get giddy. Greenberg's chances of getting back to the Majors soon, even a September callup, are bleak. "For us, it would be a long shot," Flores said. "But in the future, it could be a possibility. Every day that he is with us, he's interviewing for that possibility. And he's doing very well."

Greenberg doesn't like to play the "what if?" game.

Like, what if Felix Pie hadn't been hampered by an ankle injury when Cubs general manager Jim Hendry scanned the Minors for callups on July 8, 2005?

Or, what if right-handed Ronny Cedeno would have been called to pinch-hit instead against the Marlins' left-handed De Los Santos?

And, what if the lefty Greenberg leaned back, stepped out of the box or somehow avoided that first-pitch fastball?

"I certainly don't think about it," Greenberg said. "The only time it's brought up is when a new teammate, friend, reporter, somebody wants to talk about it. To be honest, I've become so numb to it."

Greenberg has a message for all the well-wishers, many of whom are Cubs fans.

"I'm going to get back, let them all know," he said. "It's going to be a great time."

This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

Ever since Mike Scioscia took over as the Angels skipper in 2000, this team has just had a different flavor. He has taken a bottom of the barrel, "low market" team, and has turned them into a perrenial AL powerhouse. Being a life long Angels fan, you somewhat got used to being dissapointed every season, and trying to find a way to be satisfied with watching other teams in the post season. I never turned my back on the Halos for a sacond, and it has payed off. Now every season is exciting. The Angels still don't get much credit, so this one's for them. Enjoy.

Scioscia is guardian of the Angels

By Tim Brown, Yahoo! Sports

Los Angeles Angels manager Mik…

AP - Jun 18, 1:30 am EDT MLB Gallery

More From Tim BrownPushed off the manager-go-round Jun 20, 2008 McLaren is next Mariner sent overboard Jun 19, 2008

ANAHEIM, Calif. – Scott Schoeneweis hasn't played for Mike Scioscia in five years and, in the visitors' clubhouse at Angel Stadium, there's no way Scioscia could overhear a conversation from his office across the ballpark.

Yet Schoeneweis lowers his voice and leans in.

"I was always trying to please him," he says. "I wanted him to like me."

They had met in the spring of 2000. Scioscia, the Los Angeles Dodgers icon, had replaced Joe Maddon as manager of the Angels. Maddon had finished up the season before for Terry Collins. The Angels had lost 92 games in 1999 and hadn't been to the playoffs in 13 years, a period in which they had employed and dismissed 10 managers.

Scioscia knew a little about Schoeneweis, mainly that the Duke product was talented but so cocky as to be nearly uncoachable. In his first team meeting, the "Hi, my name is Mike and I'm the new skipper" meeting, Scioscia asked players to stand up and talk, answer a couple questions for the group. But this was no random exercise.

Midway through, he pointed to Schoeneweis, then a 26-year-old prospect who had glided through the Angels' farm system, made 31 big-league appearances the previous season and was on the verge of winning a place in the starting rotation.

"Hey, Scott," Scioscia said, "you were in (Triple-A) Edmonton some last year, right?"

Schoeneweis stood and nodded.

"Tell me," Scioscia demanded, "who was the biggest jerk on that team?"

Only he didn't say "jerk."

Schoeneweis reddened.

"Uh," he began.

The room demanded an honest answer.

"Probably me," he finally said.

The room was satisfied. Players burst into knowing laughter. Having established exactly where he stood with the new manager, Schoeneweis sat down.

More than eight years later, Scioscia leaned back in a chair that's been his ever since. He is the longest-tenured manager in Angels' history, this season passing Bill Rigney, who guided the club from its 1961 birth until 1969. There are few organizations that reflect precisely what their manager is about. The Atlanta Braves are one. The St. Louis Cardinals. The Minnesota Twins. And the Angels, who play to Scioscia's view of the game, to his expectations, to every stinkin' pitch of every stinkin' game, or fail trying. They've made the playoffs in four of his eight seasons, in 2002 reaching and winning the only World Series in franchise history. Schoeneweis made 60 appearances for that team, six in the postseason.

"He had a lot of talent and really pitched well for us at times," Scioscia said of Schoeneweis. "But, with Schoney, if we were going to get what we expected out of him, you couldn't let him off the mat."

The imprint of which lingers on Schoeneweis' cheek. Others bear the same markings.

"It was everything," Schoeneweis says. "I was kind of a young punk, very strong-willed, thought I knew everything. He definitely thought he knew everything. And we battled."

He's still speaking softly, well beneath the din of pre-game preparations, his New York Mets attempting to organize themselves. The manager was fired two nights earlier, Willie Randolph here and gone. Three managers would be fired in baseball over the same week. Scioscia, though, was sturdy as ever, in first place again, presumably at that moment insisting on preparation and execution from some other guy. Five years later, Schoeneweis is still hoping.

It's like one of those sappy afternoon specials on TV, Schoeneweis says, where the father is dying and the long-torn relationship with his son is mended, right there in the hospital room.

"You know," Schoeneweis says, "I love you, son. I love you too, dad."

He smiles. "And then everything's OK in the world. I think enough time's gone by. I think deep down he likes me, cares for me. And it's mutual."

Mike Scioscia's tenure with the Angels

Year Record AL West finish/playoffs

2007 94-68 1st; Lost ALDS

2006 89-73 2nd; None

2005 95-67 1st; Lost ALCS

2004 92-70 1st; Lost ALDS

2003 77-85 3rd; None

2002 99-63 2nd; Won World Series

2001 75-87 3rd; None

2000 82-80 3rd; None

These are big jobs, pressurized by impatient owners who require full ballparks and winning ballclubs to run their businesses, and by general managers who balance today's outcome against tomorrow's promise and the following day's employment. The manager runs his clubhouse, along with his Triple-A clubhouse, along with a few prospects in his Double-A clubhouse, and then nine innings a night. The good ones can manage a man at a time.

Chone Figgins claims Scioscia welcomed him to the big leagues in late August 2002 and that it was the last conversation they had for at least a year. Not one word, he said, or none that he could recall. Then, one day, Figgins swears, Scioscia turned to him in the dugout and asked Figgins to get him a Gatorade.

"That didn't happen," Scioscia said, laughing. "Well, if it did, I was joking."

Either way, Figgins recalls, the next afternoon Scioscia pulled him aside and refreshed his scouting report on Barry Zito. Fastballs up, Scioscia told him, and lots of curveballs. Gotta stay on top of the curveball. After reasonably successful at-bats that night against Zito, Figgins said, Scioscia returned and said, "There you go. Now go back to what you do."

"With Chone," Scioscia said, "he had a fearlessness of just getting out there and playing baseball. You just wanted to wind him up and let him go."

As a late call-up in 2002, Figgins watched Scioscia mold and prod and encourage players such as Darin Erstad, David Eckstein and Adam Kennedy. He watched them respond, stacking good at-bats upon good at-bats, sprinting from first to third on singles, standing in the proper places on defense, insisting on the same from teammates. Scioscia's broad philosophies grew from them, from the accumulation of their simple yet trained mechanics, and then he watched when the machinery jammed, and Scioscia's response.

"It's how you take it," he said. "Some young players can handle it and some can't."

Along the way, Figgins said, most of Scioscia's players have been better for it, as have the Angels. Those that haven't probably wouldn't have been long for the system anyway, or even long for the game.

"I think when some guys don't have the mentality for it, they can't take when somebody's telling them to be better at it," he says. "It's going to be hard. I'm sure a couple players came through here that couldn't handle it. Some younger players take things better than others. It's not for everybody. For me, who likes to come play every day and leave it on the field, a line-drive hitter who likes to steal bases, it works for me. He thrives on perfection, just like I do."

To this day, Figgins maintains that simple relationship with the only major-league manager he's ever had.

"I don't really talk to him," he says, laughing. "We don't talk much. When it comes to him, I'm really quiet."

Scioscia gestured to the clubhouse and a room of men stepping away from a loss, and not a good one. The Angels hadn't played well, lost to the Mets and would leave the next day for Philadelphia, near where Scioscia had grown up to become a first-round pick of the Dodgers in 1976.

"That's a talented bunch of guys in that room," he said. "They've gotten to this level for a reason. They're not in that room by a fluke. Now we put the pieces together, my staff and I. There are important things in baseball that get overlooked, things like secondary leads and going first to third and breaking up a double play. And always playing defense. That never stops, even if you're 0 for your last 37.

"Those types of things are laid out very clearly, so there are no misunderstandings. Those kids we just signed that are in Tempe right now? They're getting the exact same message. Philosophically, you have to give these guys direction. And I don't do it for any other reason than, 'Hey, we want to win, too.' We bring them together to win. I didn't invent it. This was stuff that was instilled in me since I was 17."

Before he retired in 1992, Ace Bell taught and coached baseball for 40 years at Springfield High School, 10 miles from Philadelphia, for 40 years. Mike Scioscia was his catcher for three of those years.

"A natural," Bell said of Scioscia. "Everything he touched."

Early in Scioscia's sophomore season, Bell, as he had for more than two decades, called the pitches from the dugout, which the catcher would relay to the pitcher. Between innings, Bell approached Scioscia about an opposing hitter.

"I already got it, coach," Scioscia told him. "I know what you're thinking."

Bell grinned.

"Mike, you're on your own," he told him and, indeed, did not call his next pitch until after Scioscia graduated.

After the 2002 World Series, Scioscia called Bell.

"Mr. Bell," he said, "it's unbelievable the way this team played. You would have loved it."

They reminisced about Bell standing in front of the team at that old blackboard, shooting balls into gaps with chalked line drives, challenging every player to align themselves against that screeching, gritty arc. Everybody wants to win, Scioscia conceded. But Bell was the first to provide him with the steps to win, the first to talk to him about the focus necessary to make the next play and forget the last mistake, "the first guy I was around who preached the finer points of baseball to me."

"I knew," Bell said, "he was destined for something."

Scioscia played 13 seasons for the Dodgers, batted .259 and won two World Series. His ninth-inning, game-tying home run against Doc Gooden in Game 4 of the 1988 NLCS remains one of the pivotal moments in Dodgers history, and his savage plate-blocking is still recounted in the corridors of Dodger Stadium. Now, however, 14 years since he retired, going on eight since he left a dead-end job with the Dodgers to become one of the premier managers in the game, he has crossed a career bridge. He is no longer an ex-player managing, but a manager who once played. He's reminded that that's not so bad, as Joe Torre, a one-time MVP, has covered the same ground.

Scioscia got a laugh out of that.

"I crossed that line a lot earlier than Joe did," he said.

Among active managers with at least 1,000 games of service, Scioscia is third in winning percetnage, behind Bobby Cox of the Braves and Ron Gardenhire of the Twins. His staff has produced two current managers, Bud Black in San Diego and Maddon in Tampa Bay.

"He always believed that he managed to win and did not manage to prevent losing or to cover his butt," Maddon said. "I considered him fearless and prepared, with a sharp mind that was able to stay ahead of the game. His strength lies in his passion for winning and the way he goes about it."

In a corner of the Angels' clubhouse, Garret Anderson listened with some amusement to the stories of Scott Schoeneweis and Chone Figgins, the manner in which Scioscia managed them, how he dragged one along and simply pointed the other to the ballfield. It speaks to Scioscia's versatile leadership, he said, even while demanding the same game from them all.

"The day they hired him, that's when things changed," Anderson said. "The attitude changed. How we go about our business changed. How we're viewed as an organization changed. He played in L.A. They won. They were an arrogant bunch of guys who knew they were going to kick your behind every night. That works in this sport. You hear it enough, you start thinking, 'I guess we're going to get it done.' You have no choice.

"In my mind, there is no perfect manager. But, one thing I can say honestly, he's fairly consistent with his demeanor and he's fairly consistent in how he treats people. It's tough to perfectly manage 25 people. But, he's fair. His demeanor on a daily basis is a positive thing for this team."

Though he'd played for only the Angels, he'd been around long enough to hear all the speeches. By the time Scioscia walked in, Anderson, in parts of six big-league seasons, had reported to four previous managers.

"It was different coming from him," he said.

Certainly it was for Schoeneweis, for others like him, for those who have come along since. The Angels don't always win and, indeed, they are 4-12 in the postseason since 2002, advancing out of the division series once in three Octobers. But, the baseball is familiar and reliable and end-to-end assertive. It is Scioscia's game, Scioscia's way. It's made something of the Angels.

Schoeneweis shrugs. It's almost time to go.

"I don't want any of this to sound like a negative," he says. "It's what he expected. And I didn't know any better. What he's done here and what I was a part of, it's tremendous. They just win. They find a way to win. Those teams, especially that World Series team, they weren't the most talented teams. But, they found a way."

Besides, he says, "He's got his own style. I've talked to a couple of the older guys, they say he's changed. Softened, maybe."

He looks back and shakes his head. "Probably not," he says, smiling. Probably not.

Now this is a class I wouldn't want to be associated with, personally. What a way to demoralize three men who gave all they had, and worked very hard. No respect at all. This article pretty much sums it up. Keep your head up Willie, Rick, and Tom. Now you can take a crack at that greener grass. Cheers.

That was an amazin' act of cowardice by Mets

by MIKE VACCARO, New York Post

Updated: June 17, 2008, 10:41 AM EST

ANAHEIM - The e-mail was time-stamped 3:14 a.m., Eastern time. In a simpler time, in a different world, maybe the Mets would have succeeded completely in this cowardly purge of their baseball team. Maybe then they would have been able to hold off on telling everybody what they'd planned to do until long past their vessels in the media were fast asleep.

Ah, but there is this wonderful thing known as the Internet now, and here we are, telling you that while you were sleeping, at 3:14 a.m. New York time, at 12:14 a.m. California time, two hours after the Mets beat the Angels 9-6, the Mets finally got around to firing Willie Randolph.

Maybe that seems a simple proclamation. Maybe you think everyone knows about the Internet. Well, the men who run the Mets are quite obviously simple men, and sinister men, cowards cloaked in "no comments," who have seen the way their baseball team has performed this year obviously decided: people don't just need to be fired.

They need to be humiliated.

What a crowd these bums are, all of them, from the Wilpons at the top to Omar Minaya down below, all of them who conspired to botch this firing worse than any firing has ever been botched. Ever. You wouldn't trust these guys to run a 7-Eleven, let alone a National League baseball team. What a joke. What a cowardly, dastardly joke.

A midnight massacre.

A 3 a.m. thrashing.

Disgraceful. Utterly, completely, disgraceful.

And here's the ridiculous part: They could have gone through the transaction of what they did — firing Randolph, firing Rick Peterson, firing Tom Nieto, elevating Jerry Manuel and Ken Oberkfell and Luis Aguayo and Dan Warthen, at any time across the past few weeks and they would have been perfectly justified.

Hell, if they wanted to raze the whole staff last October, after the epic collapse of September, that would have been all right, too. You may not have agreed with it (although a loud segment of Mets fans surely would have). But that would have simply been a baseball decision. And the baseball was enough to warrant it.

This? This is unspeakable. These men couldn't have been fired in New York, before heading on a plane and flying 3,000 miles to their doom? They couldn't have been spared the ignominy of a public perp walk back east, their dignity thrown into their carry-on luggage?

Really?

Is this the best the Mets can do? Is this really what they are about? Can they really consider themselves a professional operation when they do the simplest task in sports, firing the manager, this wretchedly?

It's entirely possible that Randolph fell on his sword over this one, because it was being swirled that he would be spared and his coaches sacrificed, and if that indeed happened we will laud him and praise him for that later on. Randolph was never going to be confused with John J. McGraw as a manager. But he wasn't J. Edgar Hoover as a person, either. We already knew that.

What we know now is that Randolph was so much better than the men he worked for it's as if they were playing a different game in a different league. What a fiasco. What a joke. Less than two years after Game 7, less than nine months from opening their signature ballpark, the Mets reveal themselves, again, for what they've been for too long.

A cheap, unfunny joke.

Run by a miserable cast of miscreants. Good for Randolph, Peterson and Nieto. They may not know this, but their lot in life just got a bit brighter, getting away from this batch of bums.

Here is something I found while on mlbtraderumors.com. This is for everyone who believed the Mariners had a chance because of their off season moves. Now, I'm in no way trying to bash the Mariners, so Mariners fans....please don't take offence to my post. That is not what it is intended for. I have nothing but respect for each organization, but It was just hard to listen to all of the speculations before we even started playing baseball. Now I understand that everyone goes into the season with winning their respective division, and ultimatly a world championship as their goal, but I think it just became quite rediculous. Also, John McLaren should have just let what happens on the field speak for itself. Once again....actions speak louder than words. Enjoy.

Mariners Foibles

By David Cameron

As I write this, the Seattle Mariners have the worst record in baseball at 24-42. They stand 16 1/2 games behind the first place Angels and, worse, they stand a staggering nine games behind the third place Texas Rangers. The team will have to play inspired baseball for the rest of the season to just avoid finishing in last place, and suffice it to say, this isn't how the front office saw the 2008 season going.

"It's a completely demoralizing position we're in right now, based on the completely legitimate (preseason) expectations" was the line recently offered up by General Manager Bill Bavasi after last week's sweep at the hand of an Angels roster missing Vladimir Guerrero and Chone Figgins in a series where John Lackey didn't take the mound. Even with the reality of lousiness staring them in the face, the executives in charge of compiling this roster are unwilling to admit that this team was assembled poorly. It wasn't just a bad move here or an underperforming player there, but a long series of poor decisions that have led to this abysmal season. In fact, the foundations for this failure were laid years ago. Let's look at where this disaster started.

October 27, 2003

Coming off a 93 win season that saw the team fade down the stretch and fail to make the playoffs, Pat Gillick resigned as GM and was replaced by Bill Bavasi, but the basic plan for that offseason was laid before Gillick ever stepped aside. Central to that plan was the decision to decline an offer of arbitration to Mike Cameron, who badly wanted to stay in Seattle. Cameron was vastly underappreciated by the organization due to his contact problems and their failure to understand just how valuable his glove was in center field. Two weeks later, they announced the signing of Raul Ibanez to play left field, shifting Randy Winn to cover center in Cameron's absence. At the time, they noted the defensive downgrade but explained that it would be more than offset by the offensive improvement. Ibanez has hit well since returning to Seattle, but his defense in left field can only be described as atrocious and is one of the most glaring issues that has sunk the 2008 team to the bottom of the A.L. West. The seeds of the Ibanez-as-LF disaster were planted on the day that the team decided to jettison Cameron and make a conscious decision to sacrifice defense while chasing minor offensive improvements.

January 8, 2004

The Mariners organization has long been infatuated with player personalities and their effects on team chemistry, often making headscratching decisions based not on on-field ability but instead on thier preconceived notions of leadership and how the game is supposed to be played. That move is typified in the decision to literally give Carlos Guillen to the Tigers, as the organization had grown weary of his late-night drinking and his perceived negative influence on Freddy Garcia. They decided that they would rather go with Rich Aurilia as their shortstop - a guy who more fit their mold of how players should approach the game than Guillen. Aurilia was a gigantic bust and was released four months later, while Guillen has gone on to become one of the American League's best infielders ever since. It was impossible to see Guillen's breakout coming at the time, but the logic used - choosing to field a worse baseball team in order to have better people on it - has haunted the organization repeatedly over the years.

December 15, 2004

After a disastrous 2003 season, the organization was determined to make a big splash and find some new offensive stars to build around, using their financial advantage over the rest of the division to rebuild through free agency. They coveted Carlos Delgado's left-handed power, but after a long dance with him over contract terms, they got tired of waiting and threw $52 million at Plan B - Richie Sexson. Heading into his age 30 season and coming off a major injury while possessing classic old player skills, making a long term commitment to a player with Sexson's profile looked remarkably foolish at the time, and the concerns we raised about guaranteeing an aging Sexson big money have proven true with time. He's simply aged very poorly and is not a major league quality starting first baseman anymore, but the Mariners owe him $15.5 million for the 2008 season. Instead of looking at an aging veteran heading for decline and finding a younger, cheaper alternative, the organization focused on intangibles such as Sexson's intimidating power and ability to be an RBI man. Unwilling to admit that they had missed the boat on how he was going to age, Mariners fans instead got to watch his career end mercilessly during both the '07 and '08 seasons, while Sexson became the embodiment of everything wrong with this team.

December 22, 2005

If there's one glaring flaw the front office of the Mariners has, it's a total inability to evaluate pitching talent. They come from a bent that is entirely seduced by results and cares nothing about the process or the context that those results were produced in. Nowhere is this more obvious than when the Mariners gave Jarrod Washburn a 4-year, $37.5 million deal to leave the Angels and join their starting rotation. Washburn was coming off a 2005 season where he posted an obviously flukey 3.20 ERA, built entirely on a house of runner-stranding cards. His league high left-on-base percentage predictably regressed to the mean, and he went right back to being the #5 starter that he's been for years. Instead of being a solidifying force in the rotation, Washburn has given the M's 445 innings with a 4.72 ERA in a terrific pitcher's park since signing. Despite having to watch him implode in 2008, the M's are on the hook for another $10 million in salary in 2009, and they'd be lucky to give Washburn away at this point. Thanks to a pitching analysis based on results, the organization continues to just wildly misunderstand how to predict future run prevention, and this is most obvious with the Washburn contract. By the way, the next best offer Washburn had on the table was 2 years at a total of $14 million.

January 4, 2006

Faced with a strong desire for some "left handed sock," the M's focused on a list of low-cost, one-year options to fill the hole at Designated Hitter. Completely ignoring the entire concept of replacement level, the M's disregarded every player on the planet that wasn't a proven veteran with a long track record of success, essentially ensuring they were going to get a washed-up old timer on his last legs. That guy turned out to be Carl Everett, and his could-see-it-coming-a-mile-away failure both doomed the offense and led to an even more heinous transaction, when the Mariners shipped Asdrubal Cabrera and Shin-Soo Choo to Cleveland in separate deals to acquire the DH platoon of Ben Broussard and Eduardo Perez. Neither of the new acquisitions did much to help an offense that was in disrepair, and the careless giving away of talented youngsters in search of proven veterans depleted the farm system of guys who could have helped the team down the line. When asked directly why the team chose Everett over free talent guys such as Carlos Pena, Bavasi replied that "we know Everett can hit 5th or 6th in the line-up, and Pena just hasn't proven that he can do that yet". Good call, Bill.

December 7, 2006

In another transaction that was bad enough on its own and unbelievably horrible based on the future events it led to, we have the inexplicable Rafael Soriano for Horacio Ramirez trade. The M's were tired of Soriano's lack of durability and believed that his elbow was a ticking time bomb, so they set out to trade him at the winter meetings that year. They settled on a left-handed National Leaguer with a NL fastball because "he'd won some games before" and the Braves were willing to make him available. Ramirez was a complete disaster, giving the Mariners 100 innings of below replacement level performance before getting released. To replace Soriano, the Mariners then converted 2006 #1 draft pick Brandon Morrow into a relief pitcher, believing that they needed a new power arm to replace the one they just lost. Two years later and Morrow is still stuck in the bullpen, losing precious development time and not being able to be viewed as a potential option for the rotation. Because Morrow wasn't considered starter material, the Mariners blew $48 million on tub-of-goo Carlos Silva and then spent a first round pick on Josh Fields in the 2008 draft in order to have a new power reliever in the organization to allow them to move Morrow back to the rotation eventually. By trading Soriano, the M's not only got back a horrible pitcher, but they also opened several holes on the roster that they then spent precious valuable resources trying to fill.

December 18, 2006

Finally, the cherry on top of this amazing series of bad roster moves. Determined to not let Everett go down as the worst designated hitter in organizational history, the M's made the decision to fill their DH role for 2007 with a broken down middle infielder who had the power of an eight-year-old girl. The Nationals simply wanted to move Jose Vidro, who didn't fit in a league where defense was required, and somehow convinced the Mariners to pick up $12 million of the remaining $18 million left on Vidro's contract. The rationale given was that a move to DH would somehow restore the 32-year-old's power and, besides, they really needed a #2 hitter who didn't strike out, despite the fact that they had a team full of guys whose best skill was contact and lacked power. Not surprisingly, Vidro's power never returned, and he's posted a .289/.350/.376 line since coming over in the trade from Washington. Only in Seattle would that be acceptable as a performance from a designated hitter completely incapable of playing the field or running the bases, but somehow, that's what the organization decided they wanted. Vidro's presence on the roster not only kept the remains of Ibanez comically chasing fly balls in the outfield, but it also has forced them to keep top prospect Jeff Clement languishing in Tacoma while he destroys Pacific Coast League pitching. Hilariously, Vidro's 2008 performance has been so terrible (.215/.260/.323) that most fans are amazed he hasn't been released yet, but John McLaren's lineup construction veers so far from reality that he's spent the last two weeks alternating between the 3rd and 4th spots in the batting order. Seriously, Vidro, he of the .583 OPS, spent several games hitting cleanup for the Mariners recently. I wish I was kidding.

Through it all, the Mariners front office has demonstrated a staggering lack of ability to evaluate and project major league talent. They have repeatedly misunderstood what makes a winning team and made brutally bad choices that are compounded by even worse decisions trying to fix the problems created by the first act of ignorance. Through it all, they've doggedly maintained that their ways are effective and will work despite mountains of evidence to the contrary. Team President Chuck Armstrong, talking about the season and the job status of the front office on May 25th, uttered the following quotes:

"In my 23 years, I have never ever seen anything like this," Armstrong said "We saw it the other way in 2001. I mean, you have to ask yourself, 'How did the Mariners win 116 games that season with that roster, compared to this roster?' This is just as inexplicable the other way."

"Their positions are secure," Armstrong said "They are not to be blamed for what's going on."

"We have given no thought to making any changes in managerial personnel," Armstrong said. "Same for the GM. Listen, he's part of the solution, not the problem."

What's worse than abject failure? How about rooting for an organization that can't even recognize the problem from the solution? The Mariners executives are so rooted in their ways, so dogmatic in their wrongheadedness, that there is seemingly no light at the end of this long tunnel that we call being a Mariner fan. $117 million dollars in payroll has bought them a roster on pace to lose 104 games, and through it all, they won't admit responsibility. It's inexplicable, after all. What else is there to be said?

So, while surfing the net I came accross a debate between Angels and A's fans. Some A's fans claim to have the better team because of the number of World Championship's they have in comparison to the Angels. However, some Angels fans claim to have a better team due to celebrating the most recent World Championship.

Now I have been a die hard Angels fan for as long as I have memories, and absolutely cherish our 2002 Championship. Now in saying that, I believe this is the worst debate in recent memory.

Let us remember that Baseball is the sport of, "what have you done for me lately?". Lately....the Angels win division title's, and are the favorites to do it again in '08. Now I will give credit where credit is due, and if the A's can give the Halo's a run for their money then....well, cheers to them. They have a solid team of mostly "no-namers", and are keeping a decent pace with the Halo's. I don't believe they can keep pace all season, but hey....my opinion. As far as the Rangers, and Mariners....the Mariners have quite the uphill battle to try and make things interesting for themselves. The Rangers are likely just a couple of key pieces away from being pretty scary.

(Feel free to leave your opinion's. All are welcome.)

So what I'm saying is, let's see what happens this season. Then we will have an entire off season to debate it, untill we get rolling again next spring.

Good luck AL West, and GO ANGELS....this should prove to be an exciting season indeed.

I'm obviously new here, and just want to say hello. I'm sure I will likely be posting mostly Angels news, so if you are a Halo fan, this is a place to stop in and say hello. Also any fantasy news, and tips would be greatly appriciated. Please feel free to share your thoughts, and/or opinions. Well, I guess that's that, and GO HALOS!!!!