Calling All Angels, WE GOT ALBERT!!!!!!

Gal has hinted that we may make a permanent move here and as we don’t know when the other site will be up and running again I have decided to start the Angels thread on here.

Erick Aybar has agreed on a one-year deal for 2010 worth $2.05 million. We now only have Jeff Mathis who is arbitration eligible and he had his hearing on Thursday. He wants $1.3 million and we have offered $700,000.

Jeff Mathis has won his arbitration case with the Angels and will earn $1.3 million in 2010. I’m a bit surprised he won but at least this will hopefully keep him happy.

We have released Scott Kazmir. It’s not much of a surprise after his struggles this season. It’s amazing just how different a pitcher he was in 2010 and 2011 compared to the player who pitched at the end of the 2009 season. His velocity has been down and I do wonder if he will try and do what Colon did. I hope he manages to get back to a level so he can pitch in the big leagues again.

I will have a closer look at this tomorrow. A few things strike me as a bit odd. What has Wilson managed to do to get a higher rating than Mathis? Downs should be an A with his 0.88 WHIP and 1.65 ERA.

We have been on a good run of late and it all started on our 4 corners road trip. We manage to win every series as we went from Seattle to New York to Florida before heading to LA to face the Dodgers. We managed to win every series 2-1 although we should have swept the Dodgers if it wasn’t for a bit of awful umpiring. It was good to see us winning some series’ and having a chance to win just about every game. We have looked good on the road so far this season and it was good to keep that going.

We then headed home and managed to sweep the Nationals who had been playing well before winning 2 out of 3 against the Dodgers. We have struggled at home this season and hopefully this is the start of some improved home form.

Wells has really started to swing the bat well and Bourjos is hitting better after going through a bit of a slump. Russell Branyan also hit his first home run that proved to be the game winning hit in the final game against the Dodgers. I believe that is now 10 teams in MLB that he has hit a home run for and I heard that is one short of tying the record.

Torii has missed a few games through injury but he should be in the starting line-up tonight against the Tigers.

We are now finished with interleague play and we are tied with the Yankees for the best record at 13-5.

Congratulations to Howie Kendrick and Jered Weaver on making the All-Star team and they have both been excellent for us this season.

We are currently 44-41 and are tied with the Rangers for the lead in the AL West. We are about to face the Tigers for 3 games and then we face the Mariners for 4 games in our last series before the All-Star break.

The Mike Trout era will start tonight.

I can't wait!

The All-Star game came at the wrong time for us as we were on a good run before it. We managed to take 2 out of 3 from the Tigers and came close to a sweep but a big home run from Cabrera meant the Tigers won the final game of the series. The series also included a great pitching match-up between Haren and Verlander as Haren came out on top as we won 1-0.

We then managed to sweep a 4 game series against the Mariners. This time Haren had to face King Felix and again he came out on top winning the game 4-2.

We start the second half with 4 games on the road against the A’s which includes a scheduled double-header on the Saturday. We then head home for a big 3 game series against the Rangers.

Our rotation out of the break hasn’t been confirmed but it looks like Haren will pitch on the Friday and that Weaver will pitch one of the games on the Saturday which would mean that they would both pitch in the series against the Rangers.

We haven’t had the best start to the second half as we go 1-3 against the A’s. I said that the All-Star break came at the wrong time and I was proven correct. We looked extremely rusty and looked like we had lost a lot of the momentum that we had built up before the break. The Umpires didn’t have a good series but it made no difference. We need to get going as we have a pivotal series against the Rangers which starts tonight.

We have Chatwood pitching tonight and then we had our two aces pitching the final two games of the series. We need all 3 of them to be at their best as the Rangers are flying at the moment.

For a game and a half this was looking like it was going to be an awful series for us. We lost game 1 by a score of 7-0 and trailed 8-3 going into the bottom of the 6th in game 2. Everything seemed to be going the Rangers way as they seemed to punish any mistake while the Rangers defence seemed to be in the perfect position to make plays on balls that we had squared up well on. We then scored 6 runs in the bottom of the 6th and Downs, who has been excellent for us, and Walden managed to hold the Rangers scoreless through the final 3 innings to get us an important win.

Game 3 was all about pitching as we beat the Rangers 1-0 to take the series. Weaver and Wilson both pitched well with the only run scoring on an error by Chavez on a ball that should have easily caught.

It was an important series win and it was important to put an end to the Rangers win streak. We now face the Orioles who caused us a lot of problems last season. Winning the series against the Rangers was important but it is even more important for us to continue to build momentum and to win this series against the Orioles.

Roster moves:
Peter Bourjos has been placed on the DL but should return soon. Alexi Amarista has taken his place on the active roster.

Michael Kohn has been sent to the Minor Leagues and his place on the active roster has been taken by Horacio Ramirez.

Hank Conger has also been sent to the Minors to make room for Tyler Chatwood who started game 1 against Texas.

What are your thoughts on this Tijani?

I don’t believe that we are in any real financial problems.

It’s no secret that the Angels have made a loss the last couple of seasons and that Arte has covered the difference. He has said that he doesn’t mind this as the Angels brand is growing and he is more focused on the long term. He has played about and saved money were he can in the past on everything except for the teams payroll.

In terms of payroll, we have our highest payroll ever at about $140 million. I don’t think it will get any higher than that any time soon. We did make big offers to Crawford and Beltre and while both players have a few good years left in them, they both got more money and years than they should have. We made a mistake by trading for Wells but that was a lot of money for us to take on. People keep on saying that we should have made a move but I’m not sure what move people think we could have made that would have made a major difference.

The season ticket news doesn’t surprise me as I know we lost 6,000 season ticket holders and it makes sense to get the numbers of season ticket holders confirmed as early as possible.

I suppose there could be something to it but I doubt it.

It is being rumoured that we have agreed to a five-year, $85 million extension with Jered Weaver. This is excellent news as he would have been a free agent after next season and it’s good to have him signed long term. The deal should be confirmed on Tuesday and Weaver will have a full no-trade clause.

I thought the needs were pretty obvious, an outfielder, a rental for 1st base and a starting pitcher, and maybe some bull pen help. Part of the problem could have been that the obvious source for all of those would have been the A's (Willingham, Harden/Moscoso and Ziegler for example) but our asking price would have been high, and it would be inside the division, always a tough deal to make.

This might quieten down the rumours of the Angels having financial problems. Good move in my opinion, and for less dollars than I was expecting.