The Halo Chronicle- 2nd Edition

by Audino237

Okay, yesterday's article was a little bit shaky. I had an incorrect title, and I used bullets. As pointed out by Falcon, I also failed to mention the injured Juan Rivera as a candidate for an outfield job, which he is. Let's see if I can do a little better today on the pitching side of things for the Angels.

The Big Names

The bread-and-butter of the Angels the last few years has been their aggressiveness, starting pitching, and fantastic relief pitching. They have struck out 179 batters, and had a 1.21 WHIP. Escobar had the best year of his career, winning a career-high 18 games in 30 starts. With a 3.40 ERA and a WHIP at roughly 1.27, he joines Lackey as a Cy Young Candidate.

Past the Aces

The staff wasn't just Escobar, Lackey and an injured Colon, however. Six-foot-seven righty Jered Weaver, in his second year in the majors, followed up his phenomenal rookie campaign with a more pedestrian but still solid sophomore season. He made 28 starts and pitched 161 innings, which is probably good for the Angels in the long run because of the light workload (5.75 innings pitched per game). Jered had a 3.91 ERA and gave up only 17 home runs. The team has every reason to believe in Weaver (despite reports of him being hard to coach and being too "California- laid back". In addition to Weaver, Ervin Santana, once a rising star being mentioned as the centerpiece to a deal for Alex Rodriguez, was incredibly inconsistent and was sent to the minors to regain control. He made 26 starts for the big boys this year to go along with 2 relief appearances, and totaled 150 innings. Santana had a 5.76 ERA and a 1.55 WHIP. If not for his tender young age and promise, he would probably be with another team right now. However, even with the down year, baseball-reference.com compares him with pitchers like Kyle Lohse, Jason Jennings, and Kelvim Escobar when they were 24. I think any team would take a foursome of Lackey, Escobar, Weaver, and a Lohse/Jennings in their rotation. Young lefty Joe Saunders had a shaky year, but his playing time was inconsitent due to injuries to Colon and the erratic nature of Santana's starts. He still managed to maintain a 4.44 ERA in 18 starts (107 innings). Saunders is 26, but still needs to get a better K/BB ratio.

Bullpen

The bullpen starts, or should I say ends, with lights-out, enigmatic closer Francisco Rodriguez. K-Rod had another great year, though it may have been subpar for him. He had 40 saves and lost 2 games in 64 chances, but let teams score 2.81 runs per nine innings, which is fantastic but not the K-Rod we're used to.

Set-up man Scot Shields has always shortened the game for Scioscia and his team, but this year didn't always deliver. Still extremely serviceable, Shields fired 77 innings to the tune of a 3.86 ERA. He lost 5 games in 71 appearances. All of his key stats were far off his averages since stepping into the set-up role, so I suspect that this season was an aberration. During the offseason, the Angels stole southpaw Darren Oliver from the Mets, and he was useful pitching 64 innings with a 3.78 ERA. Justin Speier, signed off the Blue Jays for nearly $4million/year, pitched 50 innings in a 7th inning role and had a .96 WHIP to go along with 2.88 ERA. Chris Bootcheck and Dustin Moseley also had very good years for the team.

Outlook

Even without any offseason moves, the starting pitching and bullpen will be good enough to compete for a title, barring injuries. Tommorrow I will map out some offseason options for the team.