The last time the Angels won less than 89 games, Scott Spiezio was their starting first baseman and Jarrod Washburn led the team in innings pitched. That was 2003, and in the six years that followed, the Angels have won the AL West five times, finishing second in the only year they weren’t the champs. It was a tremendous run. But like all good things eventually do, it may be coming to an end.

The Angels aren’t a bad team, but they aren’t a great team anymore either. With John Lackey bolting for Boston, the team’s best player is now probably Kendry Morales, who has had one good major league season. While the team has quality around the diamond, there is a significant lack of star power. There’s not a single guy on the team that projects as a true talent +4 win guy. There is no franchise player.

That doesn’t mean they’re doomed, of course, because there are a lot of ways to build a roster, and you don’t have to have a superstar in order to win. But, to win without a premium player requires that you get legitimate major league production at nearly position. You don’t have the wins coming from the top to compensate for a glaring hole anywhere, so depth is crucial. The Angels certainly have that depth, but it’s not young and spry. Hunter is 34, Matsui is 35, and Abreu is 36. Even Juan Rivera is on the wrong side of 30. That outfield is long in the tooth, and they need all of those guys to play well and stay healthy.

It may work, but for the first time in a while, the Angels are clearly vulnerable. They’re no longer the clear favorites in the AL West, though they’re still certainly in the mix. But without a premium group of young players to build around and some important aging role players, the Angels are at a crossroads. If they don’t win in 2010 with this team, it might be time to look at going young for a year or two in order to rebuild the foundation of the team.

The team is well run and well financed, so the Angels will likely never be a laughing stock, but their run of owning the division appears to be nearing its end. This will be a critical year for the Angels future as they try to figure out just what they’re going to be going forward.

The Angels future is in question for the same reason that I have confidence in it. At first, we might wonder just what the team’s plan is after the 2012 season, given the sheer quantity of players slated for free agency: Mike Napoli, Ervin Santana, Jered Weaver, Joe Saunders, Maicer Izturis, Howie Kendrick, Erick Aybar. Those are just the homegrown players. Surely, the rich Angels will re-sign some of these guys, but I can’t imagine that all of them will stay in Anaheim. So, while the loss of any of these players will represent a hit to their post-2012 future, the fact that this Angels scouting department could produce so many big league talents at once gives me faith in their ability to have replacements ready.

However, given that praise of the team’s ability to scout, I also must re-hash my issue with the organization. As I’ve written previously, the Angels must do a better job of scouting the signability of their draftees. Nothing hurts a scouting department more than when a former draftee, like Matt Harvey or Zach Cone, blossoms after spurning a sizable offer. It’s now six players (in the first five rounds) in five years that the Angels have failed to sign, a trend that can’t continue should the organization hope to add any depth. They were better in 2009, signing their first six picks until third rounder Josh Spence inexplicably turned down six figures. Inexplicable as it might be on Spence’s end, clearly there was better value to be had with that pick.

Even without Spence, the 2009 draft has a chance to be a banner class. This is what happens when you have five of the first 48 picks in the draft. With back to back picks near the end of the first round, the Angels snagged a pair of high school outfielders in Randal Grichuk and Mike Trout. Both were spectacular in their debuts, Grichuk showing his huge raw power, and Trout with nice patience and speed skills. They won’t reach the Majors anytime soon, but they give the Angels some star potential in a system that needs it. The team then gambled on three pitchers: Tyler Skaggs (a projectable California southpaw), and enigmatic college talents Garrett Richards (Oklahoma) and Tyler Kehrer (Eastern Illinois). All were good in their debuts; I like Richards heavy movement the best of the three.

But where the system thins out is what exists in the middle, between that 2012 free agency group and the 2009 draft class. On the Major League side, you have cornermen Kendry Morales (post-2013 free agent) and Brandon Wood, who no longer profiles as an above-average third baseman for me. Maybe there’s still belief in Sean O’Sullivan or Trevor Bell, but it’s not coming from me. This is where the upsetting loss of Nick Adenhart strikes the hardest, as the right-hander should have been the ace of the next generation of Angels contenders. But as the organization’s inspired play last season proved, the show must go on.

In the minors, I see three real talents in that middle range, and then like every team has, some arms that serve as coinflips. My favorite talent is Peter Bourjos, written up by Erik Manning on this site not long ago. Bourjos might not be a leadoff hitter, but he can be league average, and that will be enough to contribute many WAR. In a perfect world, the Angels move Torii Hunter soon to make room. Won’t happen. Hank Conger will replace Napoli as catcher, but he’ll require the Angels to keep a plus-defensive catcher as back-up. I think his bat is overstated, but it certainly can be above-average for the toughest position on the defensive spectrum. The last talent is Trevor Reckling, a big lefty that prevents hitters from ever making good contact. His command is a mess, but I think he puts it together and becomes a viable big league starter.

I know the Angels can do it, because they have done it before. But this team will not succeed in the future on young talent alone, given the gap between guys like Jered Weaver and Garrett Richards. Some years hindered by a faulty process leaves a gap without a hint of depth. This scouting department will bring the talent back, but homegrown players will be few and far between for a couple seasons.

The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim have won the American League Western division three years on a row while outperforming their Pythagorean expectation by a combined 20 games. This has tended to generate a lot of hot air. Are they just lucky? Does Mike Scioscia have some managerial secret? Are they good at situational hitting? These concerns distract from the obvious: the Angels have had very talented teams, and still do.

The outfield is a good-hitting, poor-fielding group. Juan Rivera, (along with Chone Figgins, Kendry Morales, and Torii Hunter) had a career year in 2009, and while I think he’s far from a +15/150 fielder, he isn’t helpless out there and can still hit after missing almost two years due to injury. Bobby Abreu’s power has dissipated at an alarming rate, but he remains an on-base machine. His defense is terrible, but he isn’t in the same league as Jermaine Dye and Brad Hawpe… yet. Torii Hunter doesn’t get enough attention… that is, attention for how overrated he is (particularly in the field), but he’s an above-average player. As a whole, this a decent group, if older and (in the cases of Abreu and especially Hunter) overpaid. Depth is also a concern, given the group’s age and history; if one of the three has a serious injury, that could lead to far too much playing time for Willie Bloomq–, I mean Reggie Willits. Or worse, Terry Evans. I suppose designated hitter Hideki Matsui could see some time in the outfield but that seems… sub-optimal.

If the outfield is aging and overpaid, the Angels are getting great value from their underrated group of home-grown, cost-controlled infielders. It’s unlikely that first baseman Kendry Morales will have another +28 season at the plate in 2010, but after finally getting a chance, he’s shown he’s an above-average player. Erick Aybar’s bat is also due for some regression, but he has a tremendous glove at shortstop. Remember a few years back when Howie Kendrick and Brandon Wood were slated to be destroy the league infield, with Wood hitting 30+ homers a year from shortstop and Kendrick being a second base version of Tony Gwynn? Well, that didn’t happen. But Kendrick is a plus bat and glove at second, and Wood is finally getting his chance at third base. If any of the three should stumble, Macier Izturis is a plus bat and glove who is good enough to start for almost anyone. Mike Napoli may not be much with the glove at catcher, but he more than makes up for it with a bat that might be the Angels’ best.

While the Angels’ 2010 rotation doesn’t feature an obvious ace, it’s not as if the departed John Lackey had pitched like one since 2007, anyway. It’s a big advantage to be able to go four-deep with good starting pitchers, and Jered Weaver, Scott Kazmir, Ervin Santana, and newcomer Joel Pineiro are all various degrees of above average. Concerned fans should look to the bullpen, once a great strength of the team. Brian Fuentes and Fernando Rodney are a less-than-intimidating 1-2 “punch” at the back end; Jason Bulger might be the best choice for high leverage situations.

The losses of Chone Figgins and Lackey hurts the Angels a bit, but not terribly given the relative quality of their replacements and the $120 million combined for which Figgins and Lackey signed. The starting lineup has no holes. There are depth concerns, and the bullpen isn’t what it was, but many teams have those problems. The main problem the Angels have is that the other three teams in their division are no longer floundering. As will probably continue to be said ad nauseum, the AL West projects as the most closely matched division in baseball. It would be foolish to count a good team like the Angels out, but for the first time in years, they aren’t the obvious favorite.

I will admit to being more bullish on the Brewers than anyone else I know that is not from Milwaukee. I realize that the projection systems have them as about a .500 team, but I’ve got them closer to 86 or 87 wins.

I may be the world’s last remaining believer in Manny Parra, who I still expect some pretty good things from. I’ve been a Rickie Weeks fanboy forever, and I’m still high on his abilities if he can stay healthy. I love watching Carlos Gomez play defense. And those guys are just the role players around a really good young core. Prince Fielder, Ryan Braun, Alcides Escobar, and Yovani Gallardo form a tremendous quartet of young talent, and give Milwaukee some of the best building blocks in the game.

Given the talent already in Milwaukee, I think they’ve got a legitimate shot at contending for at least the next two years and likely beyond. Whether they can retain Fielder is an open question, but even if they can’t, they should be able to get a significant return in trade for him that will include some major league ready guys. With the roster they’ve put together, I don’t see Milwaukee dropping off any time soon.

Part of that belief is faith I have in Doug Melvin and his crew, who don’t get enough credit for the job they’ve done. The Brewers aren’t loud about their integration of scouting and statistic analysis, but they’re one of the more forward thinking front offices in baseball. Melvin might not have an Ivy League pedigree, but he runs a really good organization.

Milwaukee is a good young team that should remain a contender for years to come. Their payroll limitations and mediocre farm system keep them out of the top 10, but it’s definitely a good time to be a Brewer fan.

Because he was the first non-General Manager to win the Baseball America Executive of the Year award, and because he’s attained a cult hero status among saberists, it seems to me the ebbs and flows of the Milwaukee farm system over the next few years will be credited to the loss of Jack Zduriencik. It’s true, the guy is a fantastic scout, and his framework of going after power provides a direct line to draftees like Prince Fielder, Matt LaPorta, and Ryan Braun. But, even more than just losing Jack Z, we have to remember this team also lost his right-hand man in scouting, Tom McNamara, a former crosschecker in Bobby Heck, and the voice of sabermetric reason in Tony Blengino. It’s not the same group making decisions in the draft war room, but I think we would be foolish to suggest that esteemed GM Doug Melvin hasn’t replaced them with a new squad of successful scouts.

But they do have some work ahead of them. The Brewers have graduated so much talent, and because they haven’t had great luck in the middle rounds for a few years, there just isn’t a lot of depth in this farm system. The future middle infield is there, serviceable bats at third base and catcher, and then you’re left wondering which of their many raw arms drafted in 2008 and 2009 will work out. At least there’s Ryan Braun, ranked as the eighth-best commodity in baseball by Dave Cameron, who will be around Milwaukee through 2015. If the walks keep up and the defense comes around, Braun quickly vaults into annual Most Valuable Player talks. The other young Major League star is Yovani Gallardo, who is right on the cusp of brilliance, if only he can get that walk rate back to three per nine.

The team has just two more seasons with three other offensive success stories from the previous scouting era, Prince Fielder, Corey Hart and Rickie Weeks. J.J. Hardy, the fourth member of the posse, was shipped out this offseason to make way for top prospect Alcides Escobar. Weeks, I presume, won’t be re-signed with consensus #2 prospect Brett Lawrie knocking at the door. Both players are worth opening up a spot for, albeit for completely different reasons. Lawrie is the traditional offensive prospect, just a little physical maturation away from being a 25 home run guy, and a lot of hard work ahead to be an average defender. Escobar has always been that defender — the Brewers must think his glove is better than J.J. Hardy’s, even — and is just now showing some signs with the bat. The hope for Escobar, the perfect world projection, is the shortstop version of 2009 Franklin Gutierrez.

After that, it thins out quickly. I like Jon Lucroy a little bit, and it helps that his path to the Majors looks undeterred. With his pitch recognition, I have some good confidence he can be a .340-.350 wOBA guy, play two-thirds of the season behind the dish, and put up 2.5-3 WAR. That’s about the level I see Mat Gamel at, but with less confidence that he’ll be the best option available at any point in time. The team also must believe in Carlos Gomez and his defense in center field. He at least has to bridge the gap until Kentrail Davis is ready, but give the team credit for having a plan at every up the middle position. If you want a sleeper, I like Josh Prince, the shortstop from Tulane who is crazy patient and crazy fast, but he is a ways away without a clear path.

The plan for the pitchers is just as transparent, if a little more problematic: throw a lot of hard throwers into the pot, and see who comes out. This strategy dates back to Zduriencik’s first-round selections of Mark Rogers and Jeremy Jeffress, those mythical prep 99 mph guys, who might overcome their own adversities and become big league relievers. You have the 2009 guys, who we just can’t predict, both because they don’t have much time in the minors and because they were never very consistent in college: Eric Arnett, Kyle Heckathorn. Because of my proximity to their high schools, I have some hope for Jake Odorizzi and Cody Scarpetta, but each has their own warts. The only pitcher in the system that I have total faith to reach the Majors is Zach Braddock, if only because he has the LOOGY fallback thanks to a great slider.

To an extent, I think Milwaukee’s string of successful Major Leaguers makes us believe that these guys, these top prospects, will naturally slot into the holes Doug Melvin opens for them. But, more than ever, the Brewers face the onus of needing these guys to succeed, because there’s just not enough depth for them to put together plan B.

The Brewers are coming off of an 80 win season in which their position players earned the right to pummel their pitchers into a big pile of replacementness. The position players accumulated 26.1 WAR, good for 2nd in the NL, while the pitchers only managed a measly 3 WAR, good for last in the NL. However, this post is supposed to be about their chances in 2010, so let’s not dwell on the past. The Fans and PECOTA have the Brewers at 78 wins and CHONE has them at 81, all of which gets them 2nd or 3rd in the Central with a 15-20% chance of getting into the playoffs. Clearly, they are not eliminated from the race before the season starts, but a decent number of things will have to go their way for a playoff berth.

The Brewers’ everyday lineup is built on two stars, a high upside young guy, and some average-ish filler. This model in not too dissimilar from their division rivals the Cardinals, it just so happens that the Cardinals players are projected better at most of the positions. As an interesting aside, both teams have their two stars projected to amass ~45% of the WAR for their starting eight. Those two stars, Prince Fielder and Ryan Braun, both project to hit well above average, which more than makes up for their below-average defense, and places both in the top 20 of projected WAR for position players.

Alcides Escobar’s mean projection is a slightly above average to above average glove and a slightly below average bat at a premium position, but he probably has the widest distribution of the Brewers’ position players given the lack of data off of which to project. Carlos Gomez is somewhat similar in that he projects to be more glove than bat and probably has a pretty wide range of outcomes considering his relative lack of experience still. The big question about Gomez is how bad the bat will be. CHONE projects a 0.323 wOBA, while most other systems have him hovering in the 0.300 range. At 0.323 he is likely a well above average player, but it would be hard for his defense to be good enough to be anything more than average with a 0.300 wOBA.

Rickie Weeks, if healthy, could surpass his projections as they are all based off of a fairly low playing time assumption. Corey Hart is two years removed from a 4.5 WAR season, and has seen his offense and defense decline. His projections meet in the middle of his last two years and that one good one. The rest of the starting eight, Gregg Zaun and Casey McGehee, project to be below average to sniffing average.

As a whole the Brewers’ staff projects to be better than the 3 WAR they put up last year. Yovani Gallardo is back at the top of the rotation after posting a 3.97 FIP last year and will probably be good for 3-4 wins this year. Randy Wolf comes over from the Dodgers and slides into the number 2 slot after posting numbers similar to Gallardo last year, but with a lower upside for the upcoming season. Next up in the rotation is Doug Davis, who is back for a second go-around with the Brewers and projects to be right around average. The last two spots theoretically should go to David Bush and Manny Parra, but that implies that the Brewers will see Jeff Suppan and his 12.5M as sunk cost.

The bullpen also projects to be better this year, with Trevor Hoffman back slinging changeups in the closer role. They also have solid depth with LaTroy Hawkins, Carlos Villanueva, Mitch Stetter, and Todd Coffey all projecting to have FIPs in the high 3s or low 4s.

Clearly the Brewers have some pieces in place to be contenders, but their chances this year will likely hinge on a Weeks comeback, a big jump for Escobar, and some substantial improvement on the starting pitching side.

Apparently, the Yankees fifth starter isn’t going to be Chad Gaudin. The Yankees officially released the 27-year-old starter on Monday, as Gaudin’s $2.95MM contract wasn’t claimed and he passed through waivers.

Gaudin shouldn’t have any trouble finding a job. He’s clearly a major-league quality pitcher, as he’s posted 4.5 wins above replacement in three seasons and 369.2 innings as a starter and 67 more as a reliever. CHONE has him projected at a 4.58 FIP, which is just above league average. Even after adjusting for his time as a reliever, Gaudin’s projected FIP doesn’t change that much, and he could be worth over 2 wins in 160 innings of starting pitching.

Gaudin was expendable for the Yankees if you assume that one of the Joba Chamberlain and Phil Hughes duo takes the 5th starting spot. If the Yankees are giving up Gaudin in order to put Sergio Mitre or Dustin Moseley or anybody else on the mound with any sort of regularity, this move is certainly a mistake, as Gaudin is certainly better than the scraps of the Yankees pitching depth. It’s possible that the Yankees are reacting to Gaudin’s awful spring, in which he’s allowed a 8.68 ERA and 16 H in just over 9 innings.

[UPDATE: It looks like Phil Hughes will start the season as the Yankees 5th starter, and Chamberlain will go the bullpen, possibly for the 8th inning role.]

It is shocking that nobody claimed Gaudin’s contract, as he has the potential to be worth more than double his $2.95MM salary. One would think that there would be a fight at the top of the waiver order to claim him, but he somehow slipped through the cracks. Gaudin could be a fit for the Mariners if Cliff Lee is forced to miss time, as, unlike Jarrod Washburn, Gaudin has been in camp the whole spring and could probably step in on opening day. Other contending teams that could have slots for Gaudin include the Dodgers and the Cardinals, but really, there aren’t many teams out there that wouldn’t improve with him on the roster.

Entering the Spring Training one of the more interesting narratives, on the face of it, was the battle between Phil Hughes and Joba Chamberlain for the Yankees’ fifth starter job. But all indications were that the battle was pro forma, and the job was effectively Hughes’s to lose. So yesterday’s announcement that Hughes had, in fact, won the job did not take many Yankee watchers by too much surprise. Still this leaves an interesting question: What happens to Chamberlain?

It seems the three most realistic options are: send him to AAA to work as a starter and be ready for a call up when a Yankee starter goes down with an injury; go to the pen as a long reliever so a potential transition back to the rotation is easier; or go to the pen as the 8th inning setup man to Mariano Rivera. Joe Girardi announced that Chamberlain will next pitch on Saturday and go just one inning. I am not sure how much stock one should put in that, but if anything that would indicate they are gearing Chamberlain up for option number three.

I think putting Chamberlian in the 8th inning role would be a mistake. As Joe wrote about yesterday, young pitchers need time to develop as a starter — to work on their command, secondary offerings and pacing. Chamberlain has not had that much time to work on those things as a starter, and the time as a starter has been interspersed with time in the pen. Still, Chamberlain has shown he can handle starting pitching. As a starter he has 92 innings in the minors with a FIP of 2.03, and in the majors he has 222 innings as a starter with an xFIP of 4.22.

Starters are much more valuable than relievers (last year’s most valuable reliever, Jonathan Broxton, was worth about as much as Nick Blackburn, Dallas Braden, John Danks or Brian Bannister). So if the Yankees want to get the most value out of Chamberlain — and based on the strict adherence to the “Joba Rules” it seems like they do — I think they would be wise to send him to AAA to keep working as a starter. Long term this helps his development as a stater and even short term it gives the Yankees a very good option when one of their starters goes down with an injury.

A guess: Most people who read this site grew up yearning to become – heck, dreamed of becoming – a professional ballplayer.

Another guess: Most people who read this site are not professional ballplayers.

Lots of broken dreams surround the job title “professional ballplayer.” The lavish life, full of carefree living, groupie love, hero worship, private jets, and, in Carson’s dreams, additional groupie love. Well, it’s not really like that. Not for most professional ballplayers. The title is ambiguous, although since there are more minor leaguers than major leaguers, the realities of the majority should overshadow the fortune of the extreme minority.

Nevertheless, when people read about Danny Duffy walking away, one reaction is more common than any other. Something like, “How could he!?” Duffy has been called a moron, an idiot, a fool, and a few words that need not be reprinted. Here are the facts as we know them:

– Duffy is 21 years old and the Kansas City Royals selected him in the third round of the 2007 amateur draft.
– His signing bonus was worth roughly $370,000.
– He ranked just outside of Keith Law’s most recent top 100 prospects list.
– Had yet to pitch this spring due to elbow soreness.

To say Duffy had a golden track to the show is a lie. The attrition war that comes with young pitchers has claimed countless victims. Most of them you don’t remember. Most of them never came near a big league ballpark as a player. The majority of the minor league community won’t reach the bigs. That could be a good thing for some, since that one taste as a 25-year-old inspires them to latch onto the hope for another three, five, maybe six years. Then what? Then it’s time to find a day job.

It’s not that these guys never dreamt about being ballplayers. They almost definitely did. It’s just those dreams about the perfect picnic never account for the traffic. As I’ve written before, pitching baseballs seems like a great life, until the next mortgage payment relies upon it. And the thing often ignored when it comes to a player walking away is just how hard this decision probably is for them. The guilt of being successful and blessed with natural talent. The guilt of getting this far, and then to just walk away because you feel overwhelmed or realized that reliance upon money and ability to have fun sometimes cancel out. That guilt has to be… well, difficult.

Critics often accuse saberists of losing sight of an endless truth – that being that most baseball players are human beings, too. Indeed, they are. We might be experiencing the most varied collection of ballplayers in the history of the game. You have metric conscious sweethearts like Brian Bannister. Oft-beat and often humorous players like Manny Ramirez. And then there are players with amazing intellect, like Fernando Perez, or amazing mystique, like Ichiro Suzuki. This collection includes a more taboo side, too. Players like Khalil Greene, dealing with some personal issues and a battle with self, are beginning to find it acceptable to openly exist. And yeah, there are players like Grant Desme and Duffy. They have dreams, and those dreams included baseball at some point.

If Duffy’s dream is to exit on his own, without a tattered elbow, without a wrinkled face bearing disappointment, or without the assistance of poor performances, and instead to go out with a good perspective on being a professional ballplayer then yeah, I can accept that.

Part three of the Twitterverse giveback. FanGraphs’ colleague Zach Sanders asks about the Braves’ utility players. This confused me, because Sanders is a smart fellow who can figure things like this out himself quicker than I can. He seems slightly nefarious though, so I’ve arrived at the conclusion that his request is just Eric Hinske bait. That’s cool, Sanders. I’m totally onto you.

Anyhow, by “Braves utility players” I’m going to take creative liberty and assume that Sanders means Omar Infante. Take a glance at Infante’s positional column on Baseball-Reference. Since 2007 here are the values:

2007: 468597
2008: 75648
2009: 456879

For those who speak in English, not numerical positional coding, allow me to translate: Infante has seen quite a bit of time at second base, third base, shortstop, left field, center field, and right field over the last three seasons. By “quite a bit of time” I mean, he’s really seen playing time all over the field. Last season, for instance, he made 30 appearances at second; 10 at third; 10 at short; 10 in the outfield corner spots; and 8 in center. Plus three pinch running appearances. Infante himself is a pretty useful player. He’s roughly a league average hitter who excels versus lefties and he fields most of those positions well, or at least passably.

My guess is he’s going to continue to play all over since Martin Prado appears to be the better player overall. That makes for a boring piece though, so allow me to parlay this into another Tweet (this one from Philkid3 who used to write on Beyond the Boxscore) in which he wonders aloud whether the back-up middle infielder should primarily possess the skill set of a shortstop, which is presumably interpreted as being able to fill-in at shortstop when necessary. Infante himself actually was a shortstop until the Detroit Tigers acquired Carlos Guillen in 2004. He then moved to second before becoming the super sub that he is today.

I want to open this one up to discussion a bit more, because my answer is that yes. Not because you necessarily want it (although I do think you want the defensive flexibility that being a passable shortstop emits), but because most utility players seem to be former shortstops who couldn’t cut it at the position full-time for whatever reason. Although, maybe I’m off base.