Every so often, the CtPG writers have so much unbridled enthusiasm about the Angels that we unwittingly engage in a drawn-out conversation about our favorite club. We feel our readers will be interested in such content, and we’ll be sharing such happenings as they occur moving forward.
Today’s quick discussion was about the Angels bullpen, the current tragedy it is, and the last time the Angels had a good ‘pen. The conversation has been edited slightly for clarity. These discussions occur naturally, and we hope you enjoy reading them.
Chase Kimura: When was the last time you felt confident in the Angels’ bullpen? 2014?
Rahul Setty: 2017
Chase: I mean like gooood good. 2017 was a good pen, but the last really awesome pen was in 2014. I do miss Petit and 2017 Parker, though
Jessica DeLine: 2017 was pretty good
Chase: But 2014’s was better and deeper
Jessica: 2014 was better
Chase: Even freaking Salas was solid
Jeff Joiner: 2014 easily
Chase: I miss 2014
Jeff: Even Vinnie Pestano was good in 2014
Rev Halofan: When did Scot Shields retire? The year before that.
Jessica: So was our rotation
Rahul: 2017 pen: 6th highest fWAR (0.6 behind 3rd place dodgers), lowest BB/9, 8th most IP, 5th best FIP
Jessica: and imagine that! Good pitching got us to the playoffs
Rahul: it was more than just “good”!
Chase: Garrett’s knee getting destroyed at Fenway was really the latest chapter in franchise curses
Rahul: 2014 pen was 13th in fWAR
Jessica: that low?
Rahul: different environment, no doubt, but worse K/9 and BB/9, and a worse W-L record (as the purpose of a bullpen is to hold leads late!)
Chase: Well, yeah. That’s because 1) Frieri and 2) they acquired Street and Grilli in July. They were 2nd in the second half.
Rahul: crazy split here…1st half (26th, -0.2 fWAR) vs 2nd half (2nd, 3.7 fWAR). Considering that 1st half is nearly twice as much playing time as 2nd half, I rest my case.
Chase: Ehhh got over half of the 2017s pens total in less than half a season. Plus, Rick loves Joe Thatcher
Rick Souddress: Lol
Turks Teeth: 2014 team could’ve gone deep in the playoffs if not for late season tragedy.
Chase: A healthy Richards would’ve been the difference. And Aoki can still go kick sand
Jessica: Richards + leave out Hamilton
Turks Teeth: In retrospect, trading assets for the bullpen made sense, given how critical the pen was to 2002 and most postseason runs tbf
Jessica: he hadn’t been playing and Scioscia threw him in anyway
Rahul: Will never forget the media fawning over the O’s even though we had a better record by several games
Chase: I’m always in favor of loading up on the pen for the playoffs
Jeff: I’ll never forget the look on Hamilton’s face as he played catch between innings. Dude was in a bad place.
Chase: How empty the feeling of Trout’s first postseason homer felt
Only postseason homer*
Turks Teeth: Of course, it wasn’t just the fall of Richards, it was Shoe going down as well. That was Shoey’s golden season
Chase: Skaggs, too, to a lesser extent. I just feel like if the team had a good pen, they’d be somewhat competitive. Other than Shohei’s stinker the rotation has kept them in games and looks like it could be okay.
Jeff: Shoemaker was our rock that year.
This was a quick one, but share your thoughts in the comments!
Photo credit: Keith Allison, Wikimedia Commons
Entertaining. Would read again.
l like the chat here. Picking a Halos team season or comparing players career years or talking about your favorite players would all be fun to read. Keeping it down to four or five different personalities per article would be better in terms of the amount of input would be beneficial also. Keep ’em coming it’s fun and interesting.
Wait did I just get fired?
Would not be the same w/o you.
I miss that 2-headed monster of Isringhausen and Takahashi
My lol contribution was critical to the discussion here.
very!
Pretty deep comments by that Jeff guy, ha ha. I love our little baseball chats and think we should make them more accessible.
Agreed. Would love to hear feedback on whether these are interesting, valuable, and how we can make these better moving forward.
I love it, Rahul. Some good comments about 2014. And the mention that 2017 is the last bullpen we kind of liked only highlights what I don’t like about Billy.
I vote interesting, which is valuable to me.
Please post more of these. I think it’s just what we need to spur discussion.