Let’s assemble the best possible Angels team by letter of the alphabet to begin a player’s last name. Like the letter “i”, the letter “Q” did not have enough players to field a team so we move on to the letter R today. 79 men whose last name started with “R” played major league baseball in an Angels uniform.
C – Buck Rodgers
1B – Joe Rudi
2B – Johnny Ray
3B – Anthony Rendon
SS – Luis Rengifo
OF – Frank Robinson
OF – Mickey Rivers
OF – Rick Reichhardt
DH – Roger Repoz
The trouble with Buck is he caught more games than you could ever imagine but was not a great bat, probably cost the Angels many games over the years based on his total usage, but he was THE catcher. Ellie Rodriguez and his 112 OPS+ in 778 Plate Appearances as an Angel gets the short stick here. Despite Rodgers, this is a great lineup, though, the Angel R squad will score a shit-ton of runs.
SP – Nolan Ryan
SP – Garrett Richards
SP – JC Ramirez
RP – Francisco “Frankie” Rodriguez
RP – Minnie Rojas
Minnie Rojas over Hansel Robles is the only quibble in a stellar pitching staff. All in all the R team of Angels might be the best we have seen so far.
I matched on the infield, Rivers, and Robinson, but I had Romanick in over JC Ramirez and Rivera over Repoz. For some reason, I skipped Reichhardt, but he should be in there over my DH choice of Ellie.
So why can’t Ellie be our catcher then. ? Didn’t he catch one of the Express’ No Nos?
I think this is the best team we’ve seen so far, in terms of having a very good offense AND pitching staff.
I think on the pitching side we’d have to stipulate that we get a healthy and peak Richards. To go along with Ryan I like the top two… Then of course Frankie shutting things down at the end.
Also, Rivers, Ray, Rudi, Rendon and Robinson is a really good and balanced first half of a batting order.
Can we take 2020 Rendon please???
Surprised Juan Rivera wasn’t selected.
Me too. We need a Repoz Redo. JR’s Angel OPS of .789 isn’t even close to Repoz .695. Then we should move the 37 year old/ 38 year old Robby back to DH. He was the original Angel DH and with the new rules being the reason we gave up so much for him.
That’s a very good R team. I’d have Joe Rudi in the OF over Rick Reichardt.
There’s some good depth as well such as:
Jerry Remy
Jerry Reuss
Harold Reynolds
Juan Rivera
Don Robinson
I don’t think he’s considering non-Angel performance which kind of leaves out guys like Reuss, Reynolds, and Don Robinson.