Let’s assemble the best possible Angels team by letter of the alphabet to begin a player’s last name. Today is S. One hundred and Eleven men whose last name started with “S” played major league baseball in an Angels uniform. Who were the best here among those 111?
C – Don Slaught
1B – Scott Spiezio
2B – Luis Sojo
3B – Paul Schaal
SS – Dick Schofield
OF – Tim Salmon
OF – Leroy Stanton
OF – Willie Smith
DH – Tony Solaita
Out of 111 players, a large number for one letter, it was shockingly thin on bats here. Salmon, Stanton, Slaught and Spiezio are the biggest bats here but if you don’t love Dick Schofield well than you don’t know Dick.
SP – Joe Saunders
SP – Don Sutton
SP – Ervin Santana
RP – Scot Shields
RP – Joe Smith
Great Bullpen. With apologies to Luis Sanchez and Hall of Famer Lee Smith, these two here will shut down anyone every night and everyone on many nights. The starting three are league average but eat innings.
I had come up with an identical pitching staff and OF. I went with Stassi and Spencer over Slaught and Solaita based mostly on playing time. In the IF, I was creative so that I could get both Schofield (one of my favorites) and Simba into the lineup, so I put Schofield at 2b (where he played a total of 4 games), Spiezio at 3B and Snow at 1B. While there’s little in the way of big bats, there are a lot of them.
I always loved Tony Solita. RIP.
I loved that Sweet Samoan Swing
Pitching is surprisingly good here. People forget how good and dependable Joe Saunders was.
I am not a Sutton fan however and we of course had him at the end of his career when he was crappy.
Biggest HR in the history of the club…Spiez!!!
RIP Tyler Skaggs
Scott Schoenweis missed the cut here but was better than a lot of guys on other lists.
Yeah, I would put Schoney over Sutton for sure…
The nod is probably going to go to a HOF’er everytime.
So then why didn’t Eddie Murray make the M team?
Lol.
He wasn’t a HOF pitcher for us. He was a shell of his former self. This is an Angels team. At least with someone like Reggie he had a couple of really good years with us and was instrumental in leading us to the AL West crown and playoffs in 1982.
Can’t be said for Sutton.
Scott Schoeneweis- 571.1 IP, 28-31, 5.10 ERA, 91 ERA+, 1.8bWAR
Don Sutton- 430.1 IP, 28-24, 4.16 ERA, 101 ERA+, 4.6 bWAR
post-season
Schoeneweis-6 IP 2 runs
Sutton-9.2 IP 2 runs
In defense of Schoeneweis I can say that the ERA numbers seem bloated but on many occasions he pitched great for 6 or7 innings ( I know because a I was there a few times) but Scioscia sabotaged him by pushing him to go further when he clearly was out of gas… inevitably he gave up runs which hurt his ERA and also the team. A wiser and more prudent manager would have taken the 7 innings and one earned run and been happy. Not Soth.
This is the problem with only looking at numbers. They can be very deceiving, especially if you are not fully aware of the context.
I was at a lot of his games too (I averaged about 20 games a year in person in 1999-2002) and watched most others on TV. I don’t recall ever being overly impressed by him as a starter, but I will note that he pitched in a high offense time frame. He was effective as a reliever in 2002-2003.
Schoeneweis was exclusively a SP in 2000-2001 (59 of his 74 career Angels starts came in those years). During those years, here were his ERAs by inning of the game (I excluded 2002 because I don’t think BB Ref has splits by both role and inning):
Innings 1-3- 175 IP, 5.4 ERA
Innings 4-6- 148.1 IP, 4.97 ERA
Innings 7-9- 52 IP, 5.53 ERA
I also think people are short-changing what Sutton did as an Angel. He was a solid 3rd starter for an Angels team that won the division (he was 41 at the time). Schoeneweis was never that.
The games I am thinking about were mostly as a SP in 2001. In particular, there was one game in Boston (which I attended) where Scott shut-out a potent Red Sox lineup for 7 innings… He struggled in the 8th and despite having a chance to pull him for matchup with runners on Soth declined.., Luckily Schoney escaped the 8th unblemished…But Scioscia went to the well again in the 9th ! It was one too many times. A couple runners reached and he was not pulled, despite the fact he was up over 115 pitches by this point.. He was kept in and as I predicted Brian Daubach hit a 3run HR to right to tie the game. The Angels lost that game in extra innings.
It should have been a win when they went to the 9th with a three run lead and Scott had pitched his ass off.
Funny thing; I was not even mad at Schoeneweis. I blamed that loss totally on Scioscia. He had a rested and ready Shiggy in the pen but refused to use him.
So the Angels lost because Scioscia failed to get Shiggy with it?
I think the game you are describing was actually in 2000:
https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/BOS/BOS200008210.shtml
Yes, this was the game. My memory was off on a couple of things; Scott had not pitched shutout ball but had pitched well enough to win, and SHOULD have won.
And the Daubach HR in 9th was a 2run shot, not a 3 run.
Thanks Cowboy.
Starting staff is pretty good, too.
I am a bit surprised Saunders leads the starting staff, but was always fond of having him on the mound.