Archive for March, 2010

While not directly related to the Angels, this certainly qualifies as AL West news, and something I don’t doubt Angels fans take an interest in. Apparently, as I’m sure everyone knows by now, Rangers manager Ron Washington decided to use a little nose candy back during the 2009 season. Just in case that wasn’t enough for you, he also admitted to using amphetamines and marijuana during his playing career. So, basically, if you subtract the charm, charisma, good looks, and acting ability, the Rangers have Robert Downey Jr running their club house. I’m assuming that he came clean (for the [...]

“People see dark faces out there, and the perception is that they’re African American,” Los Angeles Angels  center fielder Torii Hunter says. “They’re not us. They’re impostors. “Even people I know come up and say, ‘Hey, what color is Vladimir Guerrero? Is he a black player?’ I say, ‘Come on, he’s Dominican. He’s not black.’ ” So said Hunter during a discussion with USA Today, which you can find here, about the declining number of black players in Major League Baseball. It’s a topic that’s been covered many times, no doubt, but one where people rarely make a complete ass [...]

There was a fascinating write up over on FanGraphs yesterday that took the predictions fan voters made on how teams would do for the season and, using a pretty complex simulation, calculated the chances of each team winning their division, winning the Wild Card, and winning the playoffs. As mentioned, the simulation is fairly complex, and instead of trying to explain it and just making myself look silly I’ll let FanGraphs handle that for me. Sadly, the news for the AL West as a whole was pretty mixed, and for the Angels it was mostly bad. While the Yankees have [...]

If you happened to be counting on Chris Pettit as a backup outfielder for the Halos this season, anxious to see what the one-time Player of the Month in the organization had to offer at the major league level, you’re going to be waiting a little longer. During winter ball (that same beast that robbed Juan Rivera of pretty much all of 2007 and likely hurt his production in 2008 as well) there was a “baserunning mishap” that caused Petit to injure his shoulder, resulting in surgery to repair a torn labrum that will end Pettit’s season before it even [...]

I’ve been remiss not to mention this before… Halo Hangout has a Facebook page! Currently it is being updated everytime I post something new here, but soon I’ll be posting links to articles from Spring Training and other information as the season progresses. Become a fan and start following Halo Hangout from your Facebook! (Nate Proctor is the lead writer for Halo Hangout.  You can stay up to date on all of Nate’s work by following him on Twitter, Facebook, or by way of the Halo Hangout RSS feed.)

Among the reasons given in defense of the front office over what many, including myself, have deemed a rather disappointing off-season is that the budget didn’t allow us to add a player like Matt Holliday lest we be unable to sign players like Howie Kendrick or Eric Aybar in the future. While I understand the reasoning behind this, I believe there is a part of the equation people are leaving out, on both sides: Spending the money WISELY. The debacle that was our CF for years is the perfect example of how not spending money wisely can come back to [...]