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Five Questions: Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim

1. What's with this Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim stuff, anyway? Has Arte Moreno lost his mind?

2. Is this rotation any better?

Pitcher            W-L     IP   ERA  dERA   K/9  K/BB   G/F  VORP
Bartolo Colon    18-12  208.1  5.01  5.03  6.83  2.23  0.91  22.2
Kelvim Escobar   11-12  208.1  3.93  3.85  8.25  2.51  1.14  53.2
John Lackey      14-13  198.1  4.67  4.16  6.53  2.29  1.11  29.3
Ramon Ortiz        4-5   79.0  5.47  4.96  8.25  2.51  1.14   6.0
Aaron Sele         9-4  121.2  5.03  5.18  3.25  0.90  0.94   7.4
Jarrod Washburn   11-8  149.1  4.64  4.70  5.18  2.15  0.96  22.4

• dERA is mostly from Jay Jaffe's 2004 DIPS, except for those pitchers used in multiple roles, Ortiz and Sele, for whom I calculated dERA based on their starting splits.


• All stats are strictly as starters. Ortiz and Sele use mlb.com's starter/reliever split stats.


• For Ortiz and Sele, I calculated VORP with Tom Meagher's assistance, for which I thank him.

• Paul Byrd (130.2 IP, 4.87 ERA, 17.7 VORP): PECOTA doesn't like guys coming off injury and seems to generally have trouble predicting their performance. Byrd's got a Tommy John surgery two years behind him, and supposedly that's when such guys often have their best years. Seen in spring training throwing a sinker he couldn't before because it hurt his arm too much, I'm going to go stupid-Pollyanna here and say he'll outperform this by a win or so, that is, he makes his 75th percentile projection (159.0 IP, 4.21 ERA, 29.7 VORP).


• Bartolo Colon (168.1 IP, 4.49 ERA, 25.8 VORP) has seen his strikeouts drop significantly over the last five years. Despite a slight bounce back (crawling up from 5.75 in Montreal to 6.83 last year with the Angels) and the aforesaid late-season recovery from ankle problems, reports from Dominican winter ball say he's put on even more weight in the offseason, not good for a guy already having joint trouble.


• Kelvim Escobar (167.1 IP, 4.06 ERA, 33.9 VORP): here's a guy who had his best year for control and fourth-best career strikeout rate last year, and still he gets no love from PECOTA. Maybe that makes sense. Prior to last year, he's never been more than four wins above replacement. Still, I can see two mitigating factors. First, this predicts around six starts' worth of downtime, which I think is excessive. Also, because Toronto never put him into a consistent usage pattern, I'll suggest that PECOTA is unfairly punishing him for managerial choices. I'll hesitantly call PECOTA overly pessimistic about his playing time and suggest gently that he'll hit his 60th percentile projection of 180.2 IP, 3.76 ERA, and 41.0 VORP.


• John Lackey (150.0 IP, 4.85 ERA, 16.8 VORP): When the first syllable in your last name is "Lack", the epithets fly fast and hard if you lose -- as Lackey did often last year. A couple good months in July and August prevented his decline into Hooverian depths of sucktitude, but he's only shown flashes of the guy who took the ball in Game Seven of the 2002 World Series. The decline here is altogether too plausible, fueled in part by a serious loss of playing time. Whether that's due to injury or incompetence, we'll leave the audience to decide.


• Jarrod Washburn (136.3 IP, 4.61 ERA, 18.1 VORP): last year, Wash fell prey to ribcage problems that kept him out for almost a month and a half in July and August. Normally an extreme flyball pitcher, Washburn radically increased his grounders last year as he began to throw more changeups and breaking pitches. If he can stay healthy, he's got a decent chance of beating these numbers, but last year showed that was a big if.

3. Is this the year the bullpen falls apart?

                                 2004 Actual           2005 projected
Reliever                IP   ERA    K/9  K/BB  VORP    IP   ERA  VORP
Brendan Donnelly      42.0  3.00  12.00  3.73  15.3  49.3  3.28  15.8
Kevin Gregg           87.2  4.21   8.62  3.00  18.2  92.1  4.38  14.3
Francisco Rodriguez   84.0  1.82  13.18  3.73  37.6  85.1  3.29  24.4
Scot Shields         105.1  3.33   9.31  2.73  31.5  95.2  3.73  22.2
Esteban Yan           87.0  3.83   7.14  2.16  17.7  66.3  4.39  10.4

• Gregg was horribly inconsistent, with a dominating 0.59 ERA in April and a 2.12 ERA in May, but never again would he post a single-month ERA below 5.00. His 3.10 dERA leads me to think he's terribly unlucky on H/9 last year, but his .178 LD% (line drive percentage) shows a lot of solid hits. He needs to miss more bats or he's going to find himself in Salt Lake this year.


• Yan's been terrible throughout most of his career; Hyperion seemed the only answer. His ERA (3.83) nearly halved in Comerica, and amazingly, his dERA (3.94) kept pace. Yan shares a .178 LD% with Gregg, making his 2004 look very fluky.


• Expecting some regression from Shields seems reasonable, though I don't think this much is in the cards, as he retained strong peripherals.


• Even dismissing PECOTA's pessimism about K-Rod's abilities, if Scioscia runs him the same way he ran Percival, it's likely he'll end up with far fewer innings than even this lightweight estimate. Percy missed about three weeks in June due to hip troubles, but even accounting for this, it's altogether possible that Frankie will only see 50-60 innings as a closer, a huge waste of talent.

4. Do the Angels have a plan at 1B?

5. How good is the Angels' outfield defense?

Player             UZR    Rate2     PMRR
Garret Anderson    -17       94   -18.80
Steve Finley       -28   92/107*   -5.58
Vladimir Guerrero  N/A      103    -0.75