Why Our Subtractions Will Matter More Than Our Additions

Having Matsui playing for the A’s helps the Angels…how? Does his loss suddenly plug the gaping holes the Angels have in LF and 3B? Does it prevent Mathis from catching ANY games in 2011?

The more likely outcome is that Matsui has a resurgance in Oakland and makes us all go through the same experience when Vlad was putting up very respectable numbers for Texas last season.

With the CURRENT roster the Angels have today, and given the improvements the A’s made thus far in the offseason, the Angels are most likely looking at 3rd place in the American League West in 2011.

Especially in a pitcher’s park like Oakland has. I think Matsui’s final line was about what we could’ve expected, and I expect a slight dip next year. The line about the outfield defense is accurate. LF is still a weakness, but CF and RF are strong, and that’s more than we could say most of last year.

Those subtractions should include one “premium” player, one or two slap-hitting infielders, and a couple redundant relief pitchers.

my only thought was the Angels should sign this guy to be our DH in 2010. It happened. Vladimir Guerrero was departing after his miserable injury ridden season. I thought Matsui would be a major upgrade. His batting average, home runs, and runs batted in were well above league average and he posted a 1.9 WAR in 2010. This is what you can expect an hope for from a reasonably priced free agent DH.

Scioscia has been quoted as saying the Angels got what they expected over the season with Matsui even though he got off to a rather slow start for some fans’ taste. I think this is why Matsui didn’t catch on that well with fans in general. Few casual fans are willing to take in account an older player’s age and natural regression particularly DH’s who often are older experienced players. People expected MVP performance every day from Matsui when really he is just human. This is why Scioscia prefers not to have a regular DH but to rotate outfielders through the spot instead.

The problems were Erick Aybar, Juan Rivera, Abreu, Mathis, Rodney, Fuentes, Kazmir all being terrible.

Last I checked, Fuentes is the only subtraction there. Matsui was actually a pretty nice piece…

Matsui was worth 1.9 WAR last season as the primary DH with spot starts in the field. With the loss of Matsui the assumption is that Abreu will slide over to the DH role, as he should, but last season Abreu was worth 2.2 WAR overall with a -8.3 UZR while playing the field. Account for less playing time in the field, knowing scioscia will probably use Abreu for a few starts throughout the season, and I think its safe to say that Abreu will be worth about 2.7 WAR in 2011, although that is a very conservative estimate. The impact of this however, is that the Angels then have to play one of Rivera/Willits, both of whom were essentially league average. What this all comes down to is with the loss of Matsui the Angels may gain a few RAR from the DH spot but will lose almost 2 WAR from the outfield.

The Rays FO woke up New Years Day and said “Time for a change!” Then they got real interested in Mark Trumbo and traded Longoria to us for a package of Trumbo, Mathis (Maddon wanted a piece of that action) and Rodney.

That Morales back a full year along with full years of Bourjos, Haren, Kohn, Walden, and having Downs and Takahashi will help but, another huuge bat sandwiched between Morales and Hunter would give Morales protection along with taking some pressure off if Torii from batting 4th. That’s what Matsui was supposed to do but ended up failing in the middle of the season (of course along with Morales breaking his ankle.) I honestly think just with Beltre we’ll be set to at least compete in the West

You only mention 1 subtraction: Matsui. And although I think letting him go will end up being a good thing, we haven’t really replaced him yet. So, it remains to be seen whether it was a good move or not.

I’ll attempt to finish your post for you. I’ll go ahead and say that it will be a good subtraction to not resign Scot Shields, and it was a good move to trade Fuentes. I think Shields will spend the rest of his career being almost back to form, unless of course he retires. Unloading Fuentes gets rid of one of our unreliable pitchers, although between him, Jepsen, and Rodney, he’s the least of three evils.

So, in a sense, our bullpen is indeed going to be better just by subtracting those guys, even if we hadn’t added downs and what’s his nuts. Maybe we’ll blow fewer games in the later innings. But just losing Matsui certainly doesn’t make us better.

The only way the Angels could have gotten better just by subtracting a player would have been if that player was Jeff Mathis.

End Brandon Wood for good.

Good offense is like good plumbing. Everyone knows it’s much easier to score runs when the bases are nice and clean. Baserunners can only get in the way.