OMG 1-4!

Even if he is habitually slow at every season’s start.

Thanks for that bit.

wouldnt expect some big star and teenage fanclub out of a sports blog….good choices!

oh and i went with #1 Record…flawless except for one track (india song), IMO

Tori Hunter is turning all singles into doubles on MLB The Show

That is unusual for the Angels. Howie Kendrick is the leader with two. No wonder Soth said in the paper this morning, " If we were playing a AAA team last night, they would have beat us."

One of the oddest numbers the Angels have compiled is the pitching staff’s HR/FB ratio. It is currently at a MLB worst 25.6%. That’s wacky! It means a QUARTER of the flyballs the Angels pitching staff has surrendered has left the park. How absurd is this number?

To put some perspective, in 2009 the AL staff with the best ratio was Oakland at 9.2%. The worst? The Orioles and the Blue Jays at 11.6%. In 2008 the best was again Oakland at 8% (Royals were next best at 9.2%) and the worst were the Orioles at 10.7%.

So what’s my point? The normal ratio of flyballs leaving the park for a HR is 10%. Check out the numbers. It doesn’t matter how good or bad the pitching staff is, the HR/FB ratio is remarkably consistent for pitching staffs right across the board.

2008

2009

It’s still way too early to read too much into the numbers, but at least at this point the Angels’ AL worst ERA is due largely to their out-of-the-ordinary HR/FB ratio.

…and even then the “panic” didn’t start until late May. That was the year of Steve Finley and Jeff Weaver.

For any early panickers out there, recall the start the Yankees had last year. They were HORRIBLE for the first month.

The Angels have a talented team.
They have the best manager in baseball.
They have the best owner in baseball.
It’s a really long season.

I agree, it’s early, there’s no reason to panic (yet), but red flags should be popping up all around.

This is the worst start for the Angels since 1992.

Nothing wrong with that. It ain’t science. It’s largely anti-skeptical. And there’s a point where all this pattern detection becomes more fetish than “perspective”. Conspiracy theorists and the Rev’s much-abused astrologers are patternistas as well.

One could paint the opposite picture by looking at the dearth of four-game losing streaks in 2009 instead of the abundance of 4-of-5 loss clusters. Neither picture being too representative.

If there’s a darkness to fear, it’s in the age and relative immobility of our outfield, in the fragility of the rotation, and in the lack of depth at AA and AAA. Not in any small sample numerical alignments.

But I’m repeating myself — and that’s verging on house rules abuse.

If it was Third/Sister Lovers or the bootleg Linda McCartney soundboard tape, it would have been so much easier.

I went with #1 Record just on the strength of Ballad of El Goodo alone.

But gotta go with the Big Star in this poll.

I don’t see how anyone can be pessimistic about the Angels, unless they’re sitting at a .500 record with two weeks left in the season.

I was probably drunk when I wrote that.

Also, I had #1 Record as my 20th favorite album of all time a couple years ago, while Bandwagonesque was a curious omission from my top 40. So I guess I’d have to go with #1 Record, but I’d take Teenage Fanclub’s full catalog. Thirteen and Howdy! are both really great albums.

hard to have any back and forth. Although the exchnage between HK47 and b0rderline was a welcome distraction.