Top 10 Most "Premium" Players of Recent Memory (2004-2010)

My favorite topic here in 2005

Hillensuck was kind of a panic acquisition, after Juancho broke his leg in winter ball.

Esteban Yan, Bartolo Colon the year after his Cy Young, JC Romero, Scott Kazmir (2010), Scot Shields (2010), Brian Stokes (2010), Fernando Rodney (2010), you know what, what about the entire 2010 Bullpen?

set the standard for Halos garbage relievers.

The dreck left after Steve Finley. $8 mil for 50 abs and an BA of .100.

Jeff Weaver.

He was a beast until this year. He is far from the ranks of wood and mathis

and thought “alright, finally I have a fan who is going to post stuff about bad players and leave me out of it,” then he sees hes at the top of the list, and the only player mentioned twice. he left here more confused than mathisrocks5 is about his feelings for Mathis.

That assbite single handedly cost the team more than half a dozen wins and a playoff slot only to turn around and grab a WS ring for his dick-headed self, making snide comments blaming the franchise he screwed into an early grave.

1. The definition of “premium.”.
2. Yup.
3. God, that GMJ deal is still going to hurt for awhile.
4. Guillen is a little crazy, but he gave the Angels some value in his time. It’s not like the Angels gave him $36 million to play below replacement level like the Royals did…Oh wait, they gave #3 on the list $50 million to play below replacement level. Still, I’m surprised I’ve never heard anyone second-guess the decision to suspend Guillen. He was the second-best hitter on that team, and they could have used his bat in the playoffs. He’s mostly behaved himself since (except for the whole PED thing, but who wasn’t on PEDs in 2004?). What really happened?
5. What a shame. But at least the Angels haven’t stuck with him through arbitration like #1 and #2. Um, how long until Wood hits arbitration, again?
6. Eh, I hardly even remember this now.
7. Why are we still blaming Josh Paul for the Pierzynski Incident? It was such a bullshit play, they even revised the rules to prevent it happening again. Besides, that game was tied in Chicago, meaning the White Sox had a better-than-even chance of winning in extras anyways. And Josh Paul had absolutely nothing to do with the next three games, in which the Angels got outscored 19-7.
8. No argument here. It might be fun to add up all the dollars the Angels have spent on center field since Erstad became a cripple. Then again, it might not be.
9. Yeah, this contract was garbage. The Gil Meche of the early 2000s.
10. Hillenbrand’s problem was not attitude as much as it was being bad at baseball. If only Jeff Mathis had the same problem.

This franchise is going to have a hard time outdoing itself on GMJ. The money wasted on Mathis is just teaspoon-full compared to the volume of rectal discharge that was the GMJ deal. Developing situation: the Angels could lose a shitload of money on Torii Hunter too. And Bobby Abreu, now that you mention it. I really, really hope Bourjos learns to hit soon, because this team just does not know how to get value from free-agent outfielders.

Guillen would not have helped against the Red Sox in the playoffs, because the odds are we would not have even been there. The 2004 Angels made a fantastic final week comeback to steal the division from the A’s, and they did it all without Guillen. They seemed like a team that was happy to be rid of him.

And then in the offseason, Stoneman made one of his best trades getting Izturis and Rivera for Guillen. So I would not change a single thing about how the Jose Guillen experience worked out for the Angels.

this post begs for someone a little older than me to really get into the TRADITION of the subject. I mean, i was just a kid, but the Mike Port era was awesome for useless players. And he was really good at trading major league ready prospects for old corpses. Here I’ll start….

Dante Bichette (and his roids) for Dave Parker (and his cane.) Willie Fraser….
…. and so on.

Larry Barnes?

i’m aware of that one and i’m only 20.

35 years ago, the Angels aquired him from the Dodgers. That lasted for two years before they sent him back. For some reason, which I now don’t recall, he used to be my favorite player. He had a knack for clutch pinch-hit homeruns (well a few here and there).

Funny that the list of players are all post 2002.