The Angels are bidding adieu to 13 minor league free agents. The long goodbye evokes a smidgen of "What was" and a lot of "What might have been" ...yet it is a bland smidgen this year... barely bittersweet... but there will likely always be that feint Moonlight Graham Field of Dreams ringing of their names in our fan ears for years to come... The thirteen guests at this year's Last Supper are...
Cole Armstrong, Jeff Baisley, Bear Bay, Jason Bulger, Matt Cusick, Anel de los Santos, Eric Junge, Paul McAnulty, Kevin Melillo, Orlando Mercado, P.J. Phillips, Kevin Richardson and Freddy Sandoval.
A few of these players had a cup of coffee or more up in Anaheim...
BULGER was who we traded Alberto Callaspo for back in the day. Always on the cusp of being a setup man, his 2009 season was his full-timeiest. He got DFA'd and was unclaimed early in 2011 and spent the rest of the year in AAA Salt Lake.
McANULTY was comic relief in 2010, the apparent spawn of a cross between Don Mincher and Bartolo Colon, he out-trumboed Mark Trumbo in K-HR frequency as an all or nothing 1B.
SANDOVAL would have played a lot more in Anaheim had we not been stacked in the slap-hitting sharp-gloved infielder department. The trading away of Sean Rodriguez gave an opening to Sandoval to shine but the injury bug bit at a terrible developmental time. With the era of Jean Segura ascending, Freddy takes a bow.
UPDATE: A previous version of this story mentioned Gil Velazquez, who was removed from the 40-Man Roster but is not eligible for free agency and still remains under club control. Also being removed from the 40-Man Roster but staying with the organization were Efren Navarro and Chris Pettit. All three were outrighted to AAA Salt Lake. The Angels 40-Man roster now stands at 36... that leaves room for Wilson, Buehrle, Fielder and Pujols.
If you never watched the 1970s Elliot Gould classic The Long Goodbye, I highly recommend it. Pitcher Jim Bouton has a cameo in it as an unlikable jackass. Typecast as a Yankee...