Top 15 Angels Acquisitions Ever: Introduction

The vision I had of an official site voting board has come to fruition!

A few weeks ago when I laid out my "casting call", if you will, for the countdown, and I had about 35 people voice their assent and provide emails. I sent those people, as well as our beloved Sam Miller of Baseball Prospectus, the rules of this countdown, which I will now reveal to you.

This is the Top 15 Angels Acquisitions Ever. This means that no member of the voting board could cast a vote for anyone who was either a) drafted by the Angels in the amateur (first-year player) draft, or b) signed by the Angels in amateur/international free agency. This means that the likes of Mike Trout, Tim Salmon, Darin Erstad and Erick Aybar were NOT eligible for votes.

However, if a player came to the Angels via a) major league free agency, b) trade, c) waiver claim, d) expansion draft or e) Rule V draft, they were eligible for a vote and would receive one as such.

Voting was conducted using the Most Valuable Player voting points system--yes, even though this list is for the top 15, I asked voters to vote for ONLY TEN, knowing that there would be enough disparity between votes to where 15 substantial candidates would appear. The points system, for those who may not know, allocates 14 points to a first-place vote, 9 to a second-place, 8 for third, 7 for fourth, 6 for fifth, 5 for sixth, 4 for seventh, 3 for eighth, 2 for ninth, and 1 for tenth.

There was no floor for how long any acquisition had to have played for the Angels, so even guys that were "rentals" were eligible.

Out of a total 35 ballots possible, 23 were cast, for a 65.7% return rate--good for the first go-round, and up from the 56.25% showing we had for awards voting last year. Voters were allowed to use any rationale in their voting--be it statistically-based, weighted towards fan favoritism, intangibles, a combination of those, what have you.

How this is going to work is, starting Monday, we will go from the bottom up, from 15 to 1, profiling each player, their tenure in Anaheim, their contributions to the team, and their vote totals on this list. Since that starts on Monday, however, I figured we could give you all a sneak preview of this list by telling you the folks that got votes, but did NOT crack the Top 15. Some barely missed, some received only a single tenth-place vote. Listed in parentheses beside their names are the amount of votes they received, followed by the points those votes totaled.

In any case, the players who DID NOT make the Top 15, but still received votes, are:

Doug DeCinces (5; 21), Mark Langston (5; 17), Chili Davis (6; 16), Josh Hamilton (3; 12), Scott Spiezio (3; 12), Fred Lynn (5; 11), Frank Robinson (1; 8), Zack Greinke (1; 6), Mo Vaughn (2; 6), Orlando Cabrera (3; 6), Bartolo Colon (2; 5), Don Mincher (1; 5), Bo Belinsky (1; 5), Alex Ochoa (1; 4), C.J. Wilson (1; 4), Kelvim Escobar (1; 3), Dan Haren (1; 3), Bob Boone (1; 2), J.T. Snow (1; 2), Bobby Abreu (1; 1), Darren Oliver (1; 1), and Aaron Sele (1; 1).

22 Angels, be they average, good or great in their own tenures with the team, that did not crack the list. Just think; if these guys didn't make the list, imagine the 15 that did. Some of these guys, like Doug DeCinces, could certainly have arguments for getting in the Top 15; others, like Aaron Sele, are somewhat of a head-scratcher (maybe a tongue-in-cheek jab at the Hall of Fame voting this season).

If you were a voter, I would ask that you NOT reveal your ballots yet; you can, however, reveal if you voted for any of the players mentioned above. For example, Bobby Abreu was MY tenth place vote.

These players that didn't make it ought to provide decent discussion fodder until Monday, when I kick off the countdown and reveal the player named the 15th greatest Angels acquisition in franchise history.