In the comments... Pick 'em
• Harold Baines
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• Bert Blyleven
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• Andre Dawson
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• Rickey Henderson
• Tommy John
• Don Mattingly
• Mark McGwire
• Jack Morris
• Dale Murphy
• Jesse Orosco
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• Dan Plesac
• Tim Raines
• Jim Rice
• Lee Smith
• Alan Trammell
• Greg Vaughn
• Mo Vaughn
• Matt Williams

The Angels offered arbitration to 4 of their 5 arbitration eligible free agents, holding back on only veteran outfielder Garret Anderson.

Looking at the chance to get a possible 7 draft picks before the 2nd round begins, the Angels offered arbitration to Mark Teixeira, Francisco Rodriguez, Darren Oliver and Jon Garland.

Complete Guide to Every MLB Team's Arbitration Decisions

This closes the door on Anderson's 18.5 years with the club. He was drafted in the 4th round of the June 4, 1990 amateur draft. He leaves at or near the top of every offensive counting statistic in franchise history. Having recently retained the services of Scott Boras as his agent, the Angels seemed in no mood to risk him calling their arbitration bluff, not with the possibility of Boras presenting the case to the independent arbitrator.

The four players extended arbitration offers have a week to accept. It seems most likely that the Angels will target Darren Oliver for a two year deal rather than let him go. The other three players are more likely content to test the free agent market despite the gloomy economy looming for the 2009 baseball season.

Yahoo Coverage Link

Five of six Angel Free Agents will yield the angels high draft picks if they turn down an offer of arbitration. However, some of them might accept the offer. The Five Are: Garret Anderson, Jon Garland, Darren Oliver, Francisco Rodriguez and Mark Teixeira.

MLB.com Coverage Link

Garland and Teix are the lest likely to accept the offer, so those are no-brainers. Any one of the other 3 would not be the worst one-year contract the club ever signed. Juan Rivera is also a free agent but will not yield any draft picks. This is the thread to discuss who we need and who we cannot risk inviting back into the fold.

Ninja Reagins must cut bait under the crescent moon and stars this evening...

#78 - Shigetoshi Hasegawa, RHP

Continue reading this post »

The Top 100 Angels are logjammed at postions #71 - #77... you can help clear this up by voting for the Top Angel out of the Following 7 in our poll...

Righty Reliever Doug Corbett was the bridge between the starting pitching and Donnie Moore in the 1986 pennant race. He amassed 10 saves that season himself and spent 4+ years finishing 98 games in an Angels uniform. He was the winning pitcher in Game 4 of the 1986 ALCS, making him, for years, the answer to the trivia question: Who was the last pitcher to get a postseason win? He held this distinction from October 11, 1986 until October 2, 2002, when Francisco Rodriguez was the winning pitcher in Game 2 of the ALDS (it was Frankie's first victory at the major league level). Jered Weaver is the answer to the question now.

Would the Angels have won the West in 1986 without Corbett? Perhaps. But he was a solid constant in the pen during a golden half-decade in team history, and he is #79 here today because of it.

Career Stats

Relief Pitcher MARK CLEAR dropped a few places in the standings since our last countdown of the 100 All-Time Angel greats.

Here is the writeup he got here on this blog post- 2005:

The Angels won the American League West for the first time in 1979. Slugger Don Baylor was named the American League MVP. Angel Reliever Mark Clear finished 19th in A.L. MVP voting that year. But I've always had the feeling that they wouldn't have made it without him. It wasn't his 14 saves and it wasn't his 11-5 record (still among the top ten Angel single season Winning %). It was the feeling of destiny created by a guy who always seemed to have two runners on base representing the tying and winning runs and finding a way out of it. Destiny or heartburn, Clear paved the way for many an Angel fan's ability to cope with dramatic relief efforts instead of pleasant 1-2-3 Ninth Innings.

Rob McMillin of the 6-4-2 L.A. Baseball Blog delves into the details...

You have to wonder about a guy who gets drafted at age 18 whose club immediately gives up on him. That was Mark Clear's story, an eighth-round pick (171st overall) in 1974 who spent one year in the Phillies' organization. Released just after spring training in 1975, the Angels picked him up the following June as a free agent, and he immediately began beavering away in the Halos' minor leagues. Struggling for another three years in single-A and AA ball, a light went on for him in El Paso: his prolific walks declined somewhat, but his strikeouts soared.

Immediately going into the Angels' bullpen, his wicked curveball was matched only by his shaky control, walking 68 batters to the 98 he struck out in his rookie season. Nonetheless, his early work was dominant, posting an otherworldly 0.53 ERA in 1979 spring training that caused the club to release reliever 11-year veteran Ken Brett despite owing him $165,000. "They never really told me I'd made the team," Clear later said. "I came to the park and they had a suitcase with my name on it." He made sure the Angels wouldn't regret that decision, following up his remarkable spring training with a 2.75 ERA over his first three months in the Show, an effort that earned him an All Star berth along the way to the Angels' first AL West division title. He led the pen in innings pitched (109) and strikeouts that year.

Clear came back the next year with similar numbers to his 1979 campaign, and was widely regarded as untouchable when he was traded on December 10, 1980, along with third baseman Carney Lansford and Rick Miller, for 30-year-old shortstop Rick Burleson and 29-year-old third baseman Butch Hobson. Both would turn into busts; Burleson played in 253 games over five seasons with the Angels, while Hobson had only two years left in the majors, only one of them with the Halos. Meanwhile, Clear would earn another All Star trip with Boston.

After three tours of Milwaukee from 1986 to 1988, Clear missed all of 1989 thanks to elbow surgery in March, and re-signed with the Angels as a free agent the next year. He signed for a minimal contract, and suffered the indignity of being sent to AAA Edmonton just after spring training; he pitched in four games before he finally retired.

Career Stats

In the motels of Orange County, Outfielder Tony Phillips will always be recalled for what he was cracked up to be.

From our Post-2005 Top 100 Angels Series...

Look at it this way - any player who was traded to our team twice and helped us get rid of both Chad Curtis and Jorge Fabregas is easily going to be on the Top 100. And to top it off, Phillips was an integral part of two pennant-chases (1995, 1997). But then, in August of 1997, when it seemed like they might actually put something together, he was arrested for burning rocks in a sleazy Orange County motel. Hence no pennant that year, hence no higher than #72.

The Chronicler was even closer to the crackpipe than I...

Some friends and I went to the Angel game on August 9, 1997. The photo of Tony Phillips that was on the big screen was absolutely frightening - his eyes were just way too wide open and way too wild. It was downright scary. My friends and I made jokes about how he looked like he was on crack or something. About five or six hours after that game ended, Phillips was arrested in an Anaheim hotel room for freebasing cocaine.

Sports Journalist Rob McMillin has the complete story...

Tony Phillips only spent a year and a half in an Angels uniform; he came up with and was most famous for his exploits with Oakland, where he became the first Oakland Athletic to hit for the cycle on May 16, 1986, and tied the major league record for assists at second base with 12 in a nine-inning game. Principally playing shortstop and second base for the A's, the Tigers signed him as a free agent in 1989, where he played outfield and third base, finally arriving in Anaheim by way of a trade April 13, 1995.

The initial reaction was one of disbelief. Mike Penner in the Times wondered skeptically, upon hearing that the team had executed a trade, whether the team had made another of its infamous youth-for-veteran blunders ("They traded a 26-year-old outfielder who stole 25 bases last season for a 36-year-old outfielder who stole 13. Same old Angels.") There was plenty of reason to think he might be done; the season before, despite hitting a career mark in slugging percentage (.468), he only played in 114 games. It turned out the fears were unfounded. Phillips had an outstanding year, clubbing 27 homers over 139 games, helping to power the Halos to what was nearly their first division title since 1986.

The Angels gave him a pass after he became a free agent at the end of the season, with the White Sox picking him up for a two-year deal. Unfortunately, his off-the-field activities marred his record in Chicago; in May, 1996 while playing outfield in Milwaukee, he jumped into the stands and punched a fan for making racial slurs, a situation he exacerbated by seeking out the fan after the game, getting into a shoving match. (Both the fan and Phillips were charged with disorderly conduct and fined.) Phillips came back into the Angels fold following another trade on May 18,1997; the Halos were looking for a leadoff hitter, and they hoped the now-38-year-old would fill the bill. "I'm not part of anyone's future anymore," Phillips said. "I'm here because they want to get it done right now. I'm excited to play for [Manager Terry] Collins. He's an aggressive guy. All of us little guys have a chip on our shoulder."

He lacked the speed he once had -- he only stole nine bases with the 1997 Angels -- but he'd lost little of his ability to get on base. His off-field troubles flared up again in August, when he was arrested for possession of a small quantity of freebase cocaine. Though he finished the season with the Angels, the team -- then owned by Disney -- had no interest in renewing their relationship with an aging player who was a public relations liability. He played out two more mediocre seasons with the Blue Jays, Mets, and A's, and retired in 1999.

Career Stats

Rob runs the informative 6-4-2 L.A. Baseball Blog and The Chronicler, aka Blackhawk Waterloo, writes about the Angels at his Chronicles of the Lads blog.