Stephen Dunn - Getty Images
almost 2 years ago: ANAHEIM CA - JULY 11: U.S. Futures All-Star Hank Conger #24 of the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim (L) celebrates with teammates U.S. Futures All-Star Eric Hosmer #30 of the Kansas City Royals (C) and U.S. Futures All-Star Mike Trout #20 of the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim (R) after hitting a home run during the 2010 XM All-Star Futures Game at Angel Stadium of Anaheim on July 11 2010 in Anaheim California. (Photo by Stephen Dunn/Getty Images)
The Angels named their national cross-checker RIC WILSON to replace fired Eddie Bane as the organization's scouting director. The Chicago-based Los Angeles Times had a report about it. The Orange County Register had a report that made sure to link to Mark Whicker perpetuating the lie that there was a personality clash with Bane in the Angels front office that led to Bane's demise. Mark Whicker is either stupid, a liar or both.
In the press release announcing the hiring, Wilson was quoted:
"We will continue to bring impact-type players from all means available as per the draft, international market, free agents and trades. We will concentrate on power bats, power arms, speed and defense in order to create a balance of high-end players, as well as solid overall baseball players."
After last season saw an international talent evaluator booted for skimming signing bonuses and this season's naked lack of organizational depth exposed Bane's risky draft strategies as having left the cupboards bare, the specifics among this generality of a statement can be parsed as being less about gambling on projectable toolsy amateurs and more about molding established performers with track records. A safe bet is that the June 2011 draft will feature the Angels drafting more college players.
0 recs | 58 comments
I thought Mike Napoli was the Socuting Director.
He gets all the cute chicks right?
Monkeyspanked - October 21, 2010
That's off-field talent. We're talking about on-field talent.
A common mix-up.
Commander_Nate - October 21, 2010
Oops.
You gotta admit though. Angels stadium gets a lot of off-field talent!
Monkeyspanked - October 21, 2010
Wrecked
red floyd - October 21, 2010
What are his qualifications?
What is a cross checker?
angelsownredsux - October 21, 2010
he checks for cross dressers
Dono Romantico - October 23, 2010
or he works for the Vatican
Dono Romantico - October 23, 2010
Hopefully Ric's first draft will be the letter K
clover_black - October 21, 2010
i like his canned reply of, "we will concentrate on power bats, power arms...
speed and defense." DUH!!! isn’t it implied that those are the type of skills we are after? it’s kind of a waste of quote, it would be great if he said, “we will concentrate on seeing eye singles hitters, pitchers who can’t get their velocity too high and have average movement, molina/bob boone-esque speed and defense is honestly a little overrated.”
thejd - October 21, 2010
better than a response of...
We want guys who are overweight and slow, who’s bats never develop and have the arms of a wet noodle.
Sinatrasratpack - October 21, 2010
naw
He loses his job if they draft in that direction.
rmhalofan - October 22, 2010
How about
We will draft guys with a long track record of success performing across multiple levels of competition…
as opposed to
draft guys who are ‘premium’
LosAngel - October 21, 2010
Am I the only one who thinks the Angels lack of depth
this past season is being way over played? I mean the whole reason the Angels did so well from 2004-2009 was mostly because of their depth. They had guys come in and produce when someone went down.
Basically just about everything went wrong this season, except for Weaver, and the Angels had a tougher than usual schedule, and they still almost finished 500.
Also as for Bane, I don’t know how much he had to do with not doing a better job of overseeing the International Scouting directors and making sure they weren’t skimming bonuses, but the Angels have not put a ton of money into international free agents since Ervin Santana. They seemed to have even had pretty good luck with their International FA’s as well, as Rat Rod is really the only one I remember not amounting to a ML regular who got a big payday.
Also they haven’t had the best of draft positions since they’ve been so successful. Their top pick is sometimes like the 60th best player in the country…… Good luck getting minor league depth then.
MH252525 - October 21, 2010
This team stinks at developing hitters.
Their success from 2004 through 2009 was because they bought Vlad, Torii, etc. and because we’re very good at developing pitchers.
Robviously - October 21, 2010
Another incestual promotion
means that this will still be the case.
Bane’s paycheck must have been a little too high.
clover_black - October 21, 2010
That actually makes some sense to me.
wumbug - October 21, 2010
Maybe, maybe not
I don’t know if they need to completely remove everyone from player development and scouting. The team isn’t bad at everything, just developing hitters. We’re still awfully good at bringing pitchers along.
Robviously - October 21, 2010
well again that's part of what they have drafted towards
Saunders and Weaver were two of our highest draft picks of recent memory and they chose pitchers. Wood was towards the bottom of the first round and hasn’t worked out, but Chatwood was their first pick one year too. The draft picks they did have that they used on positional players we haven’t quite had enough time to see if they will pan out, but honestly, I think Conger, Trout, Grichuck, and Cowart were all good picks for their draft position. I really don’t like the Clarke, Bolden, or Lindsay picks but not every pick is going to be a smash hit especially if it’s not in the top half of the first round.
MH252525 - October 22, 2010
Yes.
RexTookMyStash - October 22, 2010
Morales going down early in the season didn't help either.
Losing the hitter that your offense is keyed around is a good way to have a less than amazing season. That being said, they did not just give up, they fought the entire season game-in and game-out.
Angelsfan015 - October 22, 2010
Team's lack of depth isn't really Bane's fault
When you’re consistently picking in the 2nd and 3rd rounds as your first pick of the draft due to FA signings, there’s really only so much you can do. I honestly believe it’s been more of an organization/owner mentality of overspending on FA’s. Prior to 2010 and 2009, the previous 4 years only had 1 non-sandwich round 1st round pick (you can even go back 5 where the team had Weaver drop in it’s lap, but then didn’t have another pick until the 4th round).
The initial rounds of the draft have traditionally been where you get your impact players and so picking so late for 4 straight years is really showing up now. Furthermore, as Andy Seiler highlighted (prior to him absolutely disappearing from his previously top class draft site), the team went cheap in the draft by not signing Zach Cone (2008 draft and potential first rounder this year), Matt Harvey (2007 draft, went 7th in 2010 draft), or Brian Matusz (2005 draft, went 4th in the 2008 draft). Each of those years the team had only a 1st-round sandwich pick or less and could have used the 1st-round money to sign these guys but didn’t.
I can see giving a little blame to Bane for taking these guys knowing they were going to be difficult signs, but getting 1st round talent and paying for it in the later rounds is what good, high income teams should do (i.e I hate to admit it, but check out the Red Sox’s draft strategy…….the Tigers do this a lot as well) and what the Halos have failed to do.
HaloFanInDC - October 21, 2010
Agreed - The "lack of depth" argument for Bane's dismissal unfairly throws him under the bus
Not a classy thing to do for what is generally a classy outfit.
When it comes to scouting amateur players, particularly teenagers, Bane has done about as well as anyone, and that showed this year: Walden came up and is obviously something special, Kohn contributed, Bourjos has a very good chance of being a valuable regular, and Conger could be great. The 2010 draft was a bonanza, providing oodles of depth that the big league club wasted no time turning into Dan Haren.
You could point to some of the high profile international signings as disappointing: Young-Il Jung, Pil Joon Jang, and Luis Jolly don’t look like they’ll pan out. However, Fabio Martinez Mesa, Jean Segura, and Luis Jimenez are some of the best prospects in the system.
One area where you could question Bane’s work is the scouting done at the MLB level – Gary Matthews, Scott Kazmir, Brian Fuentes, and Fernando Rodney were all expensive blunders. Only the Halos brass knows who argued for what when the Angels chased and signed them.
rghan - October 22, 2010
I don't think the ANgels would have terminated Bane's contract or not extend it, if he hadn't made some costly mistakes
I mean you don’t just get rid of a guy like that do you? The feeling that I got is that Bane was well respected within the system. I think chances are he may have had a hand in some of the disappointing players the Angels have recently acquired.
Halowood - October 22, 2010
I think the dumping of Dale Sutherland
indicates where the responsibility for those MLB acquisitions was.
Rev Halofan - October 22, 2010
The problem with the Angels isn't lack of depth, per se
It’s a lack of star level talent, principally on the offensive side. We need to continue the approach of the past couple of years and keep drafting high-upside talent rather than panicking and drafting low-ceiling college kids, at least with the early round picks. I mean, sure, go ahead and pick the Stephen Strasburgs and Jered Weavers if they’re available. However, most of the eventual stars are high school draftees (Mike Trout says “hi”). The bust rate is far higher, but you can always find average guys to play with the stars who do make it.
The_Question - October 22, 2010
I think this is an astute comment
SOMEONE from the McPherson/Kotchman/Mathis/Kendrick/Aybar/Callaspo/Casilla generation was supposed to be a star, and none of them have come close. The best player from their group so far was the dice-roll Cuban, and a guy (Napoli) who wasn’t ever really considered a great prospect. The free agent outfielders were supposed to tie us over on offense until this generation matured, after which we were gonna have a ‘70s Dodgers-lite situation on the infield. That really, really hasn’t happened.
mattwelch - October 23, 2010
How much of the Bane firing had to do with Clay Daniel?
He may have been let go at the end of his contract instead of when all of that shit went down to save face for Bane. This is something a classy organization would do for a long-time employee.
I don’t mean to imply Bane was involved with the skimming, but it did happen on his watch.
WiHaloFan - October 22, 2010
National "cross-checker"?
What the hell is that? I guess it’s better than being the “national cross dresser”
mustard_man - October 22, 2010
I found this explanation of what a cross-checker does.
An amateur scouting staff comprises area scouts at the lowest rung – scouts who have a geographic area for which they are fully responsible, including all players worth drafting. Out here, for example, most area scouts have the “Four Corners” region – AZ, UT, CO, NM. Some also have Vegas; some don’t have Colorado. But the idea is that these area scouts have to see and write up every draft-worthy player in their regions. Above them are cross-checkers; national cross-checkers see the top 200 or so guys in the country each spring, while regional guys might have 1/4 or 1/3 of the country. (I say “country” but in any given year that might include a kid or two in Canada and a couple of guys in Puerto Rico.) And at the top is the amateur scouting director.
~MMP~ - October 22, 2010
I think it's in the same career catagory as Community Organizer.
IE: Gettin paid for hard to define stuff.
gitchogritchoffmypetis - October 22, 2010
Quite honestly
If we don’t use our protected first round pick next year on a college level 3rd baseman or starting pitcher, I’m probably going to get all aggro on my keyboard. A really solid junior college player might be alright too.
Commander_Nate - October 22, 2010
I don't think they should go after a 3rd baseman or pitcher specifically.
I think they should get the best player available regardless of position. If that happens to be a 3rd baseman, that’s perfect though.
~MMP~ - October 22, 2010
I won't dispute that, but we have certain areas that are more in need than others
I don’t delve too much into the amateur draft and scouting world, but just going off of this list and our position in the draft, my top 4 targets initially would be these guys (in no particular order):
Brad Miller – SS (Clemson)
Brett Mooneyham – LHSP (Stanford)
Kyle Winkler – RHSP (TCU)
Jason Esposito – 3B (Vanderbilt)
Commander_Nate - October 22, 2010
Well I don't think it even necessarily has to be a college player. I'll take Mike Trout a thousand times before I take Joe Saunders
This isn’t to say Saunders wasn’t a fine pitcher. He was and I was pleased with his work for the Angels. But college pitchers generally won’t have that high upside. There’s so much more impact that a high school position player like Trout is capable of doing. Trout may be in the big leagues at age 20, had he gone to school, he probably wouldn’t have made until his mid 20’s.
I think we’re fine on 3B for now. Lucho and Cowart both have the tools to be big league 3B. The areas I see us with weaknesses within the system are catchers, shortstops and left handed starting pitchers. So if we draft according to our needs, here’s a short list of what I think we’ll be interested in.
Brad Miller – SS Clemson
Brett Mooneyham – LHSP Standford
Henry Owens – LHSP Edison HS (CA)
Cristian Lopes – SS Edison HS (CA)
Danny Hultzen – LHSP Virginia
B.A. Vollmouth – SS Southern Miss.
I don’t know anything about any of these players, but they are the guys in the Angels general projected area of the draft that should be available. Of course a lot could happen between now and June 2011.
Halowood - October 22, 2010
Oh and not that it means anything, but right now the Angels are projected by mymlbdraft to take
Preston Tucker – 1B Florida
That’s a big bat.
Halowood - October 22, 2010
don't you think we should draft the best available player with at least our first round pick?
angelsownredsux - October 22, 2010
Sort of.
The last two years we’ve taken Trout, Grichuk, Chevez and Bolden all before the 2nd round. That’s a lot of high draft pick OF’s. If the best available player is an OF with the 14th pick in 2011, I think I’d seriously consider passing on him.
Halowood - October 22, 2010
ya that makes sense...
but if the best available is not an outfielder then we should draft him.
angelsownredsux - October 22, 2010
Ok
Tucker was terrible in the Cape Cod Baseball League hitting below .200.
Also, Brad Miller had over 30 errors last season with teh Tigers and has no real position at the next level.
Hultzen is little and is more of a crafty lefty then a power pitcher. I think Mooneyham has a much higher ceiling then Hultzen.
Zlax45 - October 22, 2010
Like I said, I know nothing about these players. I was only listing the guys projected to go on or around #14.
Owens fits the Angels bill, young high school lefty with upside. The only one I’m vaguely familiar with is Mooneyham.
Halowood - October 22, 2010
the "Angel's Bill"
i wonder if the “Angels’ Bill” has changed at all after the firing of Bane?
angelsownredsux - October 22, 2010
Guess we'll find out. Personally, I took very little issue with what I knew of Bane's decisions...
There could have been a lot I don’t know about. But, I like our early round picks under his reign. Conger’s looking good, Chatwood’s looking great, Trout is looking Trout (had to make up a word better than great, just go with it), Grichuk’s impressive, I like Cowart, Clarke and Lindsay. The only guys I really didn’t like were Bachanov, Bedrosian and Bolden. I feel like Bachanov was only going to be a reliever from the start and now he can’t stay healthy and still hasn’t made it out of rookie ball. I feel like Bedrosian is in the same class, and his ceiling isn’t as high. And Bolden, just wow.
But a 7 to 3 ratio of like vs dislike among early round draft picks is fine, and I think Bane was fine at that.
Halowood - October 22, 2010
dang
Edison HS must have a good team this year.
2pintsofbooze - October 22, 2010
SERIOUSLY!!
My high school team was considered good because we had 4 guys go to college. Edison’s got two first round picks. That teams must be nuts.
Halowood - October 22, 2010
My thing with college players is we need help at some of these positions almost immediately
Sure, Mike Trout is great, but how many high school picks rocket through the system like that? Not many.
You get a junior or senior out of college and you can usually plug him in at AA, already 2-3 years ahead of a HS player taken in the same draft. As long as the college player adapts and develops normally, you could have him contributing in the majors in 18-24 months from his draft date. Most high school players won’t be in the bigs for 4-5 years if they make it at all. I’d just like to see a little more balance in what we take so we’re not caught with our pants down the next couple of years.
Commander_Nate - October 22, 2010
That's only the really good college players.
Most of them are ready for advanced A ball. At #14, I hope we’d be able to land a college player ready for AA, but the chances of that happening are slim.
Halowood - October 22, 2010
I like Jason Esposito
and if Phil Evans or Josh Tobias drop to us we can draft one of them instead.
angelsownredsux - October 22, 2010
I love Esposito also as he is a cornerstone corner infielder at the next level.
Zlax45 - October 22, 2010
you seem to know a bit about these guys
where do you read about their projectability?
angelsownredsux - October 22, 2010
i feel like a jackass
the second after i replied, i googled 2011draft picks projectability and got my answer. can i get a mulligan?
angelsownredsux - October 22, 2010
I'm willing to grant one.
Angelsfan015 - October 22, 2010
This is the greatest move in my history as an Angel fan.
I live in Arizona and i could talk for days about the great man/ family Ric Wilson and the Wilson’s are.
I’ve know Ric, Doyle and Dickie Wilson for 10 of my 17 years on this earth, and they are some of the most qualifed baseball family i know.
Ric’s Brother Doyle is the Assistant Coach at a USC program that is starting to turn it around and before that he was at Chandler Gilbert Community College where he led that team and a little known player named Andre Either. But you dont want to hear about Doyle.
Ric has been in the scouting buisness forever! he was with the Miluwakee Brewers before he was traded to the Angels, but he is very qualifed for this postion and he will turn our no-so-damn-fantastic scouting program around. im excited and not just the fact that this may increse my probablity of being a draft pick of the Angels in 2014 or 2015!
GO Ric! this made me feel great!
WillGoAngels27 - October 22, 2010
What school do you go to?
angelsownredsux - October 22, 2010
Valley Christian
Played for the LA Dodgers Scout Team, now for Dbacks Scout team.
My Pitching coach is a nice old 1st round pick of the Angels… Mike Fetters!
WillGoAngels27 - October 24, 2010
I hope you go first round
get that signing bonus
Rev Halofan - October 22, 2010
when he comes up though
I hope he doesn’t have to get splinters in his ass watching a guy that everyone knew wouldn’t be a major part of the team going forward steal playing time all the while running like a duck.
MH252525 - October 23, 2010
I know Taylor Lindsey
And that kid is a douchebag, he deserved to go in the 4th round up, but Eddie Bane, and this isnt a rumor, this is fact, Was doin the dirty with His mom.
WillGoAngels27 - October 24, 2010
nice
some people on this site have been speculating that Regeans fired Bane because he needed a fall guy for this season’s failure, but I like this story better. assuming this is true, I guess we now know what they meant when they said they wanted to change the organization’s draft policies. no more drafting players because their mom puts out.
2pintsofbooze - October 24, 2010
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