The Mount Rushmore of the Los Angeles Angels of Ahaheim

1982 Fleer #461 Bobby Grich - I love '82 Fleer. The photos were quite unusual, and this one is no exception, showing Grich about to enter his stride. I also love the shot of the other photographer sitting in the background

Just to be clear, this poll includes all iterations of the Angels franchise, including the Anaheim Angels, California Angels, and Los Angeles Angels dating back to 1961.

This team had a couple of long post-season droughts from 1961 to 1978 and from 1987 to 2001. In 2002 they broke through and won the World Series, part of a string of 6 playoff appearances in 8 years. Lately, though, they’ve been playing second fiddle to the other 1961 expansion team, the Texas Rangers (whom we’ll look at next.)

Before you click through, see if you can guess who the all-time team leader in WAR is…hint: it’s a pitcher.

Here are the Angels’ leaders in WAR among batters:

Rk	Player	WAR/pos	From	To
1	Jim Fregosi	43.3	1961	1971
2	Tim Salmon	37.1	1992	2006
3	Brian Downing	35.3	1978	1990
4	Bobby Grich	32.9	1977	1986
5	Darin Erstad	30.4	1996	2006
6	Garret Anderson	23.7	1994	2008
7	Chone Figgins	21.0	2002	2009
8	Vladimir Guerrero	21.0	2004	2009
9	Troy Glaus	20.7	1998	2004
10	Jim Edmonds	19.1	1993	1999
11	Doug DeCinces	17.5	1982	1987
12	Wally Joyner	17.4	1986	2001
13	Rod Carew	16.2	1979	1985
14	Adam Kennedy	16.1	2000	2006
15	Torii Hunter	15.2	2008	2012

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 5/29/2012.

Fregosi’s probably not the first guy you thought of…Tim Salmon, Darren Erstad, and Garret Anderson are really the only guys here who played most or all of their careers with the Angels. The vast majority of the rest of these leaders had a lot of success elsewhere.

Let’s take a look at pitchers:

Rk	Player	WAR	From	To
1	Chuck Finley	48.7	1986	1999
2	Nolan Ryan	37.6	1972	1979
3	Frank Tanana	32.5	1973	1980
4	Jered Weaver	25.6	2006	2012
5	Mark Langston	24.4	1990	1997
6	John Lackey	22.9	2002	2009
7	Mike Witt	19.6	1981	1990
8	Dean Chance	19.1	1961	1966
9	Jarrod Washburn	18.7	1998	2005
10	Troy Percival	16.2	1995	2004
11	Francisco Rodriguez	15.5	2002	2008
12	Andy Messersmith	13.6	1968	1972
13	Kirk McCaskill	13.3	1985	1991
14	Kelvim Escobar	13.3	2004	2009
15	Jim Abbott	12.9	1989	1996

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 5/29/2012.

There’s your franchise leader–Chuck Finley. It’s just a shame that he wasn’t around when the Angels won the championship, or else he’d get the first spot on the monument.

We’ve got to consider Mike Scioscia as well–the manager during the team’s best run. Scott Spiezio also comes to mind for his contributions to the 2002 run.

Please vote for 4:

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Steven Page

12 years ago

Jim Fergosi is one of those guys who belongs in the “Hall of Very Good”. He was a childhood favorite of mine. Ryan and Tanana were a great combo, and gave my Negamco Baseball A’s fits in the middle 70’s.

Hartvig

12 years ago

For me, Fergosi, Salmon & Finley are relatively easy picks- Fergosi was the teams first big star, Salmon has long been a favorite of mine and Finley’s ex- might show up so they’re in. After some internal deliberation I decided that since I didn’t vote to put Ryan in as a Met, Astro or Ranger that this was where he belonged. Apologies to the always under-appreciated Bobby Grich, fellow North Dakotan Darin Erstad and long-time Angel Garret Anderson.

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Andy

12 years ago

Reply to Hartvig

Time for you to learn how to spell Fregosi.

Hartvig

12 years ago

Reply to Andy

I’ll be buggered. I’ve been spelling (and pronouncing) it wrong for 50 years.

I think he should change it instead of me.

Richard Chester

12 years ago

Reply to Andy

Andy: Aha! Speaking of spelling mistakes re-read the title of your blog.

Steven

12 years ago

Fregosi, Bill Rigney, Nolan Ryan, Dean Chance.

Paul E

12 years ago

Fregosi even has the highest WAR/100 PA’s amongst the top 10 batters. Er-f’in-go:

Fregosi, Finley, Ryan, and Salmon. 3 of 4 from the ur-gun-EYE-za-shun and the 4th (Ryan) became a star after a brief time in NY and, oddly enough, was acquired for the franchise’s first star, Fregosi.

I wonder what percentage of fans in the ’60’s even realized how much of a star Fregosi really was. In 1964, 3rd greatest season ever by a 22 year old SS, as measured by WAR, behind only A-Rod and Ripken

e pluribus munu

12 years ago

What! No Bo Belinsky? Sic transit. . . .

I agree with Hartvig: this is the place for Ryan. But during his California days, I felt his pitching was all heat and no light (I’m sure I would have changed my worldview to accommodate it if he’d stayed a Met). What I did like was the team he made with Tanana – really dynamite in those days – so I picked them together. Fregosi and Salmon were my others. Regrets to Grich.

Jim Abbott should have his own mountain.

Yippeeyappee

12 years ago

Reply to e pluribus munu

Dead on with my picks. However, if Bo Belinsky’s wife would show up via time machine from the ’60s, he’d have a strong case.

Matthew Glidden

12 years ago

Good to see Fregosi at the top of the heap. Does he get an assist for helping deliver Nolan Ryan in trade?

MikeD

12 years ago

Ryan, Salmon and Fregosi, who gets votes for being an excellent player and bringing Ryan back in the trade with the Mets.

12 years ago

It’s odd that a franchise that’s been around as long as the Angels doesn’t have a readily identifiable superstar associated with them. The Mets have Seaver, the Royals have Brett, the Padres have Gwynn, the Brewers have Yount. The Angels have no one to compare to those guys. As far as I know, they’ve always had plenty of money to retain their own free agents. And being in LA ought to give them an advantage as well. But for some reason, they’ve never had “that guy”.

MikeD

12 years ago

Reply to Ed

I had a similar thought. It’s a team that has resources and have used it to buy talent over the years, going back to Baylor, Reggie, Bostock up to today with players like Hunter, Wilson and of course Pujols. I kept expecting to find their Seaver or Brett.

Nolan Ryan comes the closest. I still associate him with the Angels more than any other team.

From what I’ve seen so far, maybe Mike Trout will be that player if we have this poll again in fifteen years hence.

12 years ago

Reply to MikeD

Good thoughts everyone. I agree that Ryan is probably the best fit. But it seems like he became a better pitcher after he left the Angels. Plus, he was only there for 8 years.

I actually think Jered Weaver could become that guy but we’ll have to see how he bounces back from his current injury.

Doug

12 years ago

Reply to Ed

Good point, Ed.

It seems the Angels have always suffered from “the grass is always greener somewhere else” syndrome, preferring to acquire other team’s free agents (usually when they’re past their prime), rather than retaining their own talent. So, they acquire top flight stars in mid-career (e.g. Grich, Carew, Lynn, Jackson, Guerrero, Pujols, etc.), but hang on to almost none of their own talent past the age of 30 (Salmon, Anderson, anyone else?).

nightfly

12 years ago

Reply to Ed

Well, even if he wasn’t a star on the same level as Seaver or Brett or Gwynn, Tim Salmon did spend his entire career with the Halos, so he’s got that going for him… which is nice. I don’t think of Erstad anywhere else, either. But you have a point, it’s not like Geoff Zahn is threatening to join this group. A lot of their guys had strong years with the Angels, and a similarly-strong stint elsewhere. I think of Carew as a Twin as much as an Angel, for example. I think of Frank Tanana as a Tiger. They’re… Read more »

CursedClevelander

12 years ago

I went with Scioscia, Grich, Finley and Salmon, though I could have easily been persuaded to drop any of them for Fregosi, Ryan, or Tanana.

I have a feeling if we do this again in 10 years, Jered Weaver will supplant Chuck Finley.

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Andy

12 years ago

I’m not sure which is cause and which is effect, but it seems like the Angels being, until 2002, a losing franchise was related to their inability to retain/attract mega-star players. Despite having a few good years peppered around, to me this was a team in the 70s, 80s, and 90s that had the stink of being a bunch of losers. What happened in 1986 cemented it for many, I think. Now maybe it was simply that they couldn’t attract key players and produced sustained results, or maybe it was their inability to produce well that prevented them from getting/keeping… Read more »

Author

Andy

12 years ago

I am curious to see how Garret Anderson does in this poll. I have long been a detractor of his–to me this is a guy with some similarity to Joe Carter. He was given a lot of RBI opportunities in his career and did reasonably well but his raw number totals are deceptive. Career OPS+ of 102 (!)

BUT, this poll isn’t about how good he was as a player–it’s about how liked he was as an Angel and/or how well he represents the team…for many Angels fans he was the face of the franchise for years.

topper009

12 years ago

Reply to Andy

I feel like if only Angels fans were in this pole Anderson would be up there, which got me thinking that the real essence of a poll like this should be based on games played, not WAR.
Here are the Angels with 1000 G with the franchise:

2013 Garret Anderson
1672 Tim Salmon
1661 Brian Downing
1429 Jim Fregosi
1320 Darin Erstad
1222 Bobby Grich
1086 Gary Disarcina
1086 Dick Schofield

Seeing that plus the WAR leaderboard I would go with Anderson, Salmon, Finley and Fregosi (close call between Fregosi and Ryan)

Phil

12 years ago

Outside of my hometown Jays, this the hardest one yet for me (and for the opposite reason, cited by Ed in comment #8 above). Ryan, I guess, even though I’ve already picked him for the Astros (should have held off). Salmon and Downing for longevity + good play. I should go with Fregosi under the first-career-star rule, but I’ll take Finley instead.

Michael Sullivan

12 years ago

I’m surprised to see Anderson getting a lot more votes than Erstad. I associate both of them, along with Salmon as the stars/core of the team that won the Series. Erstad played for the Angels for 11 years and put up 30.4 WAR, significantly above average, with a number of all-star level years. Anderson played for them 15 years and put up 23.7 WAR. That’s a great long career, but it’s a long career as basically a borderline everyday player on average. I debated hard between Darin Erstad, Bobby Grich and Nolan Ryan for the fourth spot after Finley, Salmon… Read more »

birtelcom

12 years ago

Reply to Michael Sullivan

M Sullivan @16: Regarding your point about Erstad and Anderson compared to average level instead of compared to replacement level, I note that b-ref now includes a Wins Above Average (WAA) number in the player pages in addition to Wins Above Replacement (WAR). WAA numbers are not yet searchable in the Play Index, so far as I can tell, but one can check them player by player. In the case of Anderson and Erstad, the WAA numbers fully confirm your observation, Michael: Anderson ends up with a slightly net negative WAA for his Angels career as a whole, while Erstad… Read more »

Steven

12 years ago

And a tip of the Halo to Bo Belinsky, Leon Wagner, Ed Kirkpatrick and Bob Rodgers.

brp

12 years ago

Granted that I’m too young to remember Ryan as pitching for anyone but Texas, but I associated him much more strongly with both Houston and Texas than with the Angels. He’s FROM Texas after all, and now he runs the team… it’s hard for me to shake that, I guess.

I’m willing to acquiesce to your guys’ knowledge on the Halos, though; never did stay up late enough to care about what their team did.

MikeD

12 years ago

Reply to brp

I can certainly understand the Texas connection. He also did become a better pitcher in his later years, but the reputation of who and what we think of when we think of the Ryan Express comes from his days with the Angels. It’s where he established himself as the see-fastball, hit-fastball gunslinger, who set the MLB single-season strikeout record, as well as at the time the single-game record, and actually did throw a baseball at 108.1 mph. He pitched more games and innings for the Angels than any one team.

Mike L

12 years ago

Reply to MikeD

I think a lot of people always thought of Ryan as a freak talent-they only other contemporary player I can compare to him would be Randy Johnson, who also was able to harness things as he got older. He averaged 6.1 BB/9 for the Mets, and 5.4 BB/9 for the Angels-through the first 13 seasons of his career. And honestly-he was a freak talent. His career ERA+ was 112, he had only three seasons above 140 (two of which were less than 200 innings) which isn’t exceptional, yet he had all those strikeouts, no hitters, etc.

e pluribus munu

12 years ago

Reply to Mike L

Yes, but to me, Ryan’s talent seemed coupled with self-indulgence: for so many years he didn’t seem to have an interest in moving beyond his one-dimensional talent. Extraordinary as that was for the record book totals, it did not translate into added wins for his team. I remember years ago, perhaps during his Houston days, totaling up Ryan/team W-L percentages and finding that nothing seemed added in terms of his actual decisions. (Of course, with the more detailed records about ND starts, etc., and technology beyond pencil, yellow pad, and long division, those old calculations could be proved wrong.)

MikeD

12 years ago

Reply to e pluribus munu

I’ve gone back and forth on Ryan over the years. I used to take the side he wasn’t as great as he was made out to be (he wasn’t because his press clipping exceeded his results), but then when it became more common among some to question if he was delivering any value (yeah, there were people like that), then I found myself on the other end of the discussions. The thing is, we want Ryan to be greater than his final won-loss record indicates because he was one of more supremely and uniquely talented pitchers to ever play the… Read more »

Mike L

12 years ago

Reply to e pluribus munu

What makes Ryan so fascinating is that his record appears to be a hybrid of certain aspects of the most dominating pitchers coupled with aspects of others who had very long careers but didn’t necessarily achieve the same level of dominance. He had all those K’s and no hitters, and that incredibly low h/9 inning ratio, but then, when you compare his overall ERA+ and his seasonal highs for ERA+ he doesn’t look like a dominant pitcher, just a good one with great longevity. He’s tied for 270th in lifetime ERA+. On a seasonal level, he’s not better than more… Read more »

Weak Sauce

12 years ago

Where’s the only MVP the Angels have had?

No Don Baylor? #Fail

Also, you should probably put Pujols as a consideration.

Lawrence Azrin

12 years ago

Reply to Weak Sauce

Vladimir Guerrero won the MVP in 2004 with the Angels.

Baylor’s 1979 MVP was one of the weaker selections in recent memory. Still, Baylor would be a decent addition to the choices.

Phil Jacobson

12 years ago

1. Surprised not to see Gene Autry for consideration.

2. Tim Salmon won’t be regarded as one of the greats but he’s a ridiculous class act. Being an Angels fan, I’m intimately versed on how fair-weather the fans can be here. And in Salmon’s first interview after winning the series, he thanked the fans. The same fans who barely pulled 2 million in attendance during his career. The same fans who would later go on to boo Scot Shields.

Jason Z

12 years ago

Nolan Ryan became Nolan Ryan with the Angels, he is obvious.

The other three are Jim Fregosi, Tim Salmon and Chuck Finley.

Finley makes it largely due to the presence of Tawny Kitaen
in the locker room after games in the early 90’s.

If you don’t know who I am talking about watch Bachelor Party.

Gary Bateman

12 years ago

I think it is interesting that Ryan played four all four of the initial expansion franchises–and no one else. With the exception of the Mets, he has a case to be on each of their Mt Rushmores.

nightfly

12 years ago

Reply to Gary Bateman

Now that would be an awesome Mt. Rushmore – Mt. Ryanmore, with Nolan in the four caps of the teams he played for.

Kirk

12 years ago

Got to go with the first face of the franchise and the long time hero Fregosi and Salmon. Then I like Downing just because he was the first lead off hitter I remember who was put there to get on base and not just because he was fast. Lastly of course is Sam Axe.

MikeD

12 years ago

I know Carew is one of the choices, but to me he’s a Twin. He won all seven of his batting titles and his MVP as a Twin. Looking at his record, one thing jumped out at me that I think must be rare. He won a batting title in 1972 by hitting “only” .318 that year. That’s lower than his career batting average, which got me to wondering. How many players in the history of the game have won a batting title with an average lower than their final career average? Cobb did it and so did Gwynn. Anyone… Read more »

nightfly

12 years ago

Reply to MikeD

Excellent question. Looks like Cobb actually did it twice, which is insane.

As far as I can see so far, you’ve got Ted Williams, 1947 (.343) and 1958 (.328) both below his .344 career average; and Edd Roush, .321 in 1919 below his .323 career average.

Lawrence Azrin

12 years ago

Reply to nightfly

Lifetime BA higher than league-leading BA:
– Billy Hamilton; 1891 – .340, lifetime – .344
– Dan Brouthers; 1892 – .335, lifetime – .342
– Elmer Flick; 1905 – .308, lifetime – .313

Carew, Cobb, Gwynn, Roush and Gwynn already mentioned.

If we’re talking OBA, Ted Williams did it four times; SLG, Babe Ruth did it three times and Williams twice.

Tmckelv

12 years ago

Ryan – since this is the only team I would include him for
Salmon
Finley
and Percival over Tanana.

Special nod to Dean Chance for early franchise success.

Lawrence Azrin

12 years ago

I am surprised that Mike Scioscia has not gotten more votes. In the twelve years since he became the Angels manager in 2000, he has:

– 6 playoff appearances
– 3 ALDS appearances
– World Series win (2002)
– .547 W/L%
– two ‘Manager of the Year’ Awards (2002, 2009)

He’s been the manager during their most successfulperiod ever, that sounds like “face of the franchise” to me.

Voomo Zanzibar

12 years ago

Fregosi, Finley, Ryan, and Dean Chance. I wrote-in Chance on the poll, but it looks like the write-in option doesn’t exactly work. I think the vote just comes up as “other.” Chance was an original Angel, and his era+ in 1964 has only been bettered 15 times since then. He had back-to-back 2 hitters, and a string of three shutouts in a row. He also followed up a 15 strikeout 2-hitter with a 14 inning shutout ND performance. http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/gl.cgi?id=chancde01&t=p&year=1964 One odd thing – his player page lists the year as being 200 era+. But the all-time era+ leaders have the… Read more »

Doug

12 years ago

Like Cobb and williams, Gwynn also twice won batting titles with averages below his career mark.

Todd

12 years ago

I am biased in that I became a baseball fan in 1980 so my frame of reference is biased towards the last 32 years. My top 4 in no particular order are Grich, Downing, Fregosi and Finley. Grich defined everything cool about the California Angels, they brought in veterans that knew how to play the game the right way even when the team didn’t have the best results on the scoreboard. Downing was one of the forerunners of the modern infatuation with OBP as a stat. Looking back at his history, Fregosi is arguably the greatest Angel ever as defined… Read more »

Alan

12 years ago

Just shocked that Carew is not getting more love on this list. As a long-time SoCal resident, I remember the days when he was the ONLY bright spot in watching an Angels game – we could usually cheer about Rod getting a hit if nothing else. He played over 800 games and hit .314 over that span. Salmon deserves to be there. No doubt about his contributions. Weaver, as good as he is and probably will be, need not be considered so highly just yet. And he gets ranked higher than Glaus? Injustice. Ryan is Ryan, and pretty much ranks… Read more »

Brian Powell

8 years ago

Mike Trout is already the top Angels position player of all time. It is really too bad that they can’t get him more help.