Remember the Angels’ New Coke version of the Core Four? That assemblage Jerry Dipoto put together prior to the disappointing 2013 season when Tommy Hanson, Sean Burnett, Joe Blanton and Ryan Madson were going to strengthen the pitching staff and lead the team to October glory. Why are you laughing? It really happened, here’s a picture to prove it:
Not so funny anymore, is it? You’ll be shocked to learn these moves didn’t quite pan out for the Angels. Blanton had a 6.04 ERA in 28 appearances (20 of them starts). Hanson, acquired from the Braves for actual good pitcher Jordan Walden, had a 5.42 ERA in 15 appearances (13 starts) before his arm fell off. Sean Burnett battled injuries for both his seasons in Anaheim and threw 10.1 total innings, which was an upgrade over Madson’s zero innings as an Angel. It’s incredible that the backbone of a team’s offseason was acquiring four pitchers that would nearly all be out of baseball two years later, so it’s no surprise the team sputtered to 78 wins on Mike Trout‘s back.
I say all four were nearly out of baseball because two of those pitcher’s surfaced again this season after lengthy absences. Hanson’s career is likely done and Burnett is recovering from Tommy John surgery, but Blanton and Madson are both active members of the Royals’ bullpen; Blanton hadn’t appeared in a major league game since 2013, Madson since 2011. Or course, as the purifying waters of the Kauffman Stadium waterfalls tend to for relievers, Madson is a beast again and Blanton didn’t Blanton in his lone appearance of the season.
Madson is the real prize for Kansas City, provided he can stay healthy. The Royals rode their MLB-best bullpen to within one game of a World Series title last year and Madson somehow makes it even better; Madson is posting strikeout, walk, and groundball rates that are better than his career marks. With all the small sample caveats, Royals relievers lead baseball with a 39 ERA-, 17% better than the Cardinals and Astros second-best pens. The Royals can’t sustain that, but a four-inning demon of Madson, Kelvin Herrera, Wade Davis, and Greg Holland might be the best bullpen unit ever. That’s not even including the three other relievers in the bullpen that have a sub-1.50 ERA. There are better stats than ERA, especially for relievers, but for the sake of comparison the lowest reliever ERA of any Angel with any real innings is Cesar Ramos‘ 2.53. Everyone likes to poke fun at Ned Yost‘s bullpen management, but every reliever at his disposal is so damn good it doesn’t matter what lever he pulls.
Blanton hasn’t been the rousing success story that Madson has, but any innings he gives the Royals will be a positive contribution. He’s made one appearance, four innings of mop-up duty against the Yankees where he allowed one run. That is marked improvement over anything he did for the Angels, as he allowed at least four runs in 11 of the 20 games he started in 2013. Blanton may be nothing more than an innings eater out of the bullpen, but because the Royals harnessed #DevilMagic expect Blanton to become the best long reliever in the game.
I’ve written before that the Angels must have angered some powerful entity that allows continued embarrassment at Kansas City’s hands. Not only did an inferior Royals club sweep the Angels out of October, they swept the Angels in their first home series of 2015. And now Angel castaways like Blanton and Madson — even Kendrys Morales has a 124 wRC+ — are contributing to a 25-14 club. Let me remind you of those responsible for this curse:
Steve Physioc and Rex Hudler are wizards hell bent on cratering the Angels. Open your eyes, sheeple.
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