Angels Player Power Rankings - Mid-Season Edition

This week, we break from our standard format to bring you mid-season grades for the Halos because, well, that’s just what people do this time of year. For the sake of clarity, the rankings are still based on the season as a whole with a weight towards recent performance, but the grades are strictly based on their season performance and expectations entering the season. Clear as mud, right?

As always, the rankings are based on a player’s overall season performance with a weight on recent performance.

RANK	PLAYER	CHANGE	COMMENTS
1		— 0 Last Week: 1	Mike Trout – Grade: A+++++ Magna Cum Laude with an honorary doctorate. 20 years old and he is on pace to hit 25+ homers with 60+ steals… and this despite missing the first three weeks of the season… and, of course, being 20 FREAKING YEARS OLD!!!!!!
2		— 0 Last Week: 2	Jered Weaver – Grade: A; no real complaints here. But it would have been a better grade if he didn’t go down with a back injury in the very first year of his rich contract extension.
3		— 0 Last Week: 3	Mark Trumbo – Grade: A+ and some extra credit. He never did learn how to play third base but he aced the extra credit problem of learning to control the strike zone and the results have been spectacular.
4		— 0 Last Week: 4	Albert Pujols – Grade: C- but on a curve. His numbers are back to respectable levels but still a far cry from the production the Halos expected from him thanks to that miserable first month. Moreover, he still hasn’t really had a stretch where we all marvel at the awesomeness of The Machine.
5		— 0 Last Week: 5	Ernesto Frieri – Grade: A+ with partial credit to Jerry Dipoto. Some how allowing ZERO runs doesn’t get him into the All-Star Game, but he does make my honor roll, which I am sure means so much more to him.
6		+1 Last Week: 7	Scott Downs – Grade: A. Scott, your assignments have been terrific but you are disrupting the class by continuously getting nagging injuries every time a ball gets hit back to the mound.
7		-1 Last Week: 6	C.J. Wilson – Grade: A-. His real world numbers are pretty great and exactly what the Angels paid for, but his peripherals (i.e. his 4.14 xFIP) are a little scary.
8		— 0 Last Week: 8	Torii Hunter – Grade: B. He’s showing his age but still finding a way to be productive, so much so that he might even get himself another contract with the Angels when everything is said and done.
9		+1 Last Week: 10	Kendrys Morales – Grade: C+. OK, fine, it should really be a C- but he gets bonus points for being capable of walking. The running part is still a little suspect, but since he is in the remedial program, he gets until the end of the season to catch up to the rest of the class.
10		-1 Last Week: 9	Alberto Callaspo – Grade: C+. He’s been red hot for the last several weeks, but he was so ice cold to start the season that it all averages out to being perfectly average.
11		— 0 Last Week: 11	LaTroy Hawkins – Grade: A-. One of the trio of AARP members that is holding up the Angel bullpen. Hawk doesn’t do it in the flashy ways of some of the other guys, but he still gets the job done every time.
12		— 0 Last Week: 12	Howie Kendrick – Grade: D-. He already tied a career-high in catching errors, has 13 GIDPs (his career-high is 18), carrying a career-low wOBA of .300 and career-low ISO of .108. Other than that, his season has been great.
13		+4 Last Week: 17	Erick Aybar – Grade: D+. He is showing signs of life again, but his game has regressed in almost every single way this season.
14		— 0 Last Week: 14	Jason Isringhausen – Grade: B-. He probably deserves a B for his performance, but since he was supposedly signed more as a mentor for Jordan Walden, I have to dock him a mark since that mentorship thing didn’t exactly work out.
15		— 0 Last Week: 15	Garrett Richards – Grade: C. Well, that escalated quickly. One minute he is causing the Angels a problem by being so good that they might have to find a rotation spot for him. The next, he can’t find the strike zone and has the Halos scrambling to find starting pitching depth on the trade market.
16		+2 Last Week: 18	Peter Bourjos – Grade: D+. He really only has himself to blame for being relegated to the bench. Even though his bat his been slowly coming around, his OPS is still below that of one Mr. Vernon Wells. So, you know, that’s not exactly a ringing endorsement.
17		-1 Last Week: 16	Dan Haren – Grade: A for effort, D for results. On one hand, he gets credit for trying to grit it out through his back injury this season. On the other hand, gritting it out and pitching poorly probably cost the Angels several games that he thought he was potentially saving.
18		+2 Last Week: 20	Jordan Walden – Grade: D. I don’t trust him with a lead smaller than his jersey number, but his numbers aren’t horrible. They aren’t good either. I guess what I’m saying is that he might be Kyle Farnsworth version 2.0, only with less redneck rage.
19		-6 Last Week: 13	Ervin Santana – Grade: F. If he is going to be this terrible, the least he could do is come up with a convenient injury excuse to hide behind like Haren.
20		-1 Last Week: 19	John Hester – Grade: C. For a guy the Angels picked up off the scrapheap, he’s filled in nicely as an emergency catcher. Unfortunately, he might have filled in a little too nicely and thus prevented JeDi from hitting the trade market to find a real back-up catcher that can both hit and throw out baserunners.
21		— 0 Last Week: 21	Hisanori Takahashi – Grade: D+. As a LOOGY he stinks. As an overall reliever, he is just “meh.”
22		+1 Last Week: 23	Bobby Wilson – Grade: F. I never thought there would be a catcher that could make me miss Jeff Mathis. There still isn’t, but Wilson is reeeeeeeaaaaaaallllllllyyyyy close.
23		-1 Last Week: 22	Maicer Izturis – Grade: D-. On one hand, he has been horribly unproductive with the bat and glove. On the other hand, he hasn’t gotten hurt yet.
24		+1 Last Week: 25	David Carpenter – Grade: D+. If you don’t look to closely, his numbers aren’t that bad. But if you’ve seen him pitch, you know not to let him within five miles of a lead.
25		-1 Last Week: 24	Andrew Romine – Grade: INCOMPLETE. What is the point of carrying a 13th bench player if you are never going to use him for any reason? I hate the idea of 13-man bullpens, but at least the extra reliever would get into a game every once in awhile. On the other hand, the extra reliever might end up being Kevin Jepsen or Bobby Cassevah. You know what? Let’s just pretend I never brought this up.