Angels Player Power Rankings – Week 6

April is done and so am I with letting pre-season preconceptions factor into the Player Power Rankings. No longer shackled by that abritrary rule that I made up myself, I may now mete out justice to those who have disappointed us thus far….

RANK	PLAYER	CHANGE	COMMENTS
1		+2 Last Week: 3	Mark Trumbo – Is there any question that he is the Angels' best player right now?
2		-1 Last Week: 1	Mike Trout – He finally looks like he is on the verge of breaking out again, although I feel like I've said that a few times already this season.
3		-1 Last Week: 2	Albert Pujols – At some point the Angels need to do something about his aching feet. A nice start would be abandoning the foolish idea of letting him play the field.
4		+2 Last Week: 6	Howie Kendrick – His quietly good season continues.
5		-1 Last Week: 4	Peter Bourjos – Just when he seemed like he was going to establish himself as the leadoff hitter, he fell victim to the exploding hamstring epidemic in that 19-inning game.
6		+4 Last Week: 10	Jason Vargas – At least someone is finally doing something to make one of Dipoto's off-season acquisitions look smart.
7		— 0 Last Week: n/a	Alberto Callaspo – It is good to have Callaspo back but it is less good to have him back and batting fifth.
8		— 0 Last Week: n/a	Erick Aybar – I was just thinking that a low-OBP leadoff hitter is exactly what this sputtering lineup needs!
9		+2 Last Week: 11	C.J. Wilson – As further evidence that pitcher wins are a useless statistic, I present the court with C.J. Wilson's 3-0 record. I rest my case, your honor.
10		+4 Last Week: 14	Tommy Hanson – You have to give him some respect for the way he came back from the death of his stepbrother to pitch so well against the A's.
11		-4 Last Week: 7	Ernesto Frieri – The Angels need to make a trade for "this year's Ernesto Frieri" because the old Ernesto Frieri kind of sucks right now.
12		-3 Last Week: 9	Chris Iannetta – After sitting out three games to rest thanks to catching a 19-inning game, Iannetta may have inadvertently opened the door to Hank Conger stealing playing time from him.
13		-5 Last Week: 8	Scott Downs – Stop me if you heard this one before, but Scott Downs hurt himself trying to field a comebacker. Methinks Jose Mota needs to start bringing someone along to yoga class.
14		-9 Last Week: 5	Garrett Richards – Well, the questionable decision to return him to a relief role backfired on Scioscia pretty quickly, didn't it?
15		+10 Last Week: 25	Michael Kohn – Kohn has been trying to break into the Halo bullpen for a few seasons now and I think he finally found his role, he's a 17th inning guy.
16		+5 Last Week: 21	Joe Blanton – The streak of giving up a hit in each inning is over! And now, suddenly, Joe Blanton has morphed into a hard luck loser rather than just a general loser.
17		-2 Last Week: 15	Jerome Williams – Oh, right, that's why he wasn't part of the Opening Day rotation. Another master stroke from Scioscia.
18		-5 Last Week: 13	Dane De La Rosa – DDLR might be the new Rich Thompson/Jason Bulger/Kevin Gregg. In low leverage situations, he is lights out. With the game on the line, he is a virtual lock for a meltdown.
19		— 0 Last Week: 19	Hank Conger – As we saw with running "effort" after that bunt, Conger's real role on this team is to provide comic relief.
20		+2 Last Week: 22	J.B. Shuck  – He has been more effective than expected, but that doesn't make it OK that the Halos don't have a better option or even a right-handed platoon for Shuck while Bourjos is out.
21		-5 Last Week: 16	Josh Hamilton – Hamilton is now in the five-hole full-time. If he keeps hitting like this, let's hope Scioscia doesn't wait another month to drop him further down the order.
22		-5 Last Week: 17	Luis Jimenez – He fell off a cliff in the last two weeks, but it is good to see he still did enough to earn a bench spot.
23		-3 Last Week: 20	Brendan Harris – In his time filling in for Aybar and Callaspo, Harris registered a -0.3 WAR. Yep, don't ever worry about spending money on the bench, Jerry.
24		— 0 Last Week: n/a	Barry Enright – If only Enright could have survived one more inning in that marathon game, we would've been treated to a position player pitching for the A's and likely an uplifting win. Instead, we haz all the sads.
25		— 0 Last Week: n/a	Ryan Brasier – The fact that he even made the active roster tells you all you need to know about the performance and health problems the Angels have had to deal with.

Dropped from rankings: Michael Roth (clearly called up too soon), Andrew Romine (rendered obsolete), Sean Burnett (hurt because of course), Nick Maronde (not as MLB ready as we first thought)

Biggest Riser: Kohn, up 10 spots

Biggest Dropper: Richards, down 9 spots