I don’t know if any of you have noticed, but the Angels have a young, slugging infielder down in the minors that looks AMAZING. In only 86 games this year he has crushed 20 homers and put up a .933 OPS at Triple-A. In total, the guy has hit 158 homers in his minor league career, displays a fantastic glove at either third or short and has “future star” written all over him. How have none of us heard of him yet? Well, the answer is simple. We have heard of him… repeatedly. His name is Brandon Wood, the alleged crown jewel of the Los Angeles of Anaheim farm system since 2005, and it looks like yet another season is going to pass by without him getting a serious opportunity to stick in the majors.
By now we all thought seeing Brandon Wood in an Angel uniform would be a daily occurrence.
No Angel prospect has generated quite so much buzz as Brandon Wood for as long as I can remember. Ever since he smashed 43 homers at Single-A Rancho Cucamonga in 2005, the fans have been absolutely clamoring to get him in an Angel uniform. Of course jumping from Single-A to the majors is practically unheard of for position players so the Angels asked the fans to wait patiently for this budding superstar to complete his ascension to the majors. We fans begrudgingly obliged and have been waiting ever since… and so has Wood.
Brandon got a brief look at the majors in 2008, starting the first few weeks of the season at third base for the Halos in place of an injured Chone Figgins. It looked like Wood’s day in the sun had finally come, but he ended up burning out instead, appearing clearly overmatched by big league pitching. A .352 OPS and 21 whiffs in just 64 at-bats earned Wood a coach class ticket back to Salt Lake City where he was to remain until August when injuries forced the Angels hand again. To his credit, Wood demolished the minors that year with a .970 OPS and showed some real progress when he came back up in August, posting a .700 OPS over 86 at-bats which while unimpressive demonstrated some real progress, enough to rekindle hope that Wood could get back on the track to stardom. Or at least that is what the fans thought.
Since that inauspicious 2008 season, it seems Wood has been placed on the backburner with Angel management. When Vladimir Guerrero got hurt early in the season, it seemed an ideal spot at designated hitter had been created just for Wood. The team quickly called him up, only to have him spend almost the entire time on the bench. Wood received the same treatment again in July when Vlad hurt his leg, just so the Angels could make it doubly clear to him that they have no real intention of seeing what he can do. He’s been on the Angel active roster for 30 games this year, but has just 33 at-bats to show for it. Let’s just say that that isn’t exactly how teams go about breaking in their top prospects.
I’m surprised that Wood hasn’t worn out his Salt Lake Bees uniform from too much use.
Instead of coddling the Wood like most teams would, the Angels have taken the tough love approach and set countless obstacles in his path to major league success. Nonetheless, Wood has done everything the Angels have asked him to. He’s already moved to third base and is now even getting work at first base too. Those lofty strikeout numbers that scared the Angels all these years have been cut down to more manageable levels (just 72 Ks in 333 ABs so far in 2009). Despite his mega-prospect status, he hasn’t once complained about getting jerked around or being relegated to benchwarmer status whenever he gets called up to the bigs. By all rights, he should still be in the Angels’ good graces, but while Angel management says all the right things about him, their actions speak a lot louder than those words.
The most pressing issue for Wood could be the logjam of talent LAA has. Even if the Angels wanted to get Wood regular playing time, there is no obvious way for them to do so. Erick Aybar has clearly locked up the title of franchise shortstop, Chone Figgins is probably the team’s best offensive player and won’t be moving off third base anytime soon, Kendry Morales is a burgeoning star at first base and Vladimir Guerrero continues to rejuvenate himself as designated hitter. That doesn’t leave much room for Wood this year and only the departure of Guerrero or Figgins in free agency will create an opening next season.
At the age of 24, one would think that it is too early to call Wood a bust, but that sure seems like what the Angels are hell bent on doing. Instead of carving out a spot for the line-up for Wood, they’ve done the exact opposite and begun injecting him into any trade offer they make. Wood was once considered untouchable in trade talks, but we all saw a few weeks ago that Wood is more than expendable to the team as it was the inclusion of Erick Aybar, not Wood, into the Roy Halladay deal that the Angels balked at. From future franchise centerpiece to trade bait in three years, such is the fate that the Angels have crafted for Brandon Wood.
The more time that goes by, the more it seems that Angel fans will never get to fulfill that dream that started back in 2005 to see Brandon Wood terrorizing pitchers in the middle of the Angel uniform. With Wood having now spent basically three full seasons at Triple-A, he has little to gain in returning to the minors in 2010 and has everything to lose, namely his confidence and trade value. A trade certainly couldn’t have been what anyone had in mind for Wood, but there just doesn’t seem to be any other options left.
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