Rob Picciolo Plays the Part of Scapegoat for the Angels

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Angels are dumb. Dumb dumb dumb. Full disclosure. I know Rob. I love Rob. I’m bias biased.

In 2013, the Angels had the 7th highest payroll in baseball. What happened to Rob, well, he’s a casualty of being a high profile coach on a team that just bet the farm on Hamilton, Pujols, and CJ Wilson. That didn’t pan out, so it had to be somebody’s fault.

Fun fact: Hamilton and Pujols’ combined salaries for 2013? $33.4 million. Combined salaries for Mike Trout and Mark Trumbo, who led the team in nearly every offensive category? $1.05 million. I know I’m picking and choosing stats here, which isn’t how evaluation of players works, but Pujols was a skeleton of his former self, playing in only 99 games and hitting .258 in 2013 – his batting average in his 11 St. Louis years? .328 – a 70 point drop. Josh Hamilton’s average in his 5 Texas years? .305 – compared to .250 this year for the Angels – a 55 point drop. But yeah, fire Picciolo… screw that guy. He can’t coach.

With a World Series under his belt, you figured that Scioscia would be safe, so as bench coach, Picciolo was the next logical choice if the Angels were looking to take the cowardly scapegoat route… which they did. I love Peach and I hope that Bud Black hires him to come back to San Diego. It’ll never happen but selfishly, that’s what I want. Shoot, maybe Boch will bring him back on his staff, and he’ll head up to join Flan in SF.

Peach is a great baseball mind and he’ll land another job soon. Just feels like the last two jobs he’s been dismissed from… Padres and Angels, he’s been at the wrong place, at the wrong time. As cool as it is to have Trevor Hoffman’s brother as the Padres third base coach, I still think Peach was better over there… a lot better.

-bp

[lobbed by Dave and John]

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