FanHouse GaryMatthews

From the Windup is Matt Snyder's extended look at some aspect of America's pastime each Thursday.

We're getting close to having three full weeks of baseball in the books. Astute fans know that it's definitely not enough to reveal the outcome of the season, but it's certainly enough of a sample to start drawing preliminary conclusions. Of course, you still have the occasional instance where home crowds boo their own players for one reason or another. Wednesday, for example, CC Sabathia was booed by about half the Yankee Stadium crowd when he departed after allowing six earned runs in 6 2/3 innings, upping his ERA to 4.81 on the season.

Poppin' out the box scores and right into your cubicle, the Roto Rush is your double espresso shot of fantasy baseball advice every weekday.

One fantasy baseball question becoming increasingly more prevalent these days is very succinct: Is David Ortiz done? The problem? It's a tough question to answer. What do we actually mean by "done?" Is he ever going to be the guy who hit 54 home runs or the one who drove home 148 runs again? No. Not a chance.

Every four years, Major League Baseball's postseason intersects with a presidential election. This is one of those years. In the spirit of the season, we here at MLB FanHouse have divided the playoff teams up for a series of debates. Here Andrew Johnson and Matt Watson discuss the ALDS between the Angels and Red Sox.

Andrew Johnson: Between the Brewers and Rays, the 2008 postseason has a pretty fresh feel. Not so much in this series. For the third time in five years the Angels will face the Red Sox in the first round. The last two meetings haven't gone well for Los Angeles -- both were sweeps in Boston's favor.

I don't anticipate a Red Sox sweep this time around, but it's hard for me to see the outcome being any different for the Halos. But why you ask? The Angels have 100 wins and the best record in baseball you say. They went 8-1 against Boston this season you add.

None of these facts faze me. Why? The Red Sox are simply a better baseball team. Their run differential of plus-151 is a staggering 83 runs better than the Angels. And it's all the more impressive considering Boston played 54 games -- roughly one-third of its schedule -- against the Blue Jays, Rays and Yankees. All three clubs won at least 86 games.

Yesterday we learned that an active player had voluntarily arranged to meet with Sen. George Mitchell in the very near future to talk about the good senator's feckless investigation into performance enhancing drugs. Today, we have a name, as well as a report that at least one other player will follow. From Bill Shaikin of the Los Angeles Times:

The baseball season has come and gone since Gary Matthews Jr. was alleged to have ordered a shipment of human growth hormone. Today, the Angels' center fielder is scheduled to discuss that report behind closed doors at baseball's New York headquarters.

Paul Byrd, the pitcher formerly with the Angels and currently with the Cleveland Indians, is expected to follow Matthews to the commissioner's office later this month. Byrd has acknowledged using HGH but said he did so under doctor's orders and with baseball's consent; baseball officials have denied the latter claim.

I guess we've come full circle, haven't we? After all, Matthews name was splashed all over the newspapers and the internet this spring when reports of his alleged HGH purchase first surfaced following a federal bust at an "anti-aging clinic" in Orlando, FL. I was hoping the player set to meet with Mitchell would be a guy not actually implicated with PEDs, since he might actually be able to shed new light on their usage. Instead, with guys like Matthews and Byrd on the docket, I'm expecting little more than the same denials and explanations already recycled in the media.

Taking a shortened deal means more money now, and lots of it, but it also means Boras is able to spin your signing as less concerned about your contract than about the chances of your team winning a World Series. You just want to help, you say, long-term stability be damned.

Those media people weren't lying when they said the Angels fans really wouldn't bother you; they like baseball, but seem way too relaxed to call you A-Fraud or Gay-Rod or any of the other things New Yorkers called you when you went 2-for-5 in a losing playoff effort. The years pass, and your team is always good, but you begin to worry about Mike Scoscia. He's always calling bunts and hit and runs even when you're at the plate, and he tries to make you steal even though you're not as fast as you used to be. In fact, he makes everyone steal, even Bartolo Colon. It gets grating.

Not only that, but the team doesn't seem to be winning. You and Vlad are the new Ortiz and Manny, but without any real playoff appearances to show for it. Shortly after signing you, Arte Moreno is -- thanks to the subprime mortgage crisis and PETA's insistence on allowing the rats at the stadium to flourish in their "natural environment" -- forced to sell the Angels to the former ownership group of the Pittsburgh Pirates. Oh no! They begin unloading payroll, first Vlad, then Gary Matthews, and then anyone that makes more than $5 million a year. Except for you. You're their prize cow, the one player that keeps the fans in the stands, and you begin to feel like Michael Jordan's punishment for losing in Space Jam.

One day, you look around, and you realize that your worst fears are confirmed: You're nothing more than a pawn. A childlike puzzle piece in a man's game. No one likes you, because they never could: They're all part of the infinite lie. You begin to be actively critical of free market capitalism; you mix a study of Marx and Orwell with Alan Watts and Eastern philosophy. Suddenly, you decide that baseball is the last thing you'd like to be doing, and as the last day of your contract passes, you move to Tibet to edify, never to be heard from again.

Good thing you signed a shortened deal after all, huh?

The End.
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Not sure what this is? Follow this link to help Alex Rodriguez make up his mind, Choose Your Own Adventure-style.

It seems like every week a baseball team loses a World Series architect. First it was Walt Jocketty, who stepped down/was pushed out in St. Louis; then it was John Schuerholz, who relinquished general manager duties for the Braves to take on the role of team president. Today, it's Angels GM Bill Stoneman, whose expected to announce today that he's stepping down to become a team consultant. Tony Reagins, the team's current director of player development, is expected to replace him.

Stoneman had his share of successes and failures with the Angels, with the high-point clearly being the World Series win over the Giants in 2002. The team has remained competitive since then, and as FanHouse colleague Larry Brown details off-site, Stoneman's work to stock the minor league system leaves the Angels with a solid foundation of young talent for next several years with only one bad contract (Gary Matthews) to contend with.

Clearly, Reagins is stepping into an excellent situation, especially with the support of owner Arte Moreno, who's proven that he's willing to spend to make the team a winner. Also, there may come a day when this is no longer notable, but it's worth pointing out that Reagins is African-American. As the LA Times points out, he'll join Ken Williams of the White Sox and Omar Minaya of the Mets as the only minority general managers in the major leagues.

The Angels will kick off the playoffs with Game 1 of the ALDS against the Red Sox tonight in Boston, but it won't be quite the same squad that won 94 games to clinch the AL West. For one, both Bartolo Colon and Gary Matthews have been left off the playoff roster for the first-round.

Colon was originally expected to be available to pitch from the bullpen but felt a twinge in his elbow while pitching on Tuesday and was left off at the last second. It's not a huge loss -- he's posted a 6-34 ERA in 99 1/3 innings this year -- but he turned things around lately, posting a 3.95 ERA for the month of September. Dustin Moseley will take Colon's place in the bullpen.

As for Matthews, he also worked out on Tuesday but had too much pain in his left knee to feel like he had anything to offer the team. Erick Aybar will take his spot on the roster, with Reggie Willits replacing him in center field. Willits and Chone Figgins, who's spelling Vladimir Guerrero in right, have a grand total of four career starts at Fenway Park between them.

During last night's game against the Angels, Aubrey Huff became the first Oriole to hit for the cycle since Cal Ripken did it in 1984, and the first guy named "Aubrey" to do anything even remotely spectacular in the history of baseball.

Sure, it was a great moment for Huff and the Orioles. But, according to teammate Kevin Millar, it was also a great moment for fat dudes.

Huff tripled in the second inning, doubled in the fourth, and homered in the fifth to give the Os a 7-5 lead. When he stepped to the plate in the seventh, Millar had some inspirational words for him, according to the Baltimore Sun.

"[MIllar] said, 'You've got to go get that single for all the fat guys out there,'" Huff said. "It was really a sigh of relief to see it drop. I know Gary Matthews is a great center fielder and I saw him closing on it."

So was his team able to capitalize on all this magic? Dude, this is the 2007 Baltimore Orioles! The bullpen coughed up the lead in the eighth, and the game in the ninth.

Well, that didn't take long. A few unanswered questions and tense moments in the locker room, and Gary Matthews -- he of the $50 million contract and HGH suspicions -- went and pissed off T.J. Simers of the Los Angeles Times:

Matthews, now occupying Darin Erstad's locker, which is a disgrace when you consider what a stand-up guy Erstad was here, begged Modesti to ask a question after I said, "Do you think you have to earn the fans' respect here after being Mr. HGH" this spring?

...I asked Matthews whether he was familiar with Ryan Leaf, since Matthews reminded me of the punk, and got nothing. I asked him whether the questions were too tough, and got nothing. Now he began to remind me of Mike Garrett.

He told Jenkins, "Growing up in this game helps me deal with things," and so I said, "Didn't growing up in this game help you to deal with tough questions?"

"I've got nothing to say to you; you started off on the wrong foot," said Matthews, who signed a $50-million contract to spend the next five years filling up Page 2. "Maybe next time you will start off on the right foot."

As you can imagine, none of this went over well with Simers; he proceed to rip Matthews and the Angels organization for another 20 paragraphs or so. As much as I appreciate his desire to be every bit the tough journalist his first metro editor knew he could be, the column comes off more petulant and bitter than it does measured and informed.

Don't get me wrong: Simers has the moral high ground here, and has every right to ask the needling questions Matthews doesn't like, just as Matthews has the right to decline questions without taking a verbal beating for it. Still, when you write a column like you're a teenage girl composing a "Burn Book," well, you don't exactly state your case well.

I mean, Ryan Leaf? Low blow, dude.

Well, not really. But as we creep ever closer to the start of the season -- only four more hours! -- it's possible the Angels would like to postpone Opening Day for another, oh, four or five weeks.

Los Angeles' other team will start the season without their best pitcher, Bartolo Colon (inflamed right shoulder), and their second best, Jerad Weaver (right biceps tendinitis). Also injured is Chone Figgins, whose named is confusingly spelled and whose fingers are broken.

But that's not all. OF Juan Rivera has a broken left leg and is likely to miss significant time, and third baseman Dallas McPherson is still recovering from back surgery and is on the 60-day DL.

I mean, jeez. Sure, some other teams have injuries -- the continued struggles of Mark Prior and Kerry Wood come to mind immediately for this Cubs fan -- but man, the Angels have really been hit hard. You have to sort of feel bad for them. As the familiar excitement of Opening Day comes rushing back, somewhere Arte Moreno and the Angels front office are sitting and dreading the start of the regular schedule and all of the injuries -- and Gary Matthews nonsense -- it will surely entail.