Today the Orange County Register concluded their top 50 greatest Angels feature with their 10-1 list and revealed how the panel voted after counting down from 50 to 1 which began on Monday of this week.
OCR Angels Blogger Sam Miller revealed that AngelsWin.com's own Chuck Richter had 46 of the top 50 Angels on his ballot, along with the OCR's own Dan Woike. Truth be told, AngelsWin.com is a website that incorporates their own panel of votes for features like this, so Senior Editor Geoff Bilau, Senior Writers Adam Dodge and David Saltzer and our entire panel of writers helped form our top 50 list to Keith Sharon last winter.
According to Sam Miller, here’s the highest-ranked players left off the list from the panel of voters:
* Earl Bloom: Jim Edmonds
* Keith Sharon: Bengie Molina
* Jeff Biggs: Torii Hunter
* Chuck Richter: Bobby Knoop
* James Rygg: Torii Hunter
* Mat Gleason: Fred Lynn
* Sam Miller: Don Baylor
* Jenelynn Russo: Jered Weaver
* Randy Youngman: Albie Pearson
* Dan Woike: Bobby Knoop
* Bill Plunkett: Chone Figgins
* Tim Mead: Jarrod Washburn
* Ellen Bell: Scot Shields
* Jeff Miller: Torii Hunter
* Mark Whicker: Brian Downing
Downing, at No. 8 overall, was the highest-ranked player left off a ballot.
In looking at the list of Angel players left off our list, I'm pretty comfortable excluding Bobby Knoop from the top 50. Knoop, was an above average defender, but lousy hitter (career .236 BA, .296 OBP, .334 SLG).
What I would like to know is how Bill Stoneman didn't even crack the top 50? -- We ranked him at #37 -- Stoneman was a big reason for the Angels success and World Championship season in 2002, but for signing Mike Scioscia three years prior. Stoneman also boasted a roster that had playoff appearances in 2004, 2005 and 2007. Stoneman going into the 2004 season may have had the best offseason a GM could have, signing Vladimir Guerrero (who won the MVP in '04), Bartolo Colon (who won the Cy Young award in 2005), Kelvim Escobar ('04: 3.93 ERA, 191 K's) and Jose Guillen (smacked 27 HR's and drove in 104 runs in '04).
Well, enough of that, we could dissect and argue the entire list with the other panel of voters all day long so let's take a look at how AngelsWin.com voted. A big thank thank you to Keith Sharon and the Orange County Register for having our input included in their feature.
AngelsWin.com Top 50 Greatest Angels
1-10
1. Nolan Ryan
2. Tim Salmon
3. Vladimir Guerrero
4. Garret Anderson
5. Brian Downing
6. Mike Scioscia
7. Jim Fregosi
8. Gene Autry
9. Arte Moreno
10. Troy Percival
11-20
11. Don Baylor
12. Chuck Finley
13. Darin Erstad
14. Troy Glaus
15. Bobby Grich
16. Francisco Rodriguez
17. Frank Tanana
18. Rod Carew
19. John Lackey
20. Doug DeCinces
21-30
21. David Eckstein
22. Dick Enberg
23. Wally Joyner
24. Scott Spiezio
25. Adam Kennedy
26. Chili Davis
27. Fred Lynn
28. Torii Hunter
29. Reggie Jackson
30. Jim Abbott
31-40
31. Dean Chance
32. Leon Wagner
33. Jim Edmonds
34. Mark Langston
35. Bartolo Colon
36. Bengie Molina
37. Bill Stoneman
38. Jarrod Washburn
39. Chone Figgins
40. Mike Witt
41-50
41. Jered Weaver
42. Rex Hudler
43. Gene Mauch
44. Clyde Wright
45. Bryan Harvey
46. Dick Schofield
47. Bob Boone
48. Albie Pearson
49. Andy Messersmith
50. Bo Belinski
AngelsWin.com panel of voters: Chuck Richter, Geoff Bilau, Adam Dodge, David Saltzer, Sean Scanlon, Bruce Nye, Sean Dodds, Geoff Stoddart, Randy Lawrence, Kurt Swanson, Brian Ilten, Lou Garcia, Eric Notti and Thomas Crow.
