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Quick: Name 10 men who played third base for the Angels in their first 51 seasons. Troy Glaus is easy. He is the franchise leader in games played at the position and was played there fairly recently. Doug DeCinces logged almost as many games, although you might remember him more as a member of Earl Weaver's Orioles. Jack Howell, who followed DeCinces, ranks third with an even 600 games. Chone Figgins? Sure, he's another recent guy who ranks fourth in games played at the hot corner. Rounding out the top five is Paul Schaal, whose greatest claims to fame are:

  • Attending the same high school as former NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle, former Dodgers star Duke Snider, and musician Keb' Mo'
  • Owning Bert Blyleven (Schaal hit .361/.489/.611 with two homers in 45 plate appearances against the Hall of Famer)
  • Enjoying a successful post-baseball career as a chiropractor in Kansas

So that's five. How about five more? You're forgiven for forgetting that Aurelio Rodriguez's career started in Anaheim, or that Kelly Gruber's ended there.

I always think of Rodriguez as a member of the Detroit Tigers, but he logged more than 1,000 plate appearances for the Angels. As reader dianagram pointed out to me via Twitter some time ago, he’s also the shared record-holder for most different vowels in a first name by a big-league player.

Gruber? I don't think of him at all, which is a shame because he had a decent career. The 10th player selected in 1980 June draft was the second-best pick (behind only Darryl Strawberry, taken first overall), and received AL MVP consideration a decade later. Heck, Gruber is listed in The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract as the 103rd-best third baseman ever to play the game. By the time he reached Anaheim in 1993, Gruber had very little left; he appeared in just 18 games for the Angels, then retired at age 31 with 117 career home runs to his credit.

We're up to seven now. If you're like me and grew up in Southern California during the '70s and '80s, you might remember Carney Lansford before he became a minor star in Boston. I'm pretty sure Lansford played third base at the first Angels game I attended, although my only remaining memory from that day is of my uncle and me getting player autographs after the game. And to be completely honest, the memory is of Rod Carew's cologne, which I can still smell some 30 years later.

We need two more. How about Figgins' successor, the eminently hyped and even more disappointing Brandon Wood? That's nine. And let's go with last year's third baseman, Alberto Callaspo, for 10.

That was exhausting. Why don't we talk about something else for a moment while I recover?

We would all agree that Evan Longoria is a brilliant young player. That he was the best third baseman in baseball in 2011 as measured by WARP should come as no surprise. Nor should the fact that the always solid and occasionally brilliant Adrian Beltre, and the always rotund and occasionally brilliant Pablo Sandoval, followed him.

You know who I didn't expect to find ranked fourth? Alberto Callaspo. But there he is, ahead of Alex Rodriguez, Kevin Youkilis, Aramis Ramirez, Ryan Zimmerman, and every other third baseman alive:

Name

Team

PA

AVG

OBP

SLG

WARP

Evan Longoria

TBA

574

.244

.355

.495

6.3

Adrian Beltre

TEX

525

.296

.331

.561

5.3

Pablo Sandoval

SFN

466

.315

.357

.552

5.2

Alberto Callaspo

ANA

536

.288

.366

.375

4.0

Brett Lawrie

TOR

171

.293

.373

.580

3.3

Alex Rodriguez

NYA

428

.276

.362

.461

3.2

Jack Hannahan

CLE

366

.250

.331

.388

3.1

Kevin Youkilis

BOS

517

.258

.373

.459

3.1

Ryan Roberts

ARI

555

.249

.341

.427

3.1

Aramis Ramirez

CHN

626

.306

.361

.510

2.6

The anemic slugging percentage masks a terrific season. Callaspo ranked second (behind Hannahan, the other sub-.400 slugger on this list) among MLB third baseman with a 14.7 FRAA in 2011. His OBP is nice, too, if uncharacteristic of his larger oeuvre. Callaspo's career OBP was .327 entering last season, although he ratcheted that up to .358 over a year and half of regular playing time with the Royals in 2008 and 2009.

Callaspo, who filed for arbitration on Friday and figures to get a hefty raise in 2012, was well regarded as a prospect… at times. Baseball America ranked him 71st before the 2004 season on the strength of a .327/.377/.428 showing as a 20-year-old second baseman in the Midwest League a year earlier. After disappearing from BA's top 100 the next two seasons, he resurfaced at number 82 prior to 2007 thanks to a .337/.404/.478 campaign at Triple-A Tucson. Yes, everyone hits there (the Sidewinders batted .289/.364/.457 as a team in 2006 and averaged a PCL-best 5.86 runs per game), but Callaspo led all Triple-A hitters in WARP.

That fact notwithstanding, our discussion of him in the Baseball Prospectus 2007 was subdued:

The hardest major league player to strike out in 2006 was Juan Pierre, who had .051 strikeouts per plate appearance. In the Pacific Coast League, Callaspo was even tougher, with just .049 strikeouts per PA at Tucson. As Pierre has proved repeatedly, not striking out does not guarantee that a player is a productive hitter. Still, Callaspo should be a passable regular for a middle infielder. He's looking at a year of being a utility infielder unless the D'backs do something with Orlando Hudson. He doesn't figure to get much better than this, so his future starts now.

Callaspo tanked as an Alberto-of-all-Trades in 2007; he hit .206/.257/.254 for the Snakes through mid-June before he was shipped back to Tucson, where he returned to the business of destroying PCL pitching (.341/.406/.491). For this, he was rewarded with a September callup and December trade to Kansas City.

Ah, yes, the trades. Callaspo—whose build, game, and nationality are eerily similar to those of teammate Maicer Izturis—has been even less appreciated by his employers. Since February 2006, Callaspo has been traded three times, netting his sellers the grand total of Jason Bulger, Billy Buckner, Will Smith, and Sean O'Sullivan. Only Bulger has provided value for his new team—amusingly enough, the Angels, who acquired him from Arizona in that first deal.

Returning, as promised, to Angels third basemen, would it surprise you to learn that Callaspo's 2011 campaign ranks among the best in club history at the position? Or that three of the top nine have come since the departure of Glaus? It surprised me:

Year

Name

PA

AVG

OBP

SLG

WARP

1982

Doug DeCinces

655

.301

.369

.548

8.6

2000

Troy Glaus

678

.284

.404

.604

8.1

2009

Chone Figgins

729

.298

.395

.393

6.9

2001

Troy Glaus

708

.250

.367

.531

5.3

1995

Tony Phillips

643

.261

.394

.459

5.3

2005

Chone Figgins

720

.290

.352

.397

5.0

2002

Troy Glaus

671

.250

.352

.453

4.8

1975

Dave Chalk

601

.273

.353

.345

4.3

2011

Alberto Callaspo

536

.288

.366

.375

4.0

1983

Doug DeCinces

411

.281

.332

.495

3.6

1971

Ken McMullen

657

.250

.312

.395

3.6

We've already touched on DeCinces, Glaus, and Figgins, but the others are worth mentioning as well.

Phillips was a fine ballplayer for a long time; he hit .266/.374/.389 and collected more than 2,000 hits before retiring in 1999 at age 40. And when I say he retired, I'm not including the 24 games he played last season for the Yuma Scorpions, where he hit .269/.367/.385, which bears suspicious resemblance to what he did in the big leagues. I won't be 52 for another decade, and my knees hurt just thinking about Phillips' exploits in Arizona. But then, he is an unusual dude. As our own Jim Baker said back in 2004 (when Phillips was still a 45-year-young whippersnapper):

I've never smoked crack, but something tells me it's got to be pretty hard to play at the major league level after having done so. If there were a Hall of Fame for players who performed well in spite of self-inflicted handicaps, Phillips would be in it.

Chalk, like Gruber, was taken with the 10th overall pick. Drafted out of the University of Texas in 1972, Chalk made a couple of All-Star teams at the beginning of his career before morphing into a Nick Punto-esque utilityman. As sometimes happens with players of that caliber, Chalk was effectively done by his mid-20s, although he kicked around for a few more years before retiring.

Angels fans, meanwhile, are left wondering what might have been had the team picked local product Scott McGregor (taken by the Yankees four picks after Chalk) in the draft. McGregor, you may recall, spun a six-hit shutout for the Orioles at Anaheim in Game Four of the 1979 ALCS. Would he have pitched as well for the home team? Hey, you change one variable in 1972 and who knows what madness occurs seven years later. Maybe Ambrosia's “How Much I Feel” tops the charts instead of The Knack's “My Sharona.” Crazy stuff.

McMullen, a career .248/.316/.383 hitter who ranks as the 72nd-best third baseman in history according to TNBJHBA, called Anaheim home from 1970 to 1972. He came to the Angels in a trade that sent Rick Reichardt and Aurelio Rodriguez to the Senators.

During McMullen's final season in Anaheim, while his U.K.-based namesake was busy directing Joseph Beuys at the Tate and Whitechapel, our hero from Oxnard received an AL MVP vote for reasons that remain as incomprehensible as Beuys in the aforementioned film. In November 1972, the baseball-playing McMullen was traded across town with Andy Messersmith for five players, including Hall of Famer Frank Robinson and current Red Sox manager Bobby Valentine.

How about the flip side? Here are the worst third basemen in club history according to WARP:

Year

Name

PA

AVG

OBP

SLG

WARP

2009

Brandon Wood

46

.195

.267

.293

-0.5

2008

Robb Quinlan

181

.262

.326

.311

-0.5

1998

Troy Glaus

182

.218

.280

.291

-0.6

2006

Edgardo Alfonzo

52

.100

.135

.120

-0.6

1974

Paul Schaal

183

.248

.322

.315

-0.6

2004

Shane Halter

121

.202

.248

.351

-0.7

2008

Brandon Wood

157

.200

.224

.327

-0.8

1995

Spike Owen

237

.229

.288

.312

-1.1

1994

Damion Easley

355

.215

.288

.329

-1.1

1964

Tom Satriano

289

.200

.282

.247

-1.6

2010

Brandon Wood

243

.146

.174

.208

-2.1

Aside from the aforementioned Wood (who shows up three times) and Schaal, we also see such luminaries as Quinlan, Halter, Owen, and Satriano. Glaus was a few months removed from UCLA when he posted those numbers. Alfonso had been a terrific player whose career ended prematurely due to injuries, while Easley later enjoyed a few nice seasons in Detroit.

Easley also is the only player on this list to have amassed as many as 300 plate appearances, which brings us to yet another table. This is another list of bottom feeders, but limited to players who met or exceeded that threshold:

Year

Name

PA

AVG

OBP

SLG

WARP

1969

Aurelio Rodriguez

606

.232

.272

.307

0.8

1980

Carney Lansford

670

.261

.312

.390

0.8

1961

George Thomas

311

.280

.334

.468

0.8

1990

Jack Howell

366

.228

.326

.370

0.6

1993

Rene Gonzales

389

.251

.346

.319

0.4

1992

Gary Gaetti

486

.226

.267

.342

0.4

1973

Al Gallagher

352

.273

.345

.299

0.3

1983

Ron Jackson

379

.230

.291

.351

0.2

1981

Butch Hobson

310

.235

.321

.336

-0.4

1994

Damion Easley

355

.215

.288

.329

-1.1

We've touched on polar opposites Rodriguez (ranked 91st in TNBJHBA and singled out by James for his defensive prowess) and Lansford (ranked 39th and also singled out for his defense: “He was a good hitter, but he was an awful third baseman”).

Thomas, who was really an outfielder, came to Los Angeles (when the team actually played there, rather than just commandeered the name for marketing purposes) from Detroit in June of the Angels' inaugural 1961 campaign and split time with Eddie Yost, Gene Leek, and Satriano. A less futile arrangement is difficult to imagine, as the team saw its third basemen hit .221/.311/.329 that year.

Howell hit exactly 100 home runs in his Angels career, good enough for 15th in franchise history (behind Darin Erstad, ahead of Mike Napoli). Howell's main limitations as a player were an inability to make consistent contact (he wasn't in Rob Deer/Bo Jackson territory; more like Glenallen Hill/John Jaha) or hit southpaws (.180/.250/.294 in a season's worth of plate appearances).

Gonzales wore 88 on his back before it became fashionable for players other than spring training non-roster invitees to don such numbers. As Schaal was to Blyleven, so was Gonzales to Randy Johnson; he went 8-for-16 with five walks, two doubles, and a homer.

Gaetti is best known for his work with the Twins, for whom he hit 201 home runs over 10 seasons, including a career-low five in 1984, when I paid about $20 for him in my first year of Rotisserie League Baseball (not that I'm bitter or anything). TNBJHBA places him 34th all-time at the hot corner.

The Giants took Gallagher with the 14th pick overall in the first-ever draft, in 1965. They got almost nothing out of that class; only Gallagher and 22nd-round pick Ron Bryant had quasi-substantial careers. After Ed Goodson took his job in San Francisco, the 27-year-old Gallagher came to the Angels in April 1973 for what would be a very quiet final season.

Jackson spent 10 years in the big leagues and enjoyed moderate success. The best thing he ever did for the Angels was to get traded to Minnesota for Dan Ford in December 1978. Ford, who employed a closed stance the likes of which hasn't been seen since, thrived as the Angels' right fielder from 1979 to 1981. I did not get his autograph, so I cannot report on his cologne status.

The Angels acquired Hobson and Rick Burleson in December 1980 from Boston for Lansford, Mark Clear, and Rick Miller. In his 1982 Baseball Abstract, Bill James ranked Hobson 21st among 26 third basemen, and dedicated almost as much space to criticizing his game as to discussing the other 25 combined. Lansford, if you're wondering, checked in at number five.

Finally, here are five guys you probably didn't realize played third base for the Angels at some point:

  • Ruben Amaro Sr.: The longtime Phillies infielder finished his career in Anaheim, getting into 41 games for the Halos (including two at third base) in 1969.
  • Frank Malzone: After hitting .276/.317/.403 with 131 homers over 11 seasons for the Red Sox, Malzone came west in 1966 and hit .206/.253/.277 with two homers before retiring.
  • Glenn Hoffman: The current Padres third-base coach spent his final season (1989) at the ballpark where his father, Ed, was once known as the singing usher.
  • Lou Merloni: Yep, Nomar Garciaparra's trusty sidekick was here in 2005. He went 0-for-5.
  • Ray Oyler: A year after Amaro's cameo, this former Detroit Tigers shortstop spent his final season in Anaheim, getting into 24 games (including two at third base).

Since I'm on an honesty kick, in a Carew's cologne (“Carew's Cologne” would make a lousy name for a band, although not as bad as “Carew's Colon”) kind of way, I'll come clean with my original motivation for this article. My question was this: “How bad have Angels third basemen been since Glaus left?”

I had guys like Wood and Dallas McPherson in mind (Quinlan would have been there, too, had I remembered him). I expected to mock the team for sticking Callaspo, who had been discarded by some bad teams for some bad players in the past, out there every day last year. But he ruined that by having a better season than I'd realized, which is the point of researching stuff… especially stuff you think you already know.

 In the process of destroying my hypothesis, Callaspo and Figgins propelled me to examine the careers of Dave Chalk, Kelly Gruber, and Ken McMullen, among many others (including Joe Redfield, who played all of one game for the club), more closely. And if seeking to learn more about those that came before us isn't a noble pursuit, then I'd just as soon remain ignoble, although some people assure me that this wouldn't be a problem either way.  

Thank you for reading

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gyoung858
1/17
The Angels had the good sense not to let Hillenbrand play so much as a single inning at third base.
hotstatrat
1/17
I got Callaspo, remembering he was traded to the Royals, but forgetting he had been traded back.

I thought of Macier Izturis, but couldn't remember Figgins. I'm a baby boomer, OK?

I thought of Hubie Brooks, when I was trying to remember Spike Owen. Brooks was a DH-1B by the time he played for the Angels.

I knew they had a decent thirdbaseman with a boring name in the early 90s, but couldn't come up with "Jack Howell".

Remembering the stints Lansford, McMullen, and Rodriguez had with the Angels did come to me because of the big trades they were involved in. After one excellent year with the Senators following the McMullen trade and his promising beginning with the Halos, the young Rodriguez was included with Joe Coleman and Ed Brinkman for Denny McLain, Elliot Maddox and a couple throw-ins. Lansford was involved in traded for Rick Burleson and Tony Armas (Sr.).

At the risk of sounding like a boring old coot, trades were more fun and more frequent when they were about shoring up weaknesses or invigorating changes of scenery than about dumping salaries for prospects. That's more of an observation than a complaint, because I play Scoresheet Baseball where we can make trades without contract worries. (Let me know if you are interested in giving it a try.)

As a baby boomer, Paul Schaal was the first name that came to my mind.

As a control, I tried coming up with 10 New Washington Senators or Texas Rangers - their expansion team twin and found it about equally difficult. Yet, that has been one of that franchise's most solid positions: McMullen-Rodriguez-Howell-Harrah-Bell-Buechele-Palmer-Lamb-Blalock-Young-Beltre. Don Zimmer's last two seasons were there. Does anyone remember Ramon Vazquez? I am embarrassed to say that I didn't, yet he was their thirdbaseman for two years recently in-between Hank Blalock and Michael Young.
LynchMob
1/17
Padre fans remember Ramon :-(

I saw McMullen pitch for the Senators during the Frank Howard / Ed Brinkman / Joe Coleman era ... which set the tone for me being a Padre fan after moving to San Diego in 1968 and attending their Opening Opening Day in 1969 :-)
LynchMob
1/17
"pitch"? no ... just meant "play" ...
gyoung858
1/17
I remember Vazquez well from his stint with the Padres and was vaguely aware that he later spent time in Texas. As for Scoresheet, I have been playing for about 20 years and enjoy it very much.
smitty99
1/17
Aurelio Rodriguez' baseball card when he was an Angel was actually the batboy. 1965 or so. I have the card which is the only way I knew the slick fielding Rodriguez was an Angel.

http://misakman.com/images/cards/aurelio_rodriguez.jpg
hotstatrat
1/17
That's very weird, because that does look like a '65 or '66 baseball card. The style looks familiar and I'm sure I was no longer collecting in 1967. Rodriguez was purchased as an 18 year old from a team in the Mexican League in August of 1966. I didn't think they made new issues of cards that late in the season. He didn't reach the Angels until September of 1967, so the earliest card on him I would suppose would be 1968, when he still qualified as a rookie. Even then, at least in the mid 60s, rookies didn't get their own cards - they were usually two to a card, in which case his first solo card would have been 1969.
hotstatrat
1/18
Never mind. It is a '69 card - must remind me of an earlier style. From wikipedia:

The picture on Aurelio Rodriguez's 1969 Topps baseball card is actually a photo of Angels' batboy Leonard Garcia.[1]

There have been three players in major league history named Aurelio (two of whom played for the Detroit Tigers), and all three were killed in car accidents between the ages of 44 and 53. See also Aurelio López and Aurelio Monteagudo.
mnsportsguy1
1/18
I have nothing to back this up, but i would be willing to guess it would be almost as difficult to name 10 third basemen for most teams. I doubt the Angels are anything special in that regard.
Jestak
1/19
Wow, this brought back memories. As a longtime Angels fan, my personal memory goes back all the way to Ken McMullen manning the hot corner for the Halos.

Interesting that you mention the trade which brought Butch Hobson to Anaheim. I remember reading some kind of article, by Bill James I'm pretty sure, written prior to the 1981 season. The Angels, in addition to the trade for Hobson and Rick Burleson, had made another trade with the Red Sox which brought them Fred Lynn during the 1980-81 offseason. What my recollection is that James' article predicted that 1) Lynn would remain a good, productive player for the Angels, but his move out of Fenway would cut his numbers noticeably, that 2) Burleson would remain the same player he'd been in Boston as he had never taken particular advantage of Fenway, and that 3) Hobson's stats would collapse completely. Other than Burleson getting hurt at the start of his second season with the Angels and never playing regularly again, all these were spot-on. This was my first tiny introduction to sabermetric analysis.
drawbb
2/27
One slight correction to your article, Geoff: I can assure you the physiques of Callaspo and Izturis are not at all similar. :-)