Francisco Rodriguez on pace to crush the saves record.

Yesterday with against the Minnesota Twins, Francisco Rodriguez notched his 50th save of the season, and it's still August!

He reached the magic 50 with the Angels having only complete 129 games. That's the fastest ever. Secondplace, Eric Gagne reached 50 after the Dodgers completed 143 games.

He is now on pace to crush the single season saves record held by Bobby Thigpin (57 saves). K-rod is on pace to have 62.7 saves, to be exact. Yet, K-rod is far from being one of the greatest closers of all time.

This season K-rod's whip has been a worst ever 1.27 and far from the closer ideal of sub-1.0. He is also only averaging 1.12 strikeouts/inning, his worst since his rookie season 1.10. K-rod is also on pace to give up the most walks of his short career...

By comparison, in 2003 when Eric Gagne saved his NL record 55 games, Gagne had a whip of 0.69, and averaged 1.66 strikeouts/inning.

So if K-rod is having one of his worst pitching seasons of his career, why is he about the stand alone atop the single-season-save rankings?

The Angels are rollin', and the its starting pitchers routinely set up the game perfectly for K-rod.

Lost in the mix is the fact that already K-rod has entered 61 games. He is on pace to enter 76.6 games, again the most of his career.

Still, with all of this, K-rod has been able to save 82% of the games he has entered. Gagne by comparison saved only 71.4% in that historic 2003 season.

Gagne, however had ZERO blown saves in 03, while K-rod already has 5. That equates to a 10% failure rate. He better clean that up by the playoffs, otherwise it'll be a nerve-racking 9th inning for Angel's fans.

Side note: don't you love how Baseball articles almost always turn into stat fest??? I sure do!

Read/Discuss >>

Halos are undeniable favorites. Cannot be stopped.

The Angels finally, finally, finally have acquired a slugger for the middle of the lineup. In a blockbuster deal with the Atlanta braves, the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim (I hate Arte Moreno for making me type all of that) acquired Mark Teixeira.

The official trade is:

• Angels give up Casey Kotchman and minor league pitcher Stephen Marek.
• Atlanta gives up Mark Teixeira.

For all the publicity around Manny Ramirez this was probably the single greatest deal the Angels could have pulled off. Angel's management is simply flaunting its baseball intelligence now...

The Angels have never been satisfied with acquiring one dimensional players. Starting with Vladimir Guerrero, then Torii Hunter, and now Mark Teixeira, the Angel's are littered with star defensive players who happen to have some of the best bats in baseball.

The surprising part? Mark Teixeira is only 28 years old.

The Braves barely gained anything in terms of age as Casey Kotchman is 25.

Teixeira has been injury prone the last couple of seasons. But this year, of all years he was coming into form. As a 24 year old in 2004, Teixeira had a prolific season with a .300 batting average, 43 HRs, and 144 RBIs.

In comparison, last year Kotchman knocked in 68 batters, had 11 HRs, and a .296 average.

Somehow, despite obviously lacking in offensive prowess this year, the Angels have managed to maintain the best record in baseball. All the more amazing considering Francisco Rodriguez is having one of the worst seasons of his career (let's debate that one shall we.)

I don't want to sound like your run of the mill ESPN writer, but the Angels are hands down the best team in baseball. There isn't as much of an issue with "chemistry" in baseball as there is in basketball or soccer. The only thing the Angels need to do to win the World Series is to stay true to their fundamentals.

And there is probably no better GM out there for this job than Mike Scioscia.

I wish I could become a minority investor in the Angels right now, because they are developing into what the Yankees and the Red Sox wanted to be all along. They are a perennial powerhouse fueled by a limitless cash flow from Arte Moreno. But, they also are one of the best developpers of young talent, and don't rely on blockbuster deals to make themselves better.

One thing though. Teixeira's agent is Scott Boras. And the primary reason he was traded is because he couldn't agree on an extension with the Braves. Watch out Arte, Boras is reportedly looking for 10 years and $230 million.

Read/Discuss >>