Front office to fan base: You can all go home now

Tonight, June 16th (PDT), the Angels front office officially gave up on the 2006 season. They've made the decision to send Jered Weaver back to AAA. Apparently the solution to the defensive woes that in practice have cost the Angels at least seven or eight games this year is to send down the one person that has been their best player over the last three weeks.

Bill Stoneman = Charlatan. And not in the good "Tim Burgess" way.

What kind of person looks at this team, a team that scores roughly 3 runs per game against the Royals and Padres, a team that gives their opponents 10 innings every night, a team who's offense has a history of making luggage like Mark Redman look like Cy Young, and decides the best way to compete is to send down their best pitcher? Quite frankly, it's madness.

Publicly, I gave up on this season a long time ago, but personally, I watch almost every game, I take every game seriously, and I realize they really aren't that far out of first place. But the facts are these:

• On the field, they look like they don't care about winning;
• To the extent that they do care, they apparently aren't willing to work on the things they need to work on in order to tighten up their play;
• The front office is more concerned with saving face and not upsetting veterans than they are with winning games.

So to recap, players may or may not care, whatever. Management has other priorities. Fans, hey , we're supposed to care no matter what.

Look, if they don't care about winning, let's go the whole nine. Deal Kennedy. Deal Cabrera (seriously, he'll NEVER have the value he has right now). Deal them for prospects in the low minors (like local boy Ryan Tucker). Deal a pitcher or two, like Colon. Call up Saunders and see if he can stick at this level. I'd love the rotation next year to be Santana, Jered, Saunders, Lackey, and Escobar.

Right now, there isn't one level near the top of the organization that cares about winning. But the fact is, ten years ago, we'd have killed to be in this position. Oh well, the shit we're taking this season is going to make the next few feel a lot better.