AL PREVIEW: ANGELS by Ross Newhan (Los Angeles Times)
Anaheim, Calif. - They lost 95 games last year. Only one team in all of baseball lost more.
Now the California Angels find themselves in the Western Division of the American League with a road back that is considerably shorter than it might have been prior to last winter's realignment.
The Angels are in with the two expansion teams (Seattle and Kansas City); the team (Chicago) that finished tied with them for eighth last year; a slumbering giant (Minnesota) and a team of promise (Oakland).
"We can win it," said Dick Walsh, the Angels' new general manager. Walsh, returning to baseball after two years as commissioner of the North American Soccer League, had previously spent 18 years in the Los Angeles Dodgers' organization.
Walsh brought to the Angeles a flair that had been heretofore absent in the front office. He said that he was not a Bill Veeck, but that he was a dealer - a wheeler-dealer, perhaps.
He spent the early days of the spring making a big bid for Washington's Frank Howard. Failing there, he went after Baltimore's Frank Robinson and Boston's George Scott. He still hasn't given up.
"I feel we need one more bat," said Walsh, "but it's not imperative. We have the talent to win our division without a Howard or a Robinson."
The onus is on a pitching rotation that won a total of 32 games last year. George Brunet, now 33, was 13-17 as the big winner.
He returns as the oldest member of a quartet that includes 25-year-old Jim McGlothlin (10-15), 23-year-old Andy Messersmith (4-2) and 23-year-old Tom Murphy (5-6).
Messersmith and Murphy pitched only half the year. They have the brightest arms in the system.
The bullpen, which collapsed around Minnie Rojas last year, has been rebuilt through the acquisition of Hoyt Wilhelm and Eddie Fisher.
Rojas was baseball's fireman of the year in 1967, winning 12 games and saving 22. The arm turned sore last summer and he won just four, saving four.
Pitching must carry a team that hit only .224.
The strength is in the All-Star shortstop (Jim Fregosi), the Golden Glove second baseman (Bobby Knoop), the $200,000 left fielder (Rick Reichardt) and a 21-year-old third baseman of immeasurable promise.
The latter's name is Aurelio Rodriguez and the manager, Bill Rigney, says, "he could be another Bobby Avila. He might be the best Mexican player ever."
A young man who could change the entire design is 22-year-old Tom Egan, who received a $100,000 bonus four years ago. The Angels thought that Egan would do his catching in Hawaii this year, but he blossomed as the spring's top hitter.
Should the decision be made to keep Egan, the regular catcher, Tom Satriano, will be moved to first base, where Rigney pieces together a jigsaw puzzle.
The parts include 36-year-old free agent Dick Stuart, veteran Bob Chance and ex-Indian Lou Johnson. The likelihood is that it will be Satriano or a platoon of Stuart and Chance.
With a righthander, Gary Bell, expected to pitch for Seattle on opening night, the Angels' starting lineup will probably read:
1B - Chance; 2B - Knoop; SS - Fregosi; 3B - Rodriguez; C - Satriano; LF - Reichardt; CF - Jay Johnstone; RF - Vic Davalillo.
JIM FREGOSI