Orange County Register

While it appears to Angels fans the club has put all its eggs in the Mark Teixeira basket and is now engaged in a long-range duel of outrageous offers with the Boston Red Sox, perhaps things aren’t as bad as they seem.
Sure, nothing happened at the winter meetings while the Yankees and the Mets were landing all the players including CC Sabathia and Francisco Rodriguez.
But wait a New York minute.
The Boston Globe’s Nick Cafardo, in a thoughtful column Monday, reminds everyone about what the Detroit Tigers did last winter — and what they didn’t do this past season.
Detroit got Miguel Cabrera and Dontrelle Willis (pictured) in an eight-player trade with Florida, supposedly reprising the 1927 Yankees by adding Cabrera to a stellar lineup. But the Tigers flopped to 74-88 and a last-place finish, 14 1/2 games behind the division-winning Chicago White Sox. Detroit at $130 million became the highest-paid team to finish last.
Cafardo also notes the Mets landed the best pitcher available, Johan Santana — but didn’t make the playoffs. The same for the Arizona Diamondbacks and Dan Haren.
By the way, that’s former Angels pitching coach Chuck Hernandez consoling Willis in the photo. Unlike Willis (0-2, 9.38 ERA, a trip to the minor leagues), the Tigers’ misadventures cost Hernandez his job.
So, while the seeming inaction is maddening, remember it could be a busy winter and turn out much worse.
Then again, the teams that got Brad Lidge and Matt Garza made it to the World Series.

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