Way to go Troy Percival

Troy Percival, during his long career with the Angels, emerged as one of my favorite players. He was a consistently good closer for them, and I’ll always remember that intimidating squinting stare he had to read the sign from the catcher.

But that’s not why I’m writing this.

In this modern era of baseball, it’s becoming more common for fan-favorites to leave their teams at the end of their careers because either their team doesn’t want them anymore, or the player wants more money.

Percival has signed with the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, continuing a great trend of only playing for non-threatening teams that aren’t rivals of the Angels. He has never put me in the awkward position of having to root against him. Off the top of my head, I can think of Johnny Damon, Jeff Kent, Roger Clemens and Luis Gonzalez, who after playing the bulk of their career with one team, left for a division rival. I know there’s many more examples like them.

When Percival first left for the Tigers, they were awful, and when they got good, Percival got hurt. He came out of retirement to play for St. Louis, which wasn’t bad because they’re in the NL and former Angels account for half of their team anyway. And now he’s with Tampa, which has to be the most non-threatening AL team possible.

Way to go Percy. In the perfect world, I’d want him back on the Angels as their 4th or 5th best reliever after Frankie Rodriguez, Scot Shields and Justin Speier, but I get that he wants to pitch somewhere where he has a more important role, and where he can get some money.

I’m just glad he didn’t go to Oakland, Seattle, Texas, the Yankees, Boston or the Dodgers. Because then I’d have to root against him, and I don’t want to have to do that.