Welcome back to The Opposing Viewpoint, the place to learn more about the Mets' opponents from the bloggers who write about them. The Mets begin their final West Coast road trip of the season with three games in Anaheim. They will be missing two of the Angels' three best starters (Ervin Santana and Joe Saunders), but they'll still have to deal with ace John Lackey and a bullpen that slams the door shut (the Angels are 32-2 when leading after six innings). I talked with today's guests, Joe Florkowski, Jeff Howe, and Richard Nickerson of MVN's Big A Baseball, about the Angels' big offseason moves, some interesting patterns in their season, and the big surprises of 2008. Joe's responses are in italics, Jeff's are in plain text, and Richard's are in blue: The Angels made two big moves over the offseason - signing Torii Hunter to a five-year deal and trading Orlando Cabrera for Jon Garland. How would you evaluate each of those moves at this point?

The Torii Hunter deal has been the better move so far. He has brought a lot of energy and enthusiasm and leadership to a clubhouse that is sometimes devoid of leadership. He is hitting about what we expected (about .280 average, close to 10 home runs, I think) Torii will end up the season with about a .280 average, 25 home runs and 80-90 RBI - plus he will have made some highlight reel catches. As far as Jon Garland, he has been inconsistent with more poor starts than good starts so far. He has been advertised as an innings eater for the Angels but he has turned out to be more of a runs giver upper.

The Angels need a strong defense, since their pitchers are going to put a lot of balls in play, and signing Torii Hunter definitely helps with the outfield. The team needed a power bat, and while they missed out on Miguel Cabrera (a move that actually looks pretty good right now), Hunter is no slouch at the plate. He started the season off strong, but has cooled off quite a bit, lowering his average to .268. His home run and RBI numbers aren't bad (nine and 33, respectively) and has stayed healthy. With a pitcher like Jered Weaver in the rotation -- who gives up a lot of fly balls -- it's great to have a glove like Hunter's out there. As for Garland, at the start of the season, it looked like a disaster pitching-wise. From a financial standpoint, trading him for Orlando Cabrera was better, since Cabrera's contract was due to be up at the end of this season, and it would be unlikely that the Angels would re-sign him, considering the market for shortstops and the flood of young, less expensive talent in the team's farm system. However, Garland started off very weak, especially at home. However, he quickly discovered what made him a double-digit winner and a playoff hero, bulking up his record to 6-4, 4.13, which is a lot better than he started. With Bartolo Colon gone, and big question marks hovering over Ervin Santana and Joe Saunders, the Angels needed a durable, quality starter, and for the most part, Garland has become that.

The signing of Torii Hunter was questionable after having signed Gary Matthews, Jr. to a big free-agent contract in 2007. The Angels already had four outfielders in Garret Anderson, Vladimir Guerrero, Reggie Willits and Matthews so adding a fifth one did not seem to make a lot of sense. But the Angels, having failed to sign a big bat to protect Guerrero, decided to take the best player available in free-agency and then rotate one of the outfielders in the DH spot. So far Hunter has delivered solid (and occasionally spectacular) defense while producing at the plate near his career averages. With Matthews and Guerrero struggling early offensively, Hunter

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