Docwaukee

Haven't watch a minute of baseball this year so far. Almost hadn't even thought about it. So tonight I got home and figured I'd flip the game on. and then I flipped the game off.

It's not even mediocre at this point really. And there aren't many teams that have some sort of secret sauce in terms of development. For the most part it's about volume. Drafting 20 pitchers isn't desperation. It's just a mathematical oddity. My guess is that they didn't skip over 9 position players higher on their board to take Ky Bush. How does adding a sprinkling of position players in that draft really change things all that much. By and large, there's no magic to keeping your farm system decent. The angel's biggest problem has come from self evaluation. They either don't know who they are or are unwilling to accept it. For about the last 15 years they have not moved some players when they had an opportunity, they've prioritized proximity to the majors over talent, and they've traded away org currency where the return, while fair, wasn't close to moving the needle (making these efforts wasted). On top of that, their starting point was scorched earth so there was an entire infrastructure that needed to be repaired. Even putting a solid foundation in place doesn't do anything when you don't have building materials. Another thing that's hurt is taking that year to year win now philosophy to free agency. Instead of turning 1-2 years contracts into prospects at the deadline with good players, it was making multi year commitments to high priced players that became immediately un moveable. Which in turn limited your financial resources. And because that need to field a competitive team was pervasive, any extra money was spent on 'lightning in a bottle' types with low odds of having any value that could turn into futures. Finally, the recent emphasis on getting your highest value picks to the major as soon as possible contributes. Teams do each of these things sparingly based on the situation, and while none of them are individually catastrophic, doing them all, across the board, every time, over a period of 15 years, has resulted in exactly where they are now. the next problem is that now there is a solid core of young players at the major league level with zero support elsewhere in the org. In order to take advantage of that, they'll justify their deadline deals of, again, taking talent close to the majors over more worthwhile players who would take time to develop. And while the FA market was pretty thin this last year, a decrease in payroll was favored over adding some mid range talent that could be swapped for future talent at the deadline. The bottom line is that they're still doing it the same way. A general unwillingness to accept a plan that requires 5+ years instead of less than 3.

Terrible news. and more tough luck for the Halos. unreal.

I haven't been watching.

Feel bad for Mike. He's been an absolute Halo's patriot.

Sorry Ron, but I'm not gonna watch the pen suck another year. It's so deflating.

trying to get more length out of him turns him into something he's not. I say let him nibble and grind out 5 with good results consistently. I'm of the mind you have to have a very good fastball if you're going to be effective AND efficient. Sandoval's fastball is a secondary pitch.

not that I'd ever root for it, but we haven't had the #1 pick in awhile.

Boy that would surprise me. His fine motor skills suck. I think he might start to get himself more under control with skill development, but his natural motion will never be graceful. But the point is, as you mentioned as well, that he's primed for a lot of reps. Raise your hand if you thought Jo Adell would have a 50 PA stretch like this? It's fun.

how bad does Suarez have to be before they cut him?

No GM will be able to maximize their potential under Arte. It'll be business as usual at the deadline when they trade away a few guys for players who have lesser talent because they are closer to being major league ready. It appears that Perry has done some nice things from an infrastructure standpoint and there's a decent core in place at the major league level. He has been, however, quite bad at two pretty fundamental things that he's certainly had a fair amount of control over. The bullpen and defense. Both have been pretty awful and both are things that even with questionable limitations and control, should be a lot better. The bullpen in particular has been consistently terrible during his tenure and he's actually done a decent amount of spending in that area. I kinda view this as a litmus of his ability. Like asking a chef to make you an omelet.

When he makes a bad play, it's so bad that it really stands out. Overall though, he's good enough to be out there. He's never going to be great because he's really not all that coordinated as odd as that sounds. Reminds me of Upton in a way where he'd just fly to a ball getting to places that others couldn't but when it came time to move his hands and arms in a way to catch the ball it looked like he just got them. The awkwardness is never going to fully go away. But he's fine and this team should have it's focus on improving in way more spots. He needs to play every.single.day for the rest of the year.

he leads the league in bb/9. don't have to go much further than that. he's got a mediocre fastball but so do a lot of guys. His slider and change are plus. But he can't just completely not throw his fastball for strikes. I have no idea if any of his struggles are between his ears but more strikes will bring him more success.

this is brilliant.

Minasian has been particularly bad at building a bullpen the last 3+ years. 26th in WAR and 24th in WPA during that time. Some of this has to do with the utter wasteland of arms that have come from the farm the last few years and why you'd draft all pitchers. But even still, he hasn't really gotten much from that so far. Eppler was quite good at frankensteining the crap out the pen every year. I haven't figured out what it is, but there is a bit of secret sauce to this as Cashman is pretty amazing at it. pick pretty much any 4 or 5 year span and the yanks are near the top. Eppler was dealt a similar if not worse hand with better outcomes. Regardless, this is a pretty significant loss imo.