Interesting Scott Servais Article

[Vegas Halo Fan]

....but I'd rather Eppler have "his" guys in place if that's how he thinks he can most productive....we've had enough dysfunction for awhile...

 

We already know that's not happening in the dugout.

[mulwin444]

Another thing I hear a bit about is how Scioscia and Servais don't like each other very much and there is some type of feud there.  I tried researching that a bit on the internet but couldn't find anything referencing it other than what was posted here.  Does anyone have any insight into what happened and why?  Just curious as to what was the source of the animosity... 

[Lou]

Maybe the issue isn't Servais but that the Angels usually spend the least amount internationally and have one of the smallest scouting budgets in baseball.

If you aren't spending a ton internationally and you typically don't have high draft picks, then you have to out scout everyone else in order to sign under the radar prospects to maximize limited resources, which the Angels don't appear to be doing.

Maybe the blame of the farm system should be on Dipoto and Servais but I think it really rests on Moreno and the amount he invests in scounting and signing international players

What is our scouting budget and how does it compare with the other major league franchises?

Edited October 8, 2015 by Lou

[Lou]

Oh come on, that's a silly way of looking at it. There was an obvious decline in the early years because of the players graduating to the big league club (Trout, Richards, Calhoun etc) and behind them the Reagins regime left zero talent behind. Rebuilding efforts were hamstring significantly by the owner's decision to throw wads of money at big ticket free agents, costing massive draft picks. But the farm system is now in a much better state than it was two years ago, although it was in such a bad way when Reagins left that it was always going to take a long time to repair.

You mean the system that is ranked #28 out of 30 ?

Guess what? It hasn't improved in 4 years. Stop making excuses by saying all of these great prospects are graduated to the majors. You named the 3 good MLB players that I had already mentioned. Where are all of these other great prospects? How many draft picks have we lost over the past 5 years?

Also, every team has had their best prospects graduate to the majors.

Excuse away, but someone has to be held accountable.

Edited October 8, 2015 by Lou

[Homebrewer]

We lost a lot of draft picks signing big money FA's that haven't panned out ( to put it mildly)

So, if anyone, it's Arte Moreno that should be held accountable.

[Lou]

Another thing I hear a bit about is how Scioscia and Servais don't like each other very much and there is some type of feud there.  I tried researching that a bit on the internet but couldn't find anything referencing it other than what was posted here.  Does anyone have any insight into what happened and why?  Just curious as to what was the source of the animosity...

This is where people proceed to guess and/or make things up.

(add in "Scioscia has full control")

[Lou]

We lost a lot of draft picks signing big money FA's that haven't panned out ( to put it mildly)

So, if anyone, it's Arte Moreno that should be held accountable.

A lot of draft picks? Exactly how many ?

[Lou]

In the 6 years between 2009-2014, we had 12 1st round picks (incl supplementary picks)

[Jay]

First everyone predicted it would be Klentak

 

Now we have Eppler

 

and people wish it was Servais

[Lou]

I'm interested to find out where the Giants are in your rankings.

They have been to 4 and won 3 WS since 2002.

They're not my rankings

[2112]

Isn't part of this farm system rankings being so bad is that we have a lot of recent farm system players now on the major league roster? 

It should have replenished by now.   I think a lot has to do with Dipoto trades of lots of minor league talent.  

[Docwaukee]

In the 6 years between 2009-2014, we had 12 1st round picks (incl supplementary picks)

2009 and 2010 was part of the Reagins era.  10 of those picks were from those two years.   Obviously 2009 was great.  According to Chuck, Reagins took over the 2010 draft and left Eddie Bane holding his junk.  

 

2011 was Ric Wilson, but Servais wasn't hired until after the draft.  (nor was Dipoto).  

 

We lost 1st and 2nd rounders in 2012.  The 19th pick of each.  The 6yr avg fWAR for picks 16-30 is 4.57 and for picks 60-100 it's 0/57.  

We lost 1st rounder in 2013.  (20th pick)

 

After the second round, avg WAR goes to almost 0.  About 40% of first rounders make it to the majors.  About 16% of supplemental make it.  After the 5th round, the drop off is tremendous.  

 

It's actually pretty tough to judge 2012-2015 so far.  There is some potential there on the pitching side which was the natural focus.  

 

Personally, I am not a big fan of the high floor, low ceiling strategy, but they needed upper minors pitching in a hurry.  Now we are at that spot relative to position players yet we are about 1 draft ahead of where we were when the pitching tanked.  We'll see if that 2015 draft pays dividends.  

[greginpsca]

I feel Servais will be leaving within the next 30 days. Same for Klentak. Scott rejoining DiPo, and Klentak maybe to Philly.

[Stradling]

The issue isn't losing first round picks as much as not ever getting a great player in the 2nd round. I'm pretty sure McCutchen and Arrenado were both 2nd rounders and drafted after the Angels drafted. I could be wrong about that.

Edited October 8, 2015 by Stradling

[Hubs]

The issue isn't losing first round picks as much as not ever getting a great player in the 2nd round. I'm pretty sure McCutchen and Arrenado were both 2nd rounders and drafted after the Angels drafted. I could be wrong about that.

 

McCutchen was a first rounder, 11th in 2005. The Angels didn't have a selection, and wouldn't have selected till 23 anyway. (That pick was Jacoby Ellsbury, but for some reason the Red Sox had our pick.)

 

Arenedo was a second rounder in 2009. The Angels had selected Grichuck, Trout, Richards, Skaggs, and Tyler Kehrer before Arenedo was selected. 

[Hubs]

Are you saying that the second round is some sort of gold mine? Or are you saying that when the Angels gave up their first round pick, they didn't get a good pick in the second round?

 

2005. No first round pick. They Signed Orlando Cabrera from the Red Sox who selected Ellsbury with the Angels pick. Their Supplemental First Rounder was Trevor Bell instead of Clay Bucholtz or Luke Hochevar (who didn't sign). They could have taken Chase Headley in the second round, but went with PJ Phillips and Ryan Mount.

 

2007. No first round pick. They Signed Gary Matthews Jr. from the Rangers. The pick was used on Michael Main, who never saw the Major Leagues. Supplemental First round pick was Jon Bachanov (58). They could've taken Giancarlo Stanton (76) or Jordan Zimmerman (67) or Freddie Freeman (78). Their second round pick was given to the Blue Jays for Justin Speier.

 

2008. No first round pick. They Signed Torii Hunter from the Twins. Their second rounders were Tyler Chatwood and no one good was taken in the next few picks.

 

2012. No first or second round pick for Pujols and CJ Wilson. The Pujols pick was Michael Wacha. The 2nd Rounder has not been in the Majors for Texas yet. No one notable taken. The third round was RJ Alvarez who got them Huston Street.

 

2013. No first round pick for Hamilton. Second Round Pick was Hunter Green.

 

I don't see the stars from the second round here except in 2007 and the Angels would've had to select them with their supplemental first rounder.

[LAAMike]

I see that Servais is under contract through October.  Chris Gwynn was shown the door today to make room for Servais on November 1.

[Guest]

So, what are the chances that Klentak remains with the Angels? I still think it's ridiculous how he wasn't made interim GM after Dipoto resigned. Anyone hear anything?

 

 

edit: Apparently there's hope:

 

 

According to MLB.com [Klentak] could still stay with the Angels as Eppler's No. 2. Eppler, 40, spent five years in the early 2000s in the Colorado Rockies' front office. Klentak, a Massachusetts native, interned in the Rockies' baseball operations department in 2003.

 

But there's also a fairly good chance MacPhail will hire him for the job in Philadelphia. The two have a history of working together in Baltimore.

http://www.philly.com/philly/sports/phillies/20151006_Andy_MacPhail_expected_to_ramp_up_Phillies_GM_search.html

Edited October 9, 2015 by failos

[Lou]

2009 and 2010 was part of the Reagins era.  10 of those picks were from those two years.   Obviously 2009 was great.  According to Chuck, Reagins took over the 2010 draft and left Eddie Bane holding his junk.  

 

2011 was Ric Wilson, but Servais wasn't hired until after the draft.  (nor was Dipoto).  

 

We lost 1st and 2nd rounders in 2012.  The 19th pick of each.  The 6yr avg fWAR for picks 16-30 is 4.57 and for picks 60-100 it's 0/57.  

We lost 1st rounder in 2013.  (20th pick)

 

After the second round, avg WAR goes to almost 0.  About 40% of first rounders make it to the majors.  About 16% of supplemental make it.  After the 5th round, the drop off is tremendous.  

 

It's actually pretty tough to judge 2012-2015 so far.  There is some potential there on the pitching side which was the natural focus.  

 

Personally, I am not a big fan of the high floor, low ceiling strategy, but they needed upped r minors pitching in a hurry.  Now we are at that spot relative to position players yet we are about 1 draft ahead of where we were when the pitching tanked.  We'll see if that 2015 draft pays dividends.

The fact that we have 3 good players out of the 5 drafts I mentioned is why I stated that perhaps it isn't such a bad idea if we start from scratch re: staff

There has been numerous opportunities for prospects to come up and play in the majors - 3B, 2B, LF, SP, RP, C - and our farm system has continually failed to produce players to fill those openings. That's why we have to go get guys like Murphy, Victorino, Kubitza, Giavottela, Santiago, Perez, Street, Smith, Gott, etc

[LAAMike]

Lou, Several of the players that you mentioned were traded for by players drafted by the Angels.  Perez for Conger - Santiago for Trumbo - Street and Gott for Taylor Lindsey, Elliot Norris, the infamous Jose Rondon, and RJ Alvarez - Kubitza for Nate Hyatt and Ricardo Sanchez.  So we used up our minor league prospects for current roster players.  Don't get me wrong I am not in love with many of our draft picks and we have lost a lot of high draft picks with the Pujols,

Hamilton and Wilson signings. 

[Docwaukee]

The fact that we have 3 good players out of the 5 drafts I mentioned is why I stated that perhaps it isn't such a bad idea if we start from scratch re: staff

There has been numerous opportunities for prospects to come up and play in the majors - 3B, 2B, LF, SP, RP, C - and our farm system has continually failed to produce players to fill those openings. That's why we have to go get guys like Murphy, Victorino, Kubitza, Giavottela, Santiago, Perez, Street, Smith, Gott, etc

your expectations of what should be providing major league help relative to the last 5 drafts is unrealistic.  First of all, there are only a handful of players from the last three drafts actually contributing at the major league level.  From the two drafts before that, there are a smattering.  Most of which include guys drafted in the first two rounds, and even then it's hit or miss with some guys providing actual production and others with potential (like CJ Cron).  Still others who have already become nonspects.  

 

Also, we stopped doing anything whatsoever on the international from for almost 5 years.  That's not a staffing issue.  

 

Don't get me wrong, I think our 2011-2013 drafts could have been better, but relative to opportunity we are probably middle of the pack.  

 

Again, I am not a huge fan of the high floor low ceiling strategy, and if we made a change on that front I'd be fine with it, but having the expectation that we should be able to restock the farm in five years while losing some high end picks, not having an international presence, having absolutely zero pitching in the minors at the time Servais started and trying to maintain a competitive major league roster that also needed almost an entirely new pitching staff yet had very little money to work with isn't really all that realistic.  That last of those is important because the other way for teams to rebuild a farm is through trading off major league talent for prospects.  We had to rebuild 3/5ths of a rotation as well as a bullpen and all of our FA money was spent on a troubled LFer.