Fan Graphs: How the Teams Were Built

[bloodbrother]

As fans, we have to hope that Eppler really knows what he's doing because the state of this org does not look good at all going forward. Minimal impact talent at the big league level and zilch waiting in the wings in the farm.

[Stradling]

Free Agent projected WAR: 6

Money committed to free agents in 2016: 85 Million

85 Million...6 WAR.......my god..

Dumbest organization in baseball all thanks to Arte.

Hopefully he finally realizes he needs to back off and let his personnel do what they're paid to do.

Yep and the Yankees are equally bad. They are getting a 12 WAR for about $167 million this year.

[Hollyw00d]

Yankees of the west, indeed

[floplag]

ok give me a break on the owner cancer stuff... ive been one of the most vocal of late condemning the teams actions or lack thereof, but prior to last season there is no way you can say that effort wasnt made by the owner in terms of writing checks.

The failure has been in many places, but that was not it. 

Arte may love baseball, but he is not a "baseball guy".. his expertise is in advertising... he may have made one or two "fantasy baseball for real" moves... but they werent ignorant ones.  

Players not performing to their norms or expectations is not the front office issue barring any obvious omissions

Lets be real though.. if we got even half what we thought we were getting when we signing hamilbitch we would not be in this place and would be celebrating another division title 

Edited February 4, 2016 by floplag

[Hollyw00d]

So the FO has zero accountability for player performance, the personnel on the roster, and the state of the farm system? Ok, sure ill buy that.

What I wont buy is arte not being a cancer. Its been about himself since day one and as long as the season tickets figures keep rollin in, nothing will change. Why would it?

[Angel Oracle]

The problem is Moreno thinking he understood baseball matters, especially pressuring the team to acquire Wells and sign Pujols and Hackilton.

He should have stayed out of it after Stoneman stepped down as GM, and hired a REAL GM (NOT Reagins) and let said GM do his job! 

[floplag]

So the FO has zero accountability for player performance, the personnel on the roster, and the state of the farm system? Ok, sure ill buy that.

What I wont buy is arte not being a cancer. Its been about himself since day one and as long as the season tickets figures keep rollin in, nothing will change. Why would it?

 

not what i said... why is everything a friggin absolute to some people.

what i said was that IF they got half what they thought they were getting or should have gotten before the man tanked we wouldnt be having any of these discussions.

the failure of the man to the levels he failed was unpredictable.

did they take a big risk, yes.. perhaps even a foolish one... but IF we got hamilton at even close to his career norms, they look like geniuses and we have another division title.  that didnt happen due to the man. 

there are many other cases they are accoutable for... overvaluing prospects and making bad trades, but in the hamilton case and everything arte did leading up to that, he was anything but timid or cheap... since then its all he has been 

[Stradling]

ok give me a break on the owner cancer stuff... ive been one of the most vocal of late condemning the teams actions or lack thereof, but prior to last season there is no way you can say that effort wasnt made by the owner in terms of writing checks.

The failure has been in many places, but that was not it.

Arte may love baseball, but he is not a "baseball guy".. his expertise is in advertising... he may have made one or two "fantasy baseball for real" moves... but they werent ignorant ones.

Players not performing to their norms or expectations is not the front office issue barring any obvious omissions

Lets be real though.. if we got even half what we thought we were getting when we signing hamilbitch we would not be in this place and would be celebrating another division title

Yes, but really the problem still comes down to inability to draft and develop. That may not fall on Arte, but he certainly isn't doing everything in his power to solve it. He could spend a fraction of the cost annually that he spends on big name free agents and build a "dream team" of scouts and development staff. That money doesn't go against the luxury tax. So Arte may not be the cancer people make him out to be but he is certainly part of the problem of the team right now.

[Stradling]

The problem is Moreno thinking he understood baseball matters, especially pressuring the team to acquire Wells and sign Pujols and Hackilton.

He should have stayed out of it after Stoneman stepped down as GM, and hired a REAL GM (NOT Reagins) and let said GM do his job!

Do you think Arte hired Reagins on a whim? Or do you think perhaps Stoneman hand selected him? I kind of think this was one very bad Stoneman move.

[Stradling]

not what i said... why is everything a friggin absolute to some people.

what i said was that IF they got half what they thought they were getting or should have gotten before the man tanked we wouldnt be having any of these discussions.

the failure of the man to the levels he failed was unpredictable.

did they take a big risk, yes.. perhaps even a foolish one... but IF we got hamilton at even close to his career norms, they look like geniuses and we have another division title. that didnt happen due to the man.

there are many other cases they are accoutable for... overvaluing prospects and making bad trades, but in the hamilton case and everything arte did leading up to that, he was anything but timid or cheap... since then its all he has been

How many bad trades have we made? Wells, Freese and Walden? The good trades outweigh the bad ones in my mind.

[Angel Oracle]

Reagins was the classic J. Pierpont Finch, and thus my J. Pierpont Reagins gloss.

He worked his way up through the org from the bottom, but was truly not cut out to be a GM.  

[Hollyw00d]

Yes, but really the problem still comes down to inability to draft and develop. That may not fall on Arte, but he certainly isn't doing everything in his power to solve it. He could spend a fraction of the cost annually that he spends on big name free agents and build a "dream team" of scouts and development staff. That money doesn't go against the luxury tax. So Arte may not be the cancer people make him out to be but he is certainly part of the problem of the team right now.

Well considering the skeleton payroll and resources that the farm and international system has to work with, they've done a fairly decent job of drafting and development

Again, the problem starts and ends with arte

[floplag]

Yes, but really the problem still comes down to inability to draft and develop. That may not fall on Arte, but he certainly isn't doing everything in his power to solve it. He could spend a fraction of the cost annually that he spends on big name free agents and build a "dream team" of scouts and development staff. That money doesn't go against the luxury tax. So Arte may not be the cancer people make him out to be but he is certainly part of the problem of the team right now.

 

i dont know if id say that it an absolute either...  we have developed some, and with the relative success we have had it isnt like they have been picking at the top every year either.  i dont think that has been a complete failure, but it has been spotty.  

weve spent a lot on big free agent deals that have not worked out, that has been our biggest failure in the last decade, and traded away a lot of prospects, not many of which have really gone on to be stars so... meh, idk.  

Could we do better, or course, but im not going to lay the blame all there either 

I think people are a little too obsessed at times with the whole draft and develop model... every team that has done that paid a price for being pretty bad for an extended period of time, it isnt hard to draft well when you are drafting at the top all the time.  

but you have to make smart moves in free agency and trades to complete a roster and compete long term without going into rebuild phases.  in our case we have failed more in those areas than we have in others which is why we are where we are today.

Its easy tto lament having a bad farm, but lets be real, when in the last decade was it great?  i know on paper there at one point we were supposedly a top 3 farm but how many of those guys not named Trout actually panned out?  Prospects are so iffy it seems anymore outside top top few. 

[floplag]

How many bad trades have we made? Wells, Freese and Walden? The good trades outweigh the bad ones in my mind.

 

For the most part you are right, i dont even think Freese was a bad move to be honest. Even most of our FA deals havent been bad but the bad ones have been horrifically bad.. obvious overpays aside it isnt like Pujols has been bad, just not worth his contract but then how many ever are. 

Have they all worked out... of course not.  Everything up till Hamilton i felt the team was making the right aggressive moves to stay in contention.  Everything since then, makes zero sense including how he was handled after ho forgot how to play the game. 

How a team can completely mismanage what should be a relatively easy position to fill, LF, is baffling though. 

 

[Stradling]

i dont know if id say that it an absolute either... we have developed some, and with the relative success we have had it isnt like they have been picking at the top every year either. i dont think that has been a complete failure, but it has been spotty.

weve spent a lot on big free agent deals that have not worked out, that has been our biggest failure in the last decade, and traded away a lot of prospects, not many of which have really gone on to be stars so... meh, idk.

Could we do better, or course, but im not going to lay the blame all there either

I think people are a little too obsessed at times with the whole draft and develop model... every team that has done that paid a price for being pretty bad for an extended period of time, it isnt hard to draft well when you are drafting at the top all the time.

but you have to make smart moves in free agency and trades to complete a roster and compete long term without going into rebuild phases. in our case we have failed more in those areas than we have in others which is why we are where we are today.

Its easy tto lament having a bad farm, but lets be real, when in the last decade was it great? i know on paper there at one point we were supposedly a top 3 farm but how many of those guys not named Trout actually panned out? Prospects are so iffy it seems anymore outside top top few.

Great post! I agree with all of it. Although I do believe you can draft towards the bottom and still have a farm ranked more towards the middle rather than the bottom. Outside of that I completely agree. I am not a fan of absolutes.

[floplag]

Great post! I agree with all of it. Although I do believe you can draft towards the bottom and still have a farm ranked more towards the middle rather than the bottom. Outside of that I completely agree. I am not a fan of absolutes.

True, i wonder how many actually have?  Most teams that we think of today that have such good farms and such went thru some really bad down periods of rebuilding.

This would make for an interesting research project that i dont have time for, lol

Have many teams that have been consistently good, in the playoff mix every years for an extended period of time, have been able to maintain a farm above their draft levels?

Can we identify teams that have been consistently in lets say the top third of the league each year standings wise, which means drafting in the bottom third, been able to have a farm in the upper half of the league?

How much impact did the farm have on the continued success?  How much of the succes was prospects versus trades using them as currency?  

IDK, might yield interesting results 

 

[ten ocho recon scout]

Yankees of the west, indeed

there it is...sadly

[AngelsLakersFan]

We can argue for days about where blame should be placed, but the state of the organization today comes down to some very specific philosophies that have been in place since Arte Moreno took over.

 

We have been in 'win-now' mode every single season. Heaney for Kendrick is the only major trade I can think of that gave up present value for greater long term value. Virtually every other move has cost long term value.

 

We have spent money, but paid a premium for star power over actual production. Pujols, Hamilton, Mathews, and Wells were never going to produce up to the level the team paid for them. 

 

We have operated around an annual budget, rather than making moves when opportunity to add long term value presented itself. When we had money we acted like it was burning a hole in our pocket, then we filled out the rest of our roster with picks from the Dollar Tree. The focus has never been on what moves made sense for the organization long term, only what we could do in the present tense.

 

We have completely neglected the amateur draft and foreign markets. We gutted spending in these areas, reduced staff, lost picks as compensation for free agent signings and declined to make QO's to players we had decided we didn't want to keep.

 

 If things are going to turn around we need to start thinking about the long term health of the organization, and that is something that hasn't really been on the table since Bill Stonemason retired.

Edited February 4, 2016 by AngelsLakersFan

[Angel Oracle]

It's like Arte thought he could replace Stoneman with himself.

[Hollyw00d]

Angels baseball: all of the waste, with none of the success

 

 

that should be the main marketing campaign this year

[Inside Pitch]

So the FO has zero accountability for player performance, the personnel on the roster, and the state of the farm system? Ok, sure ill buy that.

 

http://www.dailyherald.com/storyimage/DA/20150929/sports/309299850/EP/1/1/EP-309299850.jpg&updated=201509291704&MaxW=800&maxH=800&updated=201509291704&noborder

[Inside Pitch]

Angels baseball: all of the waste, with none of the success

 

 

that should be the main marketing campaign this year

 

Couple that with a pic of a guy aiming at his foot -- winner IMO.

[NrM]

http://www.dailyherald.com/storyimage/DA/20150929/sports/309299850/EP/1/1/EP-309299850.jpg&updated=201509291704&MaxW=800&maxH=800&updated=201509291704&noborder

http://images.businessweek.com/ss/07/09/0927_power100/image/91.jpg

 

 

You are starting to sound like a broken record. You can't get over Dipoto trading Grichuk. We get it.

Is it really that difficult for you to understand that Dipoto was handcuffed from the beginning? Arte's meddling is the problem. 

When Grichuk shits the bed this year, I'm sure you will be nowhere to be found.

 

 

Why do you think Dipoto was able to find another GM position so fast? It's not because he was bad at his job.

Edited February 6, 2016 by Poozy

[tdawg87]

Even if Grichuk shits the bed, it was still a shitty trade.

[NrM]

Even if Grichuk shits the bed, it was still a shitty trade.

 

The Angels already had a stacked outfield when Arte acquired the drug addict.

3rd base was a serious need. Freese wasn't as great as we hopped, but he wasn't bad.

I'll call it a wash for now.