When do you predict our farm will move out of the cellar?

[Stradling]

21 minutes ago, Troll Daddy said:

Skaggs was drafted by the Angels ... news to me.

I'm sorry you were unaware of this.  

[nate]

54 minutes ago, Stradling said:

Ok, but if you draft better talent, then you can trade some of it.  If you draft like shit and trade the only decent prospects then you are in a bad place.  

You don't have that option in super win now mode, they have to keep taking risks on all these college players that inevitably do well until they get to AA where the competition is better than what they faced in college and now they are 25 and if they are lucky they are 27 by the time they are ready.  Instead our GM and our Owner want this philosophy that this team isn't far from being really good and they keep wasting the entire org year in and year out.

[Blarg]

1 hour ago, nate said:

Hired by the same person that hired the last two GMs that destroyed the farm.

The last GM the Angels had that did a good job of managing the entire organization was not hired by Arte.

Stoneman was the guy who promoted Reagins through the system. It's not all Moreno 24/7 on all baseball decisions. 

[Blarg]

1 hour ago, nate said:

Yep, a new guy picked by braniac Arte.  As long as the pressure is to win now, the farm will never be fixed.

Eppler seems to have been a successful pick according to pundits and sports writers. Groomed by the Yankees and a big part of their acquisition of young talent that has started the Yankees rebuild. So far his moves have been primarily to restock the farm. 

[ten ocho recon scout]

5 hours ago, Blarg said:

I really don't care what the farm system ranking is as long as it can provide the team with a flow of quality MLB players. Having an overstock of lean ground beef is not the same as a couple good steaks.

Can you adjust that analogy for something tank can understand?

[Oz27]

5 hours ago, Stradling said:

I love that Nate just ignores that the number one reason we are where we are with the farm is now the GM of Seattle.  

lol jeez.

As for the original question, it's theoretically possible a good draft next year lifts us up. But we're run by idiots so I fully expect Jones or Thaiss (or both) to be traded this offseason is a futile and pathetic attempt to win now. Basically it's possible it happens pretty quickly but our own stupidity and flawed philosophy will likely prevent it.

[Oz27]

3 hours ago, Blarg said:

So far his moves have been primarily to restock the farm. 

I would really like to see this argument explained more fully, because if one sentence can be so irrational a longer explanation should be fun.

[Inside Pitch]

4 hours ago, Stradling said:

2009 was one of the best drafts for any team ever.  

Grichuk

Trout

Richards

Skaggs

Corbin

BBA once wrote an article that mentioned that draft among the greatest drafts of any team ever.    But narratives....

[Inside Pitch]

4 hours ago, nate said:

You don't have that option in super win now mode, they have to keep taking risks on all these college players that inevitably do well until they get to AA where the competition is better than what they faced in college and now they are 25 and if they are lucky they are 27 by the time they are ready.  Instead our GM and our Owner want this philosophy that this team isn't far from being really good and they keep wasting the entire org year in and year out.

Yeah -- Thaiss, the college 1st rounder was a legit 21 this year -- he's already in Burlington.  At his current rate he stands to be in AA at 22...   The three picks right after Thais were all HS players -- two of them 17 year olds.  The 6th pick was again an HS draftee.  Of the top ten picks only one of them was 22 or older.

Narratives....  So much fun!

 

 

[Stradling]

17 minutes ago, Inside Pitch said:

Yeah -- Thaiss, the college 1st rounder was a legit 21 this year -- he's already in Burlington.  At his current rate he stands to be in AA at 22...   The three picks right after Thais were all HS players -- two of them 17 year olds.  The 6th pick was again an HS draftee.  Of the top ten picks only one of them was 22 or older.

Narratives....  So much fun!

 

 

Yep.  This years draft was very different than the last three or four.  

[Inside Pitch]

53 minutes ago, Oz27 said:

lol jeez.

As for the original question, it's theoretically possible a good draft next year lifts us up. But we're run by idiots so I fully expect Jones or Thaiss (or both) to be traded this offseason is a futile and pathetic attempt to win now. Basically it's possible it happens pretty quickly but our own stupidity and flawed philosophy will likely prevent it.

Dude..  You really need to try to find a way of considering the opposing view of the Simmons trade, it's the only thing fueling your rhetoric -- that was a trade for controlled assets and as of right now that trade isn't looking that bad.  Not saying you have to like the trade -- you know where I stand on it, but it's not the sort of win now trade you at times seem to try to connect it with.  The dude will be here for 4 more years and while defense does depreciate, most aging curves would have him remaining a top end defender throughout the duration of his contract.

 

[nate]

4 hours ago, Blarg said:

Eppler seems to have been a successful pick according to pundits and sports writers. Groomed by the Yankees and a big part of their acquisition of young talent that has started the Yankees rebuild. So far his moves have been primarily to restock the farm. 

Until Arte is up his ass to win now

[nate]

49 minutes ago, Inside Pitch said:

Yeah -- Thaiss, the college 1st rounder was a legit 21 this year -- he's already in Burlington.  At his current rate he stands to be in AA at 22...   The three picks right after Thais were all HS players -- two of them 17 year olds.  The 6th pick was again an HS draftee.  Of the top ten picks only one of them was 22 or older.

Narratives....  So much fun!

 

 

Again, Burlington is still below division one college.  If he continues to dominate in Ark then I will care.

[Oz27]

2 minutes ago, Inside Pitch said:

Dude..  You really need to try to find a way of considering the opposing view of the Simmons trade, it's the only thing fueling your rhetoric -- that was a trade for controlled assets and as of right now that trade isn't looking that bad.  Not saying you have to like the trade -- you know where I stand on it, but it's not the sort of win now trade you at times seem to try to connect it with.  The dude will be here for 4 more years and while defense does depreciate, most aging curves would have him remaining a top end defender throughout the duration of his contract.

 

Huh? I don't get it. You've seen us for years making deals to try to top up pretty crummy teams, to the point where it has to be an ownership directive. Therefore I expect it to keep happening. I don't think that's unreasonable based on what we've seen under multiple GMs for a long time now. As for Simmons, it wasn't a "put all your eggs in one basket" win now trade but it wasn't the sort of trade you make unless you see yourself winning in the short term. His age curve worries me more than you, clearly. His DRS is trending in the wrong direction and has been for years, even though it is obviously still elite. He's a 3ish WAR player now and that's probably going to keep trending down over the next few years.

[Inside Pitch]

Just now, nate said:

Again, Burlington is still below division one college.  If he continues to dominate in Ark then I will care.

The draft was in June..   If you can't be bothered to care about it until he gets to AA then why try to lump it in with drafts that have actually had time to show they were busts?    I get that you tend to view everything with a bit of cynicism but there was enough done differently in the draft to at least make us believe there has been a genuine shift.  Ditto the way the team is promoting players.

[Inside Pitch]

Just now, Oz27 said:

Huh? I don't get it. You've seen us for years making deals to try to top up pretty crummy teams, to the point where it has to be an ownership directive. Therefore I expect it to keep happening. I don't think that's unreasonable based on what we've seen under multiple GMs for a long time now. As for Simmons, it wasn't a "put all your eggs in one basket" win now trade but it wasn't the sort of trade you make unless you see yourself winning in the short term. His age curve worries me more than you, clearly. His DRS is trending in the wrong direction and has been for years, even though it is obviously still elite. He's a 3ish WAR player now and that's probably going to keep trending down over the next few years.

We also saw the team throwing money at mistakes every off-season time and again to try to offset it's previous mistakes.   We didn't this year.  Whether that's because someone has finally seen the light and letting the GM lead for a change remains to be seen -- but there was a time when Arte did in fact listen to his baseball people and we have to hope what happened last year may have hit home for Arte.

Not sure what your concerns are regarding the aging curves.  You might be looking at different indicators and the sort, I know there is a lot of different stuff on the internet.   But I'm not worried about the decline mostly because there is no question he will decline -- decline IS the norm, to he honest the red flag for me would be if they weren't predicting decline as that has never happened.  It's the rate of decline that should be of concern to us and pretty much every such study I've looked at when it relates to Simmons has him still being in the elite category at the end of this contract.  Similarly, I don't really know how much weight to put into DRS..  I don't know that he was ever as good as those ridiculous seasons.  Defensive metrics are IMO a bit sketchy and my own personal preference is to look at larger sample sizes.  Case in point being Bourjos - -the early indication because of the limited sample was that he was generational type of defensive talent.   The other half of the conversation of course is the development or lack thereof when talking about the players we traded away for him.  Newcomb has been on a nice little run of late but for most of this season an argument could be made he regressed, or plateaued.  Ellis has completely cratered at AAA.  Not entirely unexpected if one looked at his predictive stats in AA this year.  The raw numbers looked good, but the park indexes painted a very different picture of his AA performance.

[arch stanton]

It seemed that the college pitchers were drafted with the specific intention of being packaged for trades, especially before they reached the PCL and got shell shocked or ended up in the line to get a new elbow.

[Ohtaniland]

I don't think it's in the cellar now but I believe it will take Eppler about 5 seasons to build a sustainable solid farm. 

[Oz27]

9 hours ago, Inside Pitch said:

We also saw the team throwing money at mistakes every off-season time and again to try to offset it's previous mistakes.   We didn't this year.  Whether that's because someone has finally seen the light and letting the GM lead for a change remains to be seen -- but there was a time when Arte did in fact listen to his baseball people and we have to hope what happened last year may have hit home for Arte.

Not sure what your concerns are regarding the aging curves.  You might be looking at different indicators and the sort, I know there is a lot of different stuff on the internet.   But I'm not worried about the decline mostly because there is no question he will decline -- decline IS the norm, to he honest the red flag for me would be if they weren't predicting decline as that has never happened.  It's the rate of decline that should be of concern to us and pretty much every such study I've looked at when it relates to Simmons has him still being in the elite category at the end of this contract.  Similarly, I don't really know how much weight to put into DRS..  I don't know that he was ever as good as those ridiculous seasons.  Defensive metrics are IMO a bit sketchy and my own personal preference is to look at larger sample sizes.  Case in point being Bourjos - -the early indication because of the limited sample was that he was generational type of defensive talent.   The other half of the conversation of course is the development or lack thereof when talking about the players we traded away for him.  Newcomb has been on a nice little run of late but for most of this season an argument could be made he regressed, or plateaued.  Ellis has completely cratered at AAA.  Not entirely unexpected if one looked at his predictive stats in AA this year.  The raw numbers looked good, but the park indexes painted a very different picture of his AA performance.

You're obviously right in that there is no interest he will decline, everybody does. It's also likely he will decline earlier than others because defense tends to decline earlier than hitting and that's where all of his value comes from. I suppose I worry about his decline because there's evidence suggesting he's declining pretty quickly. From 2013 to 2016 so far, if you standardize his seasons by multiplying them to all be an even total (I have made it 1300 innings) his DRS has gone from 39.4 to 28.6 to 25.4 and this year to 23.6. Even if we rule the 39.4 number an outlier, that's still a far-from-insignificant rate of decline from 2014 to this year. If a hitter we had under contract for four more seasons was declining at that rate we would be pretty damn concerned, right? I agree that defensive metrics are sketchy but when DRS and UZR/150 are showing a very similar thing - a consistent and continued decline - and it is lasting over several seasons, that is a worry. Do I think this is bad enough to the point where Simmons won't be valuable by 2018? Nope, that is extremely unlikely. But I think his performance will continue to drop off and I would worry significantly for 2020. Clearly we're not about to turn around and trade him, if anything we are trying to build a winning team around him and Trout. However, I think what we did was acquire a player who is still very good now, at a time where that isn't that useful for us because the team isn't a contender, and who may not be all that good by the time the team is ready to contend again. I preach about focusing on a window of contention and the Simmons move did exactly the opposite of that. Therefore I think it's legitimate to fear we could do something pretty similar again.

I should qualify all of this by saying that 23.6 DRS in 1300 innings is still seriously elite. But his massive offensive shortcomings means he needs to be seriously elite defensively to be particularly valuable as a major leaguer. He has plateaued at this level offensively, it's unlikely he gets significantly better or worse in the next couple of years. So without that supreme defense he isn't worth all that much. Even now, he's at 1.4 fWAR through 91 games. I thought he would be much better than that this season.

[zenmaster]

8 hours ago, CALZONE said:

I don't think it's in the cellar now but I believe it will take Eppler about 5 seasons to build a sustainable solid farm. 

Who has a worse farm than us?

[California Cajun]

It might help if the Angels add more scouts to find talent.  I think they added some this year but a scout costs less than a free agent who is getting paid for past performance. 

[bloodbrother]

Well ideally it will move out of the cellar after this offseason and move up a few spots and just continue to improve year after year with good drafting/signings/trades.

[ScruffytheJanitor]

Duh, guys. It will shoot up the rankings next June, right after the draft and the big "Mike Trout-to-the-Yankees Trade."

/goes into witness protection

[Ace-Of-Diamonds]

On 8/24/2016 at 10:24 AM, Stradling said:

2009 was one of the best drafts for any team ever.  

Grichuk

Trout

Richards

Skaggs

Corbin

The Angels had 5 picks in the first round in 2009, 24-Grichuk, 25-Trout, 40-Skaggs, 42-Richards, 48-Tyler Kehrer.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/draft/index.cgi?draft_round=1&year_ID=2009&draft_type=junreg&query_type=year_round

Randal Grichuk (Angels-1) - Pick from Mets as compensation for Free Agent Francisco Rodriguez

Mike Trout (Angels-1) - Pick from Yankees as compensation for Free Agent Mark Teixeira

Tyler Skaggs (Angels-1s) - Supplemental Pick for loss of Free Agent Mark Teixeira

Garrett Richards (Angels-1s) - Supplemental Pick for loss of Free Agent Francisco Rodriguez

We got 2 picks from the loss of Frankie, and Teixeira. The rules must of changed a lot since 2009. Instead of getting a supplemental pick for the loss of a free agent we actually got the Teams first round pick and if I'm reading this right also a supplemental pick at the end of the first round.

The Angels got 2 picks as compensation for Teixeira. Today we wouldn't have gotten anything for him since he was traded during the season.

If I'm not understanding this correctly please respond and let me know.

 

 

 

 

 

[ScruffytheJanitor]

1 hour ago, Ace-Of-Diamonds said:

The rules must of changed a lot since 2009. Instead of getting a supplemental pick for the loss of a free agent we actually got the Teams first round pick and if I'm reading this right also a supplemental pick at the end of the first round

Yes, you are right. The rules changed in 2011:

Quote

In addition to the spending controls, there will be fairly significant changes to how teams are compensated in the Draft for losing free agents. The Elias-based system with Type A and Type B free agents is a thing of the past.

In order to get a compensation pick going forward, a team has to offer a free agent a guaranteed one-year contract equal to the average of the top 125 paid players in Major League Baseball, an amount believed to be about $12 million. Compensation can only be given for a player who was with a team the entire year. The days of trading for a Type A free agent for two months merely for the compensation picks are over.

I wish they would do away with draft pick compensation altogether.