What would it take to make the 2017 season a success?

[tdawg87]

6 minutes ago, Troll Daddy said:

Put some red dots on that and you've got a Calhoun ornament.

[UndertheHalo]

im pretty much prepared for another lay low season.  I'll be happy if we're in the mix come september.   I just want another good draft.  But probably most important....the pitching.  We get Richards through the season.  We have to have that guy as a front line starter.  It would also be real nice to have Skaggs and Shoemaker be dependable.

[ScottT]

New stadium

[Ohtaniland]

47 minutes ago, ScottT said:

New stadium

3 billion dollar stadium being built from scratch in Inglewood with private money. We can't even paint ours.

 

[Blarg]

You are the only guy I know that has had a burning hemmeroid for two years and insists  on scratching it daily with a rasp file.

[Vegas Halo Fan]

9 hours ago, Oz27 said:

Also, this team is clearly being designed to compete now. Every transaction we've made in recent memory has been designed to either improve our 2017 chances of winning or not hurt them.

I don't agree with this at all. The recent acquisitions have been guys who will likely be here well beyond 2017. "Win now" mode, to me, means that we are picking up guys with the intention of helping us for the upcoming season, but they don't really fit into our plans after that. I haven't seen any pure stopgaps in our recent acquisitions.

[70runner]

Richards resumes #1 slot, no need to visit Tommy John. 

Bedrock makes Street expendable.

Trout continues to be like Mike.

Scioscia runs out of pages to turn and retires, Pujols follows him into the sunset.

Angels get younger, faster, and more athletic.

 

[Oz27]

2 hours ago, Vegas Halo Fan said:

I don't agree with this at all. The recent acquisitions have been guys who will likely be here well beyond 2017. "Win now" mode, to me, means that we are picking up guys with the intention of helping us for the upcoming season, but they don't really fit into our plans after that. I haven't seen any pure stopgaps in our recent acquisitions.

Espinosa, Escobar, Nolasco, Bailey...

[Stradling]

29, Gott, Myers, $1 million. 

[Oz27]

59 minutes ago, Stradling said:

29, Gott, Myers, $1 million. 

What the hell is your point? He said we hadn't acquired any stop gaps or players unlikely to fit into our long term plans - I pointed out examples to the contrary. I'm absolutely lost as to how it's controversial that those guys fit that category.

[WeatherWonk]

I feel the same as I felt last year. So much has to go right for this team to finish above .500. No real depth. Injuries are going to happen.

But we have improved at 2nd and in LF. Bullpen and starters frankly scare me. So many question marks.

I really cant understand the perception of some that we are in "now or never" mode for 2017. With acquisitions like Espinosa, Maybin, Nolasco and Maldonado? Seriously? To me, it feels like Eppler is just trying to make us competitive, within strict budget limits, while the calendar finally rids us of the Hamilton contract.

I think we are pretty much done, in terms of moves, unless injuries occur in ST.

Success to me would be a .500 season. But I would still be disappointed, since that would mean no playoff appearance.

[Stradling]

5 hours ago, Oz27 said:

What the hell is your point? He said we hadn't acquired any stop gaps or players unlikely to fit into our long term plans - I pointed out examples to the contrary. I'm absolutely lost as to how it's controversial that those guys fit that category.

i don't think it's controversial but every team has short term guys.  We haven't mortgaged any type of future to acquire these guys and your entire premise is that these guys were acquired in some kind of win now philosophy.  My opinion is they were acquired because the cost was low, they felt they were better than the alternative we had, and it's nice to have actual major league players.  We don't have a ton of farm talent to trade for long term solutions.  My point with Myers is he was the reason we acquired Nolasco, because they view Myers as a long term solution but to get him they had to bring Nolasco as well.  

[AngelStew43]

Returns to health for Richards, Shoemaker, Skaggs, and Cron make this a much more potent team.  A repeat season from Simmons and slight upticks from Calhoun and Espinoza, and we're a plus .500 club.  I think that this is a good team that just had a bad year, with the notable exception of Mike Trout. 

[Troll Daddy]

Being a buyer at the trade deadline would make me happy. I would consider that a success in some ways. 

[ettin]

We currently have several players that, if the Angels are out of contention as the trade deadline nears, we could move in a deal, assuming they are all performing at an adequate level: Cameron Maybin, Yunel Escobar, Danny Espinosa, Andrew Bailey, Huston Street, Ricky Nolasco, Jesse Chavez, Martin Maldonado, Cliff Pennington, and Ryan LaMarre.

This group represents a wide variety of positional needs and all of them have interesting specialized skills that could be quite valuable to an acquiring team at the deadline. Maybin and Espinosa and Pennington have excellent defensive skills in the outfield and infield respectively. Escobar has some unique bat to ball skills that a team could use at the top of their lineup. Bailey, Street, and Chavez could potentially be quality bullpen pickups. Nolasco could be a back-end starter for a contender. Maldonado has a reputation as a good defensive backstop with good framing skills.

The best part is that teams will have to overpay for these guys and we will get back, at the minimum, the value we gave up to acquire them. The difference is that this time Eppler will get to decide which prospects he brings in to the organization helping to forge the image he has for this team moving forward. All of those guys listed above have VERY reasonable salaries making them potentially desirable to any team, not just the higher payroll ones.

The best part is that if we are contending these pieces didn't cost us much to obtain and we could actually go all the way with one of the best, if not the best, defensive units in baseball. I like what Eppler is trying to do and I personally don't think he is done adding pieces to the team.

Go Angels!

[Oz27]

7 hours ago, Stradling said:

i don't think it's controversial but every team has short term guys.  We haven't mortgaged any type of future to acquire these guys and your entire premise is that these guys were acquired in some kind of win now philosophy.  My opinion is they were acquired because the cost was low, they felt they were better than the alternative we had, and it's nice to have actual major league players.  We don't have a ton of farm talent to trade for long term solutions.  My point with Myers is he was the reason we acquired Nolasco, because they view Myers as a long term solution but to get him they had to bring Nolasco as well.  

Again, this isn't complicated. Somebody said we hadn't recently acquired any stopgaps or guys whose purpose was to help us for 2017. I pointed out players who undoubtedly fit that category. I don't get how you've interpreted all this extra meaning from a four word post.

[Stradling]

17 minutes ago, Oz27 said:

I don't get how you've interpreted all this extra meaning from a four word post.

Well there was an ellipsis. 

[California Cajun]

On Saturday, December 17, 2016 at 5:31 AM, TroutField said:

If we are pushing for a playoff spot around the trade deadline would you guys be willing to trade one of Jones or Thaiss to fill a hole for a playoff push? 

 

Or do you roll with what you have and still build with an eye on 2018-2020?

I'm tired of first or second round playoff exits.  If short-term patience gives us a legitimate shot at a World Series, I'm for that.

[NrM]

On 12/17/2016 at 10:16 AM, Stradling said:

 

Also who in the world things we are solely in the Win Now mode?  If we were in a total Win Now mode I think we would be spending money or trading our only minor league players to compete now.  Just because we didn't trade Calhoun or we didn't trade Escobar or because we traded Bandy doesn't mean we are in a win now mode.  

Bruh they have the worst farmsystem in baseball(going on 3 or 4 years now?) and little cost controlled talent.  That and Pujols has 1 maybe 2 productive seasons left in him.

They better fucking be in win now mode, if not then wtf are they doing.

 

 

[Ohtaniland]

9 minutes ago, Mr Meeseeks said:

Bruh they have the worst farmsystem in baseball(going on 3 or 4 years now?) and little cost controlled talent.  That and Pujols has 1 maybe 2 productive seasons left in him.

They better fucking be in win now mode, if not then wtf are they doing.

Teams in win now mode don't trade the bulk of their farmsystem talent. That's how you quickly get out of win now mode and into rebuild mode. The angels just haven't looked up rebuild in the dictionary yet.

 

We've been "All In" since the end of 2011 but the parade has had quite a few setbacks.

[Stradling]

Yea we are all in and not spending money in free agency.  Let me know when that is a real thing.

[Stradling]

39 minutes ago, Mr Meeseeks said:

Bruh they have the worst farmsystem in baseball(going on 3 or 4 years now?) and little cost controlled talent.  That and Pujols has 1 maybe 2 productive seasons left in him.

They better fucking be in win now mode, if not then wtf are they doing.

 

 

Do you have any idea how long it takes to turn around a farm system when you don't have players to trade to really improve the system?  Poozy, what would you prefer, having Trout or trading him so you can say we have a good farm system?  

Jesus, I guess in some peoples minds there are two types of teams, "All in" and "Team Rebuild", this team is neither.  

[NrM]

33 minutes ago, Stradling said:

Do you have any idea how long it takes to turn around a farm system when you don't have players to trade to really improve the system?  Poozy, what would you prefer, having Trout or trading him so you can say we have a good farm system?  

Jesus, I guess in some peoples minds there are two types of teams, "All in" and "Team Rebuild", this team is neither.  

I'm not asking for them to turn it around over night. They've literally been the worst in baseball for like 3 or 4 consecutive years. That show's there's a problem with this organizations philosophy. 

And the Angels have talented players they could trade, quickly rebuilding the farmsystem. Instead of finishing with 80 wins, they'd finish with 70. Which is fine with me.

[Oz27]

37 minutes ago, Stradling said:

Jesus, I guess in some peoples minds there are two types of teams, "All in" and "Team Rebuild", this team is neither.  

There are three types of teams. Those that are trying to win now, those that are trying to win later and stupid teams making half-assed attempts to do both. Which category do we fall into?

39 minutes ago, Stradling said:

 ...when you don't have players to trade to really improve the system?

That is totally untrue.

[Stradling]

So you trade Calhoun, Richards, Simmons and hope to get guys that are good enough in 3 years to compete while not cutting any real salary.  Oh and hope that this convinces Trout to stay.  I'll go with option B.