Angels on the “verge” of acquiring 3B...

[IheartLA]

1 minute ago, Tyler said:

I think it's important to distinguish Moose is the 2015-2017 player now and not the young, early 20's  prospect anymore. He isn't a .220 hitter.650 OPS guy.. he's grown into a .270, .320ish, .800 ops 3b who is local and supposedly open to a discount. He would be leaving a huge pitchers park so you know his numbers were hamstrung by this fact. 

I'd counter we have a 18 foot wall in RF that will lower the HR total, and baseball prospectus has us as the 6th hardest park to homer for lefties. KC is at 13th.

[Angelsjunky]

25 minutes ago, VariousCrap said:

Jeff Fletcher‏Verified account @JeffFletcherOCR 10m10 minutes ago

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Just an educated guess, but I feel like the #Angels aren't going to make any moves that require them to give up any top 15-type prospects or any draft picks. Don't want to lose anything in quest to rebuild farm system. Kinsler basically only cost money. (more)

Jeff Fletcher‏Verified account @JeffFletcherOCR 8m8 minutes ago

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That leaves guys like Todd Frazier, Chase Headley, Eduardo Nunez, Freddy Galvis, Logan Morrison to fill out their infield/bench. Probably not Moustakas (draft pick), definitely not Machado (prospects).

This is good to hear. I just don't think the gap between Moustakas and Frazier/Headley/Nunez is large enough to pay the price in $$$ and draft pick, and Machado or Donaldson would be just too damn expensive.

I'd rather Eppler continue to cultivate the farm, extend key talent, look for savvy trade opportunities (like Simmons), with free agency used to supplement the core roster. Only occasionally spend big money on premium talent.

[IheartLA]

1 minute ago, Angelsjunky said:

Basically Moustakas is....Mark Trumbo. Whoopie. But plays decent 3B, at least.

I made the Cron analogy, but yea Cron/Trumbo/Mousatakas 

All could easily be negative war players if they regress some hit skill since their secondary skills are so bad. Cron was negative in '14 and barely above 1 the last three years. Trumbo is an empty 30 home runs a year. Pujols/Bautista are in the same boat. Matt Adams/Lucas Duda are available for nothing. No need to pay anything for these type of players.

[Ohtani&Trout]

3 minutes ago, IheartLA said:

I'd counter we have a 18 foot wall in RF that will lower the HR total, and baseball prospectus has us as the 6th hardest park to homer for lefties. KC is at 13th.

https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/mike-moustakas-is-the-former-royal-you-want/

[Angelsfan1984]

7 minutes ago, VariousCrap said:

 

I think if the Angels get Nunez, you'd see him take over as full time at 3B.  His ability to lead off with that speed would be hard to not have in the line-up every game.

Perfect, have him lead off with kinsler behind him. Trout would hit a lot less solo home runs. 

[VariousCrap]

1 minute ago, Angelsfan1984 said:

Perfect, have him lead off with kinsler behind him. Trout would hit a lot less solo home runs. 

Honestly, I'd love to see that. 

[IheartLA]

1 minute ago, Ohtani&Trout said:

https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/mike-moustakas-is-the-former-royal-you-want/

Eppler's exact words were that obp is the biggest correlation with scoring runs. If Moose regresses a little he becomes Valbuena, if he falls apart like other big bodied players then he's Pablo Sandoval. We have too light a farm system to risk our present/near future with two potential 1.0 WAR players (pujols/moose). That would be $40M tied up, I'd rather get Cozart even and move one of Kinsler/him to 3rd base before Moose.

[Warfarin]

7 minutes ago, IheartLA said:

Trout - 1st

Upton - 2nd

Calhoun - 15th (but previous years was top seven-ish)

Simmons - 5th (bbrWAR has him 1st btw)

Maldonado - 27th (I'm putting him with the guaranteed starters since I think he is in their minds b/c of defense and the fact that catcher is treated differently from the other positions). 

So we have:

1b - 26th out of 30

2b - Kinsler (low babip, could bounce back, but getting to age where decline could be a steep cliff) but we were 28th out of 30...

3b - 21st out of 30

DH - Dead last.. 17th out of 17

The three teams that won 100 games had beast up the middle combos:

Lindor/Ramirez

Correa/Altuve

Seager/Taylor (I think they'll move him since they have 6 outfielders)

Nationals, Yankees, Cubs had stacked teams, almost everyone was top ten. Twins have a phenom coming up to play SS with Dozier. It's going to be hard to compete without elite talent. The thing is WE DO have elite talent, but our black holes are SO bad. To have half our lineup being below 100 wrc, 1 WAR is a disgrace.

 

 

So arguably, we just need to replace our black holes with average players, as we already have several elite players occupying spots (Trout an Simmons for sure, Upton can probably be considered elite in LF too).

It's very easy to upgrade from #30 to #15.  The hardest (and much more expensive) trick is to upgrade from #15 to #1.

Adding Kinsler lifts us from 28th to middle of the pack fairly easily.  Could be even higher if he rebounds a little bit to, say, 3 WAR.

*IF* we sign, say, LoMo (at 2/25), then I think 1B is improved a bit.  It'll be brought down by the fact that Pujols will be rolled out to play 1B 1-2 times per week, I guess.  Still, going off of last year's production, his presence would likewise bring us to the middle of the pack at 1B.

As for 3B, well, we'll see.  If we roll with Valbuena/Marte, we may not improve much there, but I do expect Valbuena to bounce back a bit.  Let's say we stay the same though and don't really improve there.

DH - yeah, well, we're stuck it appears.  BUT, adding Ohtani does mean perhaps 3 days a week of him batting.  He's a great unknown, so can't really project much, but I'd like to think he'd help us climb a bit higher than dead last.

As an aside, WAR doesn't take into account pitch framing.  So as for Maldonado's ranking, I'm not sure how much things change when you factor that in, but I'm pretty certain he's quite a bit more valuable than #27.

So to summarize, I'd say we have definitely improved now at 2B, likely to improve at one of the corners, and probably improve a little bit at DH with Ohtani aboard.  Those upgrades are probably enough to put us right in the thick of wild card contention, which is definitely a step in the right direction.

[Bull58]

I've been touting Nunez for a few months now, I really hope the Angels at least give him an offer and if he does sign the only question is how is his knee.

[Tyler]

3 minutes ago, IheartLA said:

Eppler's exact words were that obp is the biggest correlation with scoring runs. If Moose regresses a little he becomes Valbuena, if he falls apart like other big bodied players then he's Pablo Sandoval. We have too light a farm system to risk our present/near future with two potential 1.0 WAR players (pujols/moose). That would be $40M tied up, I'd rather get Cozart even and move one of Kinsler/him to 3rd base before Moose.

 

If Cozart regresses a little, very likely coming from Cinnci... he's on the waiver wire and we're searching for a solution all over again. How about we sign the local kid who is entering his prime, wants to play for the angels, provides LH pop, and has been an all-star 2 of his past 3 seasons. 

[IheartLA]

3 minutes ago, Warfarin said:

So arguably, we just need to replace our black holes with average players, as we already have several elite players occupying spots (Trout an Simmons for sure, Upton can probably be considered elite in LF too).

It's very easy to upgrade from #30 to #15.  The hardest (and much more expensive) trick is to upgrade from #15 to #1.

Adding Kinsler lifts us from 28th to middle of the pack fairly easily.  Could be even higher if he rebounds a little bit to, say, 3 WAR.

*IF* we sign, say, LoMo (at 2/25), then I think 1B is improved a bit.  It'll be brought down by the fact that Pujols will be rolled out to play 1B 1-2 times per week, I guess.  Still, going off of last year's production, his presence would likewise bring us to the middle of the pack at 1B.

As for 3B, well, we'll see.  If we roll with Valbuena/Marte, we may not improve much there, but I do expect Valbuena to bounce back a bit.  Let's say we stay the same though and don't really improve there.

DH - yeah, well, we're stuck it appears.  BUT, adding Ohtani does mean perhaps 3 days a week of him batting.  He's a great unknown, so can't really project much, but I'd like to think he'd help us climb a bit higher than dead last.

As an aside, WAR doesn't take into account pitch framing.  So as for Maldonado's ranking, I'm not sure how much things change when you factor that in, but I'm pretty certain he's quite a bit more valuable than #27.

So to summarize, I'd say we have definitely improved now at 2B, likely to improve at one of the corners, and probably improve a little bit at DH with Ohtani aboard.  Those upgrades are probably enough to put us right in the thick of wild card contention, which is definitely a step in the right direction.

I agree, Valbuena increased his home runs 1st to 2nd half but he was still bad. We'd have been better off keeping Freese at half the price. I really don't want us to count on him AND Pujols as part of our starting non-Ohtani lineup. We might even have three with Cron in there too... We would be wasting the prime talent that we DO have if we have three hitters that can't hit plus a defense first catcher. 

[IheartLA]

3 minutes ago, Tyler said:

 

If Cozart regresses a little, very likely coming from Cinnci... he's on the waiver wire and we're searching for a solution all over again. How about we sign the local kid who is entering his prime, wants to play for the angels, provides LH pop, and has been an all-star 2 of his past 3 seasons. 

If Cozart halves his WAR he's still more valuable than Moustakas was last year. Moustakas would need to maintain his 2.2 WAR while moving to a worse hitter's park. He's also the same age that Sandoval fell apart, similar body type. Cozart will bring defense/OBP at least even if his home runs fall.

And Espinosa was a local kid as well, does that mean we should have kept him? I don't see how that matters. Freese wanted to stay here as well, a lot of players would be allured by SoCal. Doesn't change their skillset.

[Warfarin]

1 minute ago, IheartLA said:

I agree, Valbuena increased his home runs 1st to 2nd half but he was still bad. We'd have been better off keeping Freese at half the price. I really don't want us to count on him AND Pujols as part of our starting non-Ohtani lineup. We might even have three with Cron in there too... We would be wasting the prime talent that we DO have if we have three hitters that can't hit plus a defense first catcher. 

To be fair, last year was the worst year Valbuena had in the last 5 seasons.  It doesn't mean he'll find his previous form, but he's a decent bounce back candidate.  If he can channel his 2013-2016 form, he'd be an average 3B for us, which is enough IMO with the rest of the team we have.  If he doesn't, and his offense is terrible again, then we can release him or move along, as it's his last season anyway.

I do think Cron's days are numbered, especially if we sign another corner infielder as expected.  If we sign LoMo, Moose, etc.. Valbuena moves to the vacant spot.  If we sign LoMo, then it's basically LoMo/Pujols at 1B.  If we sign Moose, it's basically Valbuena/Pujols at 1B.  I don't see room for Cron on this current roster.

Maldonado's offense doesn't matter to me.  A catcher literally impacts every single pitch defensively, which is why, IMO, an elite defensive catcher is by FAR the most valuable defensive player you can have on the field.  

[Tyler]

Just now, IheartLA said:

If Cozart halves his WAR he's still more valuable than Moustakas was last year. Moustakas would need to maintain his 2.2 WAR while moving to a worse hitter's park. He's also the same age that Sandoval fell apart, similar body type. Cozart will bring defense/OBP at least even if his home runs fall.

And Espinosa was a local kid as well, does that mean we should have kept him? I don't see how that matters. Freese wanted to stay here as well, a lot of players would be allured by SoCal. Doesn't change their skillset.

 

I'm gonna dip out on this back and forth with you because you are very shaky evaluating talent here. Cozart will end up on a team like the Padres and we'll all forget about him. 

[IheartLA]

6 minutes ago, Tyler said:

 

I'm gonna dip out on this back and forth with you because you are very shaky evaluating talent here. Cozart will end up on a team like the Padres and we'll all forget about him. 

i'm shaky evaluating talent? you literally put one of the reasons for signing him because he wanted to be here and he was a local kid.

If you don't want just one year,

over the last 4 years Moose put up .258/.313/.459 --- 7.2 WAR over 1825 PA. Roughly 2.35 WAR over full season (600 PA).  About in line with last year's 2.2 WAR. He's not some fit athlete like Donaldson/Beltre who will age well. He's about to turn 30 like Sandoval when he signed his big deal.

[Tyler]

1 minute ago, IheartLA said:

i'm shaky evaluating talent? you literally put one of the reasons for signing him because he wanted to be here and he was a local kid.

If you don't want just one year,

over the last 4 years Moose put up .258/.313/.459 --- 7.2 WAR over 1825 PA. Roughly 2.35 WAR over full season (600 PA).  About in line with last year's 2.2 WAR. He's not some fit athlete like Donaldson/Beltre who will age well. He's about to turn 30 like Sandoval when he signed his big deal.

 

Your alternative was to take a glove first SS out of a hitters park and move him to 3B in a pitchers park and comparing WARs like he is gonna have the same comp. like he had a SS.

 

 

[Rico]

Verge

[UndertheHalo]

apparently we're not on the verge.

[Angelsjunky]

Its after 3am in Florida, so I'd give it up for tonight.

Maybe Eppler was on the verge of signing Moustakas or trading for Headley, but double checked with the Angelswin forums to make sure he was on the right track, then balked.

[nando714]

I really hope a 2nd round pick that is a total crapshoot isn’t holding back this team from getting better 

why stop adding now? We only have trout for so long 

[TroutField]

Just sign Eduardo Nunez. No sense spending wildly (money or prospects). Adds some versatility to the infield and he can split time with Valbuena at 3rd. Just need to trade Cron and snag another bullpen arm and call it an offseason. 

[Billy_Ball]

Red Sox are keeping Nunez on their radar.

[IheartLA]

Honestly as long as Pujols is on the team we can't bring Moustakas here. Once he tries some of his wife's arroz con pollo we're screwed. I could see them enabling the other and we could be looking at -5 WAR after one offseason "diet".

His favorite dish is quinoa w/ chicken & rice. 

How to eat like a professional baseball player, according to Mike Moustakas 

http://ftw.usatoday.com/2016/04/mike-moustakas-royals-food-diary

[Tyler]

http://lastwordonbaseball.com/2017/08/21/mike-moustakas-record-home-run-season-royal/

[Angel Oracle]

Nunez, have Valbuena share 1B/DH with Pujols and Ohtani, and trade Cron for a late innings reliever.   

Team would then still have some $25-$30 million left under tax threshold, partly from which to sign a durable mid-rotation starter, and then keep $10-15 million aside either for a July trade or hold to use towards the super FA class a year from now.