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Should the Angels be better or...


Torridd

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55 minutes ago, Jeff Fletcher said:

For what it’s worth, in spring training I was telling anyone who asked that I thought the Angels were an 84- to 87-win team. 

Now I’m going to guess they end up winning 79 to 83.

Why did you believe that Jeff? We all knew the Astros was the team to beat, but with Kinsler, Upton, Ohtani, and Cozart most of us here thought we had a good chance to make the playoffs.

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30 minutes ago, Torridd said:

Why did you believe that Jeff? We all knew the Astros was the team to beat, but with Kinsler, Upton, Ohtani, and Cozart most of us here thought we had a good chance to make the playoffs.

Because he's objective?

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1 hour ago, mulwin444 said:

Offense has been crap  and the starters have rarely been able to get past the 6th inning which means a very average, but not bad, relief group is put in a lot of high leverage situations (1 or 2 run leads) early in the game and giving up the lead.  Like last night, Robles got the blown save as soon as he could not protect a 1-run lead with 2 runners on and no outs.    

Despite all the press about the Angels pitching injuries, they have a top 5 pitching staff in the AL and top 10 in the MLB (in ERA, Quality Starts) but they are limited and that gap between the time when the starter leaves to the 9th inning really showed their flaws early.  The BP has recovered a bit with the acquisitions of Robles and McGuire and the promotion of Cole but there is no Kimbrel in that group...no Shields/Donnelly/Weber/KRod/Percival...they are all just solid middle relievers with decent stuff put into situations where elite stuff is needed.

Going back to the offense, we gave a lot of at bats to players that we were hoping would come around but never did - 

Valbuena - .202 .250 .589 OPS -0.7 WAR

Cozart - .219 .296 .658 OPS 0.1 WAR

Kole Calhoun  - .190 .246 .578 OPS -0.4 WAR

Chris Young - .168 .252 .615 OPS -0.7 WAR

Jefry Marte - .233 .282 .690 OPS -0.1 WAR

Jabari Blash - .091 .192 .283 OPS -0.7 WAR

Michael Hermosillo - .154 .214 .419 OPS -0.4 WAR

Not to mention the struggling starters:

Albert Pujols - .251 .290 .721 OPS 0.8 WAR

Martin Maldonado - .225 .287 .623 OPS 0.4 WAR

Justin Upton - .253 .349 .796 OPS 2.5 WAR (compared to .273 .361 .901 OPS 5.7 WAR last season)

Only Trout and Simmons are hitting or outperforming their expectations.

That's a lot of negative WAR, underachieving, and offensive dead weight.

Trout, Simmons, and Upton are still a solid core but Eppler is going to have to be creative to account for offensive issues at 1B, 2B, 3B, and RF

 

Surprisingly the offense is better than the Mariners

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The schedule is also something to consider. While I 'm baffled by the success of the Mariners  and A's, they are having success.  The Angels have had one of the toughest schedules thus far and there's still quite a few left against their AL West opponents. 

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1 hour ago, Dochalo said:

I would rather bring up a bunch of young guys and have them perform well where we go on a run because of it and end up 10 games over.  

If they come up and struggle which leads to tanking for the rest of the year then at least they've gotten valuable experience and we have a better idea of who's who and what they do.  

I’d like to see them bring up Thaiss, from what I can tell he’s the most major league ready.  That means Marte or Valbuena have to go.  I don’t give a shit, either can as far as im concerned.  I know everyone here is clamoring for Ward but from what I’ve read, he’s not ready to field 3b yet.  I’m sure we’ll see a bunch guys before the end of the year.  

Still, the Angels finishing in the upper half of baseball is a disaster.  If we aren’t going to compete for the playoffs we need to get as high a pick as possible.  I don’ agree with any other justification. 

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4 minutes ago, Troll Daddy said:

You're right as always ... Seattle offense is a Juggernaut

Well, 1) yes, I am right as always because 2) Angels offense is not better than Seattle's 

The M's are what the Angels would be if we actually had a good bullpen and 5 experienced, un-injured starting pitchers that can take the ball every 5 games

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1 hour ago, Torridd said:

Why did you believe that Jeff? We all knew the Astros was the team to beat, but with Kinsler, Upton, Ohtani, and Cozart most of us here thought we had a good chance to make the playoffs.

Well, last year they won 80 games. They didn’t really add any pitchers besides Ohtani (who was an unknown and had a bad spring. Even if you didn’t buy that he was a bust as a pitcher, it was reasonable to think he may be a back-end type guy his rookie year and then get better.) Even if you assumed every pitcher would be healthy (a big if) the only one you knew would be good was Richards. 

The offense had hope of being better, but it was based on a full year of Upton, Cozart and Kinsler. Cozart was coming off a career year, far above anything he’d done before, and he was moving to a new tougher ballpark. Kinsler was coming off his worst year and 35. It was a safe bet they’d do better in those 3 spots because they were awful last year, but a dramatic improvement seemed optimistic. 

I figured going from 80 to 86ish was realistic. 

Also, on paper it looked like 86-87 wins might get you the wild card. The Twins won 86 last year. 

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2 hours ago, stormngt said:

Injuries

Sorry I don't buy the injuries excuse . Sure the pitching staff has been hit pretty hard but have we lost that many man power games with our starters . Clearly my view will be different than most here but I just witnessed and predicted a while ago that the NY Islanders would NEVER be able to keep Tavares on their team . They should have looked to make a deal last year when he wouldn't negotiate a new deal .  The writing was on the wall for all but the naive Islanders fan . Their team had issues , one of which was the perception of no chance for Tavares to win a cup with that team . So he balked at signing during his walk season then shoved it firmly into Islander managements hind quarters .. They lost arguably one of the best players in the game for nothing .  I fear the Angels will lose Trout for zilch when he can walk away in a few years . This team sucks ass and they aren't a good free agent offseason away from changing anything.

We can't get rid of Albert quick enough and excluding Simmons the Angels seem unlucky at free agent acquisitions . The league is becoming difficult to grab younger players in their prime while they are locked into longer deal by their clubs . So what is the solution ?  

The only way to build a team is by drafting well and developing players . The problem is that will take a few years and we don't have a few years if the Angels wish to get Trout to a playoff series . 

So is it satisfying to you as an Angel fan to have the best player in the game on your team , your losing team or would it be better for the Angels to get a ton of prospects in his trade ?

Blasphemy ! Crazy ! Sure but in case you haven't noticed teams seem to be winning games , championships without Mike Trout in their lineup . Life will go on with or without Trout in an Angel uniform . I'm also sure the Angels will continue to be mediocre the next two years with their line-up and this is why I bring up .

Its not injuries that dictate the other teams feel the way to thwart the Angels offense is by walking Trout as often as possible because NOBODY can pick up the slack .

I wonder what the return could be for a superstar locked up contractually for two more seasons - I would love to hear the offers .

I would rather be winning without Trout -than losing with him .

 

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2 hours ago, Angel Oracle said:

Eppler's poor record with bringing in stop gap fixes, plus the injuries, doomed this team.

Bright side is the future with a much stronger farm.   However, Billy needs to improve at finding stop gaps, if that is to continue to be a part of his MO.

When you lose Richards, Shoemaker, Ohtani and Ramirez from the starting pitching depth and Middleton and Blake Wood from the bullpen depth, you are forced to have guys like Deck McGuire starting for you....you are doomed.  

Cozart, Kinsler and Upton have underperformed, but I dont think many here were upsete with that.

Eppler did under value the pen, but that is still not the biggest problem....Injuries have doomed this team.

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1 hour ago, Dick B Back said:

Cause Upton’s not in their lineup?

It seems as though the Angel offense explodes once a week, which tends to inflate their overall numbers.

It is time to diss the dead weight and see what the young guys can do.

We should keep Trout, Simmons, Ohtani Fletcher, and maybe Maldonado and Kinsler for defense.

Everyone else could probably be replaced from the waiver wire without much change in offensive production.

 

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