Its funny how fast Yankee news escalates...

[AngelsLakersFan]

3 minutes ago, Stradling said:

Would you trade Kole straight up for him?  

I think you'd have to be crazy not to. 

[Blarg]

The Yankees are not taking Calhoun in any trade. He fried his trade value this year. 

[ten ocho recon scout]

8 hours ago, NJHalo said:

Yankees currently have the 6th highest payroll in MLB now.

They have no surtax going into next season now that they kept their payroll under the threshold for the 2018 season.

I see a huge spending spree in the Bronx this offseason. They are going to drive up the price for any free agent. 

Agreed. Dodgers too. They both made sure to get under. In the dodgers case the first time in years (and they dont need the money).

Id assume machado, since hes there. But i keep thinking harper.

In the yanks case, though, judge will be a super 2, so he will get a significant raise. Who knows, they may already be talking extension with him

[hangin n wangin]

30 minutes ago, Stradling said:

Would you trade Kole straight up for him?  

Oh F*ck yea. I hit the accept button immediately.

[Taylor]

I see this has turned into a "let's trade [mediocre Angels player] for [player who has a lot more value]" thread.

[Inside Pitch]

8 hours ago, WeatherWonk said:

We would certainly have to upgrade the offense from a middle of the pack status. Angels were 20th in OPS last year.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/MLB/2018.shtml.   Park effects....  

[Stradling]

1 minute ago, Inside Pitch said:

https://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/MLB/2018.shtml.   Park effects....  

Explain to me what I am looking at.

[Inside Pitch]

5 minutes ago, Stradling said:

Explain to me what I am looking at.

Click on the ops+ column ..... On phone so.... Cut and paste is jacked up....  Sorry.   Compare the Ops to the ops+.   Like the Rockies were 5th best ops but a below average offense.

Edited October 13, 2018 by Inside Pitch

[Stradling]

4 minutes ago, Inside Pitch said:

Click on the ops+ column ..... On phone so.... Cut and paste is jacked up....  Sorry.   Compare the Ops to the ops+.   Like the Rockies were 5th best ops but a below average offense.

Ok, so OPS+ is park adjusted, got it.  

[Inside Pitch]

1 minute ago, Stradling said:

Ok, so OPS+ is park adjusted, got it.  

Bingo....  Raw numbers tell us nothing.

[Vegas Halo Fan]

2 hours ago, Inside Pitch said:

Bingo....  Raw numbers tell us nothing.

Raw numbers get you Fernando Rodney as a closer because he had a lot of saves the year before.

[WeatherWonk]

8 minutes ago, Inside Pitch said:

Bingo....  Raw numbers tell us nothing.

OK, using your raw numbers tells us that the Angel hitters were 10th best in OPS. But it really doesnt indicate how well Gray might do, pitching in Anaheim for half his games.

And eight of the nine teams above us were in the AL. Not gonna cut it, if we are interested in making the playoffs. We are deficient, offensively.  Only one team above us had a losing record like us. Park factors included. We were 15th in runs scored. 

BTW, six of the nine teams above us made the playoffs. 

[Inside Pitch]

2 hours ago, WeatherWonk said:

OK, using your raw numbers tells us that the Angel hitters were 10th best in OPS. But it really doesnt indicate how well Gray might do, pitching in Anaheim for half his games.

And eight of the nine teams above us were in the AL. Not gonna cut it, if we are interested in making the playoffs. We are deficient, offensively.  Only one team above us had a losing record like us. Park factors included. We were 15th in runs scored. 

BTW, six of the nine teams above us made the playoffs. 

I didn't respond to anything about Sonny Gray -- the post I responded to made no reference to Gray at all.   If your intent was to discuss him I guess it would have been good to include some reference to the guy .vs focusing on the Angels offense.

More to the point, you attempted to use raw OPS to paint the Angels as the 20th best offense in MLB.   I provided a link for people to see how well they actually performed in relation to the rest of MLB based on weighted data.   My intent was to add perspective to your statement -- the Rockies had the 6th best Raw OPS and yet they were 10% below league average offensively while the Angels came in at an even 100.    Park effects have a big impact on performance and this remains true even as Angel Stadium played less like a pitcher's park this year.

When push comes to shove outscoring your opponents is the end all be all.  Winning  4-1 is a more dominant showing than winning 6-5,   Historically, run Prevention has been proven to have a greater impact on winning games than does run Production.   The Angels problem is that most of the teams ahead of them both did a better job of scoring runs and preventing them.  All of the teams with a better record than the Angels in the AL allowed fewer runs, but Tampa (90 wins), and Seattle (89 wins), both scored fewer runs.

The Angels need to improve both areas.

[UndertheHalo]

@Inside Pitch the Angels have to play half of their games at Angel stadium never mind all the other pitcher friendly parks in the AL West.   What difference does it make that hypothetically the hitters weren’t as bad as the top line numbers show ? And I don’t think there was any park factor on Marte, Valbuena, Pujols, or Calhoun.  They just suck. 

As far as Sonny Gray, if the Yankees want to give him away I guess.  The Yankees are a team we’ll probably see in the playoffs.  And Boston.  If the guy can’t pitch in these parks.  That’s sort of a problem for the Angels if the plan is to be in the playoffs again.  No ?

never been a big fan of scooping up the Yankees garbage. 

Edited October 13, 2018 by UndertheHalo

[Inside Pitch]

24 minutes ago, UndertheHalo said:

@Inside Pitch the Angels have to play half of their games at Angel stadium never mind all the other pitcher friendly parks in the AL West.   What difference does it make that hypothetically the hitters weren’t as bad as the top line numbers show ? And I don’t think there was any park factor on Marte, Valbuena, Pujols, or Calhoun.  They just suck. 

As far as Sonny Gray, if the Yankees want to give him away I guess.  The Yankees are a team we’ll probably see in the playoffs.  And Boston.  If the guy can’t pitch in these parks.  That’s sort of a problem for the Angels if the plan is to be in the playoffs again.  No ?

never been a big fan of scooping up the Yankees garbage. 

Dear Lord....    Of course they have to play in Angel Stadium -- that's the damn point, the park will deflate offense and so raw numbers will take a hit -- but the park does that to EVERYONE, not just the Angels hitters.  It's not like if Mike Trout played in Boston his raw OPS would remain the same.   It could go up 150 points and yet his OPS+ could possibly remain static based on the league data.

OPS+ is measured based on every at bat taken in every park by every hitter in MLB and compared to each and every at bat taken by every other hitter in each and every one of those parks -- the intent is to provide perspective.   OPS+ supports the fact that Marte -- 77, Valbuena -- 62, Calhoun -- 80 and Pujols -- 92 where all below league average (100).  The Angels as a team being a league average offense doesn't change the reality that those guys were bad.

So in case someone else is having a hard time grasping a very simple premise let's be very clear.... OPS+ doesn't mask shitty/mediocre play, it exposes it..    Case in point -- Carlos Gonzales posted an OPS of .796 -- pretty awesome right?   Well... that was good for a OPS+ of 99 -- just below league average.   Meanwhile Justin Upton's .808 was good for an OPS+ of 122.   In the world of raw data, they were similar hitters, but in reality -- one was actually very good the other mediocre.

ERA+ does the same thing with pitchers.

Edited October 13, 2018 by Inside Pitch

[UndertheHalo]

1 minute ago, Inside Pitch said:

Dear Lord....    Of course they have to play in Angel Stadium -- that's the damn point, the park will deflate offense and so raw numbers will take a hit -- but the park does that to EVERYONE, not just the Angels hitters.  It's not like if Mike Trout played in Boston his raw OPS would remain the same.   It could go up 150 points and yet his OPS+ could possibly remain static based on the league data.

OPS+ is measured based on every at bat taken in every park by every hitter in MLB and compared to each and every at bat taken by every other hitter in each and every one of those parks -- the intent is to provide perspective.   OPS+ supports the fact that Marte -- 77, Valbuena -- 62, Calhoun -- 80 and Pujols -- 92 where all below league average (100).  The Angels as a team being a league average offense doesn't change the reality that those guys were bad.

So in case someone else is having a hard time grasping a very simple premise let's be very clear.... OPS+ doesn't mask shitty/mediocre play, it exposes it..    Case in point -- Carlos Gonzales posted an OPS of .796 -- pretty awesome right?   That was good for a OPS+ of 99.   Meanwhile Justin Upton's .808 was good for an OPS+ of 122    

ERA+ does the same thing with pitchers.

I don’t have trouble “grasping” OPS+ dude.  I understand what it is.  Thanks for jumping directly to that.  

I just don’t think it’s relevant to say that the Angels offense isn’t as bad as it appeared due to OPS+ being average team wide.  We had a half of a line up of terrible hitters.  That’s a fundamental problem.  I like the OPS + stat.  But I don’t think pointing to it and saying the team wasn’t as bad as it seemed is particularly enlightening.  The team was that bad.  Am I misunderstanding your point ?

[Blarg]

21 minutes ago, Inside Pitch said:

OPS+ is measured based on every at bat taken in every park by every hitter

That's one of the keys to OPS+ is it encompasses all ballpark data. I'm sure you could take Trout's career ops at other parks and see he hits better in some ballparks but most other players equally do. But nuetralize park data and Trout is basically the same awesome hitter home and away. No Coors field bump in his game, Trout is who he is every place he goes and that is never good news for opposing pitchers. 

[Inside Pitch]

18 minutes ago, UndertheHalo said:

I don’t have trouble “grasping” OPS+ dude.  I understand what it is.  Thanks for jumping directly to that.  

I just don’t think it’s relevant to say that the Angels offense isn’t as bad as it appeared due to OPS+ being average team wide.  We had a half of a line up of terrible hitters.  That’s a fundamental problem.  I like the OPS + stat.  But I don’t think pointing to it and saying the team wasn’t as bad as it seemed is particularly enlightening.  The team was that bad.  Am I misunderstanding your point ?

Sorry you took offense but -- if you got it, then you wouldn't have responded the way you did and you certainly wouldn't be asking me if I think they are bad.   

The point was, is, and will always be that whenever someone uses raw data .... the data is lacking context...    If you disagree fine -- otherwise you're not really responding to anything I've actually said ...  But you clearly had trouble grasping that despite the fact I made my intent pretty obvious by making the statement in bold type.   Moreso there is nothing hypothetical about OPS+ it's a weighted measure of what happened -- doesn't mean it's of any use for future predictions but it's not like FIP or some other statistic that tries to argue what "should have been".   

Lastly, the fact that my post says point blank that they need to improve is all the insight you need as to my opinion of the offense.

Edited October 13, 2018 by Inside Pitch

[Inside Pitch]

3 minutes ago, Blarg said:

That's one of the keys to OPS+ is it encompasses all ballpark data. I'm sure you could take Trout's career ops at other parks and see he hits better in some ballparks but most other players equally do. But nuetralize park data and Trout is basically the same awesome hitter home and away. No Coors field bump in his game, Trout is who he is every place he goes and that is never good news for opposing pitchers. 

This is someone getting it.

[Blarg]

14 minutes ago, UndertheHalo said:

We had a half of a line up of terrible hitters.

Yes, which means with only a couple of upgrades like Catcher and 1st base, even putting Fletcher on 2nd and Cozart on 3rd the Angels offense is much better. It's not that wide of a chasm between having a really good offense that isn't weighted by Trout's awesomeness.

[UndertheHalo]

6 minutes ago, Inside Pitch said:

Sorry you took offense but -- if you got it, then you wouldn't have responded the way you did and you certainly wouldn't be asking me if I think they are bad.   

The point was, is, and will always be that whenever someone uses raw data .... the data is lacking context...    If you disagree fine -- otherwise you're not really responding to anything I've actually said ...  But you clearly had trouble grasping that despite the fact I made my intent pretty obvious by making the statement in bold type.   Moreso there is nothing hypothetical about OPS+ it's a weighted measure of what happened -- doesn't mean it's of any use for future predictions but it's not like FIP or some other statistic that tries to argue what "should have been".   

Lastly, the fact that my post says point blank that they need to improve is all the insight you need as to my opinion of the offense.

I’m clearly misunderstanding what you were saying.  

[Inside Pitch]

Just now, UndertheHalo said:

I’m clearly misunderstanding what you were saying.  

Meh - it happens.  But rest assured we agree that the offense can use a couple upgrades.   Mostly, it just needs to get rid of the black holes.

[UndertheHalo]

1 minute ago, Inside Pitch said:

Meh - it happens.  But rest assured we agree that the offense can use a couple upgrades.   Mostly, it just needs to get rid of the black holes.

Yea absolutely ! I’ve posted all over this board that the Angels need to strive to find average production to surround the great to very good  players that make up the core of the team.  I don’t think we’re that far off from having very productive offensive production as Blarg pointed out.  We just can’t have multiple zeroes playing every day. 

[Blarg]

Here is the reason the Angels offense was not bad on paper but not great in the box score.

Trout.

Numbers wise he had a 199 OPS+ which means in one guy we had the production of two good hitters. That numerically masks a Valbuena (62 OPS+) Maldonado (71 OPS+) and Calhoun (80 OPS+). 

When you then add in Simmons 109, Upton 122 and Ohtani 156, you level out at about 100 over every weak ass bat that stood in the batters box. But it's kind of a false number because in reality the production is really coming from 4 players not 9. 

That's why I said the Angels are not far from a good offense. Scrape away Valbuena and replace him with a league average 1st baseman to spell Pujols and you've jumped 40 points.

Replace the catcher with a league average hitter and you jump about 30 points. Replace with Realmoto and you jump 50. 

3rd base gets Cozart back who should hit league average. Fletcher showed he can play at this level and replaces Kinsler that really only hit a couple points higher so that is a wash. 

No longer is Trout's production masking 5 other position players. Most every position can carry it's own weight on offense while actually improving on run prevention. 

Not far from being really damn good.

[Blarg]

And we don't need anymore 3 outcome players. Get some guys that can make contact or take a walk instead of waiting around 5 days for your .230 hitter to knock a solo shot out.