Wake up, Eppler

[Tank]

4 minutes ago, Chuckster70 said:

Billy Eppler is comatose this offseason.

how is it you're missing the news from fletcher that eppler made offers to at least three free agents but they chose to sign elsewhere?

[Chuck]

5 minutes ago, Tank said:

how is it you're missing the news from fletcher that eppler made offers to at least three free agents but they chose to sign elsewhere?

They must be his bots at work while he sleeps comfortably through the day, every day, all off-season long.  

[UndertheHalo]

Are we seriously giving points out now for failing to sign guys that they want.  JFC.  

[floplag]

On 12/17/2018 at 1:39 PM, Angel Oracle said:

What could be keeping players from wanting to come here?    The farm is solid now.   The club is generally well supported in attendance, even if more stayed away after buying tickets in recent years.   Or is Eppler being overly cautious with the ones who already signed?

 

The answer is at least partially quite simple, were not winning.   
The future isnt any guarantee even with a top farm, if guys are signing 2-3 year deals they want that window to matter not what comes after it.  We have had a sub 500 record three straight years with the best player on the planet and dont appear to be changing that for another couple years under the Eppler plan. 
If you had a choice between us and the Yanks/Sox/Astros right now all things being equal, where do you go?  Heck if you have a chance to get out of the AL and not face that three headed monster, wouldnt you?  People would rather sign with fringe NL teams it seems so far.
Yes Hou is facing a crunch in the next few, but they also have a strong farm to replace many of those losses and wont be significantly worse in a division with no real challenge presenting itself in the immediate future since we appear content to wait it out. 
We will get those who want to be here geographically, those who dont really care about winning, those we overpay to ignore that we are not winning, or those the other places do not want.

[Chuck]

Just now, UndertheHalo said:

Are we seriously giving points out now for failing to sign guys that they want.  JFC.  

[UndertheHalo]

My god.  You guys are nuts.  There’s no stink on the Angels that’s causing players to not come here.  The Angels aren’t making the offers that will get it done. 

Every player has his interests.  In Ramos case, all things being equal he would prefer the east coast.  Apparently he got 2 equal offers and that’s what settled it.  The Angels would have had to cough up more to bring him here. They didn’t.   Nothing to do with not winning. My god, the Mets ? Really.  Winning is the issue here for Ramos ?

blame people responsible for not doing the job If you aren’t happy.  Don’t make bullshit up. 

The Angels brass is deciding how much they want these guys.  Apparently not that much.  We’ll see how important getting a catcher is to them.  Grandal is their last realistic shot if they don’t want to trade a nice prospect.  We know Grandal is cool on the west coast.  Are they willing to sacrifice international money and and a 2nd round pick ? We’ll see.  It’s a tough call.  

Edited December 18, 2018 by UndertheHalo

[T.G.]

 

 

[Tank]

1 hour ago, UndertheHalo said:

My god.  You guys are nuts.  There’s no stink on the Angels that’s causing players to not come here.  The Angels aren’t making the offers that will get it done. 

Every player has his interests.  In Ramos case, all things being equal he would prefer the east coast.  Apparently he got 2 equal offers and that’s what settled it.  The Angels would have had to cough up more to bring him here. They didn’t.   Nothing to do with not winning. My god, the Mets ? Really.  Winning is the issue here for Ramos ?

blame people responsible for not doing the job If you aren’t happy.  Don’t make bullshit up. 

The Angels brass is deciding how much they want these guys.  Apparently not that much.  We’ll see how important getting a catcher is to them.  Grandal is their last realistic shot if they don’t want to trade a nice prospect.  We know Grandal is cool on the west coast.  Are they willing to sacrifice international money and and a 2nd round pick ? We’ll see.  It’s a tough call.  

shut up. we should sign everyone and you know it.

[Roy Hobbs]

On 12/17/2018 at 12:04 PM, Chuckster70 said:

Breaking News: Eppler woke up. 

Also, I cannot get enough Mike Tyson MEME's. 

 

[WeatherWonk]

Despite recent outliers like Houston and Cleveland, there IS a correlation between payroll and wins, according to Fangraphs.

https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/the-battle-between-payroll-and-parity/

I guess the Angels are an outlier, too. Arte is a top ten spender, but has so little to show for it. No other team, that has been in the top ten in payroll for the last ten years, has so few playoff appearances. 

Not that this has affected the OC sheeple, much. Arte's attendance is trending down, but it is still over 3 mil. A quote from PT Barnum seems appropriate here.

It's difficult to call him cheap, though. He just hasnt been smart with his money. Hopefully, Eppler is changing that. 

[Second Base]

I don't think it's necessarily fair to blame Arte in any of this mess, at least not fully blame him. Let's face it, the man wants to win. He wants to be a champion and he has showed it ever since he first bought the team. Vlad Guerrero, Bartolo Colon, Kelvin Escobar were part of that first wave, and he made very solid offers to retain Mark Teixeira. He brought in GMJ and doubled down with Torii Hunter in an attempt to get there.  The World Series has eluded him time and again. By the time Reagins was around, he was under so much pressure to build a winner that we saw him making moves to bring in Vernon Wells. 

Arte was desperate and when Dipoto arrived, he was under the directive to build a winner. Do what it took. Now a normal GM would've wanted to build a perennial champion, but Dipoto wanted to buy a champion. He convinced Arte that it could be done with the likes of Pujols, Wilson and Hamilton. 

I don't think it was a lesson Arte learned about not being so meddlesome so much as he learned that spending in free agency didn't build a winner now and certainly helped prevent them from constructing one later. So by the time Eppler arrived, Arte had definitely soured on the whole free agency thing. And can you blame him? Sign guys and for the So team part, it doesn't work out. Trade for guys with expiring contracts like Teixiera and Greinke, and still end up getting burnt. 

The only way to build a winner is to do it from the inside out, not from the outside in. 

Even Billy Eppler, in all his ability to connect with many people, and his scouting background, and building the farm, he goes into free agency for Zack Cozart and now that looks like 38 million down the toilet for a utility infielder with a sub.300 OBP. 

You think Arte is eager to spend money on Manny Machado and Bryce Harper? I think not. What about Pat Corbin, 30 years old and commanding that sort of contract. Mr. Moreno wants to build a winner, but has realized itt takes time and patience. He'll fund what the smart baseball people he hires tell him to fund, but those guys have to know that if they come at their boss with another Josh Hamilton type of plan, they're just asking to get fired. 

The best thing that happened during Moreno's tenure as the Angels owner was drafting some kid from New Jersey 25th overall. Didn't cost Moreno pretty much anything at all and he's got the greatest of all time roaming CF. Or when Shohei Ohtani lands in the Angels lap and it costs less than any major contract. 

There's no reason for Arte Moreno to open up that wallet of his and if this offseason seems boring, it's certainly not because Eppler is bad at his job or Moreno is suddenly more worried about profit. 

[Docwaukee]

The article states that about 33% of wins can be attributable to financial might.  That means the other 67% are by other means.  

Included in the other two-thirds is scouting, development, injury prevention, analytic strategy, shrewd acquisitions, and maybe a decent amount of luck.

The strategy is pretty clear.  Get the other 67% in order and when you do, supplement as needed to complete the other third.  As I've mentioned in the past, we're actually doing it a bit backward.  We already have the more expensive supplementary pieces.  Now we just need the other two thirds.  

The Angels have the financial might to play the same game as the other big market teams.  You can't exclusively use FAcy to get you there.  It's why you don't allocate 3/4th of your payroll to 4 players.  yet.  It's not always about who, but when.  A guy like Machado might be the right who, but he's not the right when.  

[Stradling]

Yep Doc, that’s why I say the lack of farm hurts MUCH worse than the Albert contract.  At least when you bought Albert you were buying the premium piece and you paid what it took to get him.   But when your farm can’t produce league average players at all then you’re paying for Kinsler, Valbuena, Cozart,.   When the Angels were in their hey day they were bringing those guys up annually.  

[Second Base]

Literally everything about team building has made building a farm the only way to win long term. If there was any other way, you wouldn't see so many teams tanking. It's the ONLY way to win. Even a team like the Red Sox, that has Chris Sale, Craig Kimbrel, David Price, JD Martinez, Nathan Eolvaldi....clearly they bought at least part of their championship. Some of it was financial might (Martinez, Price) and the other part was using their farm system to purchase these players (Sale, Kimbrel, Eovaldi). And even then, they still developed Benintendi, Betts, Bogaerts and Devers internally. 

Looking at the Angels....Trout and Calhoun were developed internally and then nothing on the position player side that stuck for 5 years. That crippled the system. And after 5 years, it isn't like they developed stars. They developed Fletcher, Ward and Hermosillo, and none of those three look like they're starting caliber yet. To compensate, the Angels flexed their financial might, they just invested it terribly in Pujols, Hamilton and Cozart. 

And the irony here, is that the Angels will finally have developed the necessary players internally with Adell, Marsh, Jones, Thaiss, Rengifo etc.....and the best thing their financiers will be able to do is secure the homegrown players longer. But that's why I believe 2020-2030 will be the golden age of Angels baseball. All those home grown players, plus additional waves involving Canning, Suarez, Hernandez, Soriano, Rodriguez on the mound (Ohtani too) and other homegrown bats like Jordyn Adams, Jeremiah Jackson, Kevin Maitan, D'Shawn Knowles, Trent Deveaux, Alex Ramirez...Its just an incredible wave of talent that will coincide with funds becoming available from Pujols and Cozart's expiring contracts and in four years, Upton's too, but not before he delivers another solid three 30 HR seasons. 

In 2020 and beyond, the Angels will have the homegrown talent, and the financial clout to either extend their good players, or bring in others via free agency. I just really hope Trout is around to experience it. He gave the first decade of his career to a losing team, the best way they can reward him is to make the second decade of his career rich with yearly playoff appearances, maybe even a couple world championships if they're lucky. 

[tomsred]

I think a lot of Eppler's thinking is that if he can start with a team that has a reasonable chance at success, then it postpones the decision as to throwing all his chips on the table until he sees what can be accomplished as far as positioning for a playoff, and post season push.  I'm not sure he is operating with a short term budget as much as he is positioning himself for a successful start while conserving funds for a big push in July/August, if the team is really in the race. 

I still think he will do everything he can right now not to give up farm talent, and draft picks.  Try to stay in contention as long as possible, and make a push later if things are working out.    

[eligrba]

I predict the Angels accession into a legitimate contender will happen with unexpected speed. It could happen this year,  more likely next year.  

[Lou]

On December 16, 2018 at 11:08 PM, GrittyVeterans said:

I’ve always had the opinion they have to go on a deep run either this year or next year if they want to re-sign Trout.

i don’t see him agreeing to a deal until the team proves they are more clearly headed in the right direction. Having a good farm system is great but Trout is 27 now so it needs to start translating to wins really soon

I agree 

[Chuck]

On 12/18/2018 at 2:19 PM, Chuckster70 said:

Billy Eppler is comatose this offseason.

I disagree. 

[T.G.]

I don't care what @Dtwncbad or anyone else says... @Lou bumping threads like this NEVER gets old.

[eligrba]

On 12/26/2018 at 7:44 AM, eligrba said:

I predict the Angels accession into a legitimate contender will happen with unexpected speed. It could happen this year,  more likely next year.  

I agree.

[eligrba]

5 minutes ago, RBM said:

Sent this before Eppler signed Harvey and Cahill. I would gladly take Buchholz ($3 M), Miley ($4.5 M) or Gonzalez ($2 M) now over Harvey/Cahill.

And I would have bet lots of money on the derby if what I know today I knew yesterday.

[tdawg87]

Wake up, Sheepler.

[Stradling]

39 minutes ago, RBM said:

Sent this before Eppler signed Harvey and Cahill. I would gladly take Buchholz ($3 M), Miley ($4.5 M) or Gonzalez ($2 M) now over Harvey/Cahill.

Cool.  Why did they turn down those offers from the Angels?  

[Stradling]

7 minutes ago, RBM said:

I don’t know that they ever received an offer from Eppler. He thought getting Harvey and Cahill before Christmas for 3 to 4 times the money was a better option. 

Why are you so reluctant to hold Eppler accountable? 

Because I have no authority to hold him accountable.  Me pretending they offered them the contract is exactly the same as you assuming they didn’t.  

[UndertheHalo]

Buchholz fu*cking sucks.  He’s every bit as bad  as Cahill and Harvey.