This team the past three games...

[angelsnationtalk]

The Angels are just trying to prove to Eppler that they are sellers come deadline time. Anyone who thinks we shouldn’t be sellers with Calhoun and LaStella should be slapped. 

[Chuck]

8 minutes ago, angelsnationtalk said:

The Angels are just trying to prove to Eppler that they are sellers come deadline time. Anyone who thinks we shouldn’t be sellers with Calhoun and LaStella should be slapped. 

The problem is there's really nothing to sell unless it's Kole Calhoun. If we sucked and La Stella was sitting at 20 HR and a solid OPS at the deadline we could get a pretty nice prospect for him.

The most we're going to get is a Low-A guy, maybe a prospect in a team's top 7-12 range.

[stormngt]

1 hour ago, Second Base said:

Even the most optimistic among us predicted the Angels were likely an 86 win team at the start of the season. The pessimistic thought we were more like a 78 win team. Split the difference and the consensus would've been the Angels finishing with an 82-80 record.

Right now, that looks about right. And that's the frustrating part about .500 ball clubs. They will go on a run and play inspired ball for a week and make you think they've got a wild card run in them. Then they'll fall flat on their stupid faces just to remind you that they aren't a playoff team.

Seriously, Eppler has got to shake things up. He really screwed the pooch on Harvey, Cahill and Allen. Tending Ramirez a contact looks like a mistake too. Chris Stratton was a stupid trade too. The only thing he did right past winter was trade for La Stella. But this team can't afford to stay in the same bubble of mediocrity for another year when their window of contention is finally going to open up.

I'd like to see Eppler get a little drastic and deal away Calhoun and La Stella, see if we can't score some more Buttrey or Robles type of bullpen arms ahead of next season. Maybe buy low on Chris Archer and see if Doug White can help him... Not that that has worked out this year either.

Trade for Goodwin was a good trade

[Second Base]

2 minutes ago, stormngt said:

Trade for Goodwin was a good trade

Was that a trade? I thought he was claimed off waivers.

[stormngt]

Just now, Second Base said:

Was that a trade? I thought he was claimed off waivers.

My bad...still good move

[DMVol]

11 hours ago, angelsnationtalk said:

The Angels are just trying to prove to Eppler that they are sellers come deadline time. Anyone who thinks we shouldn’t be sellers with Calhoun and LaStella should be slapped. 

Nobody is trading for LaStella...he likely won’t play until Sept....if then...

[wopphil]

9 hours ago, Jason said:

The pitching staff got some motivation from it. Unfortunately they have very little talent and aren’t capable of carrying the team when the offense struggles. 

This is what is so concerning going forward. This staff is wholly lacking in talent. I am not sure that even the return of Ohtani and the addition of a guy like Cole would be enough - they may need to add three, or even four, starters. 

[tchula]

7 hours ago, Chuckster70 said:

The problem is there's really nothing to sell unless it's Kole Calhoun. If we sucked and La Stella was sitting at 20 HR and a solid OPS at the deadline we could get a pretty nice prospect for him.

The most we're going to get is a Low-A guy, maybe a prospect in a team's top 7-12 range.

We are going to have to address pitching one way or the other.  We do have trade-able commodities, but we just do not want to give them up.  I bet if we offered a team Marsh, Kole, Thaiss, and maybe Soto we could get some nice AAA pitching prospects in return.  Because even if we do sign Garrett Cole next year (which is a big if), there will be a dramatic drop off between Cole, Ohtani, and everyone else.  I know Heaney's had a rough year but he seems to have regressed to me.  He's struggled with his command and continually gets behind in the count.  And I am not sure what happened to Canning Griffith.  He hit a brick wall lately.  I hope he can work through it because both Griffith and Suarez have had some major growing pains this year.  I think Canning will eventually bounce back, but I have serious concerns that Suarez recent control problems also are correlated with his magically increased velocity.  Suarez has struggled all year, even before he was called up. 

[tdawg87]

We need two new starters, including a guy of Cole's caliber.

But let's remember: Griffin Canning is a 23 year old rookie, Suarez is a 21 year old rookie, and Barria is also 23 years old. Those guys are gonna take their lumps, and certainly have. They will all three get better. 

This rotation is an unmitigated disaster. But there are tangible reasons for that:

No Ohtani. 

Harvey and Cahill.

 

Ohtani returns next year, and we could essentially replace Harvey with Gerrit Cole, and Cahill with someone like Chris Archer, then trade for a pitcher to replace Skaggs (RIP).

So that pushes Canning to the 4th spot and Heaney to the 5th spot, with guys like Suarez and Barria fighting it out for the 6th spot. 

I'm cautiously optimistic that the rotation could be solid next year.

 

Edited July 20, 2019 by tdawg87

[John Taylor]

No team can sustain scoring 7-10 runs a game, and our starting pitching has a nasty habit of allowing big innings which put us in a hole (Which is ironically what the Angels were doing to the Mainers and Astros the first 2 games of that series). I was really impressed with the poise that Canning showed when he was called up, but Skaggs death has reminded us that Canning is still a kid, and you can see the weight of the world on his shoulders, not only did he lose a mentor, but you can see he is putting even more pressure on himself to perform. I also feel like Heaney is pressing as well, and he is nibbling a little too much instead of attacking the strike zone.

Suarez and Barria are young and are going to be inconsistent for a bit, Pena is kind of a basket case he reminds me a lot of Ramon Ortiz or Ervin Santana minus the electric stuff Santana could conjur up every other season. I think Pena is better in the bullpen. Also Harvey and Cahill are terrible and I'm glad Harvey got DFA'd.

 

Unfortunately we have to admit the pitching staff is missing its ace and leader, and the emotional "Win one for Skaggs" high has settled into a "we still have the rest of the season"

[Catwhoshatinthehat]

[TroutField]

It’s extremely difficult to be upset with this team after what they have been through. They still have over 60 games left and they are all emotionally drained.

[Duren, Duren]

Cole will likely be able to sit back and wait for multiple offers. Why would he pick the Angels over potentially more playoff ready teams? 

Money and term probably will be similar in most offers by serious bidders, give or take whatever unique factors each team throws into their mix. 

Cole has been around for a while, going from a small market non contender to a now solid consistent World Series threat. No doubt he enjoys being on a winning team now, and probably wouldn't want to regress to a still building team with multiple flaws. 

There are also marketing and longer term opportunity factors. 

The 'home town' matter may or may not be important. We don't know if it will until he signs somewhere.

Remember the cockiness and confidence Philly fans had about Trout signing there? 

The Angels will have to do a lot of roster maneuvering to give him the money he will demand. Do they have the burning desire to acquire him at all costs? 

No doubt they should be a serious bidder, but unless the home town factor is very important it's hard to see them being the favorite. 

I would guess that a team making the playoffs (or missing by a game or two) , but being eliminated will think that he is the one missing piece and will be intent at getting him at all costs.

[Angel Oracle]

Thing is, the position player roster is solid.   The young pitching has promise, but is being thrown into the fire.

Add a Cole plus a second solid enough starter, and that allows the young pitchers to progress without so much pressure on them.  Domino effect, and will Arte do what it takes financially, even if taking just a one or two year hit on the budget and tax threshold?

This team is emotionally spent, and no one can blame them one bit.

[angelsnationtalk]

10 hours ago, Chuckster70 said:

The problem is there's really nothing to sell unless it's Kole Calhoun. If we sucked and La Stella was sitting at 20 HR and a solid OPS at the deadline we could get a pretty nice prospect for him.

The most we're going to get is a Low-A guy, maybe a prospect in a team's top 7-12 range.

I really think if Thaiss can get it going and Fletcher and Rengifo are continuing to earn their spot that it does make LaStella available. It could be risky, but given his age and the prospects pushing to come up, it’s somthing that could be done. LaStella would bring the better return, but there’s also a chance a playoff team gives a good bullpen arm (like a Buttrey) for a player like Calhoun. It happened last year and Calhoun matches up again with even better projections.

[Lou]

We should get better pitchers

[Claude]

The two wild card front runners are red hot. They’re not going to fold. The A’s are a scrappy team that just continues to play hard and the Indians have the best manager in baseball leading the way. 

[angelsnationtalk]

2 hours ago, wopphil said:

This is what is so concerning going forward. This staff is wholly lacking in talent. I am not sure that even the return of Ohtani and the addition of a guy like Cole would be enough - they may need to add three, or even four, starters. 

I think just 1 changes the mentality of rotation. Let’s say you add Cole for example. You now have a true #1 starter and now the rest of the crew has less pressure. Specially on Heaney and it also let’s Ohtani/Canning do their thing without needing to feel like they need to be the ace like everyone expects them to be.

[GrittyVeterans]

13 hours ago, tdawg87 said:

But my thoughts are this: This is a .500 baseball team. That's it. Their offense is good enough to carry them through the occasional hot streak but the pitching is so. Damn. Bad. They can't really sustain any consistent success. 

Been saying this all year. People over-analyze things tremendously around here. These performances have nothing to do with lack of emotion, being flat, bad luck, etc.

They are just no better than .500. They've been hovering between 4 games under and 4 games over basically the entire year. If they finished with more than 84 wins, or less than 76 wins, it would be surprising.

[Slegnaac]

39 minutes ago, Lou said:

We should get better pitchers

This is the only logical solution.

[GrittyVeterans]

31 minutes ago, Calzone 2 said:

The two wild card front runners are red hot. They’re not going to fold. The A’s are a scrappy team that just continues to play hard and the Indians have the best manager in baseball leading the way. 

The A's also just have more depth and are better in general. The Angels made a big mistake a couple years ago when they let Yusmeiro Petit go there for a reasonable price.

People talked all offseason about how the A's pitching staff wasn't going to be good enough. They were wrong.

[Claude]

1 hour ago, Duren, Duren said:

The Angels will have to do a lot of roster maneuvering to give him the money he will demand. Do they have the burning desire to acquire him at all costs? 

This ^^^^^^

When has Arte ever paid top dollar for pitching. Arte digs the long ball. He would rather spend his money on someone like Giancarlo Stanton than pitching. 

[tdawg87]

We should fire our pitching coach coach.

[DMVol]

2 hours ago, TroutField said:

It’s extremely difficult to be upset with this team after what they have been through. They still have over 60 games left and they are all emotionally drained.

 

1 hour ago, Angel Oracle said:

....This team is emotionally spent, and no one can blame them one bit.

True that....but young guys like Fletcher, Rengifo, Thaiss, Canning, Suarez, maybe Walsh need to play from here thru the end of the season...they are hungry to establish themselves....give them every opportunity....

[Claude]

33 minutes ago, DMVol said:

 

True that....but young guys like Fletcher, Rengifo, Thaiss, Canning, Suarez, maybe Walsh need to play from here thru the end of the season...they are hungry to establish themselves....give them every opportunity....

Yep and put Upton at 1B right away. The entertainment value alone would be worth it.