FIRE EPPLER

[mulwin444]

Damn...some receipts thrown on the counter...

[failos]

@Throwman91 be a man and reply

[Inside Pitch]

2 hours ago, Tank said:

yep, "running laps around Eppler" indeed.

I believe he meant Jon Daniels of the Rangers and not Jerry Dipoto of the Dipotos.

[Stradling]

4 minutes ago, Throwman91 said:

I obviously meant Rangers GM. Way to cherry pick your insults and not even consider the obvious choice.  If you think Eppler has done even half as much as Jon Daniels you are a superfan.

So what have the Rangers done, Kluber and Gibson and I thought one other thing?  

[Dick B Back]

I enjoyed receiving scorn on the board... gives me wood.

[Stradling]

1 minute ago, Throwman91 said:

I mean he basically stole Kluber, and added a solid rotation at very little cost to their farm system and bank.

Ok, so probably not twice as much yet, got it.  

[Stradling]

2 minutes ago, Throwman91 said:

Bundy isn't worthy of any praise, he's basically on par with the rest of our current rotation.  Nobody stands out, Rendon was not signed by Eppler

Whatever, be that guy.

Oh ok, Eppler didn’t sign Rendon.  Got it.  What a fucking joke.  

[CanadianHalo]

3 minutes ago, Stradling said:

Oh ok, Eppler didn’t sign Rendon.  Got it.  What a fucking joke.  

Let me start this off by saying I’m honestly not attacking Billy right now. 
 

Do you truly believe Rendon was a Billy decision? From all accounts it certainly sounds like Rendon was another Arte signing. Even at the Rendon presser they made it sound that way. 

This also could be making Eppler’s job more difficult. Arte gave Eppler a budget and then spent a good chunk of that budget on Rendon because he was one of his “favorite players”.

If Arte wants a player he’s going to sign that player and who is Eppler to say no? Maybe this threw a wrench into Billy’s plans this offseason. We’ve blamed Arte in the past for signing certain players...

 

[hangin n wangin]

Just think about how much money we would have to toss around if we didn’t have Pujols’ dumb ass. What a worthless fuck.

[Pancake Bear]

7 minutes ago, CanadianHalo said:

Let me start this off by saying I’m honestly not attacking Billy right now. 
 

Do you truly believe Rendon was a Billy decision? From all accounts it certainly sounds like Rendon was another Arte signing. Even at the Rendon presser they made it sound that way. 

This also could be making Eppler’s job more difficult. Arte gave Eppler a budget and then spent a good chunk of that budget on Rendon because he was one of his “favorite players”.

If Arte wants a player he’s going to sign that player and who is Eppler to say no? Maybe this threw a wrench into Billy’s plans this offseason. We’ve blamed Arte in the past for signing certain players...

 

Not the impression I got. Yes, Arte made clear he had interest, but Eppler also made it clear that Arte’s interest in Rendon has been long standing and it didn’t get in the way of their pursuit of Cole. Once Strasburg and Cole were unavailable, they made sure to go after the best value remaining. No one said or intimated that Arte directed them to get Rendon. He was a piece in the puzzle. Arte’s interest maybe pushed him more than it might have otherwise, but Eppler made the deal happen. Would Rendon have come without Arte making it known through Boras that he wanted Rendon? Who knows, but given how much we offered, I think it likely happens regardless. 

[hangin n wangin]

Reality is, no one knows shit. Speculate all you want, but no one knows what happened behind closed doors. Bunch of pointless bickering.

[Inside Pitch]

50 minutes ago, Throwman91 said:

I obviously meant Rangers GM. Way to cherry pick your attack and not even consider the obvious choice.  If you think Eppler has done even half as much as Jon Daniels you are a superfan.  He turned the rangers rotation from scrap metal to polished steel.  And any Angels fan refers to Jerry Dipoto as JeDi not JD.  I get trolling reactions because 1 guy does it then others follow suit when I made a valid point not worth such scorn.

Dude chill out, plenty of people refer to Dipoto as JD and some never called him JeDi.  It's an easy mistake to make given how often people have brought up Dipoto in order to criticize Eppler.

And while you're busy singing the praises of JD consider the reality that he's essentially been as successful at addressing his team's most glaring need as Eppler has.  The Rangers finished 2019 with a team OPS+ of 88, he's lost offensive pieces and hasn't added a single bat other than  Blake Swihart.  Considering nobody has any clue how the new park will play it could get really dicey for them.

So while he definitely deserves credit for adding to the rotation their offense was already dogshit and they likely lose Pence who was one of the few guys that actually hit.  Making matters worse, they have three guys who should be DHing but their bats are so bad that two of them will be forced to play defense (which was already awful),  and because of the Kluber trade that team lacks a true CFer.  

It's a pretty disjointed off-season for them.

[CanadianHalo]

2 minutes ago, Pancake Bear said:

Not the impression I got. Yes, Arte made clear he had interest, but Eppler also made it clear that Arte’s interest in Rendon has been long standing and it didn’t get in the way of their pursuit of Cole. Once Strasburg and Cole were unavailable, they made sure to go after the best value remaining. No one said or intimated that Arte directed them to get Rendon. He was a piece in the puzzle. Arte’s interest maybe pushed him more than it might have otherwise, but Eppler made the deal happen. Would Rendon have come without Arte making it known through Boras that he wanted Rendon? Who knows, but given how much we offered, I think it likely happens regardless. 

I mean obviously Eppler being the GM needed to get involved but was it because Arte was banging the table for Rendon? I’m thinking more so yes than no. But you’re right who knows, we probably never will know

[Stradling]

6 minutes ago, CanadianHalo said:

Let me start this off by saying I’m honestly not attacking Billy right now. 
 

Do you truly believe Rendon was a Billy decision? From all accounts it certainly sounds like Rendon was another Arte signing. Even at the Rendon presser they made it sound that way. 

This also could be making Eppler’s job more difficult. Arte gave Eppler a budget and then spent a good chunk of that budget on Rendon because he was one of his “favorite players”.

If Arte wants a player he’s going to sign that player and who is Eppler to say no? Maybe this threw a wrench into Billy’s plans this offseason. We’ve blamed Arte in the past for signing certain players...

 

Of course Arte signs off on that type of signing, that is true of all major contracts.  I do think Arte is more hands on with the bigger deals.  

[Pancake Bear]

Just now, CanadianHalo said:

I mean obviously Eppler being the GM needed to get involved but was it because Arte was banging the table for Rendon? I’m thinking more so yes than no. But you’re right who knows, we probably never will know

Yeah, that’s a fair question. I just didn’t get the impression that Arte mandated Rendon be signed. And if Fletch is correct that they weren’t getting Cole and Rendon both, clearly Arte wasn’t all in on Rendon specifically. Eppler seemed to indicate that Rendon was always someone they were looking at and after Cole was off the board, Rendon was clearly the best value remaining. 

[BackUpTheTruck]

Offense sells tickets.

[Inside Pitch]

25 minutes ago, Throwman91 said:

I guarantee you, offense in modern baseball is not important, the Angels and some fans for some reason value offense over pitching.  The Giants won 3 WS in 4 years and had little offense to get excited about, because pitching parks benefit the home team's pitchers more than their hitters as their hitters will be facing larger dimensions the majority of games.

You're preaching to the choir ....  I'm a huge proponent of run prevention > run production but you're overstating your position like you always do.   

The 2012 WS champion Giants had an OPS+ of 106 vs a league average of 94 and an ERA+ of  96 .vs the league average of 101 -- they had the second best offense in the NL meanwhile their home park masked their bad pitching staff.  The 2014 team similarly was led by it's offense, posting an OPS+ of 99 .vs a league average of 94.   On the pitching end their ERA+ of 99 was below the league average of 101.  Finally the 2010 Giants put up an OPS+ of 98 .vs the league average of 94 -- their pitching actually was great that year but their offense was never awful -- it was simply muted by their home park...   But go ahead and keep trying to sound like you're some baseball savant, it makes for good comedy ..

And oh yeah...

1 hour ago, Throwman91 said:

Bundy isn't worthy of any praise, he's basically on par with the rest of our current rotation.  Nobody stands out, Rendon was not signed by Eppler

Whatever, be that guy.

Steamer projections

DB - 180 IP -- 4.46 ERA, 2.3 fWAR https://www.fangraphs.com/players/dylan-bundy/12917/stats?position=P
KG - 174 IP -- 4.42 ERA, 2.9 fWAR https://www.fangraphs.com/players/kyle-gibson/10123/stats?position=P
JL -  142 IP -- 5.21 ERA. 1.3 fWAR https://www.fangraphs.com/players/jordan-lyles/7593/stats?position=P

If Bundy isn't worthy of any praise, then you may want to reconsider how much of it you're heaping on JD...  Because if Kluber's rough 2019 is anything other than a blip he's not really done anything "praiseworthy".

 

[ukyah]

[Docwaukee]

polished steel?  

[Inside Pitch]

7 minutes ago, Dochalo said:

polished steel?  

Baseball version of a romance novel....  Picture Fabio throwing a baseball and you'll see it.

[Docwaukee]

1 minute ago, Inside Pitch said:

Baseball version of a romance novel....  Picture Fabio throwing a baseball and you'll see it.

I said it in my head with the same voice I'd use to 'cinemax - after dark'.  

is that right?  

[Inside Pitch]

3 minutes ago, Dochalo said:

I said it in my head with the same voice I'd use to 'cinemax - after dark'.  

is that right?  

[Docwaukee]

I guess that means our rotation is Aluminum but pronounced the British way.  

[Docwaukee]

[Stradling]

Arte traded Cozart