Payroll and Roster management for 2019/20

[Stradling]

Morin was bad that year, Shoe wasn’t great that year 4.5 ERA in the first half.  Johnny G had zero trade value, Escobar May have got you a Buttrey type.  Cam was really good and Kole was good. Highly doubtful he brings back anything that speeds up the rebuild.  

[beatlesrule]

25 minutes ago, Dochalo said:

what backlash?  what's with the martyrdom?  you mean that people are disagreeing with your take?  seems like a pretty reasonable discussion

Just in general someone who is realistic is viewed as negative whereas someone optimistic pretty much gets away scot-free.

11 minutes ago, Baghdad Strad said:

Morin was bad that year, Shoe wasn’t great that year 4.5 ERA in the first half.  Johnny G had zero trade value, Escobar May have got you a Buttrey type.  Cam was really good and Kole was good. Highly doubtful he brings back anything that speeds up the rebuild.  

Now who's being negative?

Looking at WAR, those players would have definitely gotten good prospects. Is that being realistic or optimistic?

[Docwaukee]

7 minutes ago, Baghdad Strad said:

Morin was bad that year, Shoe wasn’t great that year 4.5 ERA in the first half.  Johnny G had zero trade value, Escobar May have got you a Buttrey type.  Cam was really good and Kole was good. Highly doubtful he brings back anything that speeds up the rebuild.  

Cam was probably the one guy we could have cashed in on.  I do remember being sort of pissed that Arte didn't spend his way out of the bad choices that were made during the Dipoto era.  In retrospect, that would have actually made things even worse.  I also truly believe that making at least a mild effort to be competitive had a lot to do with Trout staying.  Maybe I'm wrong about that, but I think that if the team went into tank mode around mid 2016 and still in it, I don't think we'd be celebrating his extension this off season.  

I also don't think Mike signs that extension without getting some assurances that the Angels would be spending a bit more over the next few years in order to make the team better.  I could be wrong.  

[Docwaukee]

20 minutes ago, beatlesrule said:

Just in general someone who is realistic is viewed as negative whereas someone optimistic pretty much gets away scot-free.

Now who's being negative?

Looking at WAR, those players would have definitely gotten good prospects. Is that being realistic or optimistic?

how do the positive people get away scot-free?  We usually get called delusional.  I'm gonna get called out all winter for predicting that we'll win the division if we sign Cole and Wheeler and Wil Smith.  Or being optimistic about Stassi after he changes his swing and hits double digit hrs this spring (ok, maybe I won't go that far).  

[ten ocho recon scout]

4 hours ago, beatlesrule said:

 "We're doing the best we can."

Arte Moreno

His definition of best sucks.

If you would have signed top free agents like Adrian Beltre and Max Scherzer and other top free agents that he didn't sign, yes this team would be a consistent playoff team. Or since he doesn't want to spend the money on them, he should have tanked.

I'm a broken record when I state the team should have blown up in 2016. Instead, Arte is in this mediocrity hell. He won't spend big to get all the best players to surround Trout with and he won't tank to get the best draft picks to surround Trout with. So the Angels are stuck in this in-between place and it's not fun.

The Astros tanked and look at them now. The Angels would be in a better place if they would have tanked in 2016 or hell, traded away bits and pieces like Cam and Calhoun etc. Arte is delusional if he thinks his Angels could actually compete for a World Series every single year he's had Trout.

29 other teams didnt sign Scherzer or Beltre.

Feel free to @Lou me when Beltre was available...I was in the minority on here who wanted him. But he would have nothing to do with the current team. Even if we had a time machine to bring the Beltre kf a decade ago here (with Fenway and Arlington with him), he wouldnt change our pitching staff.

So we sign Scherzer.... he would be our Cole right now. But he would only be one guy in the rotation...Ohtanis arm still blows out, Skaggs is still RIP, Richards arm blows out, etc etc.

You dont go all out for top tier FAs unless you are already there, or very close.

A year ago, nobody was on to Fletcher, cared about La Stella, Kole was in the minors, etc etc etc....

We needed way more than one guy. Scherzer couldnt solve that problem.

If we added a second Mike Trout, we would still need pitching 

[Angelsjunky]

I'm glad we didn't get Carl Crawford.

[Inside Pitch]

5 hours ago, Baghdad Strad said:

They traded Smith and Santiago. The return wasn’t great. 

Giovatella and Morin have had so much value they combined to be released/waived 9 times since 2016.  Giavotella in particular was sooo much in demand the Angels granted him his FA despite not having a 2B.  The only time either one was traded by any of the 8 teams that picked them up was Minnesota (Morin), in exchange for cash this past July

[Inside Pitch]

5 hours ago, beatlesrule said:

Just in general someone who is realistic is viewed as negative whereas someone optimistic pretty much gets away scot-free.

Translation..   

Someone who agrees with me is realistic.   
Someone who disagrees with me isn't.

The end.

[Inside Pitch]

5 hours ago, RBM said:

I don’t understand how anyone can say they are a devoted fan of a team and not remain optimistic. Realistic yes, but optimistic always. 

I wasn't at all optimistic about this team's chances the last few years - hopeful, sure.. But optimistic.... Nope.  There was no getting around the lack of farm system and it's ability to funnel players up when the need would arise.   Could they have surprised if everything broke right and people stayed healthy, sure..  But the "if everything goes right" mantra didn't work under Bavasi or any other time, I had already been down that road as a fan..  

This year looks like they may end up with the worst record since 2016 and yet I'm genuinely optimistic because there are more pieces in place, less bad dollars sucking up multiple years of payroll.  We can actually envision the team minus AP in the near term and not 5 years down the road and maybe most importantly, the Trout situation is finally resolved -- the record won't reflect it but the core is finally better.  There are actually young guys showing signs of life, a new core coming into place. 

The OF regardless of what happens with Calhoun seems set thanks to Goodwin -- Epp needs to send KC a gift basket because that's what he's been to the organization, a total gift.  Still only 28, he's put up a 2.0 bWAR, and is club controlled through 2023.   Adell, Marsh, are the future and will eventually come up but if all we have is Goodwin, Trout, Upton then they have a competent albeit horrendous defensive (corners) OF.   The IF can hold it's own.  Rengifo has managed 1.3 bWAR (1.1fWAR), as an unfinished 21 year old.  He gets on base which is something we haven't had out of a MIFer in well.. eons, and while he has that young IFer tendency to butcher a routine play his defense at least measures out well.  To say that Fletcher has exceeded most analysts expectations is an understatement, he's made himself into an extremely useful player.  LaStella/Simmons are around for at least another year, we will see what happens but neither one figures to be a black hole...   1B ...  well, that's a black hole-ish position.  AP at his best will be replacement level, and at this point its not realistic to believe he walks away on his own -- he'll need a push and I dunno if the Angels are willing to do that.  Thaiss, Walsh --  both would likely give the team the same or better results at league minimum, but their biggest value comes from making the need for a Justin Bour type signing a non factor, and there is reason to be optimistic they can improve.  It would be fun to see Anaheim native  Rojas come up and get some playtime in Sept.   

The rotation is a nightmare, but again...  This is the first time I'm optimistic they have a shot at actually getting a front end of the rotation guy.   I still believe they need to come out hard and sign someone like Wheeler while still trying to get Cole, and I'll be disappointed if Moreno doesn't take that leap of faith.  The SP need is so severe it really would be borderline neglect to not bite the bullet this winter and try to address it.  I hope they have discovered some way to effectively measure "players who know how to win" because, I hear tell that's what's really important.

Anyway.... would adding a couple SPs be enough to take down the Astros -- dunno, but it gets them closer.   They really need to have a capable team in place as the Astros start having to deal with their pending FAs.  And IMO anyone that thinks the only effort that would matter is one that all but guarantees they could win the division... well....  

That's not "realistic" at all.

Edited August 28, 2019 by Inside Pitch

[totdprods]

I absolutely hate the notion that the Angels would be in a better place had they decided to tank for a few years, trade off all non-Trout talent, and hoard prospects. 

One big reason - how exactly was this team set up to make the most of the amateur draft and international scouting? We had no structure for that at the time. You can’t just tank and flip a switch and have an entire team ready to make that happen. 

Two, Arte fought hard and spent enormous money to legitimize the Angels in the LA market. Us hardcore fans realize the benefits of a tank, but the notoriously casual SoCal baseball base that attends Angels games do not, and the Dodgers were a top-tier premium team during this time. All of Arte’s work building this team up 04-09 would have been for nothing basically, had he lost all of that casual fan interest with years of 100-loss teams. Those fans might show up late, leave early, and think Matt Harvey and Ian Kinsler are good baseball players because they know their names, but their money is worth just as much as ours. 

Last, the Angels had Mike Trout and wanted Mike Trout to stay. He’s a smart guy. He gets it. He signed an extension here for that reason. But it would have been enormously risky assuming a very young Mike Trout would be on-board with a plan like that or what impact it would have on his decision to stay. And his talent presented the Angels a high-floor team. They could have fluked into the playoffs with luck, and almost did. 

On top of all that - tanking doesn’t always work, at least on the timeline we might have hoped. The White Sox farm hasn’t really come along yet, at least as quickly as they had hoped. Same for San Diego, same for Atlanta. Texas didn’t tank, but they had a great farm that hasn’t really done much. That takes me back to the first point - with how little we had invested in amateur scouting and player development, it probably wasn’t going to be a tank that yielded quick results. We’d maybe just now be seeing some of that talent hit the major leagues, with a year or two of adjusting ahead of them, and you know what? Eppler has STILL managed to achieve that aspect without tanking. I respect that the Angels gave their fans, even if only the casual ones, some false hope that they’d contend every season to keep money coming in to feed the quiet rebuild they did, instead of just giving up for a few seasons, banking the profits, and hoping it would all work out. Hoping it would all work out is what got us here.

Edited August 28, 2019 by totdprods

[Kendo36]

On 8/26/2019 at 4:26 PM, Dochalo said:

Free agency is still and always will be a bad bet.  I'm all for expanding payroll as long as it done thoughtfully.  I want two legit starters, but adding a third for more than a 1yr deal seems like too much risk after you've diluted your own pool.  Get your top two and look around.  I'm going with Cole, Wheeler and Grandal over Cole, Wheeler and Odorizzi.  The reliever pool is also pretty shallow.  I hope they don't pull another Allen.  Will Smith?  ok sure.  Otherwise I'd rather see them go reclamation on the relief side of things.  

There were at least 4 free agent pitchers that performed well this season that we passed on or were outbid for. Charlie Morton among others. 

[Blarg]

How many didn't?

[arch stanton]

More to the point, was there a way to know in advance which 4 it would be? Would those 4 have accepted one year deals or been a good bet to continue this success of the next few years when the Angels are truly set up to compete? Or is hindsight our only analytic tool?

[Blarg]

This is Claude logic that a year later it was obvious what should have been done the previous year. 

[Angel Oracle]

23 minutes ago, Kendo36 said:

There were at least 4 free agent pitchers that performed well this season that we passed on or were outbid for. Charlie Morton among others. 

Morton only wanted to pitch nearer to his home back east, or else retire.

[Dick B Back]

All the woulda, shoulda, coulda...

The Halos have stumbled due to the Kendrick effect, pure and simple.

[Docwaukee]

Corbin, Morton and Ryu were guys we never had a shot at.  Ryu for obvious reasons as he accepted the qual offer.  Corbin and Morton because they wanted to be in specific spots.  It would have required a massive overpay to lure them here.  

Anyone who thought Lance Lynn's 3/30 by texas didn't look like a massive overpay, raise your hand.  You're a genius.  Same with Sanchez's two year deal and the same with Miley.  

Eppler could have done better, but based on what was out there last off season, things could have been way way worse.  Imagine having another year of 17m left for JA Happ and another 3 years left at 17m per for Eovaldi.  The Eovaldi contract is the type that GM's get fired over.  

The fact that the Angels are in a position to afford Cole and another starter while still maintaining a similar payroll to 2019 should be lauded.  

Could you imagine the melt downs around here if, for financial reasons, pitching upgrades weren't even an option for 2020?  

My biggest concern going forward isn't that there won't be effort, but in process.  What was it about all of this year's FA failures that the team saw and thought they could make those players serviceable or even good.  I was less confident in that process a couple weeks ago until I saw recent adjustments from Heaney, Barria and Suarez.  For Heaney, it hasn't been subtle.  But for Barria and Suarez, I can see some real changes in approach that I am very happy about.  Maybe a lot of it was Lucroy but who knows.  

I actually enjoy having hope some semblance of hope.  Maybe that's the generic fan in me, but I actually appreciate that Arte on behalf of Eppler spent a bunch of money this last off season in order to give the team an outside chance at doing something.  Granted, it was wasted and raised some concern, but I'd rather go into the season thinking that the post season is at least possible even if it end up not working out.  

[Angel Oracle]

Miley was the one that was sensible to bring in (one year/$4.5 million), based on a bit of a rebirth in 2018 and being half of what it cost to bring in Harvey. 

Eppler has rebuilt the farm, and it will improve further as the rookie/A/A+ level guys advance.

But this off-season may be the one to determine if he stays here long term.  Granted, it also partly depends on what Arte is willing to spend. 

 

[Troll Daddy]

13 hours ago, Dochalo said:

Cam was probably the one guy we could have cashed in on.  I do remember being sort of pissed that Arte didn't spend his way out of the bad choices that were made during the Dipoto era.  In retrospect, that would have actually made things even worse.  I also truly believe that making at least a mild effort to be competitive had a lot to do with Trout staying.  Maybe I'm wrong about that, but I think that if the team went into tank mode around mid 2016 and still in it, I don't think we'd be celebrating his extension this off season.  

I also don't think Mike signs that extension without getting some assurances that the Angels would be spending a bit more over the next few years in order to make the team better.  I could be wrong.  

IMO you’re wrong about Trout 

[Claude]

14 hours ago, Dochalo said:

Cam was probably the one guy we could have cashed in on.  I do remember being sort of pissed that Arte didn't spend his way out of the bad choices that were made during the Dipoto era.  In retrospect, that would have actually made things even worse.  I also truly believe that making at least a mild effort to be competitive had a lot to do with Trout staying.  Maybe I'm wrong about that, but I think that if the team went into tank mode around mid 2016 and still in it, I don't think we'd be celebrating his extension this off season.  

I also don't think Mike signs that extension without getting some assurances that the Angels would be spending a bit more over the next few years in order to make the team better.  I could be wrong.  

Mild effort....

Remember when the Yankees won 89 games in 2008 and ended up 8 games back of the division? Steinbrenner said nope that’s not good enough so they signed Texeira, Sabathia and Burnett. That was $53M per in his budget. They went on to win the World Series in 2009. 

That’s called being aggressive. No mild effort. That’s what Arte should be doing while Trout is here.  

Edited August 28, 2019 by Calzone 2

[Angelsjunky]

32 minutes ago, Calzone 2 said:

Mild effort....

Remember when the Yankees won 89 games in 2008 and ended up 8 games back of the division? Steinbrenner said nope that’s not good enough so they signed Texeira, Sabathia and Burnett. That was $53M per in his budget. They went on to win the World Series in 2009. 

That’s called being aggressive. No mild effort. That’s what Arte should be doing while Trout is here.  

Arte tried that in 2011-13, bringing in Vernon Wells, Albert Pujols, CJ Wilson, and Josh Hamilton. It didn't work and ended up hamstringing the team for years, for once and all disproving the "its not my money" mentality.

Sure, be aggressive. But do so in a smart manner. 

That said, I do think that Arte/Eppler will spend this offseason. Maybe not three impact players like your example above, but certainly two. But let's wait and see before getting upset about what Eppler doesn't do in the future.

[Broad Street]

If we can dump Upton off on someone I’ll be happy. 

[Claude]

17 hours ago, Angelsjunky said:

Arte tried that in 2011-13, bringing in Vernon Wells, Albert Pujols, CJ Wilson, and Josh Hamilton. It didn't work and ended up hamstringing the team for years, for once and all disproving the "its not my money" mentality.

Sure, be aggressive. But do so in a smart manner. 

That said, I do think that Arte/Eppler will spend this offseason. Maybe not three impact players like your example above, but certainly two. But let's wait and see before getting upset about what Eppler doesn't do in the future.

Question. Are all team’s expectations different with their fans and ownership? Let’s be honest about this. How do you think the Yankees fans and their ownership would handle this team? It seems like they would be a lot less tolerant and hold their GM, players and coaches more accountable. In fact, I think the Steinbrenner’s would explode publicly and clean house. To me the difference is that the Yankees ownership and their fans expect to win while we just hope to win.