Another lost season over, need a lot of work this off season

[jchalos89]

For 5th straight seasons, the Angels did not make the Post Season. Sadly, us Angel fans have not been able to see the team's W in PS for a decade at this point, which is very depressing considering how great this team was back in 2000's.

If I'm not mistaken, we want this team to win the World Series. Angels are not a small market club that spends like $70M and make Post Season couple of times and sell all good players to big market for future picks and tank. This team has money to spend and has been spending a lot of money (mostly on wrong players though). More than that, we have one of the all time greats and without a doubt the greatest player in franchise history Mike Trout in his prime.

Even in this 72-90 season, they spent $177.3M which ranks 6th in the league and that is more than championship contenders like Dodgers (7th) and Astros (8th). 

Kinda makes sense when your team paid $46M on Upton and Pujols (-0.5 WAR combined) + wasted $34M on disasters like Cahill, Cozart, and Harvey. (-1.8 WAR combined). Just FYI, there are 6 ML teams that spent less than what the Angels spent on those 5 players, including TB Rays that made the Post Season.

I am following all Angels social media channels and I've been seeing a lot of mad and sad fans demanding for pitching. They are right about this team's need of pitching of course, when your team is ranked 25th in team ERA and dead last 30th in Quality Starts provided by starters.

The lowest ERA from any regular starting pitcher that the Angels used this season is 4.29, and that is from Tyler Skaggs (Rest in Peace, Tyler) and he won't be in the rotation next season. Next up are Pena and Canning (4.58) but both are in 60 day IL due to injuries and we don't even know how they will perform when they comeback. Nothing personal, but our best starting pitchers (Pena, Canning, and Heaney probably) won't even make it to the bottom of rotation in championship contenders and that says it all. This team needs pitching (I know a lot of fans want SoCal native and Angel fan grown Gerrit Cole) but not just a couple, but at least 3 or 4 guys that are better than any starter we have now. 

Angels bullpen is decent (at least better than starting rotation..) and looking at how Middleton pitched when he came back, I'd say Robles-Buttrey-Middleton makes strong case for our bullpen. Buttrey fell apart in the 2nd half of the season but he was overused in the 1st half due to inability of starters going deep and I am hopeful he can perform like he did in the 1st half when he doesn't have to pitch 1+ innings every 2-3 games. Cam Bedrosian is a beast when he is used in low leverage situations (as an opener he possesses 2.57 ERA and 0.179 opposing batting avg and he was also solid in 7th inning) but he can't be a set up guy since he had 0.244 oppo batting avg, 0.324 oppo OBP in the 8th and has 0.269 oppo batting avg with RISP. 

This team has average offense. Angels ranked 15th in runs scored, 18th in HRs, 18th in team batting avg, 14th in OBP, and 18th in OPS. Maybe that is little below average but close enough I guess. 

But all these "average" numbers come with Mike Trout's MVP numbers. If you replace Mike Trout's numbers with a imaginary Center Fielder who has 0.280 avg, 0.340 obp, 20 HRs, 80 RBIs and 80 Runs (which is still very solid and he'll be one of the fine CFs in the league), the Angels rank 22nd in runs scored, 24th in HRs, 21st in OBP,  and 23rd in OPS. Mike Trout will be an Angel for another decade so I'm not saying "We have to build a strong team even without Trout" but this suggests the presence of Mike Trout buffed up this team's entire offensive lines and often make ppl to forget that this team also needs to add more bats to the lineup.

Also, we are talking about MLB, in which you have to be in top 8 to make the PS, and at least top 10 to play 1 game WC. We are not talking about NBA, where 16 of 30 teams make Play-offs and being average means you make it to the knock out stage. Hence if you want to see your team competing for the title, you have to have a good, or great team, not an average one.

Just to make it work, I am making very hopeful assumptions here so the reality next season will probably be worse than what I say here.

1. J-Up stays healthy and bounces back.  2. Pujols doesn't decline further and at least produces positive WAR like he did this year.  3. La Stella gets his form back and plays like he did before injury.  4. Ohtani-san stays healthy and bats as a DH 3 times a week.  5. Jo Adell immediately plays like a top prospect and takes 1 spot in the Outfield

Now we have Upton-Trout-Adell + Goodwin in the rotation in the OF. Fletcher-Simba-TLS-Pujols in the IF. Still nobody productive in C position and everybody in the bench are batting around or below Mendoza line, means this team needs to bring a C and bunch of productive field players in the bench. We probably won't see guys like Cozart, Bour, Tovar, Cowart, Stassi, Bemboom, etc in the Angels roster next yr. (They will probably keep Thaiss since he is one of the valued prospects and he started picking things up in September after having disasterous August)

 

Now here are what the Angels need to do this off season (even with all those positive assumptions I made above)

1. Sign 3-5 starters including an ace (We need more starters cuz we will use 6 men rotation with Ohtani + this team has been sending entire pitching crew to DL 4 seasons in a row and now it is dangerous to just say we will all be healthy next year)

2. Sign a starting catcher (Kevan Smith as a back up)

3. Sign an utility man who can rotate in the infield

4. If fails to do 3, sign a starting 2B or 3B and make Fletcher as a super utility (Just like how Gleyber Torres are covering multiple positions for Yankees and Chris Taylor, Kike Hernandez doing similar things for Dodgers) 

 

Yes, that is a lot of work. That is (even if everybody stays healthy and performs well) like 7-8 starting level players to sign + building solid bench out of nothing. No GM in the league can do all these immediately and bring the team up to the championship contender level.

 If J-Up does not bounce back or Adell needs time to develop to perform in the Majors, then we need additional outfielders too and given past seasons' injury history, we don't even know how many players we will lose in upcoming season as well. 

Since you cannot just hope to sign Cole, Rendon, Strasburg, Ryu, Grandal, Wheeler, Will Smith, etc in the market (just impossible + even if that is possible, the team might need to spend $800M to do so lol), you have to prioritize positions to fill/replace and players to sign.

What are your thoughts? Which positions do you guys think the Angels should fill in first and who do you want to see in the Big A next season?  What are your expectations for the Angels next season? 

 

[Dtwncbad]

And as I said before, I can’t wait for the offseason where every single possible solution to the starting rotation will be met with “too expensive” in either dollars or prospects.

Anyone not “too expensive” does not fix the problem.

The Angels don’t need some value #4 starter and a cheap lottery ticket.  That equals 78 wins.

It is time to go get exactly what you need.

[jchalos89]

2 minutes ago, Dtwncbad said:

And as I said before, I can’t wait for the offseason where every single possible solution to the starting rotation will be met with “too expensive” in either dollars or prospects.

Anyone not “too expensive” does not fix the problem.

The Angels don’t need some value #4 starter and a cheap lottery ticket.  That equals 78 wins.

It is time to go get exactly what you need.

Agreed. I don't want to see the Angels signing bunch of "lottery tickets" and miserably fail. Like how they signed Harvey, Cahill, and Stratton prior to this season and every single one of them were horrible.

[John Taylor]

21 minutes ago, jchalos89 said:

 

Now here are what the Angels need to do this off season (even with all those positive assumptions I made above)

1. Sign 3-5 starters including an ace (We need more starters cuz we will use 6 men rotation with Ohtani + this team has been sending entire pitching crew to DL 4 seasons in a row and now it is dangerous to just say we will all be healthy next year)

2. Sign a starting catcher (Kevan Smith as a back up)

3. Sign an utility man who can rotate in the infield

4. If fails to do 3, sign a starting 2B or 3B and make Fletcher as a super utility (Just like how Gleyber Torres are covering multiple positions for Yankees and Chris Taylor, Kike Hernandez doing similar things for Dodgers) 

 

1.) I do think 2-3 starters including someone like Cole is needed. I don't think we need to sign 5 starters as Ohtani will be back, Suarez should start coming into his own and hopefully Canning doesn't end up needing TJ surgery next season. Also if we have a different manager our pitching staff won't be so wound up with the thought of being removed in the 4th inning every start.

2.) I agree with this. I still don't know why we got rid of Maldy? (Maybe there are advanced metrics that explain it better)

3.) Theoretically we have 2 of those already with Fletcher and La Stella, Pujols is going to play 1st next year and will DH when Ohtani is pitching, although as I'm typing this I'm starting to realize we need someone who isn't Justin Bour to play 1st on days Pujols DH's so maybe you're right with this one.

4.) Also agree on this point. Fletch is our super utility who should be playing everyday somewhere.

[tdawg87]

Good thread. While most of these points have been discussed quite a bit here, we haven't really had an in-depth discussion.

I think your assertions that we need "3-5" starters is a bit unrealistic. I mean, we could absolutely use 3 starters, for sure. But if we want Cole we aren't getting 3 starting pitchers. You also didn't mention Ohtani, who should (hopefully) give us 25 starts. Ohtani is a question mark but he has 1-2 starter upside. 

I could see Cole and MAYBE a guy like Wheeler but it's going to be bringing the payroll very close to the edge, unless of course Arte decides to expand it which there are no indications he will. A trade could be made for a Boyd type pitcher but not sure we have what it takes to get him.

I think Canning is going to improve significantly next year. His health is absolutely a concern though. 

I don't think we'll see any additions to the pen. Maybe a random trash heap pickup.

The offense could absolutely use an upgrade, but considering the payroll limitations, I just don't see it happening. The only thing we absolutely cannot go without is a catcher, but we aren't getting one of the top guys.