The potential impact to the rotation for 2020. **WARNING ** Optimism

[Docwaukee]

In 2019 we got the following from guys in the rotation.  Not using starts but appearances because of the opener

Suarez - 19 appearances, 81.0 ip (4.3 ip per appearance), -0.7 WAR, 7.11 era, 6.72 FIP
Barria - 19 appearances, 82.2 ip (4.4 ip per appearance), -0.6 WAR, 6.42 era, 6.23 FIP
Peters - 17 appearances but only threw behind an opener twice.  so we'll call it 15 appearances in the rotation with 69 ip (4.6 ip per appearance), -0.5 WAR, 5.48 era, similar FIP
Harvey - 12 appearances, 59.2 ip (5.0 ip per appearance), -0.3 WAR, 7.09 era, 6.35 FIP
Cahill - 12 appearances in the rotation (followed an opener once), 57.2 ip (4.8 ip per appearance), -0.7 WAR, 7.18 era, similar FIP
Stratton - 7 appearances, 29.1 ip (4.2 ip per appearance), -0.1 WAR, 8.59 era, 6.21 FIP.  
Heaney - 18 appearances, 95.1 ip (5.3 ip per appearance), 1.2 WAR, 4.91 era, 4.63 FIP
Canning - 18 appearances (ok, 1 relief), 90.1 ip, (5.0 ip per appearance), 1.3 WAR, 4.58 era, 4.37 FIP
Sandoval - 10 appearances, 39.1ip (3.9 ip per appearance), 0.3 WAR, 5.03 era, 4.59 FIP
Skaggs - 15 appearances, 79.2 ip (5.3 ip per appearance), 1.8 WAR, 4.29 era, 3.85 FIP
Pena - 22 appearances, 96.1 ip (4.4 ip per appearance), 0.6 WAR, 4.58 era, 4.52 FIP

So that's the vast majority of appearances made by guys in the rotation.  There's a few extra in there above 162 due to random relief appearances accounting for a couple that I included but it just made the numbers easier.  

So the above is 169 appearances with an era I would guess to be in the high 5's or close to 6.  About 180 ip which is about 4.6 ip per appearance.  Total WAR for that group is about 2.3.  

Now, let's get the bad out of the way.  The Skaggs tragedy hurt emotionally but also practically.  He was on pace for about a 3 WAR season and if he were back and producing at that level for about 6 mil, that would be very nice so it's a bummer on many levels.  Also, Pena wasn't great but a serviceable piece and his 0.6 WAR over near 100ip needs to be replaced as well.  Combined, they were a solid pitcher with about 175 innings, an era around 4.5, and a WAR of about 2.5.  

The good news is that there is hope otherwise.  Most of the rest will be replaced, and I am optimistic that those who aren't either aren't going to pitch as much or if they are, they will be better than they were (namely Canning, Heaney and maybe Barria, Sandoval and Suarez).  

So let's start with those still around that are likely to contribute a fair amount:

Heaney - I think he can easily go back to the 2018 version of himself and give 180 ip with a 4.15 era in 30 appearances which was 2.8 WAR
Canning - I think he gets a little better and pitches more innings.  Lets give him 8 more starts for a total of 25, and a total of 150 ip at a similar era of 4.2.  Which would be about 2.5 WAR.  
Ohtani - 20 starts, 125 ip, 3.5 era, 2.5 WAR

Now the guys we're hopeful to add.:

Cole - can't expect another cy young year but how about close.   32 starts, 200i p, 2.9 era, 6 WAR (basically his 2018)
Wheeler - somewhere between 2018-19.  30 starts, 190 ip, 3.7 era, 4.5 WAR (didn't realize he'd been that good the last two years).  

Now for the rest:

that leaves about another 25 starts for Sandoval, Barria, Suarez, maybe Peters, and possibly Pena if we keep him and he's ready later in the year)

I think we'll see some improvement from this crew but lets keep things conservative and give those 25 starts about 125ip with an era of 5.0 and 0.0 WAR.  

So let's add it all up.  That's 970 total innings, a 3.38 era, and 18.3 WAR.  Which pretty much gives us one of the top 5 staffs in all of baseball.  

HA!  No friggin way that's happening.  But the funny thing is, Cole, Wheeler, Heaney have all done the numbers that I've used.  Canning and Ohtani's numbers aren't outrageous, and expecting a 5.0 era with replacement level WAR from the rest seems pretty reasonable.  

But I'll remove the rose colored glasses for a second and subtract another 100 innings.   Let's also adjust a couple people down

Heaney - 150 ip, 4.15 era, 25 starts, 2.0 WAR
Canning - 100 ip, 4.2 era, 17 starts, 1.5 WAR
Ohtani - 100 ip, 3.5 era, 16 starts, 2.0 WAR
Cole - 180 ip, 2.9 era, 28 starts, 5.0 WAR
Wheeler - 150ip, 3.7 era, 26 starts, 3.5 WAR
The rest - 190ip, 5.0 era, 50 starts.  0.0 WAR

that rotation is still top 10. 

have fun!!!

 

[arch stanton]

I get it. Replace the bottom with Cole and Wheeler, add Ohtani back while all the others have a season that's proven to be in their reach. Takes a ton of pressure off the pen and the offense at the same time. Let's get it done

[eligrba]

An effective pitching will also make a big difference. I would bet that the Angel's pitching staff under the guidance of Oakland's oaching staff would be greatly improved. 

[Lou]

27 minutes ago, eligrba said:

An effective pitching will also make a big difference. I would bet that the Angel's pitching staff under the guidance of Oakland's oaching staff would be greatly improved. 

Are you referring to the starters we had this season?

No chance. 

[eligrba]

You don't think that changing pitch selection or reducing the number of hits by opposing batters having an 0-2 or a 1-2 count would make a difference?

[wopphil]

5 hours ago, arch stanton said:

I get it. Replace the bottom with Cole and Wheeler, add Ohtani back while all the others have a season that's proven to be in their reach. Takes a ton of pressure off the pen and the offense at the same time. Let's get it done

This is really it. If you can replace 500 innings of the garbage we got from the likes of Cahill, Harvey and others with quality innings from Cole, Wheeler, Bumgarner, etc., the improvement will be dramatic.

It is actually an easy problem to fix if the team is willing to spend the money.

[totdprods]

Not to mention there’s still a chance Suarez, Barria, Sandoval, and perhaps Canning take another step forward with a pitching coach not named Doug White.

[Warfarin]

6 hours ago, Dochalo said:

Heaney - 150 ip, 4.15 era, 25 starts, 2.0 WAR
Canning - 100 ip, 4.2 era, 17 starts, 1.5 WAR
Ohtani - 100 ip, 3.5 era, 16 starts, 2.0 WAR
Cole - 180 ip, 2.9 era, 28 starts, 5.0 WAR
Wheeler - 150ip, 3.7 era, 26 starts, 3.5 WAR
The rest - 190ip, 5.0 era, 50 starts.  0.0 WAR

that rotation is still top 10. 

Right, I fully agree with this.  Cole, Wheeler, and Ohtani would be a rather dynamic top 3.  Maybe not as strong as what we see in HOU/WASH currently, but that should be awfully close.  I would be comfortable with Heaney and Canning essentially filling the 4/5 spots in the rotation, and hoping that just one of our other starters that you mentioned (Sandoval, Barria, Suarez, Pena, etc) can take a modest leap forward and be a dependable back-end rotation SP.

Likely we can sign Cole + Wheeler for somewhere in the 50mil ballpark figure that we've tossed around.  As ideal as it would be to sign 3 SPs, I think signing 2 (proved they are Cole + Wheeler (or someone in his caliber) should make this a competitive team.

[fan_since79]

19 minutes ago, wopphil said:

This is really it. If you can replace 500 innings of the garbage we got from the likes of Cahill, Harvey and others with quality innings from Cole, Wheeler, Bumgarner, etc., the improvement will be dramatic.

It is actually an easy problem to fix if the team is willing to spend the money.

...and if those elite starters are willing to come here rather than another team with more immediate playoff prospects. We need more than a couple good starters to get this broken down jalopy back on the road.

[Angel Oracle]

Isn’t it possible though for Ohtani, Heaney, Canning, Sandoval, Barria, and Suarez to between them provide just enough support over those other 100 starts?  They are all a year older.

Sign Cole and Wheeler, and WC contention is well within the realm, provided decent enough team health.

[CanadianHalo]

I really have my doubts about Wheeler.

He wasn’t very good in most cases against playoff teams this year. 

Had two great starts back to back where he went 15IP of shutout ball against the White Sox and Marlins (big whoop) only to follow that up with a rough one against Atlanta. 

Wheeler is a high risk type signing that I’m not sure we can afford to take a chance on

[totdprods]

7 minutes ago, CanadianHalo said:

I really have my doubts about Wheeler.

He wasn’t very good in most cases against playoff teams this year. 

Had two great starts back to back where he went 15IP of shutout ball against the White Sox and Marlins (big whoop) only to follow that up with a rough one against Atlanta. 

Wheeler is a high risk type signing that I’m not sure we can afford to take a chance on

I tend to agree. He’d have to fall around a Lance Lynn-type 3/$30m for me to be comfortable. Maybe 3/$40m. But I feel like someone will be willing to go closer to the Eovaldi 4/$68m.

[Second Base]

Doug White really did a number on that pitching staff. Yes, results are on the pitcher, but had we not had a pitching coach, they probably would've done better.

White was the sort of guy you hire as a specialist or a consultant. One you send the pitchers like Cam Bedrosian to, that simply aren't tapping into their potential, and you can see if he unlocks something.

But as a pitching coach, he took a group of promising young starters and helped absolutely destroy one season of their career. Suarez was a top 100 prospect, Barria had an ERA under 4.00 as a 21 year old, Canning looked like a mid rotation starter until he started implementing some of the "little tweaks" White was suggesting.

Bring back Charlie Nagy, or hire Ray Searage. Anything but data crap White brought with him.

Edited October 9, 2019 by Second Base

[Jay]

1 hour ago, totdprods said:

Not to mention there’s still a chance Suarez, Barria, Sandoval, and perhaps Canning take another step forward with a pitching coach not named Doug White.

Let's hope.

 

[yk9001]

All the 7.xx, 6.xx and high 5 ERAs have magically disappeared.

Sweet!

[TNAngelsFan71]

I would love to see the following happen...

Sign Cole ---- 212.1 IP 13.82 K/9 best fit I have seen for this club pitching wise in a long time.

Sign MadBum ---- 207.2 IP 8.80 K/9  the man is a bulldog and will hopefully be able to pass some of that on to the kids.

Trade for Ray---- 174.1 IP 12.13 K/9 (Trade some combination of our infield depth and MiLB pitching or Barria / Suarez)

Ohtani ---- expect 100 IP 10.97 K/9 in 2018

Heaney ---- 180 IP in 2018 11.14 K/9 

Canning ---- expect 100 IP 9.56 K/9 (I expect him to take a step forward this season... he was looking really good till Skaggs passing)

and sign Grandal  to fill the void at catcher.

[Angel Oracle]

2 hours ago, Second Base said:

Doug White really did a number on that pitching staff. Yes, results are on the pitcher, but had we not had a pitching coach, they probably would've done better.

White was the sort of guy you hire as a specialist or a consultant. One you send the pitchers like Cam Bedrosian to, that simply aren't tapping into their potential, and you can see if he unlocks something.

But as a pitching coach, he took a group of promising young starters and helped absolutely destroy one season of their career. Suarez was a top 100 prospect, Barria had an ERA under 4.00 as a 21 year old, Canning looked like a mid rotation starter until he started implementing some of the "little tweaks" White was suggesting.

Bring back Charlie Nagy, or hire Ray Searage. Anything but data crap White brought with him.

This times whatever.

[Jay]

2 hours ago, Second Base said:

Doug White really did a number on that pitching staff.

If this is really true, then it doesn't reflect well on Eppler.

 

[VariousCrap]

This team needs three new starters.

1.  Heaney seems to be bit injury prone.  Sure, we can hope for the best, but I wouldn't count on him doing 150+ innings.

2.  We have no clue what the truth is regarding Canning's injury and if we can count on him to pitch 150+ innings next year.  Does this season's injury turn into next years Tommy John surgery?  We've seen that happen too many times to just assume everything will be fine.

3. Ohtani will be limited in innings by the Angels this season.

4. None of our young starting pitching depth looked like it was ready for the MLB level.  They looked pretty bad last season.

 

I think the Angels should sign Cole, Wheeler or Odorizzi and then Hamels.

Cole, Ohtani, Wheeler/Odorizzi, Hamels, Canning, Heaney is a very strong rotation on paper.

Edited October 9, 2019 by VariousCrap

[Pancake Bear]

2 hours ago, Second Base said:

Doug White really did a number on that pitching staff. Yes, results are on the pitcher, but had we not had a pitching coach, they probably would've done better.

White was the sort of guy you hire as a specialist or a consultant. One you send the pitchers like Cam Bedrosian to, that simply aren't tapping into their potential, and you can see if he unlocks something.

But as a pitching coach, he took a group of promising young starters and helped absolutely destroy one season of their career. Suarez was a top 100 prospect, Barria had an ERA under 4.00 as a 21 year old, Canning looked like a mid rotation starter until he started implementing some of the "little tweaks" White was suggesting.

Bring back Charlie Nagy, or hire Ray Searage. Anything but data crap White brought with him.

Nagy’s solution for everything was more sinkers, which doesn’t work at all anymore. He was a disaster. I dont know much about Searage but he was with Pittsburgh, and Cole’s breakthrough came when he left Pittsburgh. So..he doesn’t give me a lot of confidence either. 

[TNAngelsFan71]

We need starters that are not afraid to attack the strike zone. Every one of our starters seemed to nibble especially once ahead in the count. Is that a reflection of the pitching coach? the philosophy as put forth by Eppler / Ausmus? or just pitchers not being allowed to trust their stuff and seeing what happens? I miss the attitude pitchers like Percival had of here's my best pitch … hit it if you can.... if you do I tip my cap, if you don't go have a seat.

[Glen]

4 hours ago, totdprods said:

Not to mention there’s still a chance Suarez, Barria, Sandoval, and perhaps Canning take another step forward with a pitching coach not named Doug White.

New pitching coach: Woug Dhite.

[Hubs]

I also ran the numbers with our starters and primary rotation pieces and it shows that the pen was even better than advertised and the rotation was worse.

Now I had to calculate these out because of the “opener” but our starters and primary rotation guys had the following line: 

786 IP, 4.85 IP/GS, 523 R, 499 ER, 805 H, 166 HR allowed, 730 SO to 294 BB, 5.71 ERA, 1.4 WHIP

That’s terrible. 
Also, the opener didn’t help the starters. Pena did much better but he had experience coming out of the pen. Sandoval, Peters did slightly better but the rest of the guys didn’t. 

It wasn’t a significant improvement.

Bullpen numbers

656.2 IP, 1.12 IP per game, 321 R, 345 ER, 4.4 ERA 

 

[Angel Oracle]

1 hour ago, Jay said:

If this is really true, then it doesn't reflect well on Eppler.

 

Was it Eppler or Ausmus, or both, who hired White?

[Lou]

4 hours ago, yk9001 said:

All the 7.xx, 6.xx and high 5 ERAs have magically disappeared.

Sweet!

They would if we hire Oakland's pitching coach, Matt Harvey be damned.