What it would take for the 2020 Angels to pull off what the 2014 Angels did?

[Docwaukee]

1 hour ago, Tank said:

william howard taft.

william jennings bryant, william tell - whoever.  

out of order.  I'll show you out of order.  

[Second Base]

Honestly though, start with acquiring two really good starting pitchers and actually being relatively healthy. I think if those two things happen, the rest will take care of be itself and the Angels will find themselves in the playoffs.

[angelsnationtalk]

You want to get swept again?

[Tank]

15 hours ago, Dochalo said:

william jennings bryant, william tell - whoever.  

out of order.  I'll show you out of order.  

[Ace-Of-Diamonds]

What it would take for the 2020 Angels to pull off what the 2014 Angels did?

 

Win 98 games, and then lose the next 3...

We need to do better...

[stormngt]

On 11/29/2019 at 8:27 PM, Dochalo said:

an advantage that the 2014 team had was that the rest of the AL west wasn't very good.  There were actually a fair amount of parity league wide.  We led the AL in wins with 98 and the most losses were the Rangers with 95.  Detroit won the central with 90 wins.  

Compared to last year which had huge gaps.  I didn't realize this until right now but only one team won between 80 and 90 games.  The red sox at 84 wins.  Three 100 loss teams and three 100 win teams.  

Anyway, back on topic. 

The 2014 got a few nice performances on offense that didn't happen again.  The entire starting lineup had an ops+ above league average yet only Trout was truly elite.  I think Ohtani, La Stella, Upton can all be in the 120 ops+ range.  Rengifo, Fletcher and Goodwin can be avg. to slightly above.  Maybe Simmons as well considering he was in 2017 and 18.  If Albert get 500+ PA again then that will be a hole with his 94 ops+ and it would surprise me if he doesn't drop even more.  If Rengifo can displace La Stella to 1b or Thaiss can progress then the only true gap in the lineup is catcher.  It's not looking good that we'll have a league average bat from the C position as it stands right now with what we have and what's available.  They should make up some ground defensively but how much.  While I think the offense will be very good, a few important things need to happen in order for it to be elite.  First, La Stella has to repeat what he did last year.  Upton and Simmons have to be who they were the previous couple of years.  And the rest is on the kids.  Thaiss, Rengifo, Adell, Walsh etc. have to provide a kick.  As good and balanced as the 2014 offense was, there were some nits.  The bench was awful and Ibanez was the DH for awhile.  So 2020 doesn't need to be perfect or get career years from everyone.  

Starting pitching was pretty mediocre actually and they were 25th in innings.  Richards was great but easily reproduced by a guy like Cole.  Weaver was very good too but I think a guy like Wheeler could do something similar.  CJ Wilson was meh but gave us innings.  Something I think Heaney could do.  Shoe was great but only pitched 121ip.  Santiago was decent but also only threw 117 ip as a starter.  Skaggs was ok in his 113 ips.  I think Ohtani could reproduce Shoe pretty easily, and Canning/Sandoval/Barria and Suarez could fill in the rest.  Overall, I think the starting staff could be better than the 2014 version and with greater long term sustainability.  They could make up for an offense that in 2020 is probably not as good as the one we saw in 2014.  

The pen was a complete wild card in 2014.  Not very good in the first half with most of the innings coming from Jepsen, Joe Smith, Mike Morin, and Fernando Salas and a decent chunk also going to Kohn and a terrible Ernest Frieri.  The got shored up by the additions of Grilli who wasn't great but solid, and Huston Street who was terrific at locking down the end of games.  Cory Rasmus was also really good for us in the second half.  The 2020 pen could be very good.  They're an elite guy short of being excellent and they aren't likely to get that elite guy though.  But Robles needs to not turn into a pumpkin and Buttrey needs to be better which is likely with a lesser or at least more specific workload.  Middleton could be that x factor.  He looked so good prior to his TJ and even though he held things together in a small sample at the end of the year, he clearly wasn't the same guy.  Hopefully the additional 5-6 months of off season recovery will bring him back to where he was headed prior to injury.  I think Noe and Cam are fine for the 5th or 6th and for when the team is behind.  Anderson is another guy who needs to step up his game.  Someone we can use in the 6th, 7th and 8th to bridge from Cam/Noe to the back end.  One more decently reliable guy would be huge though.  A Petit type who can go multiple innings.  I don't see guys like Jewell, Bard, Cole or any of the others on the roster filling that role.  Maybe one of them surprises us but I wouldn't rely on it.  Would be great is a couple guys like Mattson or Austin Warren can move quick enough to help in 2020.  I think overall, the pen is on par and could be even better with a solid multi inning guy.  

A's weren't any good.  They won the WC if not mistaken

[Stradling]

16 minutes ago, stormngt said:

A's weren't any good.  They won the WC if not mistaken

I just looked on baseball reference at the 2014 A’s.  They won 88 games, but their Pythagorean says it should have been 99 wins.  Does this mean Melvin did a shitty job of managing that team?  I’m sure it is just they lost a ton of one run games, but that is a team that is given props for outperforming expectations.  

[stormngt]

48 minutes ago, Stradling said:

I just looked on baseball reference at the 2014 A’s.  They won 88 games, but their Pythagorean says it should have been 99 wins.  Does this mean Melvin did a shitty job of managing that team?  I’m sure it is just they lost a ton of one run games, but that is a team that is given props for outperforming expectations.  

I could be mistaken but they had the best record in baseball and then trades their left fielder for pitching and the team had a horrible 2nd half.

[JustATroutFan]

2014 Athletics was the same team that collapsed down the stretch. I remember that team having an star starting rotation with Lester, Gray, Kazmir (of course, he would look good again after leaving the Angels), and Samardzija for like the last couple of months that year. They didn't collapse down the stretch because of their pitching. It had more to do with their hitting. Cespedes got traded in the Lester deal. 

[Troll Daddy]

On 11/29/2019 at 7:48 PM, Troll Daddy said:

Replace the Rally Monkey 

 

 

[cysomeawfulpitcher]