OC Register: Angels GM Billy Eppler still seeking pitching after Julio Teheran deal

[AngelsWin.com]

After the Angels officially signed Julio Teheran to a one-year deal Saturday, adding more stability to their rotation, general manager Billy Eppler left the door open to continue acquiring more pitching.

Although they also missed out on Dallas Keuchel, who reportedly agreed Saturday to a deal with the Chicago White Sox, the Angels are trying to build a staff around some question marks, most notably Shohei Ohtani.

It’s been no secret the Angels will be conservative with Ohtani in his first season back after Tommy John surgery, but Eppler hinted on Saturday at more specifics of how they may do that.

“Whether we start him right away or delay him a little bit, that’s still on the table for discussion,” Eppler said.

Ohtani pitched 140 innings in 2016 in Japan, but in 2017 he was limited by an injury to 25 1/3 innings, and he pitched just 51 2/3 innings in the majors in 2018 before requiring Tommy John surgery.

Ohtani is now fully cleared from rehab, but the Angels will wait until sometime in January to devise the best plan for using him in 2020.

Considering Ohtani’s limitations, and also the recent injury histories of Andrew Heaney and Griffin Canning, it was logical for the Angels to look to build around them with as much certainty as possible.

Teheran is the posterboy for durability, having made at least 30 starts each of the past seven years. Dylan Bundy, who was acquired earlier this month, has started 89 games the past three years.

“It was important to try to bring some stability or certainty to our rotation,” Eppler said, referring to the question marks surrounding Ohtani, Heaney, Canning and inexperienced pitchers like Patrick Sandoval, José Suarez, Jaime Barría and Dillon Peters. “They are still a few years away from their peak years, and we’ll have opportunity for those guys, but also bringing in a more certain track record with Bundy and Julio was important.”

Teheran has a career 3.81 ERA, a greater level of success than his modest strikeout numbers or his velocity would indicate.

“You hear people who have been around the game a number of years say, ‘The hitters will tell you who can pitch or not,’” Eppler said. “That’s a way of saying there is some deception, or how he releases the ball, that allows him to outperform his peripherals.”

The Angels also continue to be on the lookout for even more pitching, having been connected to free agent Hyun-Jin Ryu and potential trades for Robbie Ray or Matthew Boyd. After signing Teheran to a $9 million deal, they could add more than $25 million before reaching the luxury-tax threshold. It’s unclear how much room they have before reaching owner Arte Moreno’s self-imposed budget, though.

“If you ask any team in baseball (if they need more pitching), they would say yes,” Eppler said. “Any time you can use more pitching, and we’ll follow along with that. If the opportunity presents itself, I think we’ll be mindful and look to make acquisitions to be better wherever we can be better.”

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The Angels certainly have room to improve, having missed out on the premium pitchers like Gerrit Cole, Stephen Strasburg and Zack Wheeler. Skeptics would suggest they’ve added quantity, but not necessarily the quality, they would need to be contenders after winning just 72 games last season.

Eppler, however, believes the pitchers currently on the Angels’ staff have the potential to form a strong rotation.

“I think that we’ve seen some of the pitchers on our roster pitch at a pretty high level, so I’m not gong to undercut them and say they don’t have the ability to pitch at the front end of a roster,” Eppler said. “We’ve seen what Shohei can do. We’ve seen Andrew Heaney have periods and seasons with a really low ERA. We watched Griffin Canning come up and make an impact right away, and not to mention the contributions of Dylan Bundy and Julio Teheran. I’m not going to say this isn’t a strong group. I believe this is a strong group.”

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[krAbs]

“If you ask any team in baseball (if they need more pitching), they would say yes,” Eppler said. “Any time you can use more pitching, and we’ll follow along with that. If the opportunity presents itself, I think we’ll be mindful and look to make acquisitions to be better wherever we can be better.”

 

Cool. Cool cool cool. This is fine. Sounds like a priority.

[krAbs]

"Eppler, however, believes the pitchers currently on the Angels’ staff have the potential to form a strong rotation."

Haha awesome, awesome. Awesome.

 

[AngelsFaninGA]

Ok, cool. So far Eppler has shown zero indication that he's willing to pay money or prospects for pitching. While I like Teheran a lot, he's just another one-year deal. And Bundy is another reclamation project that cost pennies. So despite the clear need to improve the rotation the actual approach has not wavered from the model that resulted in Harvey and Cahill last year, which is baffling. 

[Lou]

Eppler was willing to pay a pitcher almost $300 million

[Tank]

2 minutes ago, Lou said:

Eppler was willing to pay a pitcher almost $300 million

shh! you're disrupting the narrative.

[Lou]

Just now, Tank said:

shh! you're disrupting the narrative.

[AngelsFaninGA]

14 minutes ago, Lou said:

Eppler was willing to pay a pitcher almost $300 million

Was he? We didn't actually sign said pitcher so there is no proof that we did. Not uncommon to float offers you know the other party won't accept or simply feed stuff to the media to appease the fans

[Lou]

1 minute ago, AngelsFaninGA said:

Was he? We didn't actually sign said pitcher so there is no proof that we did. Not uncommon to float offers you know the other party won't accept or simply feed stuff to the media to appease the fans

Yeah, Eppler seems like the type of GM to simply feed stuff to the media. 

[AngelsFaninGA]

4 minutes ago, Lou said:

Yeah, Eppler seems like the type of GM to simply feed stuff to the media. 

What I think is the likely scenario is that Eppler knew Cole had a 9 year offer from the Yankees on the table, and made a token 7 year offer that checks off the "We tried" box (knowing the pressure he would face over why we didn't sign him). Ultimately the first offer we heard of regarding Cole was from the Yankees, and the news of our offer only trickled in later on. Eppler's actual track record shows no indication of signing pitchers to large multiyear deals, and there are no rumors of offers we made to other pitchers like Wheeler or Kuechel. 

If we sign Ryu I will gladly eat crow (even though I don't even want Ryu)

[Vegas Halo Fan]

I'm not sure how Eppler would have had any idea what the Yankees were offering. TBH a nine-year contract for a pitcher is insane, no matter who it is. It is clear that the Angels met with both Gerrit Cole and Stephen Strasburg. Cole is a lifelong Yankee fan who wanted to pitch there (plus he knows that he will be pretty much guaranteed of being in the playoffs every year), and Strasburg hasn't pitched anywhere but Washington, where he got a ring this past season. I don't read into either situation that it was an unwillingness on the Angels' part to pony up a lot of money.

Eppler's track record shows no indication of signing pitchers to large multiyear deals because he wasn't given authorization to spend the money before this winter.

[Erstad Grit]

Angels offered what would have been the largest SP contract ever and you think it was a token offer?

[bloodbrother]

Matt Harvey and Trevor CAhill are still FA's. Just sayin

[angelsnationtalk]

5 hours ago, Lou said:

Eppler was willing to pay a pitcher almost $300 million

Then he should have no problem offering Ryu a contract worth MUCH less. 

[Stradling]

2 minutes ago, angelsnationtalk said:

Then he should have no problem offering Ryu a contract worth MUCH less. 

Doesn’t mean Ryu will accept the offer. 

[Lou]

15 minutes ago, angelsnationtalk said:

Then he should have no problem offering Ryu a contract worth MUCH less. 

maybe he has

[Lou]

5 hours ago, AngelsFaninGA said:

What I think is the likely scenario is that Eppler knew Cole had a 9 year offer from the Yankees on the table, and made a token 7 year offer that checks off the "We tried" box (knowing the pressure he would face over why we didn't sign him). 

this is absolutely ridiculous. 

[Lou]

2 hours ago, Erstad Grit said:

Angels offered what would have been the largest SP contract ever and you think it was a token offer?

incredible, eh? 

[Pancake Bear]

Yeah, Eppler made a token offer of 8 years and almost 300 million to pretend he tried. That’s the smartest thing I’ve heard all year. By which of course I mean...

[tdawg87]

Our fanbase is nothing if not completely hilarious.

[Stradling]

5 hours ago, Lou said:

this is absolutely ridiculous. 

It’s one of the dumbest things I’ve read this off season.  Not only is the notion of  a “we tried bid” just fucking stupid, it ignores the very basic principle of Boras being Boras where he doesn’t ever tell teams what the other team bid.  They end up bidding against themselves more times than not. 

[AngelsFaninGA]

6 hours ago, Lou said:

incredible, eh? 

Suit yourself, it's not an unheard of negotiating/PR tactic

Since this board loves to play the link/prove it game we don't actually have any proof of any offers being made other than the ones that players actually signed for

[AngelsFaninGA]

6 hours ago, RBM said:

So you think Eppler is trying to get fired...on purpose.

Ok.

Eppler's getting re-signed regardless. 

[tdawg87]

7 minutes ago, AngelsFaninGA said:

Suit yourself, it's not an unheard of negotiating/PR tactic

Since this board loves to play the link/prove it game we don't actually have any proof of any offers being made other than the ones that players actually signed for

So you don't know the Angels only made a "We Tried" offer?

[jchalos89]

If Epp honestly believes this rotation is a strong group, he is delusional and Angels will have another season with no PS appearsnce. This team lacks front end starters period.

Ohtani is in doubt coming back from TJS. assuming he still has the same stuff, he is decent #2or#3 but he pitches only once a week so the team needs 5 more starters.

Teheran is #3 at best or #4 in most of PS caliber teams. Heaney and Teheran can be #3 & #4 although I doubt if Heaney will still be pitching by AS break. Bundy is durable but sure back end rotation guy and him and Canning will be 5th and 6th starters.

So we still need at least 2 starters. Ace, and another middle of rotation guy since Ohtani, Canning are young and coming back from injuries and Heaney is always injured so over the season, we'll have at least one of them out of rotation. (I mean, Ohtani might be out of rotation at the beginning of season to begin with) 

Suarez and Peters arent regular rotation pitchers at this point. Not even close. They need more time and prove they can keep their ERAs down in 3s and 4s and pitch 6+ innings in Majors before being trusted.