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This might be unpopular but I think overall Eppler has done well


nate

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I think Eppler has done fine.  He’s a bit on the conservative side, but you take the good with the bad with that.  He’s not as conservative as Stoneman.......I don’t think.  Who was to a fault.  

I do think he does a great job getting people to like him and that has served the organization well and is important.  And I think he’s a smart guy that does smart things for the club and that’s good.  My preference is that we keep him around. 

Edited by UndertheHalo
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Well overall he has done well, I agree. Obviously people only see the results without considering the big picture. 

That said, it's kind of absurd that he was given a larger payroll going into the off-season with a dire need for pitching that even Helen Keller could see, and....we got a big bat.

Now I love the Rendon signing and it significantly improves the offense. I also like the Teheran signing. But he's basically taken a bottom 5 pitching rotation and made them bottom 10.

A lot of this was seemingly out of his control, particularly with the Wheeler, Strasburg and Cole situations. But Keuchel or Ryu would have been huge additions to the rotation, and passing up guys like Gibson and Pineda early on could prove to be big mistakes. 

My main point is this was meant to be a cornerstone off-season for not only Eppler, but the entire organization. This was the beginning of a new era of Angels baseball. And so far, we've barely addressed our most crucial need.

We'll see how the rest of the off-season plays out, and of course the season itself. But despite landing one of the top FA's I can't shake the feeling that this winter has been a disappointment. I'll remain hopeful overall that the in-house roster will significantly improve over 2019, and any additions will be icing on the cake. 

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28 minutes ago, nate said:

Not saying he is perfect, his biggest mistakes were hiring Ausmus and signing Cozart.

When you consider though how big of a mess the entire organization was when he took over, I think he has done well building the team up to be winners in the future.

Consider that he had the worst farm system, a team full of bloated salaries and no pitching depth.  He also had a stubborn manager that had clearly lost pace with modern baseball.  Consider that he wasn't drawn into huge bidding wars and overpays for pitchers that allowed the Angels to come into this offseason with a good amount of cash to spend, unfortunately the pitching was still way overpriced but I am happy with the direction of the team and also pleased that he hasn't emptied out the system with reactionary trades.

I really hope Eppler gets a couple more years but I am worried that if this season doesn't go well he is gone.

I agree, but I'd also like to add that he and his staff really made some questionable draft moves the past two years. Jordyn Adams could prove me wrong, but there was a ton of pitchers available that were near ready in the 2018 draft and he went after Adams and Jackson with his first two picks.

This past draft really confused me with the Wilson pick and it gets worse when he had to trade the pick away just to fix a mistake of his in Cozart. 

But what really bums me out is that there were arms available that were highly rated that he didn't draft ahead of Wilson. Guys like Rutledge, Priester, Kirby and Thompson would have been a much better selection. I even liked Greg Jones, Cobin Carroll, Michael Toglia and Kody Hoese much better than Wilson. 

If Eppler is able to make a trade for a good controllable arm or sign a few guys like Wood/Walker, I think he gets a B- overall. If he's unable to or land a decent C via FA or a trade, I think he's sitting at a C- overall. 

When you don't make the playoffs and you've failed to build a good starting pitching staff I can't see giving him a better grade to date. 

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Considering what he had to work with, he has done a very good job. He has had some clunkers but those clunkers have not hurt the future of the organization. I am comfortable with his patience. He hasn’t made a bad trade, yet. He has made some head scratchers but none that I feel disappointed with. I would rather be frustrated with an off-season of not signing front line pitchers than an off season of bad trades.

Good thread topic.  No need to be afraid @nate the complainers will complain regardless of the circumstances.

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1 minute ago, tdawg87 said:

What sucks is, if Eppler makes a legit trade for a starting pitcher using prospects, our farm system ends up closer to where it started when he came here.

We really, really needed to use money to fill that need this winter. 

Yep. This is another strike against him. 

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19 minutes ago, tdawg87 said:

What sucks is, if Eppler makes a legit trade for a starting pitcher using prospects, our farm system ends up closer to where it started when he came here.

We really, really needed to use money to fill that need this winter. 

True. But I also think it depends on who the Angels trade. Would trading/including Marsh, for example, for a cost controlled top of the rotation arm really be a bad thing? 

If Adell pans out, 2/3 of the OF is set for the next 6+ years. Upton is also signed here for another 3 years. Marsh simply has nowhere to play. And it really shouldn’t be that hard to find a corner OF once Upton’s contract expires. 

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Eppler certainly hasn't let the Organization crash and burn.  He has made plenty of positive moves, perhaps the biggest being the Trout contract in the face of impending Free Agency.

I would prefer to see him continue to be the GM at least to the end of the 2022 season, when Maddon's contract expires.

Edited by Slegnaac
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I think given what he inherited, and the constraints that the payroll put him under over the past few seasons Eppler has done a decent job. It seems that Arte is more "Hands on" when it comes to personnel than maybe other Owners? So Eppler kind of has to balance that out a little more than other GMs. Obviously not getting a top tier FA Pitcher this season has brought out the pitchforks again, but I think he is a pretty steady hand at GM. It could be worse we could still have DiPoto (What a garbage fire in Seattle).

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7 minutes ago, Angels_Fan said:

True. But I also think it depends on who the Angels trade. Would trading/including Marsh, for example, for a cost controlled top of the rotation arm really be a bad thing? 

If Adell pans out, 2/3 of the OF is set for the next 6+ years. Upton is also signed here for another 3 years. Marsh simply has nowhere to play. And it really shouldn’t be that hard to find a corner OF once Upton’s contract expires. 

With as many FA arms that were available in this year's class and in 2020, it would be pretty crappy to deal a talent like Marsh when $$$ could have been spent to have brought in a solid arm or two.

I agree with @RBM in that his grade is incomplete. But there are some things we can praise him for and criticize him on at the same time.

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1 minute ago, Chuckster70 said:

With as many FA arms that were available in this year's class and in 2020, it would be pretty crappy to deal a talent like Marsh when $$$ could have been spent to have brought in a solid arm or two.

I agree with @RBM in that his grade is incomplete. But there are some things we can praise him for and criticize him on at the same time.

Yup. But that’s the situation the Angels are in...it’s trade or bust. And they need a good starter if they want to have a decent shot at making the postseason.

 

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He arrived to find a barren farm system and a parent club devoid of hope. We had the best player in baseball, but not too many other reasons to go to the ballpark to watch the team. I'm with nate - I am hoping that he gets to finish the job that he started, but I fear that this won't happen. Then the building process starts all over again. At some point you have to stay the course when you have a GM who seems to have a good head on his shoulders, has shown an ability to build a solid farm system, and doesn't make many stupid moves that hamstring the team's ability to get help or clog up roster spots with non-producers.

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51 minutes ago, tdawg87 said:

What sucks is, if Eppler makes a legit trade for a starting pitcher using prospects, our farm system ends up closer to where it started when he came here.

We really, really needed to use money to fill that need this winter. 

 

49 minutes ago, Chuckster70 said:

Yep. This is another strike against him. 

I agree with what Toby said but you can't stop a player from going to a team that he wants to go to and are making a competitive offer.

As others have said here, Gerrit wanted to be a Yankee and even if we had gone to $324M I still don't think he would have picked us. Same for someone like Bumgarner who wanted to be in Arizona near his home. Strasburg wanted to stay with the Nationals.

I don't think you can or should hold that against Eppler when Moreno controls the purse strings.

Call it at worst a strike against Moreno if anything and even then I really don't blame him either, he has been ponying up large payrolls since he first arrived.

Just not a good confluence for us this off-season on the pitching side as of TODAY. Tomorrow might be a different story as there are still opportunities to improve in the trade market.

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55 minutes ago, tdawg87 said:

What sucks is, if Eppler makes a legit trade for a starting pitcher using prospects, our farm system ends up closer to where it started when he came here.

We really, really needed to use money to fill that need this winter. 

Maybe, but the overpays that happened with pitchers were not worth spending the money IMO.

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7 minutes ago, nate said:

Maybe, but the overpays that happened with pitchers were not worth spending the money IMO.

Another valid point. If it took a nine-year contract to land Gerrit Cole, I would have wished him luck in New York. That is an insane amount of money for an incredibly long time - one year less than we gave Albert Pujols, and it seems like that contract has lasted a lifetime.

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Eppler has operated so far with some significant obstacles, in either lack of salary space or lack of minor league prospect capital.  So judging him on wins and losses wasn’t really fair since he didn’t have the resources to fix what needed to be fixed.

Going into this offseason, for the first time, he had both money and prospect capital to work with.

I will judge Eppler on wins and losses in 2020.  He continues to get some time right now since it is conceivable that the best trade for a frontline starter may be at the trade deadline when some Angel prospects have another half season to be more proven and build more value.

If the Angels flounder this year and Eppler isn’t capable of bringing in a top of the rotation starter, then I would have no problem firing him.

If he makes what looks like the right move and it just doesn’t work out, then that is a different story. 

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I would give him very good for rebuilding the farm.  He has drafted a lot of college pitching the past two years after the first two rounds.   And there are now plenty of prospects, especially in the lower minors.

One thing that seems to be a given.   Because are some ten college pitchers slated to go in the 2020 draft’s first round, a college pitcher HAS to be taken at #10.

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3 minutes ago, UnrulyManBun27 said:

I’m curious to hear what other people think about the Upton extension. Is it too early to give up on him? I worry he’s going to be somewhat like another Pujols these next few years, low average, poor defense, and playing based on name recognition and some occasional pop.

If Upton does rebound enough this season, then there’s only two more seasons of $51 million owed to him.   Hope is that he can at least be his 2018 self in 2020-2021, leaving one season left at $28 million.

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