Billy Eppler's whiffs on acquiring starting pitching

[Chuck]

 

On 8/22/2020 at 11:47 PM, Chuckster70 said:

It's widely known that before the trade Billy Eppler made this offseason to acquire Dylan Bundy, the Angels GM has swung and missed on acquiring & signing viable major league starting pitchers to date. One could also argue his track record of trading for and signing major league hitters is questionable as well you consider Cozart & Upton, but he's done much better in that department than pitching. Goodwin, La Stella and in a small sample size Stassi have been pretty solid. 

The jury is still out on Canning and Sandoval, one of which he drafted and the other who Eppler acquired from Houston in the Maldonado trade. There's also hope in the Angels 1st round pick Reid Detmers, Chris Rodriguez and a few other pitching prospects down the road, but in terms of results from the arms he has acquired, drafted & signed to date, there is little to be desired.

Let's take a look....

Chacin: 4.81 ERA, (2016)

Nolasco: 4.44 ERA (2016), 4.92 ERA (2017)

Meyer: 3.74 ERA (2018), 5.68 ERA (2017) 19 total starts across two seasons * RETIRED

Lincecum: 9.16 ERA (2016)

Despaigne: 8.20 ERA (2018)

McGuire: 6.07 ERA (2018)

JC Ramirez 4.15 ERA (2017), 9.45 ERA (2018), 4.50 ERA (2019) *Used mostly as a starter

Pena: 4.58 ERA (2019), 4.18 ERA (2018) across 15 starts *Used mostly in relief

Sandoval: 5.19 ERA across 13 starts

Canning: 4.62 across 22 starts

Ohtani: 4.39 ERA across 12 starts

Peters: 5.38 ERA (2019) 

Cahill: 5.98 ERA (2019) 

Harvey: 7.09 ERA (2019) 

Stratton: 8.59 ERA (2019) 

Andriese: 6.50 ERA (2020) 1 start, mostly in relief

Teheran: 10.38 ERA (2020) 3 starts

.......

Bundy: 2.48 ERA (2020) through 5 starts! 

WINNER WINNER CHICKEN DINNER!!!  

Most people can say "you win some, you lose some" in life. Billy Eppler unfortunately has whiffed more than Dave Kingman blindfolded when it has come to acquiring viable major league talent that can take the ball every 5th or 6th day. 

If the rotation doesn't turn things around prior to the trade deadline and if the Angels miss out on yet another playoff berth since Eppler became the GM prior to the 2016 season, the Angels GM may find himself out of a job shortly after the conclusion of this 2020 campaign. 

It's also worth noting that despite trading (at the time) our top two pitching prospects for Andrelton Simmons, coming into an already bare farm system with no pitching depth, Billy Eppler has drafted just two pitchers in the first two rounds (Canning & Detmers) since he's been GM of the Angels. 

2016: Matt Thiass and Brandon Marsh https://www.baseball-almanac.com/draft/baseball-draft.php?yr=2016

2017: Jo Adell and Griffin Canning https://www.baseball-almanac.com/draft/baseball-draft.php?yr=2017

2018: Jordyn Adams and Jeremiah Jackson https://www.baseball-almanac.com/draft/baseball-draft.php?yr=2018

2019: Will Wilson and Kyren Paris https://www.baseball-almanac.com/draft/baseball-draft.php?yr=2019

2020: Reid Detmers and David Calbrese https://www.baseball-almanac.com/draft/baseball-draft.php?yr=2020

While you could argue with taking a solid pitcher ahead of every one of those position player picks in Eppler's drafts, there's none more unforgivable than Eppler's 2019 draft when he took Will Wilson ahead of Jackson Rutledge, Quinn Priester, Zack Thompson, George Kirby and Daniel Espino in the draft. 

[Torridd]

22 hours ago, Dochalo said:

you agree with who?  

what GM walks in and demands money from an owner?  

I agree with the consensus. I think it's possible that a GM that the team may go after may have certain demands. High level employees do it all the time. A wanted GM isn't unlike a free agent when he fields offers.

[AngelsLakersFan]

3 hours ago, fan_since79 said:

A good analysis of the Angels' troubles.

https://www.si.com/mlb/2020/08/24/los-angeles-angels-fail-mike-trout

Come on, that's surface level at best.

[Chuck]

Remember how everyone wanted Jon Gray of the Rockies?

He has a bloated 6.69 ERA, 1.44 WHIP and 22/11 K/BB ratio across 39 innings (eight starts). 

 

[Docwaukee]

9 minutes ago, Chuckster70 said:

Remember how everyone wanted Jon Gray of the Rockies?

He has a bloated 6.69 ERA, 1.44 WHIP and 22/11 K/BB ratio across 39 innings (eight starts). 

 

I'd take a flyer on him.  Get him out of CO and see what happens.  

[Chuck]

1 minute ago, Dochalo said:

I'd take a flyer on him.  Get him out of CO and see what happens.  

He does have a 3.83 ERA away from Coors but his strikeouts are down this year. 

If it didn't take a top 10-15 prospect I would take a flyer as well. 

[Docwaukee]

19 minutes ago, Chuckster70 said:

He does have a 3.83 ERA away from Coors but his strikeouts are down this year. 

If it didn't take a top 10-15 prospect I would take a flyer as well. 

I would take a flyer on guys from CO in general.  They forget how to pitch up there.  Their ball doesn't move.  They change their entire approach.  They lose confidence.  

[kevinb]

On 8/24/2020 at 11:16 AM, Chuckster70 said:

 

It's also worth noting that despite trading (at the time) our top two pitching prospects for Andrelton Simmons, coming into an already bare farm system with no pitching depth, Billy Eppler has drafted just two pitchers in the first two rounds (Canning & Detmers) since he's been GM of the Angels. 

2016: Matt Thiass and Brandon Marsh https://www.baseball-almanac.com/draft/baseball-draft.php?yr=2016

2017: Jo Adell and Griffin Canning https://www.baseball-almanac.com/draft/baseball-draft.php?yr=2017

2018: Jordyn Adams and Jeremiah Jackson https://www.baseball-almanac.com/draft/baseball-draft.php?yr=2018

2019: Will Wilson and Kyren Paris https://www.baseball-almanac.com/draft/baseball-draft.php?yr=2019

2020: Reid Detmers and David Calbrese https://www.baseball-almanac.com/draft/baseball-draft.php?yr=2020

While you could argue with taking a solid pitcher ahead of every one of those position player picks in Eppler's drafts, there's none more unforgivable than Eppler's 2019 draft when he took Will Wilson ahead of Jackson Rutledge, Quinn Priester, Zack Thompson, George Kirby and Daniel Espino in the draft. 

You forgot he traded said draft pick to the Giants to get rid of a terrible signing in Cozart. So it was basically like he forfeited that pick. 

[Chuck]

1 minute ago, Dochalo said:

I would take a flyer on guys from CO in general.  They forget how to pitch up there.  Their ball doesn't move.  They change their entire approach.  They lose confidence.  

yeah even German Marquez is tanking lately. Would love to get him.

If I were the Rockies I would draft a bunch of sinkerballers and guys with tons of movement on their fastballs. 

A guy like Gray or other extreme flyball pitchers have no chance there. 

[eligrba]

From the SI article:

"with Pujols’ presence especially serving as a symbolic waste of Trout’s prime years."

 

This would be a nice banner for hanging next to Albert's home run board.

[angelsnationtalk]

On 8/23/2020 at 9:00 AM, Vlad27Trout27 said:

As much as i agreed with this, and totally see how bad Billy has done on the pitching side. I think we also have to consider the type of environment he came into. Our farm system was bad, really bad, and than Arti wasn't willing to spend either.

2016 our top prospect was Matt Thaiss

2017 we got Ohtani, and Adell. Outside of Ohtani we didn't have a single top 100 prospect, Adell and canning  were just drafted.

2018 and 2019 was when we started showing improvements, and talent was rising.

Bascially i'm saying is that we didn't really have the talent in the system to make a trade for a good pitcher. Like many said, some of those trades involved a  top 100 prospects, which we didn't have until 2018/19. Than you also had to consider the Major league roster as well, these guy would probably be needed to fill in a spot. 

Now the money side, the main issue has been Arti's inability to open his checkbook. If i'm correct, the 1st two years of Eppler  gm career, he didn't have the abilty to throw out money to sign non scrape junk talent.  When he did, felt like there was limit he could spend, I remembered we went after Corbin, but the Nats outbid us , same with Cole, we went hard after Wheeler to, but he wanted to stay in the east. 

Than there's also luck. Red got luck in the Castillo trade, similar to the Padres trading Shields for Tatis jr. Billy has also come up big in this area, La Stella, Goody, and even Meyers to an extend, who looked like he could have been a middle of the rotation arm 

 

personally if i have to, i would blame Dipoto and Arte, after them i'd place the blame on Eppler. 

The only area, i would criticize Eppler and even Arte to an extend is the health department or branch of the team. We just had two many injuries.  

 

Agreed with one missing piece. At this point, Eppler has had 5 years to enhance and build our farm system. 5 years later and we are still considered a bottom 5 farm team. 

[angelsnationtalk]

On 8/24/2020 at 11:16 AM, Chuckster70 said:

 

It's also worth noting that despite trading (at the time) our top two pitching prospects for Andrelton Simmons, coming into an already bare farm system with no pitching depth, Billy Eppler has drafted just two pitchers in the first two rounds (Canning & Detmers) since he's been GM of the Angels. 

2016: Matt Thiass and Brandon Marsh https://www.baseball-almanac.com/draft/baseball-draft.php?yr=2016

2017: Jo Adell and Griffin Canning https://www.baseball-almanac.com/draft/baseball-draft.php?yr=2017

2018: Jordyn Adams and Jeremiah Jackson https://www.baseball-almanac.com/draft/baseball-draft.php?yr=2018

2019: Will Wilson and Kyren Paris https://www.baseball-almanac.com/draft/baseball-draft.php?yr=2019

2020: Reid Detmers and David Calbrese https://www.baseball-almanac.com/draft/baseball-draft.php?yr=2020

While you could argue with taking a solid pitcher ahead of every one of those position player picks in Eppler's drafts, there's none more unforgivable than Eppler's 2019 draft when he took Will Wilson ahead of Jackson Rutledge, Quinn Priester, Zack Thompson, George Kirby and Daniel Espino in the draft. 

So who's a good candidate for GM now? 

I'm done with Eppler.

[zenmaster]

Two anchors (pujols and upton), lack talent development, an owner who prefer the big splash to filling a teams needs, a GM who has whiffed on SP horribly, bad luck (?), the list goes on and on. Sad times.

[AngelsFaninGA]

24 minutes ago, angelsnationtalk said:

So who's a good candidate for GM now? 

I'm done with Eppler.

Scioscia

[nate]

I appreciate @Dochalo and @Inside Pitch in this thread.

It is really hard to point at Eppler and blame him when the cupboard was completely bare, the payroll was full of dead weight and on top of that, pitchers on the FA market are very overpriced and rarely perform.

This all goes back to the decade+ of trading away minor league pitchers and being a consistently mediocre team for a decade, therefore never getting a top 10 pick.

I really hope Eppler is given a couple more years.  Another regime change will only disrupt things further.

[Inside Pitch]

6 hours ago, AngelsFaninGA said:

Scioscia

Say what you will.   He valued pitching and defense above all else. 

The winter when everyone was cheering the AP signing and mocking MS at the same time because he said he was hoping they would add more pitching pretty much summed up both his POV and this message board's constant desire for the glitzy FA signings.  Those same FA signings cost the team draft choices and helped contribute to the farm's complete and utter decline.

BTW -- the Angels ERA this year is 5.01.   The league average is 4.37.   The Angels FIP is 4.40, the league average is 4.39.   The defense has been this team's biggest weakness, not the P.  

 

[AngelsFaninGA]

15 minutes ago, Inside Pitch said:

Say what you will.   He valued pitching and defense above all else. 

The winter when everyone was cheering the AP signing and mocking MS at the same time because he said he was hoping they would add more pitching pretty much summed up both his POV and this message board's constant desire for the glitzy FA signings.

Those same FA signs that cost the team draft choices and helped contribute to the farm's complete and utter decline.

BTW -- the Angels ERA this year is 5.01.   The league average is 4.37.   The Angels FIP is 4.40, the league average is 4.39.   The defense has been this team's biggest weakness, not the P.  

 

I wasnt even necessarily being sarcastic, he'd be better than most alternatives

[Jason]

Eppler's approach to pitching

[Inside Pitch]

5 minutes ago, AngelsFaninGA said:

I wasnt even necessarily being sarcastic, he'd be better than most alternatives

I wasn't trying to pick at you or be sarcastic either.  He just really was all about run prevention.

[Angel Oracle]

IPs point is valid.

How many solid defensive guys are in the lineup normally nowadays?

Rendon, Simba, Fletcher, Trout, and??

Plus Simba missed 3 weeks.

Three true outcomes striking again?

[stormngt]

On 8/22/2020 at 11:47 PM, Chuckster70 said:

It's widely known that before the trade Billy Eppler made this offseason to acquire Dylan Bundy, the Angels GM has swung and missed on acquiring & signing viable major league starting pitchers to date. One could also argue his track record of trading for and signing major league hitters is questionable as well you consider Cozart & Upton, but he's done much better in that department than pitching. Goodwin, La Stella and in a small sample size Stassi have been pretty solid. 

The jury is still out on Canning and Sandoval, one of which he drafted and the other who Eppler acquired from Houston in the Maldonado trade. There's also hope in the Angels 1st round pick Reid Detmers, Chris Rodriguez and a few other pitching prospects down the road, but in terms of results from the arms he has acquired, drafted & signed to date, there is little to be desired.

Let's take a look....

Chacin: 4.81 ERA, (2016)

Nolasco: 4.44 ERA (2016), 4.92 ERA (2017)

Meyer: 3.74 ERA (2018), 5.68 ERA (2017) 19 total starts across two seasons * RETIRED

Lincecum: 9.16 ERA (2016)

Despaigne: 8.20 ERA (2018)

McGuire: 6.07 ERA (2018)

JC Ramirez 4.15 ERA (2017), 9.45 ERA (2018), 4.50 ERA (2019) *Used mostly as a starter

Pena: 4.58 ERA (2019), 4.18 ERA (2018) across 15 starts *Used mostly in relief

Sandoval: 5.19 ERA across 13 starts

Canning: 4.62 across 22 starts

Ohtani: 4.39 ERA across 12 starts

Peters: 5.38 ERA (2019) 

Cahill: 5.98 ERA (2019) 

Harvey: 7.09 ERA (2019) 

Stratton: 8.59 ERA (2019) 

Andriese: 6.50 ERA (2020) 1 start, mostly in relief

Teheran: 10.38 ERA (2020) 3 starts

.......

Bundy: 2.48 ERA (2020) through 5 starts! 

WINNER WINNER CHICKEN DINNER!!!  

Most people can say "you win some, you lose some" in life. Billy Eppler unfortunately has whiffed more than Dave Kingman blindfolded when it has come to acquiring viable major league talent that can take the ball every 5th or 6th day. 

If the rotation doesn't turn things around prior to the trade deadline and if the Angels miss out on yet another playoff berth since Eppler became the GM prior to the 2016 season, the Angels GM may find himself out of a job shortly after the conclusion of this 2020 campaign. 

You post, although accurate is really unfair.  Eppler was handed a crapoy farm system and no budget room to sign quality players so he had to gamble on the famous "clean peanut" route.  When you are forced to take that strategy you will have far more failures than successes.

Pitchers like Lincecum, ans Harbey were gambles.

Pena, Ramirez, Nolasco and Chacin were not bad pickups considering the limited resources available to Eppler.

Then remember the injuries to Meyers and Ramirez.  True Meyers had injury issues in the past but again, remember the cost to acquire him and Epplers limited resources 

Sandavol and Canning is to be determined and Ohtani injury.

None of his moves reaches the level of disaster as Wells, Pujols, and Hamilton.   

[stormngt]

On 8/23/2020 at 12:48 AM, Billy_Ball said:

Hopefully Reid Detmers will at least be a better Joe Saunders.

I would be happy to be equivalent to Joe Saunders.

[stormngt]

On 8/23/2020 at 11:23 AM, cvdog said:

Clearly finding pitching talent is hardly in Billy's wheelhouse. Harvey, Stratton & Cahill alone should have gotten him fired. He'll be gone after this stupid little season is over.

Three pitchers with no long term commitment.  No he shouldn't get fired for those moves.

True he he deserves to be fired for not improving the team in 5 years 

[GrittyVeterans]

My big concern is the lack of progression on the farm in the upper minors. The farm system he inherited sucked, we all get that. He wasn’t going to turn lemons into lemonade in a year. But 5 years later I was really hoping we’d have a solid amount of guys in the high minors ready to come up and make an impact. I’m not seeing the massive improvement in farm quality that some are stating, really. It’s clearly better than the Dipoto days. 5 years of losing you would think we’d have a top 10 farm at least. 
 

its true some of the reason why we don’t have a great farm is because we’re always trying to win with Trout and are never really being true sellers(not selling Simmons last year for example)

but why is it that certain teams that have been winning And looking to bolster their current team the last 4-5 years STILL have a better Farm than us.

to me that is an indictment on the scouting and the inability to evaluate and then develop talent, whether it’s from the draft or from the international pool

thats why I feel like we’re in purgatory right now as a franchise. The money is already spent so it’s impossible now to upgrade the team through free agency. And we don’t have the talent coming up through the minors to get better on our own. That’s the main reason why we’re in huge trouble the next 3-4 years I think

[Angel Oracle]

Until Arte Moreno and Carpino take scouting and development more seriously, it will be mainly more of the same.

Longing for the Stoneman days