Starting Pitching: Offseason Dodged Bullets & Missed Targets

[Chuck]

So here is an update on how the pitchers that were signed or traded for this past offseason are doing.  Some of the arms that we missed out on via free agency or via a trade are doing quite well and others are not. Thankfully management passed on those guys. That said, if there was ever an offseason where a team had more of a glaring weakness than the Angels did in terms of starting pitching it was this past offseason.

Did they do enough? Should they have given the likes of Keuchel and Ryu contracts in addition to the Bundy acquisition and passed on Teheran? Did they count on Ohtani returning to his 2018 form a bit too much? Questions Questions?!?!

Missed Offseason Targets: 

Gerrit Cole: 2.75 ERA, 0.89 WHIP

Dallas Keuchel: 2.70 ERA, 0.98 WHIP

Hyun Jin Ryu: 3.19 ERA, 1.03 WHIP

Zack Wheeler: 2.76 ERA, 1.10 WHIP

Kwang Hyun Kim: 1.69 ERA, 1.03 WHIP

Tyler Anderson: 3.45 ERA, 1.21 WHIP

Brett Anderson: 3.52 ERA, 1.26 WHIP

Taijuan Walker: 4.00 ERA, 1.07 WHIP

Michael Pineda: (TBD)

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Dodged Offseason Bullets:

Stephen Strasburg: 10.80 ERA, 1.80 WHIP (injured)

Corey Kluber, Cole Hamels & Homer Bailey: (Injured - Out for the season?)

Jon Gray: 5.45 ERA, 1.29 WHIP

Robbie Ray: 7.84 ERA, 2.00 WHIP

Matt Boyd: 8.48 ERA, 1.74 WHIP

Kyle Gibson: 5.73 ERA, 1.48 WHIP

Rick Porcello: 6.43 ERA, 1.64 WHIP

Madison Bumgarner: 9.35 ERA, 1.56 WHIP (injured)

Wade Miley: 9.72 ERA, 2.40 WHIP

Jake Odorizzi: 8.10 ERA, 1.60 WHIP (injured)

Alex Wood: 9.00 ERA, 2.00 WHIP (injured)

Tanner Roark: 4.91 ERA, 1.73 WHIP

 

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Signed or Acquired:

Dyland Bundy: 2.58 ERA, 0.89 WHIP

Julio Teheran: 9.17 ERA, 1.70 WHIP

Matt Andriese: 6.50 ERA, 1.50 WHIP

 

My Take: The moral of this story is develop your own pitching through the draft and draft as many arms as you can.  If you are going to go outside of your organization for pitching help I think it's best to sign or trade for durable arms or to go after high risk/reward types on the cheap.

[kevinb]

Love it thanks Chuck! 

[mmc]

Don't know if you can really listed him as a missed target, but damn, I wish the Angels would've been the team to get Kenta Maeda.

[Chuck]

Just now, mymerlincat said:

Don't know if you can really listed him as a missed target, but damn, I wish the Angels would've been the team to get Kenta Maeda.

Yeah, since Maeda wasn't actually named as one of our targets I left him out. Boyd on the other hand was so I listed him.

One guy that I hoped we could have signed despite his suspension to be served was Michael Pineda. 

[Inside Pitch]

Kluber is someone people agonized over as a missed target who has turned out to be a dodged bullet.

[Chuck]

2 minutes ago, Inside Pitch said:

Kluber is someone people agonized over as a missed target who has turned out to be a dodged bullet.

Added. I knew I'd forget some guys! 

I thought about adding Kevin Gausman. The guy's ERA is in the mid 4's but he has an incredible K's/IP and BB rate. 

[totdprods]

FWIW, I’m much happier that we landed Rendon than Cole.

Cole’s been great but he wouldn’t have fixed this team’s pitching staff. Rendon is showing signs he’ll be a special hitter here for awhile. 

[Inside Pitch]

20 minutes ago, Chuckster70 said:

Yeah, since Maeda wasn't actually named as one of our targets I left him out. Boyd on the other hand was so I listed him.

One guy that I hoped we could have signed despite his suspension to be served was Michael Pineda. 

I don't recall anyone really pushing for Tyler Anderson TBH....  He's got a nice ERA so far but he's been the same pitcher he has always been and his FIP in in line with his career, actually it's higher.  Dude is basically a Pac Bell Park mirage -- home OPS allowed of .478 and .898 everywhere else.    Likewise Brett Anderson has a FIP near 5.00 and he's already been on the shelf with an injury.    Honestly Brett Anderson is a guy you could pretty much take a chance on every year and if he stays healthy he will pitch well, he's just rarely healthy.   Walker, another guy with a superficially good ERA and bad underlying numbers -- guy has an OPS allowed over .850 on the road .vs  .562 at Safeco.  He was one of the guys I liked too and he's done well, but it was the medicals that seemed to scare teams away.   

Honestly -- these sorts of lists are pretty silly to make after what -- 5 or 6 starts?    None of these moves were made with a Covid season in mind..   Teams were looking at 162 games seasons when these deals were made -- short season obviously changes how they can be looked at but, it's hindsight at it's finest.   Pineda went from being around for 100 games to missing the season after the shutdown.   Over the long haul he is IMO still a quality missed target.

[Inside Pitch]

10 minutes ago, Chuckster70 said:

Added. I knew I'd forget some guys! 

I thought about adding Kevin Gausman. The guy's ERA is in the mid 4's but he has an incredible K's/IP and BB rate. 

Yep, he's completely outpitched his ERA.   FIP near 3.00

[Inside Pitch]

In yet another example of  baseball gonna baseball....   

Remember how everyone thought the Rangers rotation was going to be a monster?   They moved out of a launching pad and into a pitchers park (at least thats how it's looked early on) and their SPs have completely gone bust outside of Lynn.

ERA+
Lynn -- 281
Gibson - 78
Minor - 66
Allard - 58
Lyles - 49

Just weird stuff.

[Stradling]

Now ask yourself if you’d rather have one or two of those pitchers or Rendon.  For me the one that I go back and forth on is would I rather have Tubby Ryu and Keuchel or Rendon?  The reason I go back to that one is it is about the same amount of money annually.  

[Stradling]

Last off season I wanted Lance Lynn at 3 years and $30 million.  

[Chuck]

Just now, Stradling said:

Last off season I wanted Lance Lynn at 3 years and $30 million.  

I did too. Another missed opportunity by Eppler. 

[Inside Pitch]

Just now, Stradling said:

Last off season I wanted Lance Lynn at 3 years and $30 million.  

At that price it was a no brainer.  Texas hit the jackpot there.

[Chuck]

1 minute ago, Stradling said:

Now ask yourself if you’d rather have one or two of those pitchers or Rendon.  For me the one that I go back and forth on is would I rather have Tubby Ryu and Keuchel or Rendon?  The reason I go back to that one is it is about the same amount of money annually.  

They could have not offered Teheran and Andriese a contract and got Bundy, Rendon and one of Ryu or Keuchel with Pujols coming off the books after next year. Arte has DEEP pockets, he could have also probably got Ryu and Keuchel in addition to Rendon, but we'll never know for sure. 

[Chuck]

14 minutes ago, totdprods said:

FWIW, I’m much happier that we landed Rendon than Cole.

Cole’s been great but he wouldn’t have fixed this team’s pitching staff. Rendon is showing signs he’ll be a special hitter here for awhile. 

If given the choice between Cole and Rendon I would pick Rendon all day every day. I wanted the Angels to get 1 or 2 of Keuchel and Ryu in addition to Rendon. They could have gotten just one of the lefties and then went on the cheap for one of the Anderson lefties or signed Walker. 

Here's the thing, there's no way going into this season that Eppler knew that Bundy would be as good as he has been too. 

[Stradling]

2 minutes ago, Chuckster70 said:

They could have not offered Teheran and Andriese a contract and got Bundy, Rendon and one of Ryu or Keuchel with Pujols coming off the books after next year. Arte has DEEP pockets, he could have also probably got Ryu and Keuchel in addition to Rendon, but we'll never know for sure. 

Yea, I don’t think they were ever going to add $70 million in payroll.  Both you and I were in favor of Teheran and I think without Covid he would have been solid for the cost.

[Inside Pitch]

Andriese's 1.3 mil shouldn't have kept them from making any moves -- and if it did then you know where to aim your anger at.  Because if 1.3 mil was considered expensive then pretty much everyone not willing to sign anything other than a one year deal was "too expensive".

[kevinb]

41 minutes ago, totdprods said:

FWIW, I’m much happier that we landed Rendon than Cole.

Cole’s been great but he wouldn’t have fixed this team’s pitching staff. Rendon is showing signs he’ll be a special hitter here for awhile. 

He wouldn't have fixed this pitching staff? What do you mean? Sure he isn't 5 pitchers but being an Ace helps a pitching staff a huge deal. 

[failos]

How do we know those guys wanted to go to Anaheim. Can't really force someone to sign with us.

[Chuck]

4 minutes ago, failos said:

How do we know those guys wanted to go to Anaheim. Can't really force someone to sign with us.

How do we know they didn't care where they signed in terms of location and we didn't offer the money? 

The only one we do know of was Wheeler. But I'm guessing if we offered quite a bit more $$$ than Philly he may have chose the Angels. 

[Chuck]

7 minutes ago, Kevinb said:

He wouldn't have fixed this pitching staff? What do you mean? Sure he isn't 5 pitchers but being an Ace helps a pitching staff a huge deal. 

You don't spend 400 million on a pitcher. That's absurd. But to get two quality arms like Keuchel and Ryu, or the like for half of that cost you do it. 

[kevinb]

4 minutes ago, Chuckster70 said:

You don't spend 400 million on a pitcher. That's absurd. But to get two quality arms like Keuchel and Ryu, or the like for half of that cost you do it. 

Completely agree on the price. But that wasn’t the argument. The argument was Cole doesn’t fix the rotation. He may not fix it but he solves a lot of problems. 

[Chuck]

48 minutes ago, Inside Pitch said:

I don't recall anyone really pushing for Tyler Anderson TBH....  He's got a nice ERA so far but he's been the same pitcher he has always been and his FIP in in line with his career, actually it's higher.  Dude is basically a Pac Bell Park mirage -- home OPS allowed of .478 and .898 everywhere else.    Likewise Brett Anderson has a FIP near 5.00 and he's already been on the shelf with an injury.    Honestly Brett Anderson is a guy you could pretty much take a chance on every year and if he stays healthy he will pitch well, he's just rarely healthy.   Walker, another guy with a superficially good ERA and bad underlying numbers -- guy has an OPS allowed over .850 on the road .vs  .562 at Safeco.  He was one of the guys I liked too and he's done well, but it was the medicals that seemed to scare teams away.   

Honestly -- these sorts of lists are pretty silly to make after what -- 5 or 6 starts?    None of these moves were made with a Covid season in mind..   Teams were looking at 162 games seasons when these deals were made -- short season obviously changes how they can be looked at but, it's hindsight at it's finest.   Pineda went from being around for 100 games to missing the season after the shutdown.   Over the long haul he is IMO still a quality missed target.

@Inside Pitch this isn't a thread about who we wanted or discussed, but more of who was available and where they're at now. 

If this team had Rendon at 3B and boasted a rotation of Bundy, Keuchel and one of Walker/Ryu/Anderson/Kim or even Gausman they would be in much better shape. 

The team needed to heavily invest into starting pitching this offseason and they gambled on Bundy and thankfully won, but they needed more reliable arms than just him. Teheran was a solid last choice but most here weren't too sure how he would fare in the AL and with a declining arsenal of pitches. 

[Stradling]

11 minutes ago, Chuckster70 said:

How do we know they didn't care where they signed in terms of location and we didn't offer the money? 

The only one we do know of was Wheeler. But I'm guessing if we offered quite a bit more $$$ than Philly he may have chose the Angels. 

Well we also know we offered Cole $300 million.