Fixing the team for 2021 and 2022

[Warfarin]

48 minutes ago, Inside Pitch said:

Sign a front end pitcher.   Sign a back end RP.   Sign a LH 1B type.    Play defense.    Look for trades but avoid disrupting the pipeline.

Agree with the front end pitcher.

As for RP - I'm hoping maybe Pena can lock that down moving forward and that Buttrey can "recover" and pitch more effectively next year.  Mayers have been pretty good.  Reyes, who we acquired in the Castro deal, has some pretty nasty stuff but zero command.  Another reliever would be nice, but I'm not sure we'll see it.

LH 1B - I'd like to hope we can fill this internally, whether it's Thaiss, Walsh, or maybe even having Ohtani learn to play 1B.

Defense - ah, wouldn't that be nice  .. Fletcher, while definitely not Simmons, looks pretty good at SS on the whole, and Rendon is a stud at 3B.  Adell needs to shift over to LF, and maybe Marsh can take over and play effective RF defense, which should help Trout improve a bit since he'll have better OF support.  

I absolutely agree about not disrupting the pipeline.  We need to contribute to it, not trade from it.

[AngelStew43]

Aren't Lindor and Seeger free agents after this season, in addition to Bauer?  We are in position to make a major move this offseason, since Albert drops off after the 2021 season.  

Bring in Bauer and Lindor, go over the tax for one season, and the next season be right back under when Upton's deal expires. 

 

[Warfarin]

9 minutes ago, AngelStew43 said:

Aren't Lindor and Seeger free agents after this season, in addition to Bauer?  We are in position to make a major move this offseason, since Albert drops off after the 2021 season.  

Bring in Bauer and Lindor, go over the tax for one season, and the next season be right back under when Upton's deal expires. 

 

Lindor and Seager aren't free agents until after next season.

[Second Base]

It feels a little like signing anyone in free agency is simply investing more money into a product that simply isn't working out. But with Trout and Rendon signed long term, I guess they don't really have much of a choice but to keep throwing money at the problem and hope it cures the root cause. 

Sort of like the 50 year old 250 lb woman complaining to her doctor that her knees hurt. I mean sure, we could opt for surgery and give her some pain meds and hope it gets better, but it's abundantly clear what her real problem is. Diet and exercise, or lack thereof.

 

[Angel Oracle]

28 minutes ago, Warfarin said:

Lindor and Seager aren't free agents until after next season.

And Seager to me has health issues.

[Inside Pitch]

53 minutes ago, Warfarin said:

Agree with the front end pitcher.

As for RP - I'm hoping maybe Pena can lock that down moving forward and that Buttrey can "recover" and pitch more effectively next year.  Mayers have been pretty good.  Reyes, who we acquired in the Castro deal, has some pretty nasty stuff but zero command.  Another reliever would be nice, but I'm not sure we'll see it.

LH 1B - I'd like to hope we can fill this internally, whether it's Thaiss, Walsh, or maybe even having Ohtani learn to play 1B.

Defense - ah, wouldn't that be nice  .. Fletcher, while definitely not Simmons, looks pretty good at SS on the whole, and Rendon is a stud at 3B.  Adell needs to shift over to LF, and maybe Marsh can take over and play effective RF defense, which should help Trout improve a bit since he'll have better OF support.  

I absolutely agree about not disrupting the pipeline.  We need to contribute to it, not trade from it.

They need someone at the back end -- not so much a closer.  Someone that can shut down offenses.    They need a hammer.

[tdawg87]

11 minutes ago, Inside Pitch said:

They need someone at the back end -- not so much a closer.  Someone that can shut down offenses.    They need a hammer.

[Inside Pitch]

2 minutes ago, tdawg87 said:

[tdawg87]

Just now, Inside Pitch said:

[Vlad27Trout27]

4 hours ago, Hubs said:

Bauer might get 3/105. He’s going to get more than 21/yr. I doubt he will stick to his one year commitment strategy, when faced with free agency, a pandemic, and a new CBA on the horizon. He’s all about numbers. He’ll see that a longer term deal gives him the best chance to make money, and it will be some weird deal with options and such.

Jay Bruce is still playing? With two minor league OF ready in Adell and Upton, plus Maddon obviously believes in Ward, and two of the highest paid players on your team, I doubt they go for another OF, and if they do, it’s gonna be a guy with good defense. Why would they trade Goodwin if they were going to sign his replacement? 

Ray and Minor are good options but I see them trading for a guy rather than signing a mid tier guy. They likely want to acquire someone who they can control for 2021 and 22, but not a long term guy. Otherwise they go into 2022 with three free agents in their rotation.

I agree Simmons or La Stella, not both.

If you mean Aaron Sanchez, he may be available on a minor league deal. Kluber will not. 

Maybe Rocker debuts by the end of 2021, but no one else will be able to be a major league contributor in a year and half from the 2021 draft. And that’s doubtful.

They also need to address their terrible pen, and the catching position 

 

First off all, Bauer will not be getting 35 mil per year over a period of time. That is Cole type of money, and the main reason he got that was because of the Yankees. In a one year deal, i still do not see him getting 35 mi, could see him getting 25 mil but not 30 mil. Mookie betts got 30 mil a year, and he's a franchise player. Bauer will either get the Corbin/Wheeler type of money at best (20-23 mil per year) 

Bruce is brought into be a backup ofer/1st baseman. Pujols isn't worth must, and one or two of marsh/Upton/Adell could easy struggle. Bruce provides a backup plan. Bruce or Pederson.

Ray/Minor might be worth the risk, especially since they might be looking for a one year deal. 

For Kluber its going to depend on the market, I've heard that Texas wants to cut payroll, so he's going to get cut. 

Rocker or who ever we drafted, won't be up in 21. We've talked about this in  detmer's case, and data has shown that it takes 2-3 years for a college pitcher to reach the majors the last few years. The quickest, was Canning, and he has his arm issues. So, there is no point in risking an injury to rush a guy up here. Allow them to develop.  

 

[Pancake Bear]

7 hours ago, Vlad27Trout27 said:

First off all, Bauer will not be getting 35 mil per year over a period of time. That is Cole type of money, and the main reason he got that was because of the Yankees.

Prices go down substantially depending on how long you sign for. One year is low risk, so teams will pay more - less chance for injury or results to fall off a cliff. 

Bauer is 11th overall among pitchers over the last four years (including 2020 so far) with 600ip over that time. That’s including a pedestrian 2017 and 2019. His 2018 and 2020 so far have been ace level. 

On one year, I’d be stunned if he didn’t get at least 30m. If he takes a 5ish year deal, it’ll probably go down. On the other hand, if he continues at a low 2 ERA, he could probably get 30 aav for 5 years.

[Stradling]

The only issue with predicting salaries for next year is we have no idea whether or not fans will be at games in 2021.  Since we don’t know that it is really hard to predict the owners spending habits.

[ScottT]

2 minutes ago, Stradling said:

The only issue with predicting salaries for next year is we have no idea whether or not fans will be at games in 2021.  Since we don’t know that it is really hard to predict the owners spending habits.

ugh.

Whodathunkit

[Pancake Bear]

1 hour ago, Stradling said:

The only issue with predicting salaries for next year is we have no idea whether or not fans will be at games in 2021.  Since we don’t know that it is really hard to predict the owners spending habits.

Yeah, that's fair. I was thinking in terms of a normal season. We'll see how much it pushes things down.

I would suspect there will be fans in 2021, but it's hard to be sure. Still, the losses from 2020 (or at least the lower profits) won't make teams super eager to expand their budgets. Tough year to be a FA.

[Stradling]

4 hours ago, Pancake Bear said:

Yeah, that's fair. I was thinking in terms of a normal season. We'll see how much it pushes things down.

I would suspect there will be fans in 2021, but it's hard to be sure. Still, the losses from 2020 (or at least the lower profits) won't make teams super eager to expand their budgets. Tough year to be a FA.

Even if there are fans will it be 100% capacity, business as normal?  Will the public be comfortable with that?  

[Ariamus]

If I were running the club, I'd do the following before the start of the 2021 season:

• Make every attempt to sign Trevor Bauer. The Angels need top of the rotation, front line pitching and he is that. Yes, he's a bit of an odd bird but does that matter? No. What matters is what he can give the club on the bump every fifth day.
• Ditto for JT Realmuto. This one's more of a stretch for two reasons. First, the Angels need pitching a lot more than they need to improve elsewhere on the diamond and they may not be willing to splash cash like they were last offseason. Second, if someone other than the current ownership is signing the checks for the New York Mets (i.e. Steve Cohen), I think Realmuto will wind up in Queens because they'll give him a metric fuck-tonne of money.
• Convince Albert to retire. I'd still pay him, mind you. But I think he hurts us more than he helps when he's in the game. The club needs to make room for Jo Adell and (hopefully) Brandon Marsh to get full playing time so we can see what they are and can be. They also need to account for the possibility that Ohtani will be a full-time offensive player as well (see below). Presuming that Trout, Rendon, Upton, Simmons (also see below), and Fletcher all play every day relatively speaking, that doesn't leave a lot of room to do all the things they need to do and still shoehorn Pujols into the lineup two-thirds of the time. So convince Albert to hang 'em up. I would prefer to do it amicably. It's gotta be possible to reason with him. I mean, what could he possibly still be playing for? The pandemic wiped out any chance he had at 700 homers and 2000 runs scored. I mean, he needs less than 100 hits to crack the all-time top-ten but is that really enough motivation?
• Give Shohei one more crack at being a viable two-way player. But only just one more. I'm still willing to give him one more shot next spring training to see what he's got left. Maybe even go into the season with the tryout. But if the power in his arm is gone, it should be apparent pretty quickly. And if it is, then it's time to put the notion of his being a pitcher to bed. To be clear, I still hope that he can be an all-star level pitcher as well as an all-star level hitter. He'd be much more valuable to the club that way than the alternative. But if it's not realistic, the time will have come to put a first-baseman's (or a corner outfielder's) glove on him and making him a full-time position player.
• Offer Simmons a 2-4 year deal at about $12-13 million per year. I like Simba and I like the rock-solid stability that he gives us at the second-most important defensive position. And I really love watching Rendon (another excellent defender) and he patrol the left side of the infield. Much as I love him, I don't think there's much of a market out there for a 30+ shortstop. I didn't think there was one before the pandemic (see Didi Gregorious) and I certainly don't think there is one now. Still, rather than screw around with the qualifying offer crapshoot, I'd make him an offer along the lines of what I wrote above. Any combination of at least two guaranteed years and attainable option years beyond that totaling no more than four at the amount suggested is fine.

[Docwaukee]

If Bauer holds true to his word then it's gonna be very tough to lure him here for 1yr considering that the reason he is intent on doing that is so he can bounce from team to team giving him the best chance to win a world series.  My guess is that there will be quite a few other teams on his list ahead of us to fit that criteria. 

He's also shown that he's not really an ace.  

He would be a nice add and certainly could continue where's he's at through 7 starts of 2020 into 2021.  But for the rest of his career, his era has been around 4 (sim FIP).  

Do you know who he's got similar peripherals with for their careers? I could play the player A, player B thing, but I'll just give it away.  Andrew Heaney.  Granted Bauer has almost 3 times as many innings.  

[totdprods]

Marcus Stroman is growing on me to be tied as a priority with Bauer. I have no preference of one over the other. 

Bauer certainly has the upside but I think Stroman could wind up being a relative bargain. His contract may be manageable enough to allow more flexibility with other spending too, more than Bauer’s, regardless if it’s one-year or multi-year.

Re-signing Simmons is growing on me too. And his defense plus Stroman would go well together. Starting to think our defense has been one of the biggest reasons this season sucked so bad. Simmons would help that. A good 4th OF like Pillar or Bradley would help that. Signing Simmons, Stroman, and one of those might be more realistic than Bauer and whatever money is left for multiple holes.

Edited September 6, 2020 by totdprods

[Warfarin]

9 hours ago, Ariamus said:

If I were running the club, I'd do the following before the start of the 2021 season:

• Make every attempt to sign Trevor Bauer. The Angels need top of the rotation, front line pitching and he is that. Yes, he's a bit of an odd bird but does that matter? No. What matters is what he can give the club on the bump every fifth day.
• Ditto for JT Realmuto. This one's more of a stretch for two reasons. First, the Angels need pitching a lot more than they need to improve elsewhere on the diamond and they may not be willing to splash cash like they were last offseason. Second, if someone other than the current ownership is signing the checks for the New York Mets (i.e. Steve Cohen), I think Realmuto will wind up in Queens because they'll give him a metric fuck-tonne of money.
• Convince Albert to retire. I'd still pay him, mind you. But I think he hurts us more than he helps when he's in the game. The club needs to make room for Jo Adell and (hopefully) Brandon Marsh to get full playing time so we can see what they are and can be. They also need to account for the possibility that Ohtani will be a full-time offensive player as well (see below). Presuming that Trout, Rendon, Upton, Simmons (also see below), and Fletcher all play every day relatively speaking, that doesn't leave a lot of room to do all the things they need to do and still shoehorn Pujols into the lineup two-thirds of the time. So convince Albert to hang 'em up. I would prefer to do it amicably. It's gotta be possible to reason with him. I mean, what could he possibly still be playing for? The pandemic wiped out any chance he had at 700 homers and 2000 runs scored. I mean, he needs less than 100 hits to crack the all-time top-ten but is that really enough motivation?
• Give Shohei one more crack at being a viable two-way player. But only just one more. I'm still willing to give him one more shot next spring training to see what he's got left. Maybe even go into the season with the tryout. But if the power in his arm is gone, it should be apparent pretty quickly. And if it is, then it's time to put the notion of his being a pitcher to bed. To be clear, I still hope that he can be an all-star level pitcher as well as an all-star level hitter. He'd be much more valuable to the club that way than the alternative. But if it's not realistic, the time will have come to put a first-baseman's (or a corner outfielder's) glove on him and making him a full-time position player.
• Offer Simmons a 2-4 year deal at about $12-13 million per year. I like Simba and I like the rock-solid stability that he gives us at the second-most important defensive position. And I really love watching Rendon (another excellent defender) and he patrol the left side of the infield. Much as I love him, I don't think there's much of a market out there for a 30+ shortstop. I didn't think there was one before the pandemic (see Didi Gregorious) and I certainly don't think there is one now. Still, rather than screw around with the qualifying offer crapshoot, I'd make him an offer along the lines of what I wrote above. Any combination of at least two guaranteed years and attainable option years beyond that totaling no more than four at the amount suggested is fine.

While I like these ideas, I don't think it's feasible to do financially.  Assuming Bauer gets 20-25mil AAV and Realmuto gets close to 20mil AAV, just doesn't seem we can do all of the above.

I'd rather get Bauer and just re-sign Castro on a one-year deal to pair with Stassi, who is looking like a pleasant surprise this year.

Simmons .. I don't think we can re-sign Simmons if we are spending the above money on Bauer.  Maybe if we signed someone like Gausman or Odorizzi instead, who will both command considerably less, then we can re-sign Simmons, too.

[Warfarin]

8 hours ago, totdprods said:

Marcus Stroman is growing on me to be tied as a priority with Bauer. I have no preference of one over the other. 

Bauer certainly has the upside but I think Stroman could wind up being a relative bargain. His contract may be manageable enough to allow more flexibility with other spending too, more than Bauer’s, regardless if it’s one-year or multi-year.

Re-signing Simmons is growing on me too. And his defense plus Stroman would go well together. Starting to think our defense has been one of the biggest reasons this season sucked so bad. Simmons would help that. A good 4th OF like Pillar or Bradley would help that. Signing Simmons, Stroman, and one of those might be more realistic than Bauer and whatever money is left for multiple holes.

I guess for me .. it just depends on how much Arte wants to spend.

We definitely need a significant SP this offseason.  Amongst the available are Bauer, Stroman, Gausman, Odorizzi, Richards .. 

I'd like Bauer, but I'd be okay with Gausman or Odorizzi, both of whom would be considerably more affordable than Bauer.  That should provide us with the financial ability to re-sign Simmons, if we want to go that route.

It would not be my top priority, but having Rendon, Simmons, and Fletcher should at least provide elite-level defense on the infield, regardless of who is playing 1B.  

[totdprods]

42 minutes ago, Warfarin said:

I guess for me .. it just depends on how much Arte wants to spend.

We definitely need a significant SP this offseason.  Amongst the available are Bauer, Stroman, Gausman, Odorizzi, Richards .. 

I'd like Bauer, but I'd be okay with Gausman or Odorizzi, both of whom would be considerably more affordable than Bauer.  That should provide us with the financial ability to re-sign Simmons, if we want to go that route.

It would not be my top priority, but having Rendon, Simmons, and Fletcher should at least provide elite-level defense on the infield, regardless of who is playing 1B.  

I think counting on Odorizzi/Gausman and Simmons as the major offseason moves would be awfully risky. 

If we get a new GM and he wants to play it safe, that’s fine. If we keep Billy for one more year and that’s what he does, I’d be ticked. If we keep Billy for several more years and that’s what he does, I’ll assume he’s really just looking for the 2022+ campaigns. 

[Hubs]

Bauer, Richards, Treinen, Yates, Simmons, and lets roll. 

[Hubs]

1 minute ago, Hubs said:

Bauer, Richards, Treinen or Yates, Simmons, and lets roll. 

I’d also sign an experienced late inning reliever 

[Angels 1961]

On 9/3/2020 at 11:52 AM, Pujols4MVP said:

They need to find a way to replace the production loss of Simmons, La Stella & Goodwin or add more pitching.

On paper the team in 2021 looks like they will be losing alot of games by a score of 2 to 12.

Offer Simmons a QO, Adell will replace Goodwin and Walsh for 1B

[Angel Oracle]

Simba, Gausman, late innings guy (if not Hendricks), and Castro sounds fine to me.

Gamble that this poor season cuts back Robles’ arb figure, and that in a full season with fans, he regains just enough of his swagger from 2018-19.

ICWT

Edited September 7, 2020 by Angel Oracle