The Official 2020-2021 Hot Stove Offseason Thread

[Stradling]

Just now, floplag said:

Is that not the point of these forums, to discuss such things?  What should we only wit once everything is 100% confirmed?  99% of these types of places is pure speculation.  

Right and your speculation is they are done because the GM said they are decent, even though he also said they are always looking for impact.  

[floplag]

1 minute ago, Stradling said:

Right and your speculation is they are done because the GM said they are decent, even though he also said they are always looking for impact.  

Ugh. man youre really not as good at reading people as you think you are if thats what you got from it. 

[failos]

One thing people are overlooking about that Minassian quote is that he probably doesn't want to come off as desperate for pitchers. 

[T.G.]

6 minutes ago, failos said:

One thing people are overlooking about that Minassian quote is that he probably doesn't want to come off as desperate for pitchers. 

Maybe most of us aren't over analyzing his quote.

[beatlesrule]

Not sure what people expected Minasian to say. If he says "our team is set and ready for spring training," he would get bombarded with questions as to why the SP is still mediocre. If he says, "we are still trying to trade for or sign an ace," that will lead to a very high expectation with the fans and media.

Arte has increased the payroll from last season correct? Even if it's $1 more, he would have stayed true to his word. Arte did not promise us a big splash or state he was actually going to go all in or get a really good SP. He simply said payroll will increase. 

[failos]

1 minute ago, T.G. said:

Maybe most of us aren't over analyzing his quote.

Maybe I'm not talking to you, then.

[Angels 1961]

1 hour ago, Angelsfan1984 said:

Rosenthal or colome fit that bill

Petit and Jose Alvarez would fill out the pen

[34red4]

1 hour ago, mmc said:

 

SP fWAR rank 2018

• Bundy - 1.0, 117th
• Heaney - 3.1, 29th
• Quintana - 1.6, 87th
• Canning - NA
• Cobb - 1.5, 89th
• Barria - 1.4, 94th

SP fWAR rank 2019

• Bundy - 2.4, 55th
• Heaney - 1.2, 104th
• Quintana - 3.2, 38th
• Canning - 1.3, 95th
• Cobb - -0.6, 364th
• Barria - -0.5, 347th

SP fWAR rank 2020

• Bundy - 2.0, 12th
• Heaney - 1.4, 34th
• Quintana - 0.2, NR
• Canning - 0.8, 68th
• Cobb - 0.6, 88th
• Barria - 0.4, 107th

SP fWAR rank 2018-2020

• Bundy - 5.4, 47th
• Heaney - 5.6, 46th
• Quintana - 4.9, 57th
• Canning - 2.1, 116th*
• Cobb - 1.5, 149th
• Barria - 1.5, 151st

SP fWAR rank 2019-2020

• Bundy - 4.5, 29th
• Heaney - 2.7, 67th
• Quintana - 3.3, 51st
• Canning - 2.3, 82nd
• Cobb - 0, 315th
• Barria - 0.1, 276th

* Did not pitch in MLB in 2018

Based on 2018-2020 numbers, the rotation consists of three #2 pitchers, a #4 pitcher*, and two #5ish pitchers.

[Chuck]

 

[Angels in 2030]

Counting on Heaney & Canning to be injury free and make 30+ starts each seems optimistic to me.

Counting on 2021 Bundy to put up 2020 Bundy numbers also seems optimistic.  His first 7 starts were great, but the next 4 dropped off quite a bit.  Although, i am a believer in Bundy going forward.  Not quite the Ace he was his first 7 starts inn 2020, but somewhere in-between that and his last 4 starts (a good #2).

[Chuck]

2 minutes ago, Fourts said:

Counting on Heaney & Canning to be injury free and make 30+ starts each seems optimistic to me.

Counting on 2021 Bundy to out up 2020 Bundy numbers also seems optimistic.  His first 7 starts were great, but the next 4 dropped off quite a bit.  Although, i am a believer in Bundy going forward.  Not quite the Ace he was his first 7 starts inn 2020, but somewhere in-between that and his last 4 starts (a good #2).

Every rotation in baseball has the same question marks in terms of health and reliability. 

[Angels in 2030]

1 minute ago, Chuckster70 said:

Every rotation in baseball has the same question marks in terms of health and reliability. 

I think you meant to say "most" or "many".  Teams like the Dodgers, Padres, Indians (just to name a few) might beg to disagree

[Angels 1961]

Bundy, Heaney, Quintana and Cobb all on incentive type contracts. Free agency looms so the better they pitch more money in off season. 

[mmc]

 

[mmc]

 

[Pancake Bear]

37 minutes ago, Fourts said:

I think you meant to say "most" or "many".  Teams like the Dodgers, Padres, Indians (just to name a few) might beg to disagree

And you'd be wrong. 

[Chuck]

37 minutes ago, Fourts said:

I think you meant to say "most" or "many".  Teams like the Dodgers, Padres, Indians (just to name a few) might beg to disagree

The Padres lost Clevinger and Lamet last Aug/September. 

The Dodgers lose Kershaw every season to some back injury and Urias/Gonsolin/May have yet to pitch a full season in the big leagues. 

Pitchers always come with a risk, so yeah. Every team! 

[Vlad27Trout27]

I guess with this our rotation is set, Last thing i would like us to add is another late Inning arm. 

[Angels in 2030]

6 minutes ago, Chuckster70 said:

The Padres lost Clevinger and Lamet last Aug/September. 

The Dodgers lose Kershaw every season to some back injury and Urias/Gonsolin/May have yet to pitch a full season in the big leagues. 

Pitchers always come with a risk, so yeah. Every team! 

You need to take off your rose colored Angel fan glasses and come back to reality.  It's ok if the Angels have question marks.  You don't have to protect them like it's your little son/daughter.  Just like our CF is the best in all of MLB while some other teams have question marks/issues.  We are awesome at some positions (CF, 3B) and we have questions at others.  That's why we have not had a winning record since 2015 (five years!).  For SP -- it's an issue for us.  Deal with it.  

Padres: i'm talking 2021.  Clev/Lamet do not matter to them in 2021.  If you think Snell/Darvish/Musgrove/Paddack/etc. is equivalent to the angels on any level than you are kidding yourself.  They do not have question marks / injury concerns. 

LAD: who cares about Kershaw and the others.  Those guys can all sit for 2021 and the LAD will have no problems SP wise.  Again, you are comparing apples to Oranges.   Also, putting May in there makes no sense.  Sure he has yet to pitch 30+ start in the Majors, but that's not due to injuries or lack of talent.  

[Stradling]

Hey raise your hand if you thought Chuck was comparing the Angels rotation to the Padres or Dodgers.  
 

 

 

 

 

Oh only one guy, ok. 

[Pancake Bear]

5 minutes ago, Fourts said:

If you think Snell/Darvish/Musgrove/Paddack/etc. is equivalent to the angels on any level than you are kidding yourself.  They do not have question marks / injury concerns. 

Paddack was a below average pitcher in 2020. Snell has had issues since winning the Cy - far from clear he's an ace. Darvish is old, and despite the small sample size of 2020, has been basically a 4 ERA pitcher for the last few years. Musgrove had never had a sub 4 ERA until 2020. Also, Paddack has never thrown more than 140 innings, and others missed a lot of time in 2019.

If you think they don't have question marks, you're mistaken. Everyone has question marks at pitching.

The Angels are worse than some, but they've raised their floor and depth in 2020. I'm less concerned about really bad innings and more about whether we have much upside in the rotation. 

[mmc]

Rotations of other top AL teams:

 

NYY - Cole-Severino-Kluber-Taillon-Montgomery

TOR - Ryu-Pearson-Roark-Matz-Ray

TB - Glasnow-Patino-Archer-Wacha-Yarbrough (with Honeywell-McClanahan-McKay in the pipeline)

CWS - Giolito-Keuchel-Lynn-Cease-Lopez-Rodon

MIN - Berrios-Maeda-Pineda-Happ-Dobnak

CLE - Bieber-Plesac-Civale-McKenzie-Plutko-Allen

BOS - Sale-Rodriguez-Richards-Eovaldi-Perez

OAK - Montas-Manaea-Luzardo-Bassitt-Puk

HOU - Greinke-Valdez-McCullers-Javier-Urquidy

 

I mean is what we have even close to most, if really any of these teams.  I don’t believe it is.  And the fact that 9 years into the Trout era, with no playoff wins, we’re still questioning this is absolutely negligent to me.  Something is seriously wrong with this organization’s philosophy about pitching.

[angelsnationtalk]

6 minutes ago, mmc said:

Rotations of other top AL teams:

 

NYY - Cole-Severino-Kluber-Taillon-Montgomery

TOR - Ryu-Pearson-Roark-Matz-Ray

TB - Glasnow-Patino-Archer-Wacha-Yarbrough (with Honeywell-McClanahan-McKay in the pipeline)

CWS - Giolito-Keuchel-Lynn-Cease-Lopez-Rodon

MIN - Berrios-Maeda-Pineda-Happ-Dobnak

CLE - Bieber-Plesac-Civale-McKenzie-Plutko-Allen

BOS - Sale-Rodriguez-Richards-Eovaldi-Perez

OAK - Montas-Manaea-Luzardo-Bassitt-Puk

HOU - Greinke-Valdez-McCullers-Javier-Urquidy

 

I mean is what we have even close to most, if really any of these teams.  I don’t believe it is.  And the fact that 9 years into the Trout era, with no playoff wins, we’re still questioning this is absolutely negligent to me.  Something is seriously wrong with this organization’s philosophy about pitching.

10000000000% yes. I've been saying this all along. All teams that make deep playoff runs have an extremely good rotation. 

You're right, Angels just seem plain lost.

They've tried the last 3 years to go after ace pitchers but have always fallen back on 1yr deals. 

Same goes for this year. The difference? Apparently from the start we weren't thinking about getting Bauer at all. Here we are again with the one year deals.

Angels really hoping they can win games again 6-5.... So far, it hasn't worked. 

[Pancake Bear]

7 minutes ago, mmc said:

Rotations of other top AL teams:

 

NYY - Cole-Severino-Kluber-Taillon-Montgomery

TOR - Ryu-Pearson-Roark-Matz-Ray

TB - Glasnow-Patino-Archer-Wacha-Yarbrough (with Honeywell-McClanahan-McKay in the pipeline)

CWS - Giolito-Keuchel-Lynn-Cease-Lopez-Rodon

MIN - Berrios-Maeda-Pineda-Happ-Dobnak

CLE - Bieber-Plesac-Civale-McKenzie-Plutko-Allen

BOS - Sale-Rodriguez-Richards-Eovaldi-Perez

OAK - Montas-Manaea-Luzardo-Bassitt-Puk

HOU - Greinke-Valdez-McCullers-Javier-Urquidy

 

I mean is what we have even close to most, if really any of these teams.  I don’t believe it is.  And the fact that 9 years into the Trout era, with no playoff wins, we’re still questioning this is absolutely negligent to me.  Something is seriously wrong with this organization’s philosophy about pitching.

Any of those, if you examine them, are much more questionable than you seem (to me) to be suggesting.

As I've said repeatedly, we very much need top end pitching. It will be hard for us to seriously contend without it unless someone unexpectedly finds a new level. 

The problem has been twofold for us: 1) Lack of top end pitching, and 2) Lack of depth and a quality on the bottom.

Most of the guys Eppler grabbed he was looking for upside and they were risky. Bundy was the only one that paid off. Minasian seems to be looking more for guys with less risk and appears to be content with limited to no upside. Quintana and Cobb probably won't improve much or at all here, but neither has the warning signs of, say, Harvey, Teheran, or Cahill. Barria and Sandoval have had development time. And Detmers is believed by people outside the organization (e.g. Keith Law, for one) to be close to or even ready to contribute immediately if needed. 

So, the floor is - by any reasonable standard - raised. We have as good a shot as anyone against the back end of nearly any rotation out there. But the top? Bundy was good at times in 2020, but did he overperform who he really is? Will Callaway's loss move him (and others) backwards? And who pitches second? Heaney? Going up against the front of other team's rotations will be tough.

That's what concerns me at the moment, and I'm not sure our pen is good enough to make up for that lack of upside. One more really good move would help, but I'm not counting on it. I think we could be a playoff team - neither Oakland or Houston looks all that impressive - but I don't think this team is good enough to go the distance. 

[angelsnationtalk]

1 minute ago, Pancake Bear said:

Any of those, if you examine them, are much more questionable than you seem (to me) to be suggesting.

As I've said repeatedly, we very much need top end pitching. It will be hard for us to seriously contend without it unless someone unexpectedly finds a new level. 

The problem has been twofold for us: 1) Lack of top end pitching, and 2) Lack of depth and a quality on the bottom.

Most of the guys Eppler grabbed he was looking for upside and they were risky. Bundy was the only one that paid off. Minasian seems to be looking more for guys with less risk and appears to be content with limited to no upside. Quintana and Cobb probably won't improve much or at all here, but neither has the warning signs of, say, Harvey, Teheran, or Cahill. Barria and Sandoval have had development time. And Detmers is believed by people outside the organization (e.g. Keith Law, for one) to be close to or even ready to contribute immediately if needed. 

So, the floor is - by any reasonable standard - raised. We have as good a shot as anyone against the back end of nearly any rotation out there. But the top? Bundy was good at times in 2020, but did he overperform who he really is? Will Callaway's loss move him (and others) backwards? And who pitches second? Heaney? Going up against the front of other team's rotations will be tough.

That's what concerns me at the moment, and I'm not sure our pen is good enough to make up for that lack of upside. One more really good move would help, but I'm not counting on it. I think we could be a playoff team - neither Oakland or Houston looks all that impressive - but I don't think this team is good enough to go the distance. 

We had the second worst SP ERA last year. The floor was raised, yes, but damn it's got a long way to go. Still could use the top pitcher added to balance it out better