Angels sign Steve Cishek and Tony Watson (1 year, $1 million a piece)

[tdawg87]

Minasian just filled the shit bag. It's peanut huntin time.

[Erstad Grit]

Heck yes!!!!!! Last minute pen make-over!!!!

[totdprods]

This pitching staff depth is something else. Loving how many options there are across the rotation, bullpen, and AAA. 

Around 350 to 400 career saves between all the guys on the bullpen depth chart now. Who knows how long it’s been since the Angels had that much experience in the pen. Huston Street days probably.

Edited March 30, 2021 by totdprods

[ScottT]

5 minutes ago, totdprods said:

This pitching staff depth is something else. Loving how many options there are across the rotation, bullpen, and AAA. 

Around 350 to 400 career saves between all the guys on the bullpen depth chart now. Who knows how long it’s been since the Angels had that much experience in the pen. Isringhausen days maybe.

Almost 700 home runs between the Angels' first basemen, too

[Bronson]

Our bullpen depth went from non existent to insanely deep...

[ThisismineScios]

I don’t understand not really liking this. Suddenly we have 14 viable bullpen arms. This is how you find gems. 

[Second Base]

I have to think that if they're going to forego the remainder of his development, then Chris Rodriguez must really be something special in relief. 

Has anyone considered that our best reliever in 2021 might actually be C-Rod? 

[SlappyUtilityMIF]

I've liked Watson for a while. I'm glad we finally got him! He will be fine.

Cishek it's all about a different look on the arm slot. It will play well for us. I'd rather had O'Day.

[Angels 1961]

Not a big fan of Claudio, but now gets outs your out.

[Angels 1961]

How many relief pitchers have option left? Can we send Claudio,Guerra, Hoyt to minors?

[jsnpritchett]

36 minutes ago, Angels 1961 said:

Not a big fan of Claudio, but now gets outs your out.

Couldn't have said it better myself......

[Billy_Ball]

 

[Docwaukee]

Just now, Billy_Ball said:

 

why would we want a guy with that kind of stuff to hone his craft and ramp up to 160+ innings per season when he can be rushed to the majors and pitch 50?

[BritAngel]

Happy with these acquisitions.

Looks like minasian has boxed clever and played the long game waiting for the fallout from elsewhere and then hoovered up at bargain prices.

Or am I being too complimentary

[Dtwncbad]

3 hours ago, Dochalo said:

why would we want a guy with that kind of stuff to hone his craft and ramp up to 160+ innings per season when he can be rushed to the majors and pitch 50?

Why would we utilize talent this year to win when you can postpone that talent and be tagged again with wasting another year of Trout?

[Warfarin]

5 hours ago, Dochalo said:

why would we want a guy with that kind of stuff to hone his craft and ramp up to 160+ innings per season when he can be rushed to the majors and pitch 50?

This is a fair point and a consideration.  That said, this sort of reminds me of what the Dodgers did with Julio Urias after he came off his injury - they put him in the pen, had him pitch ~2 innings or so per appearance, and capped him off around 70-80 innings for the first year.

Maybe the thinking with CRod is they'll use him as a reliever, perhaps multiple innings sometimes, and help him ramp up to around 70-80 total innings for the year.  Then, perhaps next year, they can stretch him out as a SP and have him go from there?

[Warfarin]

8 hours ago, totdprods said:

This pitching staff depth is something else. Loving how many options there are across the rotation, bullpen, and AAA. 

Around 350 to 400 career saves between all the guys on the bullpen depth chart now. Who knows how long it’s been since the Angels had that much experience in the pen. Huston Street days probably.

Right, I'm really pleased with what we just saw transpire.  Is this a great pen?  No, I think we are still missing some high-leverage arms.

But this bullpen has suddenly gotten much deeper with serviceable arms / middle relievers, and those guys are definitely needed, too. And, moreover, this has actually likely helped improve our SP depth, too.

Right now, we are looking at a bullpen of:  Iglesias, Mayers, Guerra, CRod, Claudio, Watson, Cishek, and perhaps Slegers.

In AAA/alternate site, we have the following rotation depth:  Barria, Sandoval, and Suarez who should all serve as rotation depth (instead of Sandoval/Barria pitching in the pen).

We have the following RP depth:  Pena (on IL, will return), Buttrey, Hoyt, Ramirez, Reed, Rowen, Ramos, Faria.

That's a lot of decent depth.

[totdprods]

Chris Sale was a reliever his first full two seasons also. No reason the Angels can’t ramp him back up in a year or two. 

Biggest risk to that is they come to rely on him too much as a reliever to where they can’t make that play. 

It’s a good time to utilize Rodriguez this way now and test him, build him back up, and help the big league club as well.

[Warfarin]

2 minutes ago, totdprods said:

Chris Sale was a reliever his first full two seasons also. No reason the Angels can’t ramp him back up in a year or two. 

Biggest risk to that is they come to rely on him too much as a reliever to where they can’t make that play. 

It’s a good time to utilize Rodriguez this way now and test him, build him back up, and help the big league club as well.

Right, agreed.  CRod has the stuff to be a dominant late inning reliever now.  If he is capable of that, then our high-leverage relievers are likely Iglesias, Mayers, and CRod.  Right now, while we have a lot of solid depth suddenly, we are missing high-leverage relief options, and I think CRod can help fill that void immediately.

[AngelsFaninGA]

I like it. I'll take these types of signings over the Eppler special (minor leaguer with a 6 ERA, high walk rate and high K rate) any day. 

[Warfarin]

4 minutes ago, AngelsFaninGA said:

I like it. I'll take these types of signings over the Eppler special (minor leaguer with a 6 ERA, high walk rate and high K rate) any day. 

I'm not going to pretend that Minasian master-minded this and knew he could get these relievers at the last minute, but he likely did know that there would be camp cutdowns at the end and he could scoop up some interesting options at fairly cheap prices.  He was very patient, and that patience paid off.

[totdprods]

30 minutes ago, AngelsFaninGA said:

I like it. I'll take these types of signings over the Eppler special (minor leaguer with a 6 ERA, high walk rate and high K rate) any day. 

Sort of felt like Eppler’s strategy was to uncover the next surprise, come out of nowhere high lev reliever, which is fine, but he seemingly played that game way too often.

This approach isn’t as high reward and still carries plenty of risk as there are a lot of iffy metrics on these guys, but the floor is much higher. 

I really like the variation of arm slots. Can’t tell you how many times I saw that clip of the Rays relievers last year that was overlays showing how almost every single arm of a clock was deployed in that pen.

I also think the immense experience these guys have will be beneficial too. Off the top of my head, I think the top ten or twelve guys on the relief chart have more combined experience than any bullpen we’ve had almost the last decade, and probably by a really wide margin. Could even be twice as much. It’s sort of wild how inexperienced our recent bullpens have been. Experience obviously doesn’t give you any guarantees, but perhaps it needed addressing given how long it’s been since we had a bunch of tested vets in the pen. It was a variable that hadn’t been flipped in a long time.

Edited March 30, 2021 by totdprods

[arch stanton]

Whatever happens to Rodriguez this season I'd imagine that being the only pitcher in the org who won't be a free agent this off season should give him an inside track to a rotation spot next year

[totdprods]

5 minutes ago, arch stanton said:

Whatever happens to Rodriguez this season I'd imagine that being the only pitcher in the org who won't be a free agent this off season should give him an inside track to a rotation spot next year

If everything breaks right, the rotation could be Ohtani, Canning, Sandoval, Barria, Rodriguez, and Detmers. 

Extremely unlikely, but there’s enough minor successes in the bigs between those guys that, if they stay healthy, they could be at the very least a solid 4.25 ERA league average group between them collectively for dirt cheap. 

If that happens though, plunk down money for a top SS to add to offense and defense, trade surplus OF/SS prospects for a good arm to add to that group, and this team looks pretty good.

Edited March 30, 2021 by totdprods

[DMVol]

14 minutes ago, totdprods said:

Sort of felt like Eppler’s strategy was to uncover the next surprise, come out of nowhere high lev reliever, which is fine, but he seemingly played that game way too often.

This approach isn’t as high reward and still carries plenty of risk as there are a lot of iffy metrics on these guys, but the floor is much higher. 

I really like the variation of arm slots. Can’t tell you how many times I saw that clip of the Rays relievers last year that was overlays showing how almost every single arm of a clock was deployed in that pen.

I also think the immense experience these guys have will be beneficial too. Off the top of my head, I think the top ten or twelve guys on the relief chart have more combined experience than any bullpen we’ve had almost the last decade, and probably by a really wide margin. Could even be twice as much. It’s sort of wild how inexperienced our recent bullpens have been. Experience obviously doesn’t give you any guarantees, but perhaps it needed addressing given how long it’s been since we had a bunch of tested vets in the pen. It was a variable that hadn’t been flipped in a long time.

Exactly....It wasn’t like Eppler’s approach was a total failure.... Robles, Pena, Buttrey, JC Ramirez, Jerez, Noe Ramirez, Bard, Cole...all had some moments....but these 3 guys, while maybe lacking the high reward and stuff, have good track records....we’ll see how if it works....