Billy Eppler: In Retrospect

[Billy_Ball]

[sammyscioscia]

So far I'm preferring Perry's focus on quality signings with team chemistry in mind.  Eppler did well on position players and he got some of the most potentially exciting talent in the game, but Perry M got reliable talent that we can count on this year.  Our offense really hasn't exploded yet either and that's our strongest game, yet we're still playing well.  It's still way too early to make any big claims but I like to get ahead of myself.

[Second Base]

Sometimes, beautiful homes on the outside can have serious structural problems. Mold, rot, pests, improper electric, plumbing, etc... These are the teams that are contending now, but have deeper issues that can't possibly foster a winning culture down the road. 

The 2014 Angels come to mind. Led the league in wins, but extremely bloated payroll, Josh Hamilton fiasco incoming, Pujols not aging gracefully, their best pitcher suffering a gruesome knee injury, and no farm system at all. That's Jerry Dipoto. 

Some houses don't look like much on the outside, but have a great layout, decorated beautifully, and have all new fixtures and updates. That's what Eppler did. He rebuilt the organization from the inside out. He never could get the house the curb appeal it needed, so they hired a new GM to come in and take care of the outside. 

So far as we can tell, Minasian has kept the best part of Eppler's regime (the building blocks, franchise players, prospects, Swanson and Maddon), while adding Tamin, taking the reigns off Shohei and unleashing him, and bringing in some very solid clubhouse influences. 

The solid framing, drywall and foundation won't get the credit their deserve with the house, not like the appliances and decor, but we'll know that come October, Eppler will have had a hand in creating this winner. Minasian will get the credit, as he should. But it was a multi-regine, team effort. 

And as much as we don't want to admit it, Billy Eppler was brought in to oversee a rebuild. It wasn't the rebuild most picture, selling off the vets to lower payroll, get early draft picks and stock up the farm in an effort to compete again in five years. Eppler's was slightly different in that he didn't sell off the vets, more than anything, he just didn't make any free agent acquisitions of any noteriety, while making a savvy low cost move here and there while infusing a bunch of high end talent into the minor league system. They weren't picking first overall in the draft, so instead they drafted guys will first overall pick upside as a bit of a gamble (Marsh, Adell, Jackson, Adams) and didn't have the biggest international budget, so instead they signed less certain athletes that carried the same high upside. 

Edited April 9, 2021 by Second Base

[Jay]

We will not look back fondly on the Eppler years.

 

[Inside Pitch]

23 minutes ago, Jay said:

We will not look back fondly on the Eppler years.

 

You just said a mouthful, whether you intended to or not it doesn't matter.  But you're 100% right that history will likely show the Eppler years as a low point, and yet I won't grade him on the outcomes so much as the work he put in.  He will rightfully wear the Harvey/Allen acquisitions but the bulk of his work was foundational and the impact will extend long after he's been gone, not unlike Jerry Dipoto's "work".

I like what Billy did given what he was handed, but the Eppler era was really not fun to watch, had it not been for the minors I'd have stopped watching.  For a lot of fans that's all that will matter and that's unfortunate for him, hopefully Perry sends him a gift basket when the Angels get back to the postseason.

[Warfarin]

5 hours ago, Second Base said:

Sometimes, beautiful homes on the outside can have serious structural problems. Mold, rot, pests, improper electric, plumbing, etc... These are the teams that are contending now, but have deeper issues that can't possibly foster a winning culture down the road. 

The 2014 Angels come to mind. Led the league in wins, but extremely bloated payroll, Josh Hamilton fiasco incoming, Pujols not aging gracefully, their best pitcher suffering a gruesome knee injury, and no farm system at all. That's Jerry Dipoto. 

Some houses don't look like much on the outside, but have a great layout, decorated beautifully, and have all new fixtures and updates. That's what Eppler did. He rebuilt the organization from the inside out. He never could get the house the curb appeal it needed, so they hired a new GM to come in and take care of the outside. 

So far as we can tell, Minasian has kept the best part of Eppler's regime (the building blocks, franchise players, prospects, Swanson and Maddon), while adding Tamin, taking the reigns off Shohei and unleashing him, and bringing in some very solid clubhouse influences. 

The solid framing, drywall and foundation won't get the credit their deserve with the house, not like the appliances and decor, but we'll know that come October, Eppler will have had a hand in creating this winner. Minasian will get the credit, as he should. But it was a multi-regine, team effort. 

And as much as we don't want to admit it, Billy Eppler was brought in to oversee a rebuild. It wasn't the rebuild most picture, selling off the vets to lower payroll, get early draft picks and stock up the farm in an effort to compete again in five years. Eppler's was slightly different in that he didn't sell off the vets, more than anything, he just didn't make any free agent acquisitions of any noteriety, while making a savvy low cost move here and there while infusing a bunch of high end talent into the minor league system. They weren't picking first overall in the draft, so instead they drafted guys will first overall pick upside as a bit of a gamble (Marsh, Adell, Jackson, Adams) and didn't have the biggest international budget, so instead they signed less certain athletes that carried the same high upside. 

Right.  For a baseball GM, it is a long, arduous process to rebuild a franchise.

Look at SD - everyone is hailing Preller for what he has built, but look at how long it took him to get to this point.  The Padres were terrible for a number of years.  He aggressively drafted players and signed international talent, but he also aggressively traded away literally any productive player for about 4 years of time for any prospect he could get, didn't really sign anyone of note until Hosmer, and kept aggressively rebuilding.

5 years sounds like a lot of time, but in this sport, when it takes 4+ years for your draft picks to reach the majors, it's really not that long.  It takes a lot more time to overhaul an MLB team than an NBA or NFL team.  Unfortunately for Eppler, Arte didn't let him trade away talent and facilitate a rebuild.  Ideally, he could have aggressively traded guys off for 1-2 years at the start, kept Trout to build around, and he could have likely seen a much better 4th and 5th year than he saw.

But, alas, it wasn't meant to be.  Minasian has inherited a much better team than Eppler did - we have some good prospects, we have our super star locked down and a few other stars to surround him, and for the most part, most of the previous onerous contracts are just about finished now.  Minasian's job still won't be easy, as he'll have to assemble a contending team without a lot of budget to work with since it's already tied up, but to his credit, he seems to have done just that in his first offseason.

[tchula]

I think Eppler went a long way to stabilize the program, but I also believe we saw the franchise regressing.  Eppler's drafts were starting to become lack-luster, and even though he is given credit for rebuilding our farm system, let's not forget he had five years to do it and we are still rated in the bottom half of the league.  Now, I realize a lot of these high-risk/reward types could erupt and our farm system could catapult in to a top 15 farm, but let's be realistic.  Eppler's entire draft portfolio is mediocre.  In fact, much of our success came in two draft classes because the others were quite piss poor.  

Eppler's ability to find free-agents has also been very disappointing.  I am sympathetic regarding Arte and the payroll, but it's not like we have a shoe-string budget.  Yes, Eppler inherited a lot of bloated contracts, but he missed out on a lot of solid players as well, and continued to fail in his back up plans.  The one-year starters were atrocious, and the only positive trade moves he made was Bundy and Simmons (in which we traded away a future starter).  I know Eppler has limited budget compared to the Yankees, but almost every year he's had 30-40 million to play with (which ain't chump change) and there are consistent major problems our teams have had that have never been substantively addressed.  

The Manager merry go around under Eppler was also disastrous.  I still can't help but think Mike Scioscia would still be our manager if it wasn't for Eppler.  Yes, I realize for the past ten years it seemed like Scioscia was treading water (and I wasn't against making a change), but to go from the best managers in the program's history to an experiment gone really bad in Ausmus, was quite the blunder.  

Now, obviously Eppler did some (not good but brilliant) things like extending trout, signing Rendon, and of course Ohtani (although, they completely mis-handled him).  There have been other good moves as well like the Renignfo (sp) trade, Bundy/Simmons, La Stella, a variety of solid catcher decisions, so he wasn't as bad as Depoto or Reagans.  But it did feel like our program under Eppler was about to head in the opposite direction.  We were about to lose of the gains he made.  So, I think a change was needed.  I also believe that Eppler was pressured to upgrade the on the field managerial staff, and if Eppler and the staff were completely on the same page last year (despite the poor season) Eppler would have been given another year.  

I can say, the approach I have seen this team take on the field this year has been night and day compared to other years.  I see us running and stealing a lot more.  We manufacture more runs.  Also, the pitchers are given more flexibility to work themselves out of jams.  Allowing both Ohtani and Canning to work themselves out of jams, will only add to their confidence.  For me though, the biggest positive (and I am not sure who get's credit for this one yet), is the continued development of Walsh and the resurgence of Upton.  The one benefit from the Covid year was a lot of players had in essence two full off-seasons (with a little baseball in between) to get healthy.  Maybe that's what's going on, or maybe there is a different approach behind the scenes that's enabling this.  But this organization is clearly operating (at least on the field) much more confidentially than in years past.  I want to see a full draft class before I begin to formulate an opinion on Minisian.  

[Torridd]

I don't agree, Taylor. Eppler made some good moves, but for 5 years we didn't come close to winning. That's just bad. 

[Inside Pitch]

There it is...

[stormngt]

4 hours ago, tchula said:

I realize for the past ten years it seemed like Scioscia was treading water (and I wasn't against making a change), but to go from the best managers in the program's history to an experiment gone really bad in Ausmus, was quite the blunder.  

Well said.  Fortunately it was a one year blunder.

[bruin5]

Eppler totally lost me with the Ausmus hire.  It seemed all about getting “his boy” into the role so that he could feed him data.   The Madden hire was Arte’s call and Eppler had no say - at least that’s what I think.  That’s when I believe Artie started to lose confidence. 

Eppler always seemed like a good Assistant GM type, but good GM’s have to be willing to take some risks.  I don’t think that was part of his make up.  

 

[AngelsLakersFan]

42 minutes ago, bruin5 said:

Eppler totally lost me with the Ausmus hire.  It seemed all about getting “his boy” into the role so that he could feed him data.   The Madden hire was Arte’s call and Eppler had no say - at least that’s what I think.  That’s when I believe Artie started to lose confidence. 

Eppler always seemed like a good Assistant GM type, but good GM’s have to be willing to take some risks.  I don’t think that was part of his make up.  

 

Eppler was a data driven Stoneman. 

[Second Base]

9 hours ago, Warfarin said:

Right.  For a baseball GM, it is a long, arduous process to rebuild a franchise.

Look at SD - everyone is hailing Preller for what he has built, but look at how long it took him to get to this point.  The Padres were terrible for a number of years.  He aggressively drafted players and signed international talent, but he also aggressively traded away literally any productive player for about 4 years of time for any prospect he could get, didn't really sign anyone of note until Hosmer, and kept aggressively rebuilding.

5 years sounds like a lot of time, but in this sport, when it takes 4+ years for your draft picks to reach the majors, it's really not that long.  It takes a lot more time to overhaul an MLB team than an NBA or NFL team.  Unfortunately for Eppler, Arte didn't let him trade away talent and facilitate a rebuild.  Ideally, he could have aggressively traded guys off for 1-2 years at the start, kept Trout to build around, and he could have likely seen a much better 4th and 5th year than he saw.

But, alas, it wasn't meant to be.  Minasian has inherited a much better team than Eppler did - we have some good prospects, we have our super star locked down and a few other stars to surround him, and for the most part, most of the previous onerous contracts are just about finished now.  Minasian's job still won't be easy, as he'll have to assemble a contending team without a lot of budget to work with since it's already tied up, but to his credit, he seems to have done just that in his first offseason.

I don't think there were really any veterans for Eppler to trade away. The ones that did perform, that other teams wanted, like Maldonado and Joe Smith, he traded. La Stella too. 

But there wasn't anyone lining up to take Pujols. And furthermore, had he chose to deal those guys, would Trout still have signed an extension? Would Ohtani or Rendon ever signed with the Angels? 

I'm not saying no, but it is fair to wonder. 

 

[Taylor]

Is there any evidence that Arte was the driving force behind Maddon? I've seen that mentioned a few times, but I'm wondering if it's more than just speculation.

[Second Base]

15 minutes ago, Taylor said:

Is there any evidence that Arte was the driving force behind Maddon? I've seen that mentioned a few times, but I'm wondering if it's more than just speculation.

Would Billy Eppler hire Ausmus while Scioscia was the manager, and personally groom him for a year before making him the manager AND give him a three year deal if he expected to fire and replace him after only one season? 

There is a mountain of evidence to suggest that Arte wasn't pleased with what he saw in Eppler's hire, and fired him just for the shot to hire Joe Maddon, who many believe it's the best manager in baseball. 

Now I think a very fair question would be, "Did Arte know Maddon would accept the job when he fired Ausmus?" Because technically, I think that's illegal, but no one probably cares. 

[ten ocho recon scout]

1 hour ago, AngelsLakersFan said:

Eppler was a data driven Stoneman. 

Sounds like a childrens book

[Warfarin]

1 hour ago, Second Base said:

I don't think there were really any veterans for Eppler to trade away. The ones that did perform, that other teams wanted, like Maldonado and Joe Smith, he traded. La Stella too. 

But there wasn't anyone lining up to take Pujols. And furthermore, had he chose to deal those guys, would Trout still have signed an extension? Would Ohtani or Rendon ever signed with the Angels? 

I'm not saying no, but it is fair to wonder. 

 

Those are fair points.  It's hard to say what would have happened if we sold off and didn't keep trying to "go for it."  

[eligrba]

15 hours ago, Second Base said:

Would Billy Eppler hire Ausmus while Scioscia was the manager, and personally groom him for a year before making him the manager AND give him a three year deal if he expected to fire and replace him after only one season? 

There is a mountain of evidence to suggest that Arte wasn't pleased with what he saw in Eppler's hire, and fired him just for the shot to hire Joe Maddon, who many believe it's the best manager in baseball. 

Now I think a very fair question would be, "Did Arte know Maddon would accept the job when he fired Ausmus?" Because technically, I think that's illegal, but no one probably cares. 

I know nothing about the inner workings of Angel's baseball, but I always suspected that some key Angel players didn't like Ausmus and when Arte found out, he quietly made the decision to bring in Maddon.   I think Maddon took what he learned from the debacle in Chicago and encouraged Minasian to acquire veteran players (Maddon was familiar with) to help shape a different clubhouse culture.

I have a hard time believing someone like Arte acts impulsively with multi million dollar decisions.  Self-made billionaires seem more calculating in their decisions.

[eligrba]

17 hours ago, AngelsLakersFan said:

Eppler was a data driven Stoneman. 

A data-driven stone man would be a perfect character for an updated Wizard of Oz.

[arch stanton]

2 minutes ago, eligrba said:

A data-driven stone man would be a perfect character for an updated Wizard of Oz.

Nah they'll turn him into a frickin superhero and make 11 versions of the same movie about him

[T.G.]

I appreciated Eppler for signing Ohtani and getting the Trout extension. Also trading for Simmons - who was such a joy to watch.

Other than that... I don't know. 

At the end if the day, the success or failure of the team falls at Arte's feet, IMO.

[ten ocho recon scout]

1 hour ago, eligrba said:

A data-driven stone man would be a perfect character for an updated Wizard of Oz.

And its all our pitchers who have to go see him, singing upbeat songs about how they need new UCLs. 

[eligrba]

18 minutes ago, ten ocho recon scout said:

And its all our pitchers who have to go see him, singing upbeat songs about how they need new UCLs. 

The "wizard" behind the curtain....

[Second Base]

1 hour ago, eligrba said:

I know nothing about the inner workings of Angel's baseball, but I always suspected that some key Angel players didn't like Ausmus and when Arte found out, he quietly made the decision to bring in Maddon.   I think Maddon took what he learned from the debacle in Chicago and encouraged Minasian to acquire veteran players (Maddon was familiar with) to help shape a different clubhouse culture.

I have a hard time believing someone like Arte acts impulsively with multi million dollar decisions.  Self-made billionaires seem more calculating in their decisions.

Chicago debacle? Joe Maddon led them to their first World Series win, and removed any shadow of a doubt that what he did in Tampa Bay was no fluke. The Cubs players and fans alike loved him, and he was the highest paid, most successful manager in baseball during his tenure there. 

Ausmus wasn't necessarily disliked. I know members of the media liked him just fine. An unconfirmed rumor has it that Justin Upton wasn't particularly fond of him, going back to their days in Detroit. And in Ausmus' defense, I'm not sure what he could've done differently. The death of Skaggs destroyed their season. They weren't looking great before that either though. 

But Ausmus was no Maddon, that's for sure. Sure, he was smart, calculating and generally a decent guy. But Maddon just has that persona to him, that brings men together, and gets young players to buy in, and he gets the most out of his players. 

[Vlad27Trout27]

I think Eppler derseves alot of credit for what he had done! He laid our a foundation for us, build a solid team that just lacked a few parts, which perry was abel to fill out.

I know Eppler willl always be known for the 5 losing years, but lets actually look at the postives he had done. 

He took Over in 2015, our top Prospect at that time was Victor Alcantara and the 4th best was Balodoquin.....That should tell you the state of the system

SInce than, this has happened;

1. Flectcher has developed in a rock solid Starter! 

2. Walsh has broked out

3. He's Signed Othani 

4. Added major talent to the system and team; Adell, Canning, Marsh, Detmers and Rodriguez 

5. There still is a solid blend of young talent in the Minor just waiting to breakout

6. Traded for Bundy, and helped him develop into a solid 2/3