Billy Eppler: In Retrospect

[Inside Pitch]

One other thing regarding Eppler... 

If not for the completely random and ridiculous number of UCL injuries the narrative would be 100% different.  A lot of his decisions were based on the premise he had a young cheap rotation to build around.  

There isn't a GM in MLB that would have been able to overcome those losses.

 

[eligrba]

6 minutes ago, Second Base said:

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. 

I should have been more specific on the Chicago debacle (a sudden failure/fiasco).....I was thinking the year after the World Series when things didn't go well and Joe was essentially held responsible for not having greater player accountability.  In my estimation, Epstein made it into a debacle, thankfully.  I took a quote from the article below.....

https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/28681493/cubs-theo-epstein-acknowledges-differences-joe-maddon

"In 18 years, there have only been two instances where those organizational standards for work, preparation and behavior were not getting met and I had to get involved and give feedback and remind about expectations," Epstein said. "But it doesn't work best that way."

[failos]

Ultimately, he got us Ohtani and the Trout extension so I’m cool with him.

[stormngt]

54 minutes ago, Inside Pitch said:

One other thing regarding Eppler... 

If not for the completely random and ridiculous number of UCL injuries the narrative would be 100% different.  A lot of his decisions were based on the premise he had a young cheap rotation to build around.  

There isn't a GM in MLB that would have been able to overcome those losses.

 

Agreed, same could be said of Scioscia. 

[ten ocho recon scout]

2 hours ago, Inside Pitch said:

One other thing regarding Eppler... 

If not for the completely random and ridiculous number of UCL injuries the narrative would be 100% different.  A lot of his decisions were based on the premise he had a young cheap rotation to build around.  

There isn't a GM in MLB that would have been able to overcome those losses.

 

This times 1000

A pitching staff is by far the most crucial part of an MLB team. We had little at the major league level, none to call up or trade for arms, and very little money to buy new ones.

Then the merry go round of literally every guy having to get TJ hit....

I think @Jeff Fletcher made a great point some time back, when someone on here mentioned that we keep getting guys with arm problems. And fletcher mentioned thats all we could afford... no team was going to trade us actual no brainer good pitchers for the little we had to send them back. Every arm came with warts.

Eppler made some bad moves, for sure. But he had far more needs than money, and his savings account (the farm) was close to zero.

Recently, a buddy of mine dusted off some boxes in the garage and found his old basketball cards... i guess during covid, they got popular again. Hes got mint conditioned rookies of like jordan, bird, all those guys.... in theory, he could make 10K easy by selling a few off.

Then theres my boxes.... i collected Angels growing up.... nobody is gonna pay me for my wally joyner collection... or my devon white cards....

The ONE card i have somewhere that was going to pay for my house when i got older was my jose canseco rated rookie card.... i bought it for 10 bucks as a kid, it shot up to like 200 bucks at one point! I think i could sell it for like 3 bucks on ebay now.... and shipping would probably cost me 3.01

That was basically epplers farm compared to everyone else

I think i also have the fleer conseco rookie with eric pkunk.... card is probably worth a bit more because of eric plunk... and who the fuck is eric plunk?

[ten ocho recon scout]

PS

 

For those of you who just read that, and are into great investments, id be willing to let go of this card for 10K. Or tape measure. My contractor stole mine when he did my bathrooms last month. 

[ten ocho recon scout]

i also remember some kid that lived near me lived across the street from dave hanson, the old dodger. And he traded his mattingly rookie (the holy grail card of the era) for a dave hansen card so he could get it signed

I think that kid was named jesse dipoto or something like that

[Taylor]

2 hours ago, Inside Pitch said:

One other thing regarding Eppler... 

If not for the completely random and ridiculous number of UCL injuries the narrative would be 100% different.  A lot of his decisions were based on the premise he had a young cheap rotation to build around.  

There isn't a GM in MLB that would have been able to overcome those losses.

 

But Eppler should have predicted that all of those players would have UCL injuries.

[Taylor]

10 minutes ago, ten ocho recon scout said:

This times 1000

A pitching staff is by far the most crucial part of an MLB team. We had little at the major league level, none to call up or trade for arms, and very little money to buy new ones.

Then the merry go round of literally every guy having to get TJ hit....

I think @Jeff Fletcher made a great point some time back, when someone on here mentioned that we keep getting guys with arm problems. And fletcher mentioned thats all we could afford... no team was going to trade us actual no brainer good pitchers for the little we had to send them back. Every arm came with warts.

Eppler made some bad moves, for sure. But he had far more needs than money, and his savings account (the farm) was close to zero.

Recently, a buddy of mine dusted off some boxes in the garage and found his old basketball cards... i guess during covid, they got popular again. Hes got mint conditioned rookies of like jordan, bird, all those guys.... in theory, he could make 10K easy by selling a few off.

Then theres my boxes.... i collected Angels growing up.... nobody is gonna pay me for my wally joyner collection... or my devon white cards....

The ONE card i have somewhere that was going to pay for my house when i got older was my jose canseco rated rookie card.... i bought it for 10 bucks as a kid, it shot up to like 200 bucks at one point! I think i could sell it for like 3 bucks on ebay now.... and shipping would probably cost me 3.01

That was basically epplers farm compared to everyone else

I think i also have the fleer conseco rookie with eric pkunk.... card is probably worth a bit more because of eric plunk... and who the fuck is eric plunk?

 

7 minutes ago, ten ocho recon scout said:

PS

 

For those of you who just read that, and are into great investments, id be willing to let go of this card for 10K. Or tape measure. My contractor stole mine when he did my bathrooms last month. 

 

5 minutes ago, ten ocho recon scout said:

i also remember some kid that lived near me lived across the street from dave hanson, the old dodger. And he traded his mattingly rookie (the holy grail card of the era) for a dave hansen card so he could get it signed

I think that kid was named jesse dipoto or something like that

A trio of legendary posts from TORS.

[ten ocho recon scout]

14 minutes ago, Taylor said:

 

 

A trio of legendary posts from TORS.

But seriously... do you have a tape measure to trade for the canseco / plunk rookie? Ive beem measuring shit at the house with my shoes.... "thats about a foot" i say as i lay them one in front of another.

2 shoes equals 2 feet in everyday life... so I figure its the same when i measure things out.

[Lou]

2 hours ago, ten ocho recon scout said:

But seriously... do you have a tape measure to trade for the canseco / plunk rookie? Ive beem measuring shit at the house with my shoes.... "thats about a foot" i say as i lay them one in front of another.

2 shoes equals 2 feet in everyday life... so I figure its the same when i measure things out.

Use a piece of paper.  You'll have two measurements - 8.5 x 11.

 

Edge: Private School

[mmc]

Also I just absolutely hated the guys demeanor.  He was way too chickenshit to take any type of risk, which is precisely what you have to do as the GM of a team trying to get to the next level.  Always seemed to make excuses for why the team is actually better than they’re given credit for, vs actually being aggressive about addressing our needs.  I knew after the 2018 season that we were never going anywhere as long as he was the GM

[Inside Pitch]

8 hours ago, mmc said:

Also I just absolutely hated the guys demeanor.  He was way too chickenshit to take any type of risk, which is precisely what you have to do as the GM of a team trying to get to the next level.  Always seemed to make excuses for why the team is actually better than they’re given credit for, vs actually being aggressive about addressing our needs.  I knew after the 2018 season that we were never going anywhere as long as he was the GM

You would have hated Bill Stoneman, best GM in Angels history.

[tdawg87]

20 hours ago, ten ocho recon scout said:

PS

 

For those of you who just read that, and are into great investments, id be willing to let go of this card for 10K. Or tape measure. My contractor stole mine when he did my bathrooms last month. 

Can you cut it in half? I don't want Canseco bringing the value down.

[Kevin]

I’m re-watching Better Call Saul and seeing@ten ocho recon scout talk about baseball cards, I think I underestimated how bad ass tors is.

 

 

[Taylor]

3 hours ago, Kevin said:

I’m re-watching Better Call Saul and seeing@ten ocho recon scout talk about baseball cards, I think I underestimated how bad ass tors is.

 

 

Most idiotic character on the show. Entertaining character, but a series of poor decisions.