Billy Eppler appreciation thread

[Second Base]

Not sure if this is a thing, but I thought it might create dialogue. I don't want to dwell on the past, and I'm not opposed to him being fired, but I do think many of the positive revelations of 2021 are largely thanks to his good work. 

And now Minasian has a lot to work with. But let's examine what Billy Eppler did for the Angels. 

- Many fans were upset that the time, but Eppler bought super low on Max Stassi and now he's one of the best catchers in baseball. A good defender and a good hitter, and he's young-ish and inexpensive with team control. GREAT ACQUISITION.

- He acquired Patrick Sandoval for a couple months of Martin Maldonado and right now, Sandoval looks like the real deal. Tall, athletic, strong lefty from So-Cal that regularly sits 95. Sounds like a young Cole Hamels, doesn't it? 

- Under his reign as GM we saw significant developmental leaps with guys like David Fletcher, and Jared Walsh. 

- While he made some poor coaching choices that set the Angels back (I feel), we should at least acknowledge that Suarez, Barria and Canning all came from his farm system. And that in essence had "fixed" the pitching shortage.

- Speaking of farm system, Eppler inherited one that was dead last by a fair margin, and built it up. Jo Adell, Brandon Marsh, Jordyn Adams, Arol Vera, Alexander Ramirez, Edgar Quero, Alejandro Hidalgo, Jeremiah Jackson, Werner Blakely, Jack Kochanowicz, David Daniel, etc....

- He extended Trout for a lifetime contract. With the exception of 2002, nothing will change the shape of a franchise more than keeping possibly the greatest player of all time, in your uniform his entire career. 

- Last but not least, Shohei Ohtani. He's an Angel for many reasons, but among them has to be the approach Billy Eppler took in recruiting him. 

Yes, Billy Eppler had his shortcomings, and the Angels didn't win under him, but because the bar has been set so low, I think we can safely say that Eppler is probably the second best GM in franchise history, after Bill Stoneman. But when you're replacing Tony Reagins and Jerry Dipoto, you really have nowhere to go but up. I hope Eppler is hired by another organization eventually, he deserves it.

Let's hope Minasian can build off of this foundation too. 

Edited July 25, 2021 by Second Base

[rafibomb]

[Stradling]

I agree.  I understood letting him go.  I wish he was better at finding the diamond in the rough at the major league level.  But despite the record he left the team in a MUCH better place than he received it.  

[Stradling]

@mmc thoughts?

[failos]

Yep. I was wrong about him.

[mmc]

2 minutes ago, Stradling said:

@mmc thoughts?

Everyone knows how I feel about him by now.  Guys a coward who knows nothing but losing and doesn't care about winning enough to be a GM

[Stradling]

1 minute ago, mmc said:

Everyone knows how I feel about him by now.  Guys a coward who knows nothing but losing and doesn't care about winning enough to be a GM

Yep that was the nonsense I was hoping for.  Results obviously matter, which is why he is gone, but your take is really ignorant.  

[AngelsLakersFan]

2 minutes ago, mmc said:

Everyone knows how I feel about him by now.  Guys a coward who knows nothing but losing and doesn't care about winning enough to be a GM

[Angelsfan1984]

I think he did a great job. I still do not understand the analytical philosophy behind the peanuts for pitching, but other than a few teams that’s not unique to the Angels. The angels just seem to be the masters of it. Clearly it doesn’t work 

[tdawg87]

He turned this system completely around after Dipoto took a shit and walked away.

He did it in a short amount of time, too.

He definitely didn't do well with the MLB side of things, but his focus on the minor league system is already paying dividends. It will continue to do so over the next couple years. 

Edited July 25, 2021 by tdawg87

[Jeff Fletcher]

1 minute ago, Angelsfan1984 said:

I think he did a great job. I still do not understand the analytical philosophy behind the peanuts for pitching, but other than a few teams that’s not unique to the Angels. The angels just seem to be the masters of it. Clearly it doesn’t work 

Eppler’s philosophy was simple…

There are only few pitchers every year who are worth the risk of a big money multi year deal. You try to get those, and if you can’t, you don’t dip into the more dangerous middle tier, so you skip to the low-risk one-year guys. If they work, great. If they don’t, you get the money back to try again the next year. 

[Docwaukee]

9 minutes ago, tdawg87 said:

He turned this system completely around after Dipoto took a shit and walked away.

He did it in a short amount if time, too.

He definitely didn't do well with the MLB side of things, but his focus on the minor league system is already paying dividends. It will continue to do so over the next couple years. 

It would have been interesting if he didn’t have to try and make the team faux competitive at every position and grabbed one or two expensive one guys for one or two spots instead of blowing the budget on 6 less expensive players who just weren’t very good.   Guys with a better chance of bringing value at the deadline. 
 

the one that burns my ass the most is wasting our first round pick to dump cozart so he’d have the budget for Teheran.  Perhaps that extra upton year would have been a solid avoid as well. 
 

he was also pretty decent to good at piecing together a pen with zero budget. Much more so than minasian has shown this year. 
 

I definitely agree he left the team in pretty solid shape otherwise 

[Angelsfan1984]

37 minutes ago, Jeff Fletcher said:

Eppler’s philosophy was simple…

There are only few pitchers every year who are worth the risk of a big money multi year deal. You try to get those, and if you can’t, you don’t dip into the more dangerous middle tier, so you skip to the low-risk one-year guys. If they work, great. If they don’t, you get the money back to try again the next year. 

I understand the concept I just don’t understand why the league continues to use it. I know most sports are copycat leagues but this one makes no sense to me visually. I’m sure you have a much larger investment into the analytics side of things.
 

The angels do not generally invest (I know they offered cole 300m) in pitching. The angels have not had a playoff presence in a long time. The correlation seems obvious, but wtf do I know. I’m just a guy typing on the internet who doesn’t even have cable

[UndertheHalo]

I liked Eppler, was opposed to his dismissal and increasingly hold Arte Moreno primarily responsible for the team failings.  
 

that said, what’s done is done and Minnasian should get his chance.  There’s no way to know what kind of GM he is for 5 or 6 years really.  
 

Eppler obviously did some good things and some of that stuff is starting to bear fruit.  Tough break for him.  He had misses also, but that’s the way it is with the job.  Not easy.  Especially with the situation he took over and apparently the owner. 

[AngelsLakersFan]

25 minutes ago, Angelsfan1984 said:

I understand the concept I just don’t understand why the league continues to use it. I know most sports are copycat leagues but this one makes no sense to me visually. I’m sure you have a much larger investment into the analytics side of things.
 

The angels do not generally invest (I know they offered cole 300m) in pitching. The angels have not had a playoff presence in a long time. The correlation seems obvious, but wtf do I know. I’m just a guy typing on the internet who doesn’t even have cable

[Second Base]

I know it's not the way it works, but if Eppler was hired on as a farm director, that would be a perfect fit for the guy. But then again, he built some decent bullpens for cheap, so having the GM's ear in an assistant role like he had in New York would be ideal too. 

Edited July 26, 2021 by Second Base

[rageous]

1 hour ago, Jeff Fletcher said:

Eppler’s philosophy was simple…

There are only few pitchers every year who are worth the risk of a big money multi year deal. You try to get those, and if you can’t, you don’t dip into the more dangerous middle tier, so you skip to the low-risk one-year guys. If they work, great. If they don’t, you get the money back to try again the next year. 

Which failed miserably during his tenure.

They would have been better off signing pitchers like Keuschel and Ryu.

[Angel Oracle]

2 hours ago, Second Base said:

Not sure if this is a thing, but I thought it might create dialogue. I don't want to dwell on the past, and I'm not opposed to him being fired, but I do think many of the positive revelations of 2021 are largely thanks to his good work. 

And now Minasian has a lot to work with. But let's examine what Billy Eppler did for the Angels. 

- Many fans were upset that the time, but Eppler bought super low on Max Stassi and now he's one of the best catchers in baseball. A good defender and a good hitter, and he's young-ish and inexpensive with team control. GREAT ACQUISITION.

- He acquired Patrick Sandoval for a couple months of Martin Maldonado and right now, Sandoval looks like the real deal. Tall, athletic, strong lefty from So-Cal that regularly sits 95. Sounds like a young Cole Hamels, doesn't it? 

- Under his reign as GM we saw significant developmental leaps with guys like David Fletcher, and Jared Walsh. 

- While he made some poor coaching choices that set the Angels back (I feel), we should at least acknowledge that Suarez, Barria and Canning all came from his farm system. And that in essence had "fixed" the pitching shortage.

- Speaking of farm system, Eppler inherited one that was dead last by a fair margin, and built it up. Jo Adell, Brandon Marsh, Jordyn Adams, Arol Vera, Alexander Ramirez, Edgar Quero, Alejandro Hidalgo, Jeremiah Jackson, Werner Blakely, Jack Kochanowicz, David Daniel, etc....

- He extended Trout for a lifetime contract. With the exception of 2002, nothing will change the shape of a franchise more than keeping possibly the greatest player of all time, in your uniform his entire career. 

- Last but not least, Shohei Ohtani. He's an Angel for many reasons, but among them has to be the approach Billy Eppler took in recruiting him. 

Yes, Billy Eppler had his shortcomings, and the Angels didn't win under him, but because the bar has been set so low, I think we can safely say that Eppler is probably the second best GM in franchise history, after Bill Stoneman. But when you're replacing Tony Reagins and Jerry Dipoto, you really have nowhere to go but up. I hope Eppler is hired by another organization eventually, he deserves it.

Let's hope Minasian can build off of this foundation too. 

Concur

My own personal top four:

Stoneman, Haney, Eppler, Dalton 

[Angel Oracle]

1 hour ago, Jeff Fletcher said:

Eppler’s philosophy was simple…

There are only few pitchers every year who are worth the risk of a big money multi year deal. You try to get those, and if you can’t, you don’t dip into the more dangerous middle tier, so you skip to the low-risk one-year guys. If they work, great. If they don’t, you get the money back to try again the next year. 

Truly, the successful franchises develop their own pitchers.

With all of the pitchers drafted in the past three years, the recent much improved starting pitching hopefully carries over in the next couple of years to the pen (with a couple of reinforcements via FA).

Edited July 26, 2021 by Angel Oracle

[Docwaukee]

Calling up Adell was pretty unwise.  If any team was on the fence about whether Adell might show early success in the bigs, the angels sure made up their mind for them. 

[tdawg87]

23 minutes ago, Angel Oracle said:

My own personal top four:

Stoneman, Haney, Eppler, Dalton 

[Chuck]

23 minutes ago, Dochalo said:

Calling up Adell was pretty unwise.  If any team was on the fence about whether Adell might show early success in the bigs, the angels sure made up their mind for them. 

This doesn't get enough airtime. Combine that with his inability to put a starting rotation together cost him the job. 

I think he'd be a helluva amateur scouting director TBH. 

[Angelsjunky]

"I never got an appreciation thread!"

[Jeff Fletcher]

1 hour ago, Angel Oracle said:

Truly, the successful franchises develop their own pitchers.

^^^^
 

This is why the Angels pitching hasn’t been good. 

[Angelsfan1984]

1 hour ago, Chuckster70 said:

This doesn't get enough airtime. Combine that with his inability to put a starting rotation together cost him the job. 

I think he'd be a helluva amateur scouting director TBH. 

I agree. Clearly identifying major league pitching talent wasn’t his strong suit. Analytics be dammed, you cannot rely so heavily on it with each passing season going down the toilet. 
 

he was clearly a hell of a salesman though. I give him all the credit in the world for sticking to his philosophy and selling ownership and the general fan base on it.