MLB Network Segment on Angels

[Angel Oracle]

1 minute ago, Trendon said:

That's correct, so why don't reporters like yourself ask the Angels more about their investment into internal development?

Do you all ask the Angels about what they are doing to improve their player development? Do you ask them why they were furloughing scouts? Or if they're gonna invest more into player development by increasing budgets so more personnel can be hired? If they're gonna build a huge analytics department or hire more scouts, etc?

Like having Dave Cameron and Tim McDonnell on speed dial

Of course, this is the same franchise that fired Mike Trout’s scout.

Edited October 7, 2021 by Angel Oracle

[AngelsLakersFan]

46 minutes ago, Angelsjunky said:

Dan O'Dowd is smart and I generally agree with his take here. This is pretty sharp: "It's not just about spending money in this game, it's about developing an organization that operates wholly, from every aspect to make your big league team good."

That is so crucial. Every year we all try to pinpoint what is wrong and make suggestions (or rants) on what the Angels need to do to fix the various problems they have. But rarely do we touch upon the holistic nature of the organization, and certainly it doesn't seem that the Angels know how to address it, even recognize it. Hopefully Perry will be different, but that remains to be seen.

That said, to piggy-back on what @Jeff Fletchersaid, the key is to build an "85-win base" from within, and then supplement via free agency and trades, and hope for the best with injuries. Some orgs, like the Dodgers, can build a 95-win base, but that's really hard to do, and that 85-win base is well within reach for the Angels - not someday, but right now.

Before the season, it really looked like the Angels had close to that base, but then lost their two best position players for most of the year. There's no way to understate the devastating impact of losing a 9 WAR and 6 WAR player for 71% of the season (they played a total of 94 games out of 324 possible). 71% of 15 WAR is about 11 wins, which is a huge amount to make up with replacement players, and obviously it didn't work out.

As a side note, this also points to something someone said about the problem of "top-heavy" teams. Top-heavy doesn't necessarily mean not having a couple really expensive contracts, but it means that if you do, you have to balance it with cheap talent and have depth to draw from.

My sense is that the worst thing for the Angels to panic and go crazy in attempt to please Ohtani and Trout and improve appearances. That is, to make a bunch of trades--especially of young guys like Marsh and Detmers--and spend big to try to "fill the holes." What they should do is address specific needs from without, but remember what they have and build upon that:

• Three superstars in Trout, Ohtani, and Rendon
• A handful of cheap young pitchers in Sandoval, Suarez, Canning, Detmers, Rodriguez.
• Two very talented young outfielders who showed positive development this year and should continue to improve in Marsh and Adell.
• Some strong secondary players in Stassi, Walsh, and Fletcher.
• An improving farm system, with a bunch of at least decent depth in the high minors, and some higher upside prospects in the low minors.

That's a solid core, and a lot to build with. It is enough to do two things at once:

- Focus on improving the organization holistically, specifically through scouting and player development (including better treatment of minor leaguers). It also seems that Perry is going to take a look on medical and training procedures, as he said he is going to look at every injury closely, to see how it happens (please make Trout do some yoga, Perry!). And...

- Supplement the team via smart free agent acquisitions and maybe a trade or two, but with the long-term in mind, not just immediate impact. 

But leave the above core untouched. Don't trade Marsh or Adell, and certainly not Detmers and Rodriguez. Those four aren't problems that need to be addressed, but the first signs in years that some degree of progress is being made in player development.

 

O'Dowd made a good point about winning organizations bringing in players that end up playing better with them than with their previous organizations. It's not about how much we spend, it's about who we spend it on. I don't care what they do really, as long as the players they bring in play up to or beyond expectations. 

If you look at this organization over the last ten or so years, you see a pattern of players, from highly paid to freely available, who don't manage to live up to expectations. The last couple of years, with pitchers like Quintana, Teheran, Harvey, Allen, etc. were not just wasted money but huge drags on the actual team. 

We have to start picking winners, and it's important to realize that those guys are available at all sorts of price ranges. The organization as a whole needs to reflect on exactly why it is that they seems to struggle to pick the right guys.

[Angels 1961]

2 hours ago, Hubs said:

Mark DeRosa sucks as a commentator. It was all low hanging fruit.

The Angels finally get out from under Pujols contract -- 240M and they say we're still top heavy. The ESPN and other East Coast based Journalists, and particularly DeRosa, have always wanted us to trade Trout to an east coast team, so they can watch him.

Neither Trout or Ohtani is being traded.

That all being said, they do raise some good player development points. Since Bane left, and then DiPoto took over for Reagins, the player development staff sucks. Think about the mainly home grown success from 2002 to 2009, and then see the lack of development. Other than Trout and Ohtani of course.

And I do not believe it's a top pitcher or two away.

I think they need to resign Iglesias.. Add at least two starters. The pitching health has been an issue, so I'd prioritize guys that have health.

But their offense was terrible for most of the second half, and they need to add hitters too. Marsh and Adell should take a step forward, but they need a Shortstop, and need depth in the infield.

Angels are top heavy for 2022 Upton, Trout and Rendon about 100 mill for 3 players. You do not know if Trout or Ohtani are not being traded.

[T.G.]

4 hours ago, Jeff Fletcher said:

I think people get waaaaay too upset about the Angels failures from November to February. You really don’t become a good team by what you do in the winter. You become a good team by the way you develop your own players (minors and majors) during the season. 
 

The guys you acquire are a small piece of the puzzle and they’re probably going to balance each other out by some being good and some being bad. 
 

So you need to lift the floor that those guys sit on by having a lot of young guys from your system providing value. So you’ve always got an 85-win base and if your acquisitions work better one year it goes to 95.

There’s no way you can count on acquisitions lifting you enough if you have a 75-win base. 

Well, that's basically what they said in the video...

[Jeff Fletcher]

1 hour ago, Trendon said:

That's correct, so why don't reporters like yourself ask the Angels more about their investment into internal development?

Do you all ask the Angels about what they are doing to improve their player development? Do you ask them why they were furloughing scouts? Or if they're gonna invest more into player development by increasing budgets so more personnel can be hired? If they're gonna build a huge analytics department or hire more scouts, etc?

It’s really difficult to get to that story during the season, for me anyway, because you can’t just talk to the GM. All he says is “yeah we’re committed to developing and we’re trying etc”

(Also, this GM hasn’t even been here long enough to know the answer.)

 

In order to really get to the bottom of it you need to talk to a lot of people in and out of the organization and that just doesn’t happen when there is a game to cover every day. 
 

I also think the “answer” is bunch of little things.

[Jeff Fletcher]

16 minutes ago, True Grich said:

Well, that's basically what they said in the video...

Yeah, I was just trying to emphasize that people should listen to them and not just go along with the knee jerk “Sign an ace in the winter!” stuff. 

[UndertheHalo]

A lot of the regulars here have pointed out that the problem with the Angels is dog shit organizational competence.  Congrats to the MLB network crew for pointing this out. 

[AngelsLakersFan]

15 minutes ago, Jeff Fletcher said:

It’s really difficult to get to that story during the season, for me anyway, because you can’t just talk to the GM. All he says is “yeah we’re committed to developing and we’re trying etc”

(Also, this GM hasn’t even been here long enough to know the answer.)

 

In order to really get to the bottom of it you need to talk to a lot of people in and out of the organization and that just doesn’t happen when there is a game to cover every day. 
 

I also think the “answer” is bunch of little things.

That's interesting. Why do you think they won't just come out and tell you? I'm sure everyone around the league is aware of what teams are working on, at least in basic terms - I mean even I see some of the job postings online. Professionally it seems like a good idea as well. Didn't Eppler talk up the analytics department that he had put together?

[Jeff Fletcher]

2 minutes ago, AngelsLakersFan said:

That's interesting. Why do you think they won't just come out and tell you? I'm sure everyone around the league is aware of what teams are working on, at least in basic terms - I mean even I see some of the job postings online. Professionally it seems like a good idea as well. Didn't Eppler talk up the analytics department that he had put together?

Oh they’ll talk all day long about what they think is good.

But the results suggest things aren’t working, so it’s not so easy to find out what’s wrong. 

[Tank]

in our "yeah, but what have you done lately" approach to life, it seems important to mention that the most successful stretch in franchise history came under arte's watch (2004-2009).

[Tank]

early on in the video, o'dowd (?) mentioned something about keeping players healthy. i think that's just as important as the talent they put on the field.

this season would have been a lot more fun and successful with trout and rendon for 150+ games.

[AngelsLakersFan]

4 minutes ago, Jeff Fletcher said:

Oh they’ll talk all day long about what they think is good.

But the results suggest things aren’t working, so it’s not so easy to find out what’s wrong. 

We call that Jerry Dipoto syndrome.

[Angelsjunky]

1 hour ago, AngelsLakersFan said:

O'Dowd made a good point about winning organizations bringing in players that end up playing better with them than with their previous organizations. It's not about how much we spend, it's about who we spend it on. I don't care what they do really, as long as the players they bring in play up to or beyond expectations. 

If you look at this organization over the last ten or so years, you see a pattern of players, from highly paid to freely available, who don't manage to live up to expectations. The last couple of years, with pitchers like Quintana, Teheran, Harvey, Allen, etc. were not just wasted money but huge drags on the actual team. 

We have to start picking winners, and it's important to realize that those guys are available at all sorts of price ranges. The organization as a whole needs to reflect on exactly why it is that they seems to struggle to pick the right guys.

Yes, good point (both you and O'Dowd). I tend to think that fans are biased into assuming that their team does things worse than any other team, so over-exaggerate this sort of thing, but with the Angels, I'm not so sure. It does seem that players underperform with them more often than not, and/or go to teams and play better.

Maybe this is where scouting comes in - not just at the amateur level, but in assessing major league talents. A lot of Eppler's "clean peanuts" and bargain bin hunting seemed more based upon scanning Baseball Reference than in actual in-person assessment. It also could be that the Angels scouts are just sub-par. Either way, improvements could be made. 

[Catwhoshatinthehat]

6 minutes ago, Tank said:

in our "yeah, but what have you done lately" approach to life, it seems important to mention that the most successful stretch in franchise history came under arte's watch (2004-2009).

Sure but Arte bought the team in 2003.  I know Vlad and others were brought in 2004-2009 but there's quite a few players who were around from the prior regime who contributed.  There's also Bane and the impact of others who are no longer with the franchise.  Obviously the last decade made me realize how much fun that stretch was but that successful stretch yielded 0 trips to the WS and 1 trip to the ALCS which still stings.  Should have had at least 1 WS out of that stretch.

[AngelsLakersFan]

5 minutes ago, Tank said:

in our "yeah, but what have you done lately" approach to life, it seems important to mention that the most successful stretch in franchise history came under arte's watch (2004-2009).

I wonder what percentage of team WAR during that stretch came from players who were already in the organization when Moreno bought the team.

[BTH]

35 minutes ago, Jeff Fletcher said:

It’s really difficult to get to that story during the season, for me anyway, because you can’t just talk to the GM. All he says is “yeah we’re committed to developing and we’re trying etc”

(Also, this GM hasn’t even been here long enough to know the answer.)

 

In order to really get to the bottom of it you need to talk to a lot of people in and out of the organization and that just doesn’t happen when there is a game to cover every day. 
 

I also think the “answer” is bunch of little things.

So is this something that you think you'll be able to get to the bottom of during the offseason then?

I recognize that, unfortunately, Moreno and Caprino hide from the media.

 

I think the reason a lot of fans don't look at the player development aspect of building the team is because it doesn't get a lot of attention.

[Jeff Fletcher]

1 minute ago, Trendon said:

So is this something you think you'll be able to get to the bottom of during the offseason then?

I recognize that, unfortunately, Moreno and Caprino hide from the media.

 

I think the reason a lot of fans don't look at the player development aspect of building the team is because it doesn't get a lot of attention.

“Getting to the bottom” of it is probably not possible. I’ll work on shedding some light on possible issues.
 

And I don’t even think Moreno and Carpino know the answers. They don’t know why Griffin Canning hasn’t developed into the pitcher the Angels need. 
 

It’s players and coaches and baseball ops people who have the answers. 

[Taylor]

39 minutes ago, Jeff Fletcher said:

It’s really difficult to get to that story during the season, for me anyway, because you can’t just talk to the GM. All he says is “yeah we’re committed to developing and we’re trying etc”

(Also, this GM hasn’t even been here long enough to know the answer.)

 

In order to really get to the bottom of it you need to talk to a lot of people in and out of the organization and that just doesn’t happen when there is a game to cover every day. 
 

I also think the “answer” is bunch of little things.

Last year, there was the report that the Angels had only eight scouts, which is small compared to other big-market teams. Have you heard anything about this? 

[BTH]

1 minute ago, Jeff Fletcher said:

“Getting to the bottom” of it is probably not possible. I’ll work on shedding some light on possible issues.
 

And I don’t even think Moreno and Carpino know the answers. They don’t know why Griffin Canning hasn’t developed into the pitcher the Angels need. 
 

It’s players and coaches and baseball ops people who have the answers. 

Moreno and Carpino surely know the answers as to how much money is being invested into analytics, R&D, scouting, player dev, etc. though

[Jeff Fletcher]

Just now, Trendon said:

Moreno and Carpino surely know the answers as to how much money is being invested into analytics, R&D, scouting, player dev, etc. though

But that info is meaningless unless you know what others teams spend. 

[Jeff Fletcher]

2 minutes ago, Taylor said:

Last year, there was the report that the Angels had only eight scouts, which is small compared to other big-market teams. Have you heard anything about this? 

That was probably when they furloughed people when there were no games last year. They have a lot more now. 

[AngelsLakersFan]

1 minute ago, Jeff Fletcher said:

“Getting to the bottom” of it is probably not possible. I’ll work on shedding some light on possible issues.
 

And I don’t even think Moreno and Carpino know the answers. They don’t know why Griffin Canning hasn’t developed into the pitcher the Angels need. 
 

It’s players and coaches and baseball ops people who have the answers. 

There is never going to be any one specific reason. The skill of the organizations themselves would seem to balance out as organizations got bigger. What you can look at is investment. How many people are they employing, how much are they paying them, what support structures are in place along the way. How much is invested in the draft, how much is spent internationally. These should be things that Moreno and Carpino know... not that they would talk about them. The specifics around guys like Canning are just single data points.

[BTH]

4 minutes ago, Jeff Fletcher said:

But that info is meaningless unless you know what others teams spend. 

By just looking at the media guides, though, we can tell that other teams have way more baseball operations personnel than the Angels do.

[BTH]

4 minutes ago, Jeff Fletcher said:

That was probably when they furloughed people when there were no games last year. They have a lot more now. 

Somewhat unrelated: Do you know why the Angels only list 6 executives on the "Front Office" portion of their website? Literally all the other 29 teams list their entire front office.

https://www.mlb.com/angels/team/front-office

[Catwhoshatinthehat]

8 minutes ago, AngelsLakersFan said:

I wonder what percentage of team WAR during that stretch came from players who were already in the organization when Moreno bought the team.

In 2009 Chone, Howie, Napoli, Aybar and Mathis (all drafted or acquired before Arte bought the team) contributed 30.4 WAR according to ESPN.  Also had Weaver, Lackey and Saunders (pre-Arte) contributing 5.1 WAR according to ESPN.  Those may not look like big numbers but as far as Angels players with a WAR above 0 that season according to ESPN offense had 36.4 and pitching had 10.9 if my quick counting is correct.  Chone had a career year which can skew that season and obviously Vlad had some monster seasons but I would think over half the WAR during those years came from guys already in the organization.  Shows what homegrown talent pared with good FA signings can accomplish.