Trade deadline outfield rebuilds, the 2015 Angels vs the 2021 Braves

[mmc]

The fact that the Braves made the World Series, largely on the heels of their rebuilt outfield they acquired at the deadline, had me thinking of when the Angels also attempted to do this in an effort to stay competitive, and the results couldn't have been more different.

 

2015 Angels deadline outfielder acquisitions:

David Murphy (acquired for Eric Stamets):

Indians stats: 84 GP, .296 BA, .344 OBP, 111 wRC+. 0.4 fWAR, Angels stats: 48 GP, .265 BA, .281 OBP, 87 wRC+, -0.2 fWAR

David DeJesus (acquired for Eduar Lopez):

Rays stats: 82 GP, .259 BA, .323 OBP, 95 wRC+, 0.4 fWAR, Angels stats: 30 GP, .125 BA, .183 OBP, -8 wRC+, -0.7 fWAR

Shane Victorino (acquired for Josh Rutledge):

Red Sox stats: 33 GP, .245 BA, .324 OBP, 73 wRC+, 0.3 fWAR, Angels stats: 38 GP, .214 BA, .292 OBP, 61 wRC+, -0.3 fWAR

None of these acquisitions worked out for us, and all of their stats took a huge hit once they were acquired by the Angels.  None should have really been expected to be key producers for this club, and none certainly cost us anything that ended up hurting us, however if they would've panned out we very well could've made the playoffs and who knows what that does for us both that season, and the long term future for the club.  In contrast, let's look at how the Braves re-did theirs at this years deadline.

 

2021 Braves deadline outfielder acquisitions:

Joc Pederson (acquired for Bryce Ball):

Cubs stats: 73 GP, .230 BA, .300 OBP, 90 wRC+, 0.1 fWAR, Braves regular season stats: 64 GP, .249 BA, .325 OBP, 101 wRC+, 0.4 fWAR, Braves postseason stats: 10 GP, .276 BA, .323 OBP

Eddie Rosario (acquired for Pablo Sandoval):

Indians stats: 78 GP, .254 BA, .296 OBP, 86 wRC+, 0.3 fWAR, Braves regular season stats: 33 GP, .271 BA, .330 OBP, 133 wRC+, 0.6 fWAR, Braves postseason stats: 10 GP, .474 BA, .524 OBP

Adam Duvall (acquired for Alex Jackson):

Marlins stats: 91 GP, .229 BA, .277 OBP, 102 wRC+, 1.4 fWAR Braves regular season stats: 55 GP, .226 BA, .287 OBP, 106 wRC+, 1.0 fWAR, Braves postseason stats: 10 GP, .229 BA, .282 OBP

Jorge Soler (acquired for Kasey Kalich):

Royals stats: 94 GP, .192 BA, .288 OBP, 79 wRC+, -1.1 fWAR Braves regular season stats: 55 GP, .269 BA, .358 OBP, 132 wRC+, 0.9 fWAR, Braves postseason stats: 5 GP (missed time due to COVID protocol), .154 BA, .267 OBP

 

As you can see, these Braves players all were similar buy low options just like the Angels targetted, not spending anymore than a fringe prospect at most.  And what these players all have in common is that all of their stats vastly improved, or at the very least, did not drop off after being acquired unlike the Angels trio.  Just another way this team has completely failed to compete not due to a lack of financial investment into securing talent, but because of a failure to scout major league talent at all.  Just thought the disparity was pretty crazy and really makes me wonder how 2015 would've gone.  Oh well. 

[Angel Oracle]

Does this franchise even have MLB scouts?   Oops, can’t do that, less money for yacht fuel.

[Stradling]

2 hours ago, Angel Oracle said:

Does this franchise even have MLB scouts?   Oops, can’t do that, less money for yacht fuel.

You are complaining  about something six seasons ago.  

[Taylor]

19 minutes ago, Stradling said:

You are complying about something six seasons ago.  

He's very compliant.

[UndertheHalo]

Hmm.  By the looks of it, one of these worked out a lot better than the other.  Yep.  That seems clear.  

[arch stanton]

Did the Braves GM have a hissy fit and run home to mommy 4 weeks before this trade deadline?

[Stradling]

4 hours ago, Taylor said:

He's very compliant.

I edited my post and now it is gone.  I will assume when I edited it, maybe I accidentally deleted it.  Oh well.  To get upset at something that happened 6 years ago in a .500 season in the aftermath of losing the GM days before is really silly.

[ten ocho recon scout]

Off topic, but looking at those numbers, the pre and post trade stats, talk about just getting lucky. Fluky as hell.

Which makes them beating up the dodgers that much funnier

[Stradling]

1 hour ago, ten ocho recon scout said:

Off topic, but looking at those numbers, the pre and post trade stats, talk about just getting lucky. Fluky as hell.

Which makes them beating up the dodgers that much funnier

Yea it’s not like they lit the world on fire when they were traded, but one guy killed it in the playoffs 

[Mark PT]

14 hours ago, Angel Oracle said:

Does this franchise even have MLB scouts?   Oops, can’t do that, less money for yacht fuel.

So you're saying that without scouts this leads to a TITANIC failure?

 

Had to, its Monday

[totdprods]

Guess it's a good thing we took a guy from the Braves to be our next GM?

[T.G.]

1 hour ago, totdprods said:

Guess it's a good thing we took a guy from the Braves to be our next GM?

That remains to be seen.  I certainly hope so, but we'll see.

[totdprods]

2 minutes ago, True Grich said:

That remains to be seen.  I certainly hope so, but we'll see.

I'm not totally sold on Minasian, but I can at least look at the Braves deadline, the Braves recent free agency moves, and the Braves being in the World Series and allow myself a little bit of optimism.

[DMVol]

All of the OF'ers the Braves picked up were on expiring contracts, except Duvall, who has a club option that the Marlins weren't likely to pick up....there wasn't a great market for any of them, in part because of expiring contracts that weren't cheap.....Anthopolous did a great job of targeting the right guys.....Hell, he basically got Rosario for free (the Indians took on Pablo Sandoval's contract).... I love the Braves (2nd favorite team behind the Halos) and AA deserves a lot of credit but I'm not sure you can compare the two situations.....unless Stoneman (Interim GM at the 15 trade deadline) turned down similar type deals because he didn't want to take on money....

[Stradling]

Minasian got Iglesias for Noe Ramirez

[mmc]

48 minutes ago, DMVol said:

All of the OF'ers the Braves picked up were on expiring contracts, except Duvall, who has a club option that the Marlins weren't likely to pick up....there wasn't a great market for any of them, in part because of expiring contracts that weren't cheap.....Anthopolous did a great job of targeting the right guys.....Hell, he basically got Rosario for free (the Indians took on Pablo Sandoval's contract).... I love the Braves (2nd favorite team behind the Halos) and AA deserves a lot of credit but I'm not sure you can compare the two situations.....unless Stoneman (Interim GM at the 15 trade deadline) turned down similar type deals because he didn't want to take on money....

I guess my point is here is just to show how different this club's last 10 years could have gone if we weren't so bad at evaluating major league talent.  Way more hits than misses over the years.  I see lots of complaints about how much our poor farm resulted in a decade of failure, and of course the usual complaints about Arte not spending enough on pitching, but I really do think our failure to scout major league talent has hurt us more than I see it mentioned.  This is just an example of how much it can hurt a team even if you don't consider any of the listed players to really be anything significant.

[BTH]

1 hour ago, mmc said:

I guess my point is here is just to show how different this club's last 10 years could have gone if we weren't so bad at evaluating major league talent.  Way more hits than misses over the years.  I see lots of complaints about how much our poor farm resulted in a decade of failure, and of course the usual complaints about Arte not spending enough on pitching, but I really do think our failure to scout major league talent has hurt us more than I see it mentioned.  This is just an example of how much it can hurt a team even if you don't consider any of the listed players to really be anything significant.

Yeah, but there's really no point in dwelling on the past.

All Angels fans know that the team has been bad at development, evaluation, etc. The 2015 deadline was like 2 regimes ago, and maybe 4 if Stoneman was making the final call.

Minasian and Tamin come from working with AA in Atlanta, so hopefully the Angels now have the proper evaluators in place.

[Angel Oracle]

2 hours ago, Stradling said:

Minasian got Iglesias for Noe Ramirez

That and the Cobb signing are the only two that truly worked, so far.

Gosselin and Lagares were meh.

[Inside Pitch]

The big OFer target that deadline was Cespedes -- who cost the Mets Fulmer and Cessa who were both better than anyone the Angels had in the system but that's not the type of move being talked about.  The only other OF that would have been useful and was moved that I can recall was Ben Revere who I think went for two nondescript RPs the Angels could have probably matched.

Man, the trade I remember just being a doozy that year was the Dodger's thee way trade where they ended up getting Alex Wood, Bronson Aroyo, Luis Avillan, Lose Peraza, Mat Latos, Mike Morse, and Jim Johnson.  Johnson shit the bed, Aroyo was rehabbing and Morse never played an inning for them but LA was able to move Hector Olivera and like 4 garbage minor leaguers for guys they were able to spin off or make use of