Fixing the Los Angeles Angels 2023 Bullpen

[Docwaukee]

2 hours ago, Dollar Bill said:

Dodgers' top relievers by IP:

Bickford: waiver claim

Kimbrel: trade: bad contract for bad contract

Phillips (337 ERA+): waiver claim

Vesia: trade for another middle reliever

Big trade deadline pickup: Martin (226 ERA+), for a utilityman

Treinen is the only guy they spent millions on ... and specifically not as a closer

 

price 16m
Kimbrel 16m
Treinen 8m
Hudson 6m
Martin 1.2m
Kahnle 3.725m

They've spent over 50m on their bullpen.  

[Angelsjunky]

15 minutes ago, Docwaukee said:

This is terrifying to me.  

I'm not convinced any of the 4 locks are safe bets to be reliable next year.  

None of those guys on your internal development list give me confidence

All of the relievers already in the org are in AA

Starters turned relievers are either coming off injury or have been horribly inconsistent in their careers.  Or they've had almost zero development as a reliever.  

Then it's minor league FA's/Waiver claims.  

This is just wrought with uncertainty.  We had less going into this year and even with that, the pen was brutal.  

What do you suggest? See my thoughts in the novella I wrote above, but I believe you have said similar things, about the problem of spending big on relievers.

And again, if they're going to go out and spend $15M per year on a closer, why did they bother trading Raisel? He was struggling a bit, but it was really only a short spell and a handful of appearances. Oh, he's got a 0.46 ERA in 19.2 IP for the Braves, bringing his season ERA down to a more typical 2.77. Meaning, he's just as good as ever but just had a bad spell, like everyone else on the Angels.

And it isn't like the Angels unloaded him for prospects. Tucker Davidson looks like an up-and-down guy, a Packy Naughton type or worse. It was a contract dump, pure and simple.

I suppose we can hope they find a clean peanut or two, or sign a guy coming off a bad year who they believe can bounce-back. But I just don't think Minasian is going to go out there and spend more than a few bucks on the bullpen, not after salary-dumping Raisel and carring the bad contracts of Loup and Tepera for another year.

[AngelStew43]

CRod will be back next year, possibly as a bullpen piece.  Same for Canning, I just don't think he holds up well as a starter.  

Another big arm that may be on the staff next year is Jose Soriano.  Taken by Pittsburgh in the Rule V, offered back to us after his second TJS, he still has the big fastball, we should keep him around, he'd fit in well with the rest of the young power arms currently at AA. 

And, Jose Soriano is still just 22 years old. 

[Docwaukee]

3 hours ago, Jeff Fletcher said:

Fun experiment…

Pick a random team with a good bullpen, and then go look at where each of the relievers came from. Big money free agents? Big trades? Hot prospects?

I venture to say most of them are none of the above 

LAD - spent 50m.  depth was a few waiver and trades which have worked out well
HOU - almost totally home grown with a couple FA's
ATL - spent a fair amount on FA's.  Some expensive and some cheap.  Couple trades.  One drafted.  One waivers
NYY - spent a lot on the pen.  Several trades.  Several are home grown.   No waivers
CLE - mostly home grown.  
SDP - spent a fair amount.  FA's and trades.  Some big, some minor.  A couple home grown
DET - mix of mostly minor league pickups, home grown, and cheap free agents
PHI - trades and free agents.  A couple home grown.  spent a decent amount
BAL - Almost all waiver pick ups and home grown.  
CWS - pretty high spend.  FAs, trades and home grown.  

that's the top 10.  

pretty good spend from several.  lots of home grown and trades.  but mostly minor trades.  very few that were picked off waivers.  Thought that category would show more.  
 

 

 

[Tank]

2 minutes ago, Docwaukee said:

LAD - spent 50m.  depth was a few waiver and trades which have worked out well
HOU - almost totally home grown with a couple FA's
ATL - spent a fair amount on FA's.  Some expensive and some cheap.  Couple trades.  One drafted.  One waivers
NYY - spent a lot on the pen.  Several trades.  Several are home grown.   No waivers
CLE - mostly home grown.  
SDP - spent a fair amount.  FA's and trades.  Some big, some minor.  A couple home grown
DET - mix of mostly minor league pickups, home grown, and cheap free agents
PHI - trades and free agents.  A couple home grown.  spent a decent amount
BAL - Almost all waiver pick ups and home grown.  
CWS - pretty high spend.  FAs, trades and home grown.  

that's the top 10.  

pretty good spend from several.  lots of home grown and trades.  but mostly minor trades.  very few that were picked off waivers.  Thought that category would show more.  

slow day at the office?

that's a lot more research than i'd be willing to do. thanks.

[Erstad Grit]

1 hour ago, Tank said:

i'd like to have a closer that's good enough for us to have this kind of experience when he's brought into a game.

 

We had a long stretch of having an elite closer.

Smith, Harvey, Percival, Krod, Street, even Fuentes was pretty good except for his playoff meatball to Arod. 

 

[Docwaukee]

53 minutes ago, Tank said:

slow day at the office?

that's a lot more research than i'd be willing to do. thanks.

eating a late lunch.  pretty easy to find the info on fangraphs.  took me 10 mins.  

[Dollar Bill]

2 hours ago, Docwaukee said:

price 16m
Kimbrel 16m
Treinen 8m
Hudson 6m
Martin 1.2m
Kahnle 3.725m

They've spent over 50m on their bullpen.  

The Price contract was the price (no pun intended) of getting Betts. The Kimbrel contract was the price of moving Pollock. Hudson and Treinen $14 million, well ... that's pretty much what Loup and Tepera are getting this season. If you want a veteran non-closer reliever, that is the market rate.

[Docwaukee]

The Iglesias move in yr 1 by Minasian was brilliant.  Yet it was paired with a lack of talent and Minasian being late to the party for the rest of the pen.  Only addressed at the very end of spring training.  Maddon basically called him out on the lack of pitching so he gives out a big contract to Iglesias and makes to poor moves on spending for Tepera and Loup.  Who knows how much influence Maddon had on those three moves.  I'm not horribly opposed to spending a bit on the pen but for the Angels, those three players had a major impact on what we were able to do in other areas and that clearly showed up on the offense and general lack of position player depth.   If you have a $250 mil payroll or you're set in other areas then fine.  Otherwise, it doesn't make sense.  

They got out from under the Iglesias deal so ideally another scenario pops up where you can trade a bucket of balls for a year left of a contract pops up.   Spending 10+ mil on an elite guy isn't likely so it's most likely a year of scrap heapers, guys we hope develop, and guys we hope get better.  All the makings of avg at best and potential disaster from this crew. 

  

[eligrba]

3 hours ago, Tank said:

i'd like to have a closer that's good enough for us to have this kind of experience when he's brought into a game.

 

This Angel's bullpen seems more like a kazoo-type entrance:

[Docwaukee]

10 minutes ago, Dollar Bill said:

The Price contract was the price (no pun intended) of getting Betts. The Kimbrel contract was the price of moving Pollock. Hudson and Treinen $14 million, well ... that's pretty much what Loup and Tepera are getting this season. If you want a veteran non-closer reliever, that is the market rate.

What's your point? they still spent it. when you have a $300 mil payroll it doesn't much matter and you can do those things.  Especially when you've got the best lineup in baseball and all the depth in the world.  Plus a great starting staff also with a ton of depth.  And a solid farm system.   We're talking about the Angels.  If the Dogs felt spending an additional 50m would make them incrementally better then they'd do it and not bat an eyelash.  

There's a huge difference between a team with a $300m payroll having their pen be 15% of their payroll vs. doing that with a $180 mil payroll.   The dodgers have that luxury.  And they'd done a great job of making proper use of it.  The angels have done a piss poor job of making use of what resources they have.  

But you ain't gonna sell anyone it's apples to apples in any way, shape, or form.  

[Jeff Fletcher]

3 hours ago, Docwaukee said:

LAD - spent 50m.  depth was a few waiver and trades which have worked out well
HOU - almost totally home grown with a couple FA's
ATL - spent a fair amount on FA's.  Some expensive and some cheap.  Couple trades.  One drafted.  One waivers
NYY - spent a lot on the pen.  Several trades.  Several are home grown.   No waivers
CLE - mostly home grown.  
SDP - spent a fair amount.  FA's and trades.  Some big, some minor.  A couple home grown
DET - mix of mostly minor league pickups, home grown, and cheap free agents
PHI - trades and free agents.  A couple home grown.  spent a decent amount
BAL - Almost all waiver pick ups and home grown.  
CWS - pretty high spend.  FAs, trades and home grown.  

that's the top 10.  

pretty good spend from several.  lots of home grown and trades.  but mostly minor trades.  very few that were picked off waivers.  Thought that category would show more.  
 

The point is that a lot of the best relievers are just guys who were nothing but the team or the pitcher figured something out. Stopped throwing a pitch. Throw more of another pitch. Move from the rotation and add velocity. Etc. And all of the sudden someone who is a nobody becomes really good. Your chances of getting a good reliever that way may not be the same as spending $7-12M on someone with a track record, but it's a lot easier to do it with a bunch of them.

The way to have a good bullpen is to get "lucky" with guys like that.

Also, if you have a good rotation, you can push your fringy starters to the bullpen and turn them into good relievers, plus the relievers don't get over-used as much if the starters are pitching innings. Also, a good offense helps, because it gives the relievers more margin for error and allows more comfortable wins when the high-leverage relievers don't have to pitch. And a good defense, of course.

So I think a good bullpen is just going to sort of magically grow if you shore up the other stuff, as opposed to using your resources directly on the bullpen.

[Vegas Halo Fan]

25 minutes ago, Jeff Fletcher said:

The point is that a lot of the best relievers are just guys who were nothing but the team or the pitcher figured something out. Stopped throwing a pitch. Throw more of another pitch. Move from the rotation and add velocity. Etc. And all of the sudden someone who is a nobody becomes really good.

Mariano Rivera was a failed starter who was on the verge of being traded when the Yankees decided to give him a go at the bullpen.

[Warfarin]

The bullpen is where a lot of these analytics-based offices make their money.  It's no surprise the Rays, Dodgers, etc always seem to routinely cobble together great pens, and as @Dollar Bill and @Jeff Fletcher have pointed out, a lot of it isn't high-priced relievers.  They get guys who provide different looks from one another and have certain types of pitches that complement others on the staff.  They use those pitchers in very specific situations against certain types of hitters that they know they will flourish against.  I think this is a much better way to approach games, as opposed to having a "7th inning guy" and an "8th inning guy," etc.

[Docwaukee]

1 hour ago, Jeff Fletcher said:

The way to have a good bullpen is to get "lucky" with guys like that.

what are the odds we get 'lucky' with that for every single guy in our pen?

getting lucky that Quijada stays about the same
getting lucky that Herget stays about the same 
getting lucky that Loup and Tepera return to form
getting lucky that guys from AA progress and perform well in the bigs
getting lucky with a converted starter or two
getting lucky with finding a couple guys off waivers
getting lucky that a few guys currently in AAA figure it out

Most good bullpens don't rely on half of that stuff to happen every year.  

We paid for it in spades and still ended up with 1 reliable reliever and another that turned a corner as well as one converted starter who generally only pitched in low leverage.  None of whom were guys we paid a bunch of money.  And on top of that, none of the other guys in those categories ended up contributing. 

In fact, we have 1.1 WAR from our pen.  Granted not the best way to measure reliever value.  But 0.7 of that came from a guy we traded and 1.8 from two of the guys I mentioned.  That means -1.4 WAR came from over 400 of the 540 innings the pen put out there.  

And just for kicks, our pen FIP was .35 higher than their ERA which means they have probably been a bit lucky.  

[Jeff Fletcher]

55 minutes ago, Docwaukee said:

what are the odds we get 'lucky' with that for every single guy in our pen?

getting lucky that Quijada stays about the same
getting lucky that Herget stays about the same 
getting lucky that Loup and Tepera return to form
getting lucky that guys from AA progress and perform well in the bigs
getting lucky with a converted starter or two
getting lucky with finding a couple guys off waivers
getting lucky that a few guys currently in AAA figure it out

Most good bullpens don't rely on half of that stuff to happen every year.  

We paid for it in spades and still ended up with 1 reliable reliever and another that turned a corner as well as one converted starter who generally only pitched in low leverage.  None of whom were guys we paid a bunch of money.  And on top of that, none of the other guys in those categories ended up contributing. 

In fact, we have 1.1 WAR from our pen.  Granted not the best way to measure reliever value.  But 0.7 of that came from a guy we traded and 1.8 from two of the guys I mentioned.  That means -1.4 WAR came from over 400 of the 540 innings the pen put out there.  

And just for kicks, our pen FIP was .35 higher than their ERA which means they have probably been a bit lucky.  

There’s a reason I put “lucky” in quotes. 
 

And you don’t need 8 lights out relievers to have a good bullpen. 

[BTH]

8 hours ago, Docwaukee said:

I'm not convinced any of the 4 locks are safe bets to be reliable next year.  

None of those guys on your internal development list give me confidence

Are you convinced any of the free agent relievers are safe bets to be reliable next year?

Do any of the guys on the free agent list give you confidence?

 

For me, outside of Díaz (who will cost close to $100M), the answer is not really.

So if I’m going with unreliable options who I don’t have full confidence in, I’d rather go with the cheap options than the expensive options.

[BTH]

8 hours ago, Tank said:

what are their plans for barria? you'd have to think that at some point he's pretty frustrated when he only pitches once every three weeks or so.

Well, if he’s frustrated— which is speculation— too bad.

His stuff is trash and his peripherals indicate his low ERA is unsustainable.

If you want to pitch more, you need to earn those opportunities.

On Saturday, he got a chance in the 8th inning with a 2-run lead and gave up a HR. That’s not gonna cut it.

[Docwaukee]

25 minutes ago, Jeff Fletcher said:

There’s a reason I put “lucky” in quotes. 
 

And you don’t need 8 lights out relievers to have a good bullpen. 

I know.  That's why I put it in quotes initially.  I know what you mean and outside of the Iglesias trade, it doesn't seem that Minasian has figured out how to change his 'luck' when constructing a bullpen as of yet.  

And no one has stated that you need all 8 guys to be lights out.   But you do need at least 2 or 3 of them to be.  And on top of that, you need 3+ other guys to be good and then you need the rest not to totally suck.  Like to the tune of 400 innings with a negative WAR.  Because what I mentioned above doesn't make you a good pen but merely a solid one.  Because if you want to be one of those really good bullpens, you do need about 5 or 6 guys to be light's out or at least really really good.  

Also, part of that 'luck' comes from proper usage in addition to sequencing or changing a guy's grip slightly.  Or arm slot.  Or teaching them a new pitch etc.  

 

[Docwaukee]

35 minutes ago, Trendon said:

Are you convinced any of the free agent relievers are safe bets to be reliable next year?

Do any of the guys on the free agent list give you confidence?

 

For me, outside of Díaz (who will cost close to $100M), the answer is not really.

So if I’m going with unreliable options who I don’t have full confidence in, I’d rather go with the cheap options than the expensive options.

nope

nope

yep

there are important other places to spend money.  

spending on anything but elite relievers is a fool's errand and while the elite ones are a better bet, it's probably only about as good as most other free agents.  Hell yeah I'd want to snag a couple of elite guys if payroll was 240 mil.  But for now it's a lot of hoping you can unlock something from a few guys in that pool of uncertainty.  Which is why I am generally concerned about how this group is going to look next year.  

Part of the problem with pen arms is that by the time you find out they're on a path to a poor season, you're 20+ innings in on a guy that's blown games for you.  

So you might end the year with 5 reliable guys, but that doesn't mean they all threw 50-60 innings each.  It's basically a string of tryouts.  Tepera and Loup aren't working out?  Ok, how about we try Bradley?  Ok, he didn't work, how about Ortega and then Barraclough and then why don't we mix in some Chavez and Marte and Peguero, and Toussaint and then maybe mid way through the year you find your Quijada.  Herget was shut down for a bunch of games mid season.   What do you do then?  Recycle all those other guys you've been trying.  

Frankly, I don't have confidence in any of it right now and I'll be impressed if Perry can somehow piece together a solid pen without spending additional money.  Or even if he does.  

 

[Tank]

1 hour ago, Trendon said:

Well, if he’s frustrated— which is speculation— too bad.

His stuff is trash and his peripherals indicate his low ERA is unsustainable.

If you want to pitch more, you need to earn those opportunities.

On Saturday, he got a chance in the 8th inning with a 2-run lead and gave up a HR. That’s not gonna cut it.

and yet, loup and a dozen other stiffs are run out there time and time again ahead of him, all with far worse results. it's been confusing to say the least, to watch their use of him this year. he hasn't had any chance to develop a consistent rhythm. whether that's his fault or the fault of how they choose to use him, they can't keep using him like this for another year. 

[eligrba]

The bullpen problem is probably not totally found on the field but more likely in the front office.

[Angels 1961]

21 hours ago, Hubs said:

Maybe you should take a season long hiatus then. Call it a sabbatical.

 

I look in 2023 to see continuing development of young players. Moniak, Adell, Ward, future all-star Rengifo plus young lefty starters. Will watch Ohtani's last season as an Angel. Until new owner comes in and gives his direction for team 2023 will be same as 2022. Angel hiatus from being a winning team has at least one more year. 

[DMVol]

We are probably stuck with Tepera and Loup next year, given their multi year deals, and that takes up a couple of valuable spots in the pen....Hopefully they can both be at least serviceable next year....

[BTH]

8 hours ago, Tank said:

and yet, loup and a dozen other stiffs are run out there time and time again ahead of him, all with far worse results. it's been confusing to say the least, to watch their use of him this year. he hasn't had any chance to develop a consistent rhythm. whether that's his fault or the fault of how they choose to use him, they can't keep using him like this for another year. 

I think they ultimately move on from Barría sometime soon.

He doesn’t strike guys out, his velocity is horrible, and he’s out of options.

That’s not gonna play in the majors today, and he doesn’t have a guaranteed contract like Loup and Tepera do.