Off Season Priorities

[Docwaukee]

1 hour ago, Jeff Fletcher said:

The Angels don’t need more good players huge contracts
 

They need fewer bad players. 
 

Discuss. 

on players who are likely past their prime or may only have one or so years left.  

to me there terrible players, below avg, avg, above, and really good or stars.  A below avg is acceptable for things like the last couple guys in the pen, guys coming off the bench or even our 6th starter.  We've been running out a lot of really terrible players the last several years.  For way too many at bats.  Turning decent sized chunks of the roster over during the season quite a bit.  Injuries happen but a lot of it is because of guys just being terrible.  

[AngelsLakersFan]

1 hour ago, Tank said:

while doing some work at school today, i listened to angels podcast that i hadn't heard of before - Talkin' Halos with Derek Ciapola, Jared Tims, and Nate Green. Tims name is familiar from twitter, but never heard of the other two.

the topic of what would be your dream off season came up. two of these three said in complete seriousness that the halos need AT LEAST three new starters for next year. got me to wondering who they would jettison in order to do this. we've seen some nice progress from sandoval and suarez and detmers this season, so i'm curious who they'd cut from the current starting rotation.  Or maybe they want to see a 7 man rotation. i dunno.

fortunately, i'm just not curious enough to listen to anymore of their podcasts to find out more info from them.

These guys are obviously not worth listening to.

[Warfarin]

25 minutes ago, Trendon said:

Anyone suggesting that the starting rotation is the Angels biggest need this offseason clearly has no clue what they’re talking about.

Baseball Reference and FanGraphs are free, even if you aren’t watching the games.

Ohtani, Sandoval, Detmers, and Suarez is a very solid quartet.

Yeah.  I do feel, though, that teams need a ton of SPs to get through the season, but I agree that SP is not a big priority.  I do think we need at least one SP, simply for the sake of helping buffer against the inevitable injuries, but that quarter is solid and, health permitting, should be fairly good.

We also have a few SPs in AA that could be factors at some point next season as well.  

All that said, the fact that Livan Soto is 8th on this team in fWAR, in terms of offense, despite having less than 30 at bats likely says all you need to know in terms of where this team needs to improve the most.

[Angelsjunky]

The Angels have sixteen position players this year with negative WAR value. SIXTEEN. That's a total of -7.1 WAR. While I haven't checked, I'm pretty sure that's unusually bad. Oh, in something like 1900 PA. 

But the problem is really two-fold:

1. Giving a lot of playing time to poor players: Adell, Wade, Walsh and Suzuki all had at least 150 PA and -0.5 WAR.

2. Using so many different players with negative result.

Both are rooted in not having any depth to fill in and provide adequate performance. And both result from a "stars and scrubs" approach. 

Edited September 26, 2022 by Angelsjunky

[Warfarin]

1 minute ago, Angelsjunky said:

The Angels have sixteen position players this year with negative WAR value. SIXTEEN. That's a total of -7.1 WAR. While I haven't checked, I'm pretty sure that unusually bad. Oh, in something like 1900 PA. 

But the problem is really two-fold:

1. Giving a lot of playing time to poor players: Adell, Wade, Walsh and Suzuki all had at least 150 PA and -0.5 WAR.

2. Using so many different players with negative result.

Both are rooted in not having any depth to fill in and provide adequate performance. And both result from a "stars and scrubs" approach. 

The best thing Minasian can do for this club is have a stellar player development team in place, such that we can start pumping out droves of "average" or better players on rookie type contracts.  If he (and his team) is able to do that, that is likely the way we will finally become a contending team.  We already have the stars in place.

[Angelsjunky]

A few comparisons. Negative WAR position players this year:

Angels: 16 at -7.1 WAR

Astros: 7 at -2.7 WAR

Dodgers: 3 at -1.4 WAR

Yankees: 3 at -0.6 WAR

Now obviously those are probably the three best teams in the majors, but it shows you how all of them have a very solid floor - partially the Yankees and Dodgers, who give very little playing time to poor players, presumably because they've got a lot more depth to draw from.

[Angelsjunky]

1 minute ago, Warfarin said:

The best thing Minasian can do for this club is have a stellar player development team in place, such that we can start pumping out droves of "average" or better players on rookie type contracts.  If he (and his team) is able to do that, that is likely the way we will finally become a contending team.  We already have the stars in place.

Yep. The problem is that most of the position player talent is still in the low minors, so those "droves" might not start showing up for another two or three years. Of the top ten or so position player prospects, only O'Hoppe and Neto have a significant chance of being on the major league team in 2023.

 

[Angelsjunky]

Meaning, one of the ways that Minasian can improve the team in a way that is relatively low profile, and might not be as sexy as signing a high profile free agent, is piling up on minor league veterans and good bench players. Easier said than done, but this is where putting his team to work comes in. Find the real clean peanuts. They exist. And spend on a small handful of good bench players.

 

[Docwaukee]

1 hour ago, Tank said:

while doing some work at school today, i listened to angels podcast that i hadn't heard of before - Talkin' Halos with Derek Ciapola, Jared Tims, and Nate Green. Tims name is familiar from twitter, but never heard of the other two.

the topic of what would be your dream off season came up. two of these three said in complete seriousness that the halos need AT LEAST three new starters for next year. got me to wondering who they would jettison in order to do this. we've seen some nice progress from sandoval and suarez and detmers this season, so i'm curious who they'd cut from the current starting rotation.  Or maybe they want to see a 7 man rotation. i dunno.

fortunately, i'm just not curious enough to listen to anymore of their podcasts to find out more info from them.

That's kooky talk.  We spent 28 mil on Syndergaard and Lorenzen for 1.8 WAR.  How about we hand that to one guy next year on a 1yr deal.  

Then another shit show of wasted expense on the pen.  

The rotation could actually survive without another player.  One would be nice though.  Hell, just give Verlander 35m  

[Warfarin]

8 hours ago, Angelsjunky said:

Meaning, one of the ways that Minasian can improve the team in a way that is relatively low profile, and might not be as sexy as signing a high profile free agent, is piling up on minor league veterans and good bench players. Easier said than done, but this is where putting his team to work comes in. Find the real clean peanuts. They exist. And spend on a small handful of good bench players.

 

100% agreed.  The Braves seem to recall and unearth a bunch of unknown players who end up being good MLB players - guys who didn't receive a lot of fanfare as prospects.  Hopefully, Minasian learned from his boss and has brought over a similar system to us.  We won't be able to know for a few years (since he took over), but we should, hopefully, start seeing some guys over the next 1-2 years come up and fill those kinds of roles.  

The most successful GMs/PBOs are the ones that seem to do two things:  1.  Avoid the catastrophic financial move (signing a player to a mega deal, only to watch them turn into a pumpkin in the next year or two), and 2. Strongly develop the farm system, not just to produce great young players, but steady, average players who can at least ensure that there aren't significant holes on the MLB team.

[eligrba]

8 hours ago, Warfarin said:

Yeah.  I do feel, though, that teams need a ton of SPs to get through the season, but I agree that SP is not a big priority.  I do think we need at least one SP, simply for the sake of helping buffer against the inevitable injuries, but that quarter is solid and, health permitting, should be fairly good.

We also have a few SPs in AA that could be factors at some point next season as well.  

All that said, the fact that Livan Soto is 8th on this team in fWAR, in terms of offense, despite having less than 30 at bats likely says all you need to know in terms of where this team needs to improve the most.

The GM?

[Dtwncbad]

The Angels need:

One stable, reliable middle-of-the-rotation starter.

In house bodies to improve so that the depth/bench is good.

Two upgrades offensively in the bottom half of the lineup with players that legitimately have some power.  They don’t have to be superstars, but they need to be players that have more than respectable OPS.

A better bullpen populated by some contributions from the last couple of drafts.

If the Angels accomplish all of the above (and it’s not THAT much!) they are legitimate contenders that could make a postseason run.

 

 

Edited September 26, 2022 by Dtwncbad