Angels sign Brandon Drury (2 years, $17 million), DFA Oliver Ortega

[Chuck]

1 minute ago, IheartLA said:

Perry has done amazing this offseason given the limited resources we thought we had. The FA contracts have been good value compared to the market too. The trades didn't cost us anything. Let's be honest we can't count on Rendon, whatever he gives us we will take but we need to build a position player squad 13 deep and we have. 

Ward

Trout

Ohtani

Rendon

Renfroe

Rengifo

Drury

O'Hoppe

Fletcher

Bench:

Stassi - C

Walsh - 1B/LF

Urshela - IF

Moniak - OF

One of the biggest issues in '22 was position player depth. Perry Minasian said that his goal this offseason was to correct that issue & so far he's done a great job adding Urshela, Drury & Renfroe. Add in Tyler Anderson & Carlos Estevez & it has been a solid offseason thus far.

[Angels 1961]

2 minutes ago, IheartLA said:

Perry has done amazing this offseason given the limited resources we thought we had. The FA contracts have been good value compared to the market too. The trades didn't cost us anything. Let's be honest we can't count on Rendon, whatever he gives us we will take but we need to build a position player squad 13 deep and we have. 

Ward

Trout

Ohtani

Rendon

Renfroe

Rengifo

Drury

O'Hoppe

Fletcher

Bench:

Stassi - C

Walsh - 1B/LF

Urshela - IF

Moniak - OF

Not many Left had bats

[jordan]

This gives Nevin the availability to get the hot hand or good matchups throughout the season.  My initial thought was I thought Perry would look more at SS type, ie Segura.  But Drury is no bum either.  This team will hit in 2023 with the moves thus far.  

[Inside Pitch]

Left/Right SPLITS OPS 

Urshela .775/763 -- (.764/.744 career)
J Walsh .591/.660 -- (.600/.834 career)
B Drury .955/.757 -- (770/.720 career)
Fletcher .634/.595 -- (.742/.647 career)
Rengifo .909/.629 -- (.705/644 career)
Velazquez - LOL/LOL -- (LOL/LOL career)
 

[beatlesrule]

From MLBTR:

Drury has an aggressive offensive approach and rarely walks, drawing free passes just 6.7% of the time this past season. He makes contact at an above-average clip and has solid power from the right-handed batter’s box, though. Drury’s 42.2% hard contact rate was around seven percentage points higher than the league mark. He put the bat on the ball on 81.2% of his swings this year, around five points better than average. This year’s 28-homer showing is an outlier compared to the rest of his career, but he’s topped 15 longballs on two other occasions while hitting north of .260 in three years.

The 30-year-old has some defensive flexibility. He’s played mostly second and third base throughout his big league career, logging around 1500 innings at both spots. Public metrics have been mixed on his work, though both Defensive Runs Saved and Statcast feel he’s better suited at the keystone than at the hot corner. Drury isn’t likely to win a Gold Glove, but he’s rated as a capable defender at both spots. He also has a decent amount of experience at first base and in the corner outfield, though he’s not a regular option in center field or at shortstop.

[Chuck]

Drury absolutely murders lefthanded pitching. 

Slashed .299/.329/.626 against southpaws and .282/.331/.618 with RISP. 

[totdprods]

1 minute ago, beatlesrule said:

He makes contact at an above-average clip

This has been a big focus it seems.

[jordan]

This is more speculation on my part, but I wonder if Perry is also focusing on personality and professionalism as well.  Perhaps, changing the overall clubhouse feel from past couple of years.  

[Angels 1961]

Here it is Drury has played lot of OF. So, Taylor Ward for Pablo Lopez. 

[Docwaukee]

And based on what was likely available, there were two directions you could go.  A defense first SS via the free agent market.  Or MIF redundancy via the FA market.  I think it's very clear that a strong defensive SS who could also hit just wasn't gonna happen via trade.  You know what those sky high SS contracts do?  It makes every SS potentially available in trade that much more valuable to the team that already has them.  

So they sacrificed a bit of run prevention OR they are hopeful Fletcher (who is a very solid SS defender) can find his bat.  OR that Rengifo can be a capable SS.

And is those late innings it's Fletcher at SS and Rengifo at 2b.  Where are the defensive problems?

[Angels 1961]

3 minutes ago, jordan said:

This is more speculation on my part, but I wonder if Perry is also focusing on personality and professionalism as well.  Perhaps, changing the overall clubhouse feel from past couple of years.  

Maybe Minasian knows more about Rendon condition and it's not good

[Warfarin]

1 hour ago, AngelsLakersFan said:

I disagree. Expecting a guy like Justin Upton to play first base isn’t even close to thinking a guy like Urshela could play left field… the single easiest position on the field.

I think what you guys are missing here, is clearly Perry has brought in, or already has guys who he thinks are more than capable of playing left field. He didn’t bring Urshela in to only cover for a Rendon injury and get abs vs lefties at first base. But if it’s not Urshela, then it’s Walsh, Rengifo or Fletcher (yuck)…

It is possible Urshela will get a chunk of starts at SS, too.  Whatever the case may be, it is clear that Perry has deeply strengthened his bench, which is a huge plus.  We'll see where they ultimately go.

[Erstad Grit]

1 hour ago, Inside Pitch said:

@Erstad Grit,  Grats dude, they finally signed someone you wanted.

I'm sorta in the middle.  I like the Urshella deal who wasn't on my radar at all. I liked Drury could play all infield positions with some pop.  I thought Urshella made Drury redundant, but they're definitely a better team than yesterday and I think he's the best non big 4 SS.... but calling him a SS is sorta innacurrate.

I like the deal, but I think we still need a SS unless the plan is using Velazquez with Drury for defense and offense.  

 

[Warfarin]

36 minutes ago, Docwaukee said:

I'd have preferred Profar but I love the mentality.  Just hope he doesn't become the 2019 version.  Even if he does, he's better than the the likelihood of significantly sub replacement production we'd be looking at without him.  

The number everyone should focus on is 2,571.  

That's the number of plate appearances for players with ZERO war or worse on the angels last year.  

The other number is -7.0

That the total WAR of those players.  

It might seem like redundancy and it might seem like there's not enough AB to go around but if Urshela and Renfroe and Drury get 724 PA's each (the most in the majors last year from Marcus Semian), there would still be 400 additional plate appearances left.  So in real terms, those three getting about 502 PA (minimum for a qualified hitter) leaves over 1000 still for someone else.  Granted, a hefty chunk of those are from C but even conservatively it's at least enough for one more player to get the min. qualified.  

Who do you want filling those 500 additional plate appearances?  Soto? Adell? Moniak? Thaiss? Wallach? Mike Stefanic?  Jordyn Adams?  Andrew Velazquez?  Jared Oliva?  Ryan Aguilar? Aaron Whitfield? Jeremiah Jackson?  Riley Unroe? Orlando Martinez? Bryce Teodosio? 

Because that's about the list of next up.  

So I can make a very strong argument that they shouldn't be done adding position players and I would very much like to see a legit 4th OFer.  

 

100%.  While the infield bench seems crowded, these things tend to sort themselves out anyway.  No team goes through a season with 100% health, and it's very likely multiple guys will be hurt throughout the year.  The problem we have always run into is once a few injuries occur, we start playing sub-replacement level quality players.  Having this "excess," so to speak, should help prevent that.

[Warfarin]

17 minutes ago, Docwaukee said:

And based on what was likely available, there were two directions you could go.  A defense first SS via the free agent market.  Or MIF redundancy via the FA market.  I think it's very clear that a strong defensive SS who could also hit just wasn't gonna happen via trade.  You know what those sky high SS contracts do?  It makes every SS potentially available in trade that much more valuable to the team that already has them.  

So they sacrificed a bit of run prevention OR they are hopeful Fletcher (who is a very solid SS defender) can find his bat.  OR that Rengifo can be a capable SS.

And is those late innings it's Fletcher at SS and Rengifo at 2b.  Where are the defensive problems?

Rengifo is a fairly poor defender everywhere, per metrics at least.  That said, I am willing to see him start at SS, with Fletcher subbing in late for defensive purposes.  Urshela has actually graded out to be average, too, at SS, so I think we have multiple options to roll with.

The defense shouldn't be awful.  It likely could be better, but I think the key aspect is we have considerable depth now, which means we can (hopefully) stop seeing players like Duffy, Rojas, Gosselin, etc have to play significant amounts of time.

[Warfarin]

5 minutes ago, Erstad Grit said:

I'm sorta in the middle.  I like the Urshella deal who wasn't on my radar at all. I liked Drury could play all infield positions with some pop.  I thought Urshella made Drury redundant, but they're definitely a better team than yesterday and I think he's the best non big 4 SS.... but calling him a SS is sorta innacurrate.

I like the deal, but I think we still need a SS unless the plan is using Velazquez with Drury for defense and offense.  

 

Don't think Velazquez fits into the equation right now.

Likely, we simply could not afford the SS options as they currently are.  Instead, we have stacked the team with versatile players, such that we have a number of guys who can cover 3B, SS, 2B, 1B.  They can be rotated around and mixed and matched.  It will not be the best defense, but it should be good enough, and Fletcher can always be the guy who subs in towards the end of the game to play fairly good defense.

[Angelsfan1984]

Once rendon gets hurt urshela will play 3rd and drury will play 2b. Fletch and rengifo can fight it out unless rengifo is on the move.

[Warfarin]

 

 

[Duren, Duren]

Seems like a lot of infield competition in spring training, barring future trades. Drury is a decent mid tier addition who had a career year at the right time. At age 30 the hope is that he is at the peak of his talent with enough experience to be dependable wherever he plays. He also adds pop to the lower end of the batting order, which makes everyone else better around him.

I sense a trade or two in the works. Pitching still can be beefed up, and a catcher would help if O'Hoppe isn't up to expectations yet. 

In the mean time I read a blurb at ESPN saying that the Dodgers are being more conservative, preparing to bid for Ohtani when (not if) he hits free agency. So this season is ultra critical for the Angels.

 

[Chuck]

 

[ten ocho recon scout]

37 minutes ago, Chuckster70 said:

One of the biggest issues in '22 was position player depth. Perry Minasian said that his goal this offseason was to correct that issue & so far he's done a great job adding Urshela, Drury & Renfroe. Add in Tyler Anderson & Carlos Estevez & it has been a solid offseason thus far.

Yeah. It's not what we wanted, exciting. But the pieces added are probably going to be a bigger addition than we realize.

So many crap guys playing last year.

[Warfarin]

Just now, ten ocho recon scout said:

Yeah. It's not what we wanted, exciting. But the pieces added are probably going to be a bigger addition than we realize.

So many crap guys playing last year.

Minasian has gone about this offseason as well as he could have, given how many holes we had and having only so much money to spend.

The key part of this plan is we have a number of infielders now who can play all sorts of positions, so that they should be able to sub in for one another based on injuries and/or ineffectiveness.  

I'd say now we can withstand injuries much better than years in past.

[Jeff Fletcher]

52 minutes ago, Angels 1961 said:

Maybe Taylor Ward could be traded 

They could probably trade Ward or Rengifo now. Either has decent value. 

[Docwaukee]

2 minutes ago, Warfarin said:

100%.  While the infield bench seems crowded, these things tend to sort themselves out anyway.  No team goes through a season with 100% health, and it's very likely multiple guys will be hurt throughout the year.  The problem we have always run into is once a few injuries occur, we start playing sub-replacement level quality players.  Having this "excess," so to speak, should help prevent that.

Reminds me of one more thing they probably have metrics on that we don't.  

Rest.  

Knicks and bump and bruises and tweaks add up.  Guys typically gut their way through minor injuries because they sort of have to.  Getting regular rest might be undervalued.  

 

[Warfarin]

9 minutes ago, Duren, Duren said:

Seems like a lot of infield competition in spring training, barring future trades. Drury is a decent mid tier addition who had a career year at the right time. At age 30 the hope is that he is at the peak of his talent with enough experience to be dependable wherever he plays. He also adds pop to the lower end of the batting order, which makes everyone else better around him.

I sense a trade or two in the works. Pitching still can be beefed up, and a catcher would help if O'Hoppe isn't up to expectations yet. 

In the mean time I read a blurb at ESPN saying that the Dodgers are being more conservative, preparing to bid for Ohtani when (not if) he hits free agency. So this season is ultra critical for the Angels.

 

I'm sure the Dodgers, Mets, and basically any team with a lot of money will come after Ohtani.  All we can do is match/beat his best offer and show him that this team is positioned to contend for many years.  With Ohtani, I doubt his top priority is money; it'll be which team is built to win and which team can help him maximize his legacy.