The Official Los Angeles Angels Minor League Stats, Reports & Scouting Thread

[Warfarin]

10 hours ago, eaterfan said:

Sure, but once again, we've only seen a season (or less from a lot of these guys) and we're assuming they stay at their current levels or improve slightly. While at the same time we're discounting the guys who produced like that during the Eppler era who weren't able to maintain that level for extended periods of time. If 75% of the guys you mention pan out and become above average starters, this model works. If this is the best we see from these guys and only 25-50% make it then it's bad. 

My point is that it's still way too early to judge this era as being better than the Eppler era. So far IMO it's pretty similar without much of the upside but probably a little less downside. 

You bring up a fair point, but I'd say even the best of teams tend to see varying production from players.  Even with Ohtani, there are some years that he is better than others.  I think the key thing, though, is to have enough depth such that you have more options to promote for guys who are struggling, underperforming, etc.

Minasian built a deeper team than last year, but we did see what happened once injuries started to mount - we started lacking MLB quality options and had to trade for guys (Moose, Escobar) to fill the gaps we had.  Ideally, if we had a deep team, we could promote guys and cycle through players as needed to help fill those gaps.

Eppler did not draft and develop well, which was one of his downfalls.  I think Minasian, so far, has done a better job of that, and he has also had the discipline to avoid doling out a mega contract (such as Rendon's).

[Revad]

18 minutes ago, Warfarin said:

While you would like a GM to immediately take over, sweep out the previous regime and replace them with "his guys," it seems some GMs take time in evaluating the staff they already have, then make changes after a year or so and bring in "their guys."  It'll be interesting to see how the 2021 draft compares to the 2022 and 2023 drafts over time.

Minasain was hired November 12, 2020, which I’m guessing is about midpoint in the process?  Is allowing the previous team to carry on typical?

[Warfarin]

8 minutes ago, Revad said:

Minasain was hired November 12, 2020, which I’m guessing is about midpoint in the process?  Is allowing the previous team to carry on typical?

I am not sure how typical it is.  I think typically, when a new GM comes in, the top people in the FO change along with the GM, but I am not sure about the entire FO.  I have read that other organizations tend to quietly sweep out those guys over a course of a year, so it's possible that Minasian permitted Swanson to oversee the process (since it was about halfway as you said), and then decided to move on with a different vision thereafter.

It'll be interesting to see how those drafts compare to one another over the upcoming years. 

[rafibomb]

 

 

Albright stock going up this season.

Edited July 20, 2023 by rafibomb

[Inside Pitch]

10 hours ago, Warfarin said:

I think a lot of times we look at a draft and think of that as belong to the GM who was working at the time, but I think a fair question would be to what degree can we assign the success and failure of that draft to the scouting director at charge at the time?

Notably, when Minasian took over, Swanson was the scouting director.  He was permitted to oversee one draft (2021) in which we drafted Bachman, Bush, etc.  He was let go after that season and replaced by McIlvaine, who has overseen the last 2 drafts.

While you would like a GM to immediately take over, sweep out the previous regime and replace them with "his guys," it seems some GMs take time in evaluating the staff they already have, then make changes after a year or so and bring in "their guys."  It'll be interesting to see how the 2021 draft compares to the 2022 and 2023 drafts over time.

Swanson wasn't let go, he's still with team, he's just not the scouting director.

[Angel Oracle]

10 hours ago, rafibomb said:

 

 

Albright stock going up this season.

Huge leap this season after a very mediocre 2022 in A ball

73 innings, 3.67 ERA, 1.22 WHIP, only 9 HRs, 80/19 Ks/BBs 

[Warfarin]

3 hours ago, Inside Pitch said:

Swanson wasn't let go, he's still with team, he's just not the scouting director.

Ahh okay, so .. "reassigned"  

[Inside Pitch]

I like Minasian, I like the things he's done the people he brought in, but some of you are either completely ignoring the situation he stepped into .vs that Eppler took over or just unaware of how bad things really were.

The Angels system was completely barren, utterly completely devoid of the sort of talent most prospect circles view as building blocks and potential foundation pieces.  The entire reason Eppler went high risk high reward was to try to infuse the system with those sorts of talents.  People can say it didn't/hasn't worked but reality is that many of those guys aren't that much older if not the same ages or even younger than the guys the team has drafted under the current regime and thats true despite the wasted time that was COVID.

More importantly despite the previous GM patting himself on the back and flashing his SABR card the man did precious little to actually create any of the sort of sabermetric infrastructure teams in the know were building.  Pretty much every one of those systems in place currently were created by Eppler and his people -- Minasian simply had to add, fix, evolve them. 

Id have loved to see what Eppler would have done had he been hired in 2011 and not 2015.  Ditto Minasian.  But FFS, the revisionist history here is comical.

[Angel Oracle]

14 minutes ago, Inside Pitch said:

I like Minasian, I like the things he's done the people he brought in, but some of you are either completely ignoring the situation he stepped into .vs that Eppler took over or just unaware of how bad things really were.

The Angels system was completely barren, utterly completely devoid of the sort of talent most prospect circles view as building blocks and potential foundation pieces.  The entire reason Eppler went high risk high reward was to try to infuse the system with those sorts of talents.  People can say it didn't/hasn't worked but reality is that many of those guys aren't that much older if not the same ages or even younger than the guys the team has drafted under the current regime and thats true despite the wasted time that was COVID.

More importantly despite the previous GM patting himself on the back and flashing his SABR card the man did precious little to actually create any of the sort of sabermetric infrastructure teams in the know were building.  Pretty much every one of those systems in place currently were created by Eppler and his people -- Minasian simply had to add, fix, evolve them. 

Id have loved to see what Eppler would have done had he been hired in 2011 and not 2015.  Ditto Minasian.  But FFS, the revisionist history here is comical.

At least the hires were incrementally better each time, after the not smartest man in the room left in 2015.

[Angelsjunky]

44 minutes ago, Inside Pitch said:

I like Minasian, I like the things he's done the people he brought in, but some of you are either completely ignoring the situation he stepped into .vs that Eppler took over or just unaware of how bad things really were.

The Angels system was completely barren, utterly completely devoid of the sort of talent most prospect circles view as building blocks and potential foundation pieces.  The entire reason Eppler went high risk high reward was to try to infuse the system with those sorts of talents.  People can say it didn't/hasn't worked but reality is that many of those guys aren't that much older if not the same ages or even younger than the guys the team has drafted under the current regime and thats true despite the wasted time that was COVID.

More importantly despite the previous GM patting himself on the back and flashing his SABR card the man did precious little to actually create any of the sort of sabermetric infrastructure teams in the know were building.  Pretty much every one of those systems in place currently were created by Eppler and his people -- Minasian simply had to add, fix, evolve them. 

Id have loved to see what Eppler would have done had he been hired in 2011 and not 2015.  Ditto Minasian.  But FFS, the revisionist history here is comical.

All true. I think people would view Eppler more kindly if at least some of his high-risk, high-reward guys actually presented rewards. But they've all pretty much flopped, at least so far. I mean, think of all those international prospects we were excited about. Deveaux is gone, Knowles hasn't developed; Vera, Placencia, A-Ram, Reyes, Santana don't really seem to be developing. Bonilla and other guys I forget are gone. Guzman looks more like a future utility player.

For me the biggest disappointment this year is Werner Blakely. I thought he had the chance to be a stud. He's young enough that there's still hope, but his performance this year is a big drop. Not sure if there is hidden development that we don't see in the stats, though. I suppose Adams, Jackson, Paris, and Calabrese all could have some kind of major league careers, but it seems we're looking at future bench players at best. Quero and Paris are the only guys that look like possible regulars, aside from anyone drafted this year. Too soon to tell with Rada and those guys, but it doesn't seem we're seeing any major talents.

Edited July 20, 2023 by Angelsjunky

[totdprods]

3 minutes ago, Angelsjunky said:

All true. I think people would view Eppler more kindly if at least some of his high-risk, high-reward guys actually presented rewards. But they've all pretty much flopped, at least so far. I mean, think of all those international prospects we were excited about. Deveaux is gone, Knowles hasn't developed; Vera, Placencia, A-Ram, Reyes, Santana don't really seem to be developing. Bonilla and other guys I forget are gone.

I think part of the mindset behind drafting these guys was to also utilize them in trades. He came from the Yankees and that org is great at hyping prospects with loud tools that they trade for stars, with those same prospects flaming out by the time they hit the bigs.

Eppler was really handcuffed because the entire pitching staff, and usually the secondary staff he’d bring in to replace, was hurt. I think Eppler is a solid FO guy but he had tremendously awful luck here. Dipoto failed because he tried to be too cute in trades that made him look smart, and Eppler failed because he tried to find the best low-cost FA deals, and neither were very good at those aspects. 

The results weren’t there, but in many ways I think Eppler did an incredible job patching the team together as well as he did - they were never great, but they still threatened to be fringe WC contenders the first couple of seasons pretty late into the year. 

[Second Base]

57 minutes ago, Inside Pitch said:

I like Minasian, I like the things he's done the people he brought in, but some of you are either completely ignoring the situation he stepped into .vs that Eppler took over or just unaware of how bad things really were.

The Angels system was completely barren, utterly completely devoid of the sort of talent most prospect circles view as building blocks and potential foundation pieces.  The entire reason Eppler went high risk high reward was to try to infuse the system with those sorts of talents.  People can say it didn't/hasn't worked but reality is that many of those guys aren't that much older if not the same ages or even younger than the guys the team has drafted under the current regime and thats true despite the wasted time that was COVID.

More importantly despite the previous GM patting himself on the back and flashing his SABR card the man did precious little to actually create any of the sort of sabermetric infrastructure teams in the know were building.  Pretty much every one of those systems in place currently were created by Eppler and his people -- Minasian simply had to add, fix, evolve them. 

Id have loved to see what Eppler would have done had he been hired in 2011 and not 2015.  Ditto Minasian.  But FFS, the revisionist history here is comical.

I think you know more than I do in this case, when you say, "add fix and evolve them..(the systems put in place by Eppler)." I always thought it was generally the same data, just different interpretation now. 

[BTH]

21 minutes ago, Angelsjunky said:

Quero and Paris are the only guys that look like possible regulars, aside from anyone drafted this year. Too soon to tell with Rada and those guys, but it doesn't seem we're seeing any major talents.

Quero and Rada are from the Minasian regime, so I wouldn’t group them with the rest.

The early returns on Minasian’s international group looks way better than Eppler’s.

[Stradling]

[BTH]

1 hour ago, Inside Pitch said:

More importantly despite the previous GM patting himself on the back and flashing his SABR card the man did precious little to actually create any of the sort of sabermetric infrastructure teams in the know were building. 

One thing I don’t understand is how Dipoto went from being this out of date GM with the Angels to turning the Mariners into a pitching factory. Gilbert, Kirby, Woo, and Miller in the rotation. Brash, Muñoz. Fixing relievers out of nowhere… Sewald, Topa, Speier, Gott.

[Second Base]

2 minutes ago, Stradling said:

Very good point.

[Second Base]

2 minutes ago, Trendon said:

One thing I don’t understand is how Dipoto went from being this out of date GM with the Angels to turning the Mariners into a pitching factory. Gilbert, Kirby, Woo, and Miller in the rotation. Brash, Muñoz. Fixing relievers out of nowhere… Sewald, Topa, Speier, Gott.

Dipoto made a 180 on his approach to drafting and development. It's organic that Servais was "his guy" in the minor leagues and as soon as Jerry promoted Servais out of the prospect game and into a managerial role, his prospects and system in general improved ten-fold. 

Jerry is a real life arrogant narcissist that screwed the Angels. I wouldn't call him a great or even a good GM by any means, but it appears he's done better in Seattle than he did in LA or Arizona, so he must be learning, or at the very least, surrounding himself with quality employees. 

[Inside Pitch]

47 minutes ago, totdprods said:

Eppler was really handcuffed because the entire pitching staff, and usually the secondary staff he’d bring in to replace, was hurt. I think Eppler is a solid FO guy but he had tremendously awful luck here. Dipoto failed because he tried to be too cute in trades that made him look smart, and Eppler failed because he tried to find the best low-cost FA deals, and neither were very good at those aspects. 

The MLB pitching staff was supposed to be the core he used to build around, instead they all broke down.  So yeah, that handcuffed him but nothing hurt him more than Arte's limitation and his own goofs the few times he did have money to play with -- thing is, how much better has Minasian been with FAs?   Loup, Tepera?   I'm not even going to shit on either guy it's just further proof that FA is full of landmines.   I don't even think he tried to find the best low-cost deals, I think he was trying to do the high risk high reward thing with those "low cost" FA moves.  I will never forget Allen, and Harvey offseason, it was like he went after every guy I wanted no part of.

47 minutes ago, totdprods said:

The results weren’t there, but in many ways I think Eppler did an incredible job patching the team together as well as he did - they were never great, but they still threatened to be fringe WC contenders the first couple of seasons pretty late into the year. 

His waiver wire work gets underrated by people here.  He got more out of those types of deals than most GMs during his tenure.  He did well with lost cost FA RPs too...   I always used to say that one of the reasons Billy Beane looked so good is that he never really had the opportunity to spend money and be held accountable for those mistakes -- the one guy he was able to resign (Chavez), busted.

Build a farm system, feed off the that.  Stoneman did it, the Dodgers are doing, the Orioles are doing it.  Unfortunately for the Angels you had a win now owner and the worst farm system in maybe the last 30 years in 2015.

[Inside Pitch]

12 minutes ago, Second Base said:

I think you know more than I do in this case, when you say, "add fix and evolve them..(the systems put in place by Eppler)." I always thought it was generally the same data, just different interpretation now. 

They are chasing different metrics for sure, I think those things change constantly and are dependent on finding the most value, or performance.  But the bigger issue is that prior to Eppler, the Angels simply didn't have those systems in place.

[Second Base]

Anyone else notice that in Baseball America's new top 100 prospects, the first through 13th prospects from this draft are all in the top 100.... Except Schanuel. 

There are a lot of people that think the Angels could have, and should have done better with their 11th pick. 

[mmc]

 

[Second Base]

3 minutes ago, Inside Pitch said:

Build a farm system, feed off the that.  Stoneman did it, the Dodgers are doing, the Orioles are doing it.  Unfortunately for the Angels you had a win now owner and the worst farm system in maybe the last 30 years in 2015.

There's no team I'd want to emulate more than the Orioles right now. First place in the toughest division in baseball, easily manageable payroll and an absolutely stacked minor league system. 

This is what happens when a rebuild is done right, and this is what the Angels need to begin. 

[T.G.]

5 minutes ago, Second Base said:

Anyone else notice that in Baseball America's new top 100 prospects, the first through 13th prospects from this draft are all in the top 100.... Except Schanuel. 

There are a lot of people that think the Angels could have, and should have done better with their 11th pick. 

That makes me feel better about the pick.  I'll be rooting for Schanuel even more.

[mmc]

7 minutes ago, Second Base said:

Anyone else notice that in Baseball America's new top 100 prospects, the first through 13th prospects from this draft are all in the top 100.... Except Schanuel. 

There are a lot of people that think the Angels could have, and should have done better with their 11th pick. 

How many 1B total are in there?

[Inside Pitch]

9 minutes ago, Trendon said:

One thing I don’t understand is how Dipoto went from being this out of date GM with the Angels to turning the Mariners into a pitching factory. Gilbert, Kirby, Woo, and Miller in the rotation. Brash, Muñoz. Fixing relievers out of nowhere… Sewald, Topa, Speier, Gott.

He wasn't out of date, he had a clue, he was just in love with his own opinions and thought himself the smartest guy in the room so, he fired everyone and brought in all his people.  What changed? He didnt fire all his scouting and development people in Seattle -- the Mariners always had that in place, their issue was and honestly remains developing hitters, that really hasn't changed, outside of Rodriguez -- Kelenic has reverted to his old self and the kid that won the ROY during Covid has been crap outside of all but one month in his entire career.. Pitching wise, Gilbert Kirby, Emmerson were all first rounders and if you look at all the guys Eppler picked up off the discard pile and got mileage out of them it's not all that different.

Anyway, if you look at the first two years of JD's tenure in Seattle he basically repeated a lot of the same mistakes, but he parlayed a fluke season into an extension and took advantage of an overzealous GM in NY.  Good for him.