Tear it down

[T.G.]

I'm guessing the Angels lost today?

[Angels 1961]

11 minutes ago, fan_since79 said:

New owner.

New manager.

(Maybe) new GM.

Better coaches.

Better pitching all around.

Better fundamental baseball.

Start from there and maybe the postseason won't be decades away.

What we have now is a mess.

 

Angels do have some decent young players in Neto, O'Hoppe, Detmers, Sandoval, Canning, Barria, Adell, Joyce, Bachman among others. Trade Ohtani and others get some more young players.

[wopphil]

1 minute ago, T.G. said:

I'm guessing the Angels lost today?

It isn’t about today. They have played 60 games, two full months. They are a .500 team, and their run differential proves as much. They aren’t making the playoffs. 

[Jason]

28 minutes ago, Stradling said:

But any team trading for him probably aren’t giving you major league talent because they are making a run at the pennant. If by major league talent you mean a pending free agent, then maybe. I heard someone saying the Dodgers would give up Bobby Miller and Gavin Lux, which I highly doubt.  
If the Angels were in contention are you giving up Neto and O’Hoppe for Ohtani?  

I’m Interested to see how other teams view him. If they think he can continue to hit and pitch at a high level for years to come and re-sign then yes, you trade players like Neto and O’Hoppe to acquire him. I’m skeptical that Ohtani can keep doing both at a high level. 

[Jason]

5 minutes ago, T.G. said:

I'm guessing the Angels lost today?

They played the Astros in Houston so of course they did 

[Angel Oracle]

2 hours ago, Chico said:

With this loss, the Angels fall to 30-30. Houston is 35-23 and Texas is 37-20. I think the Angels have fallen too far behind, can't stack enough wins together to catch up and don't play well against the division leaders Texas and Houston. .500 or just above is not good enough this year. Again, til Arte leaves, the Angels are toast. If it were me, I'd trade Ohtani, Rendon and Trout and get a good bounty. Start with pitching first.

Won’t trade Trout and Rendon.

But no reason they can’t trade Ohtani, Renfroe, Urshela, and Moore, all FAs after 2023.

Would be nice if they could ever find a Strider or Valdez or Javier.

Why have they stopped signing higher rated foreign pitchers?

This current rotation consists of a walk away FA starter, three inconsistent lefties, Canning, and Barria.

Just wonderful, what is the rotation going to be for the next couple of years?

This franchise is almost a total mess!

Edited June 4, 2023 by Angel Oracle

[Angel Oracle]

1 hour ago, Taylor said:

This team hasn't been good in almost a decade. Nothing is going to change unless the organization radically changes.

Only will happen when the second worst owner in MLB (all things considered) sells the team.

A disgrace to MLB

[Angel Oracle]

1 hour ago, Stradling said:

Look at rentals lately. Maybe you get a bounty if you get Baltimore involved but they were good last year and had money to spend and didn’t. So I don’t expect them to give up pieces for Ohtani. 

Better than a stinking compensation pick

[Angel Oracle]

33 minutes ago, fan_since79 said:

New owner.

New manager.

(Maybe) new GM.

Better coaches.

Better pitching all around.

Better fundamental baseball.

Start from there and maybe the postseason won't be decades away.

What we have now is a mess.

 

Eight years since Dipoto left, and yet not much improvement.

That is disgraceful!

Only one constant since 2015: shitty owner 

Edited June 4, 2023 by Angel Oracle

[ScottT]

1 hour ago, Reveille1984 said:

Two top 100 prospects is underselling an Ohtani trade? I'd take that as a centerpiece for Shohei any day of the week.  We'd likely get some major league talent coming back as well, but that's pretty obvious if we're moving him.

I think people forget how few actual contenders have multiple top 100 guys in their farm system they're willing to move (or at all).  The only two I can think of off the top of my head are the Dodgers & Orioles (Orioles have EIGHT in the top 100, holy sh*&), and I don't see Baltimore making that type of move.  Some other teams have a couple of guys, but they're more towards the bottom 100 than top.

 

 

I think people forget how many prospects fail.

Fail to ever do anything in MLB. Not just fail to live up to the hype.

[EDinTUSTIN]

2 hours ago, Chico said:

For Rendon, nothing. For Trout, something fitting, I'm not sure. It might be too late to trade Trout. The era of paying one or two people 500 million dollars has got to end for the Angels. This formula does not work. Go back to 2002. The Angels didn't have any of these supposed superstars. Just a bunch of guys who could pitch and string hits together.

And play excellent defense and exercise solid and basic fundamentals. 

[drpiranha]

1 hour ago, Angels 1961 said:

Do not forget Carlos Estevez, Matt Moore. Maybe team would take Tyler Anderson in a package deal. 

I would not trade Estevez. He has a very good contract. If someone can stick a gun to Arte's head and force him to trade Ohtani to the Dodgers for prospects, they may be able to add someone like Anderson, who was very successful as a Dodger and take back Syndergaard. Why? They are both being paid 13 mil, but for Anderson, it's for 3 years. They can stick Syndergaard in the bullpen and go to a 5 man rotation of Sandoval, Detmers, Barria, Canning, and Silseth and get them experience for next year.

[Angel Oracle]

6 minutes ago, EDinTUSTIN said:

And play excellent defense and exercise solid and basic fundamentals. 

This team gets a C-/D+ grade at those.

Congrats!  

[ScottT]

20 minutes ago, wopphil said:

It isn’t about today. They have played 60 games, two full months. They are a .500 team, and their run differential proves as much. They aren’t making the playoffs. 

The 2022 Phillies think you're silly.

A lot of teams make the playoffs 

A lot of baseball to be played

[Angel Oracle]

8 minutes ago, ScottT said:

I think people forget how many prospects fail.

Fail to ever do anything in MLB. Not just fail to live up to the hype.

So, they should just suck it up, keep Ohtani, and get just the compensation pick?

Uhh Uhh

[Angel Oracle]

1 minute ago, ScottT said:

The 2022 Phillies think you're silly.

A lot of teams make the playoffs 

A lot of baseball to be played

Nothing absolutely shows the 2022 Phillies emerging.

[Duren, Duren]

Sixty games in and it's obvious that they don't have the right stuff to make the playoffs. Bad defense. Lack of clutch hitting in close games. No starting pitcher other than Ohtani that you expect to get hot and win games regularly. A bullpen constantly being reshuffled and reinvented. 

In general, an awkward mix who may look better on paper than in the field. Eventually you have to rebuild and not keep patching makeshift rosters together. Just look at the new veterans added this season as an example. 

Even though Drury, Urshella, Renfroe, Anderson  have made contributions, why have all of them bounced around from team to team to team every year? Definitions of professional journeymen. None foundational. All brought in specifically for this year to jump start a desperate playoff push for Ohtani's benefit. 

No chemistry between them and the veteran and young players. 

Rendon's annual injury absences have messed up the batting order and positional deployment. And they always come at critical times early in the season before a regular lineup can gain continuity. Before he's hurt they are respectable. When he comes back they are out of the race. 

The Astro broadcasters were almost laughing at Trout. How easy an out he has become on high pitches. At least against their team. And they had the stats to back it up. Maybe exaggerated, and still a very good player, but not infallible. And likely not on an upward career trajectory anymore. His 'new normal' looks like it will be less productive than what was taken for granted. 

Waiting for a sudden turnaround seems futile. Too many other teams to pass. The writing is on the wall about a change of philosophy and a new set of priorities. Not 'if' they need to change, but when. 

 

 

 

[SoWhat]

40 minutes ago, Angel Oracle said:

Eight years since Dipoto left, and yet not much improvement.

That is disgraceful!

Only one constant since 2015: shitty owner 

Holy shit. It’s crazy to think it’s almost been a decade since Dipoto left. Time fucking flies 

[Angel Oracle]

14 minutes ago, Duren, Duren said:

Sixty games in and it's obvious that they don't have the right stuff to make the playoffs. Bad defense. Lack of clutch hitting in close games. No starting pitcher other than Ohtani that you expect to get hot and win games regularly. A bullpen constantly being reshuffled and reinvented. 

In general, an awkward mix who may look better on paper than in the field. Eventually you have to rebuild and not keep patching makeshift rosters together. Just look at the new veterans added this season as an example. 

Even though Drury, Urshella, Renfroe, Anderson  have made contributions, why have all of them bounced around from team to team to team every year? Definitions of professional journeymen. None foundational. All brought in specifically for this year to jump start a desperate playoff push for Ohtani's benefit. 

No chemistry between them and the veteran and young players. 

Rendon's annual injury absences have messed up the batting order and positional deployment. And they always come at critical times early in the season before a regular lineup can gain continuity. Before he's hurt they are respectable. When he comes back they are out of the race. 

The Astro broadcasters were almost laughing at Trout. How easy an out he has become on high pitches. At least against their team. And they had the stats to back it up. Maybe exaggerated, and still a very good player, but not infallible. And likely not on an upward career trajectory anymore. His 'new normal' looks like it will be less productive than what was taken for granted. 

Waiting for a sudden turnaround seems futile. Too many other teams to pass. The writing is on the wall about a change of philosophy and a new set of priorities. Not 'if' they need to change, but when. 

 

 

 

Does this team even have real coaching and scouting?

[Angels 1961]

44 minutes ago, drpiranha said:

I would not trade Estevez. He has a very good contract. If someone can stick a gun to Arte's head and force him to trade Ohtani to the Dodgers for prospects, they may be able to add someone like Anderson, who was very successful as a Dodger and take back Syndergaard. Why? They are both being paid 13 mil, but for Anderson, it's for 3 years. They can stick Syndergaard in the bullpen and go to a 5 man rotation of Sandoval, Detmers, Barria, Canning, and Silseth and get them experience for next year.

I trade Estevez because he has a good contract. His value will never be higher. Ohtani gone so is this season build for the future. I think Estevez would bring back a decent player. This deadline will be very interesting, and I hope Moreno does not get in the way of what needs to be done.

[Stradling]

Just now, Angel Oracle said:

Does this team even have real coaching and scouting?

No they just guessed right with Neto, O’Hoppe, Joyce as well as others. 

[Angels 1961]

9 minutes ago, SoWhat said:

Holy shit. It’s crazy to think it’s almost been a decade since Dipoto left. Time fucking flies 

Many, many L in last decade.

[Jay]

2 hours ago, Stradling said:

Look at rentals lately. Maybe you get a bounty if you get Baltimore involved but they were good last year and had money to spend and didn’t. So I don’t expect them to give up pieces for Ohtani. 

So the Angels found a way to get fucked. They're really good at that.

[Angelsjunky]

While I also do not think this team has what it takes and I wouldn't be surprised to see a borderline implosion/collapse over the next few weeks, we're still at that point where a hot week or two gets them back into the thick of things. Consider that on the morning of May 26 - just 8 days ago - the Angels were 28-23 and the Astros 28-21. Right now that has swung to 30-30 and 35-23, so a 1 game gap has widened to 6 games. But that's kind of the point: Just nine games and the Angels lose 5 games on the Astros. Nine more games and they could (in theory) gain most of those back.

Now the Angels are the Angels and the Astros are the Astros, so I don't expect them to catch up. Fangraphs gives them a 15.6% chance of making the playoffs, which I think is rather high. I'd say it is more like half that. 

Either way, the next month will pretty much set the course for what the Angels do in July and at the deadline. I'm sure that by the ASB, they'll take a hard look at where they're at and hopefully be willing to start shedding parts after the ASB, which is July 9-13. But I don't expect anything to happen until then.

So in a way, the baseball season for the Angels--at least as far as window of possible contention--is the next five weeks. If they don't start playing well in that time, it would be absurd not to trade as many of Ohtani, Renfroe, Urshela, and Drury, and a bunch of other guys, if possible. No one will take on the Trout or Rendon contracts, and Anderson is also probably dead weight. Of course you keep the young guys, but Estevez could be a nice trade chip, if he keeps pitching well.

 

Edited June 4, 2023 by Angelsjunky

[Angelsjunky]

I also wouldn't be surprised to see Arte dump Minasian after the year. He still has 2024 on contract, but it isn't like Arte hasn't let management go before their contract is through. By the end of the year, Perry would have had three full seasons to move the needle. If the Angels finish around .500 or below, he'll have just continued the pattern of treading water.