Jeremy Berg update

[ettin]

Set aside the fact that I'm fairly certain that calling him up now actually has no impact on his service time (I believe that is why the Rays called up Myers when they did as the cutoff had already passed). I'm indignant because you are pinching pennies on one of the most fungible assets in baseball. Berg has a low ceiling. At best, he becomes Darren O'Day and makes $4 million per year in free agency when he is 34 FREAKING YEARS OLD!

 

The line that you never know which reliever is the next Rivera/Papelbon/Shields is patently false. These aren't guys that just fall out of trees. Pedestrian minor league relievers don't become elite relievers for years on end. So why worry about saving one or two million bucks over his arbitration years which won't start until three year from now when you are trying to win a World Series in the immediate future? That is pocket change to a team with the spending power of the Angels. The odds of a guy like Berg even being in the majors long enough to see his arbitration years are small to begin with. But on the off chance he turns out to be decent, the Angels will have figured it out now during a period where it doesn't hurt them if he turns out to be awful. That has value in its own right. If that costs them an extra two or three million in a few years, then I would argue that it is more than worth it (and again, I don't think there are service clock repercussions this late in the season). The same goes for just about any other of their fringe prospect guys. Call up Shoemaker. Recall Roth. Keep Green in the lineup somewhere when Howie gets healthy. Start Calhoun every single day. Call up anybody that they think might be able to help the 2014 team now and see if they can hack it. The only good thing about the Angels being horrible is that it has granted them two months of free evaluation time for their young players.

 

Now, if we were talking about a high end talent like Cron (not that he's ready, just an example) then maybe you have a point because the future money it costs is several times higher. But even then, for a team that intends to contend in 2014, it should be a minor concern. Budget control is great, but flags fly forever.

 

Talking about making a mountain out of a mole hill. Okay let's go there then.

 

If you can't get it through your brain that every team has a budget to handle and manage, you need to shut down your web site and go back and take an economics class. Money matters in Major League Baseball. Service time matters in MLB.

 

Yes, Berg is 27 years old. Yes he has been doing fairly well in the Minors at AAA. Yes the Angels are perfectly capable of bringing him up for the cup of coffee that a lot of you are clamoring for. I really have no problems with any of these things.

 

Why you feel the need to jump down my throat when I simply suggested that service time and budget might be a consideration is beyond me. Your tone and demeanor in your responses has an elitist edge to it that is just uncalled for especially on an issue that has very little bearing on the Angels season and probably beyond.

 

In response to your comment about elite relievers if you go back and read my original post I never indicated that Berg was or is an elite reliever. I was merely talking generally that teams have to take service time into consideration and that you never know what player will rise to the occasion of playing at the Major League level and turn it up a notch when they reach the top. Baseball history is littered with players who were indiscernible from their peers in the Minors but then differentiated themselves after they reached the Majors.

 

Is that Jeremy Berg? Probably not. In fact almost certainly not. Talent evaluation doesn't have to start and end in the Majors. If you don't think for a second that the Angels coaching staff knows if Berg is ready to try his hand in the Show you'd be fooling yourself. It is fun to sit back and watch a video clip of him throwing a couple of pitches down in AAA or pulling up his stat page and seeing the decent numbers in AAA and think, "Yeah we need this guy up to see what he can do for our team!", but we, as people on the outside of the organization, don't know about his makeup, his demeanor, and whether or not he truly is ready. Only the professional baseball people know that.

 

Thanks for taking a minor comment and making it your own personal soapbox. I especially liked your belittlement of my suggestion that budget might be a concern and tossing in the "Flags Fly Forever" comment to emphasize your point.

 

By the way have we won a f**king flag lately? Have we even gotten close? We have overspent in free agency (although we can probably afford it) and this has made budget a concern for the foreseeable future unless Arte wants to go even deeper into the well and that doesn't seem like it will happen this time around.

 

So, yes, budget is a concern and that was my small contribution to this thread. I truly don't care if Berg is brought up or not. If he is great! If the Angels are willing to give him that chance, great! If they don't I totally understand!

 

It's not our money right?

[SoWhat]

Lol Worrying about paying Berg in his 30's is pretty ridiculous.

[Make Angels Great Again]

If he isn't brought up it has absolutely nothing to do with his service clock.

[monkeywithahalo]

I'll fall on my sword here, ettin. You are absolutely right, I made a lot more out of the comment than it merited. Let's just say that this garbage team has made me a bit more ornery than normal.

 

My general point, and I never intended for it to be directed at you, is that there is a lot of hand-wringing over the Angels budget that I find unmerited. The Angels definitely need to keep their budget under control, but I think it is wildly overstated by many that the Angels are in some kind of budget crunch. As I stated previously, this franchise can easily carry a $150 million payroll and probably could go $25 million beyond that. With their current obligations, they probably can't (and shouldn't) be handing out a nine figure contract to a free agent this summer, but they aren't exactly handcuffed either.

 

I've seen some people in various outlets suggest that somehow the Angels won't be able to afford an extension for Mike Trout and that is nothing but fear mongering. Then to see the Berg statement, it just triggered me as being the ultimate in "penny wise but pound foolish" thinking even though it was just an innocuous question. I'll just shut up now, apologize once more and try to keep my rants to myself... at least until someone suggests the Angels trade Trumbo or Bourjos for a freaking reliever.

[axalar]

Being that his success hinges greatly on the deception/irregularity of his delivery, why would you want to give teams more time to figure it out when it wont make a difference for us this season? It's basically tipping our cap.

 

On another question, is he being profiled as high leverage or not?

Bases empty line: .276/.324/.417

Runners on: .219/.273/.254

PA's are almost exactly equal in each situation.

 

I'm wonder if there's a story here about how they manage his use in the Minors. Maybe he's only used towards the end of the MOTO, then mops up the scrubs. Anyone got any input here on when he's typically brought in and whether he's being used in only certain situations?

[ettin]

I'll fall on my sword here, ettin. You are absolutely right, I made a lot more out of the comment than it merited. Let's just say that this garbage team has made me a bit more ornery than normal.

 

My general point, and I never intended for it to be directed at you, is that there is a lot of hand-wringing over the Angels budget that I find unmerited. The Angels definitely need to keep their budget under control, but I think it is wildly overstated by many that the Angels are in some kind of budget crunch. As I stated previously, this franchise can easily carry a $150 million payroll and probably could go $25 million beyond that. With their current obligations, they probably can't (and shouldn't) be handing out a nine figure contract to a free agent this summer, but they aren't exactly handcuffed either.

 

I've seen some people in various outlets suggest that somehow the Angels won't be able to afford an extension for Mike Trout and that is nothing but fear mongering. Then to see the Berg statement, it just triggered me as being the ultimate in "penny wise but pound foolish" thinking even though it was just an innocuous question. I'll just shut up now, apologize once more and try to keep my rants to myself... at least until someone suggests the Angels trade Trumbo or Bourjos for a freaking reliever.

 

I'll apologize too. Lately it has been very difficult to come to this board. The sh*t season (along with the other previous three) has people in a foul mood and I have found myself in an equally foul one at times.

 

I write articles for the board and I see comments written about them that at times are legitimate and fair and at other times are just troll comments that make me wonder why I even try to start a discussion on something.

 

E-mail and message boards aren't the best tools sometimes to communicate thought, emotion, and feeling. Sometimes we all, myself included, write a thought and it just doesn't quite come out the way we intended it too.

 

The negativity is palpable and it is hard not to get caught up in the waves of posts about the state of the team. There is something wrong and the problem is that the 'wrong' is so spread out across the entire organization that it is difficult to pinpoint where it is we need to improve!

 

Dipoto made a bunch of high risk moves and most of them fell through (Hanson, Madson, and Blanton), despite my belief that he is an intelligent GM with a vision of the Angels long term future. S-C-I-O-S-C-I-A, although a very capable and thoughtful MLB manager, has to take responsibility for the teams performance as the leader of this team because his message seems to be stale and his calls are sometimes questionable. The individual players have generally failed to perform to their expectations which seems to come from a lack of focus and a failure to string together good at-bats behind poor defense.

 

My response was sharp so you have my apologies monkey. I'm in a foul mood these days. Maybe I need a break from the board.

[Angel Oracle]

I have to think that with pitching in 42 games already for SLC (1.5 innings/game), that Berg is used in all situations except not as a closer.

How many orgs woud not promote a pitcher who has the runners on base stats that he has, plus the 1.10 WHIP and 2.20 ERA?

 

The only thing I can think of is they don't want to have MLB hitters face him until 2014, so that the surprise element is there.

What else could it be?

[monkeywithahalo]

I'll apologize too. Lately it has been very difficult to come to this board. The sh*t season (along with the other previous three) has people in a foul mood and I have found myself in an equally foul one at times.

 

I write articles for the board and I see comments written about them that at times are legitimate and fair and at other times are just troll comments that make me wonder why I even try to start a discussion on something.

 

E-mail and message boards aren't the best tools sometimes to communicate thought, emotion, and feeling. Sometimes we all, myself included, write a thought and it just doesn't quite come out the way we intended it too.

 

The negativity is palpable and it is hard not to get caught up in the waves of posts about the state of the team. There is something wrong and the problem is that the 'wrong' is so spread out across the entire organization that it is difficult to pinpoint where it is we need to improve!

 

Dipoto made a bunch of high risk moves and most of them fell through (Hanson, Madson, and Blanton), despite my belief that he is an intelligent GM with a vision of the Angels long term future. S-C-I-O-S-C-I-A, although a very capable and thoughtful MLB manager, has to take responsibility for the teams performance as the leader of this team because his message seems to be stale and his calls are sometimes questionable. The individual players have generally failed to perform to their expectations which seems to come from a lack of focus and a failure to string together good at-bats behind poor defense.

 

My response was sharp so you have my apologies monkey. I'm in a foul mood these days. Maybe I need a break from the board.

 

Are.. are we supposed to hug now? I'm pretty sure that's how this works.

[ettin]

Are.. are we supposed to hug now? I'm pretty sure that's how this works.

 

I think it depends on how much you've drank?

 

Maybe we all need a hug?

[rageous]

To be honest I really don't care personally but to suggest, as monkeywithahalo did, that service time and team budget doesn't matter because Berg is a reliever is just not realistic. Every player matters.

You really only worry about service time for someone that is surefire major league quality player or a really young player that is still developing.

Nobody in their right mind would worry that about a soft throwing 27 year old reliever that is at best a questionable major league quality player.

Next you will be saying they aren't bringing up Romine because of his service time.

[ettin]

You really only worry about service time for someone that is surefire major league quality player or a really young player that is still developing.

Nobody in their right mind would worry that about a soft throwing 27 year old reliever that is at best a questionable major league quality player.

Next you will be saying they aren't bringing up Romine because of his service time.

 

Ahhh there is one of my die hard fans.