Jeff Fletcher Predicts: Garza to Angels

[nate]

The Angels have a lot more ifs than other teams because they have no depth at all.

[OregonLAA]

If Donaldson can repeat what he did last year

If Cespedes can bounce back

If Crisp can stay healthy

If Reddick can bounce back

If they can replace Colon in the lineup

If Lowrie can stay on the field

If the bullpen can pitch like they're supposed to

If their young starters can pitch as expected

And that's the team I have favored to win the AL West

[YouthofToday]

We can trade for Mathis for a lot less resources. The CERA King and his immense talents can surely get similar production out of Blanton :-)

[floplag]

Think about all the "ifs" the Angels have in order to win say, 90 games.

 

If none of the starting pitchers get injured.

If Weaver can pitch up to his career norms

If Wilson can continue to pitch at his career norms

If Skaggs reaches his ceiling of a #3 pitcher

If none of the bullpen arms get injured

If Frieri can improve on his first two seasons

If Smith adjusts well to the new team

If Hamilton turns it around

If Pujols turns it around

If 90 year old Ibanez can DH full time

If Calhoun doesn't have a sophmore slump

 

If two of those ifs don't come true then this team wins less than 85 games.

 

You could make a list such as this for EVERY team in contention.

 

I actually think ours is far simpler, it all comes down to Pujols and Hamilton playing to expectations, nothing more, if that happens we are not near as bad as some people think.

 

Do we need some SP depth, yes, we do... right now Blanton is probably the #5.  If we get the better Blanton thats ok, if we get My Hyde its not and Skaggs will get the call sooner rather than later.  Blanton did have some very good stats last year, its just that the bad ones were terribad.

[KingJustinian]

The Angels have a lot more ifs than other teams because they have no depth at all.

Fair enough, but that mostly just means they lack depth for injuries more than other teams. If weaver pitches like a #3 he won't be benched.

The Angels will still probably add pitching depth too.

[rick99gtp]

The Angels have no more ifs than any other team. Man, nate spits opinions out like they are facts.

Nate, please preface everything you say with "in my opinion". That way, at the end of the season you won't appear to look as dumb.

[Chuck]

The Angels have a lot more ifs than other teams because they have no depth at all.

 

The best part about spring training is that EVERY TEAM has a bunch of IF's, even the proven regulars are IF's.

 

One injury or slump at the wrong time of the season and it could cost their team a chance at the playoffs.

 

And puluuuueeeeze don't point to teams that got better on paper this offseason, we all know how that pans out. You still have to play the facking games and the Angels have enough talent and depth now to make it happen.

[bloodbrother]

The list doesn't even need to be that long

 

You can pretty much sum up this team by saying that if Pujols/Hamilton return to form(or somewhere to it) and the starting pitching improves, this team will be a contender

[Brent Maguire]

The list doesn't even need to be that long

You can pretty much sum up this team by saying that if Pujols/Hamilton return to form(or somewhere to it) and the starting pitching improves, this team will be a contender

Yup.

Having a bullpen that just pitches above average would help too.

[bloodbrother]

Improved rotation would help make the pen more effective IMO. Starters pitching deeper into games means they won't need to rely as heavily on the pen. The back-end of it looks solid enough with Frieri/Smith De La Rosa, with Burnett as a wildcard.

 

I really hope Frieri has worked on controlling his slider. He cannot just keep going through being a 1 pitch pitcher.

Edited January 23, 2014 by bloodbrother

[VariousCrap]

You have no way of knowing that.

 

 

Why would Trout extend to stay on a team that sucks?

[nate]

Again, Oakland has a very deep farm system.  If those things don't happen they have other players that can step in.

 

On top of it all we still have Scioscia in charge.

[Brent Maguire]

Definitely agree with your first sentence.

My concern is that Santiago, Richards and Skaggs haven't had big 200 inning workloads yet. They all can't be expected to pitch deep into games unless their innings are limited.

That's why signing another starter is necessary.

[KingJustinian]

Definitely agree with your first sentence.

My concern is that Santiago, Richards and Skaggs haven't had big 200 inning workloads yet. They all can't be expected to pitch deep into games unless their innings are limited.

That's why signing another starter is necessary.

Dipoto said he's looking to sign a veteran starter still right? Idk if that was before Mulder was signed or not though.

[floplag]

Again, Oakland has a very deep farm system.  If those things don't happen they have other players that can step in.

 

On top of it all we still have Scioscia in charge.

 

...and you assume rookies will step in and play to the level of MLers?  but then i guess since you assume all our MLers suck why not, lol

 

Depth is nice.. a farm system is nice, but lets be honest, at the end of the day you hope you dont need either because if you need to rely on either or both you are going to have issues. 

 

Im not knocking having them at all.. and yes at some point history suggests you will need them, that to is a given.

 

The reality is that any team regardless of depth, or quality of farm, cannot sustain losses to its best players and expect that depth to perform at the same levels.  You dont replace a guy with a 4 WAR with an unknown unproven rookie and go on like nothing is happening in most cases, unless of course you happen to play for the A's i guess.

 

Last season was a collection of worst case scenarios for us...Weaver gets hurt, Pujols playing hurt, Hamilton came in and tried to do too much, virtually every pitching gamble we took failed, we got nothing at all out of 3B, I mean really you talk about luck, did we have any at all last season?

The bottom line for the Angels is simple, Pujols and Hamilton must play like Pujols and Hamilton, or the rest is moot.  Our rotation wont hinge on whoever the 5 guy is.. but how well the staff performs as a whole.. having 2-3 guys with ERAs over 5 is going to kill any team.

I for one belive this team could contend even with Blanton in the 5 to start the year if those other things work as they should... but i guess that only happens in Oakland

[Docwaukee]

Think about all the "ifs" the Angels have in order to win say, 90 games.

 

If none of the starting pitchers get injured.

If Weaver can pitch up to his career norms

If Wilson can continue to pitch at his career norms

If Skaggs reaches his ceiling of a #3 pitcher

If none of the bullpen arms get injured

If Frieri can improve on his first two seasons

If Smith adjusts well to the new team

If Hamilton turns it around

If Pujols turns it around

If 90 year old Ibanez can DH full time

If Calhoun doesn't have a sophmore slump

 

If two of those ifs don't come true then this team wins less than 85 games.

 I agree with all of your question marks

 I disagree that if two of them don't come true that the team will win less than 85 games.

 

Last year, everything went wrong. 

In 2012, a lot went wrong.  The rotation and pen were pretty much a disaster and the team won 89 games. 

 

To me, the keys are going to be getting solid everyday production from pujols and hamilton.  Nothing spectacular.  Solid work from the rotation.  I am going to assume that we will add another starter so Blanton becomes less relevant.  As long as we don't have two guys explode (in a bad way) then we will be ok.  The pen needs to be about average as does team defense. 

 

And Mike Trout needs to be Mike Trout. 

 

If that happens, we will be good enough to get 90 wins.  Getting above that will depend on a little luck and some performances above what was expected.  ie Hamilton goes back to being a true middle of the order bat, Two of Skaggs, Richards, and Santiago turn into middle of the rotation starters.  Fieri's secondary pitches work and make him an elite closer and Burnett, Smith, and DDLR are very strong.  Freese has a season similar to 2012. 

 

2013 was so awful that it seems like it's gonna take an act of God to turn things around.  It's not.  It just has to go back to being more normal.   

[VariousCrap]

I for one belive this team could contend even with Blanton in the 5 to start the year if those other things work as they should... but i guess that only happens in Oakland

 

 

 

You had a good post until that.

[floplag]

You had a good post until that.

 

OK, but why?  i mean i get that his overall stats sucked.. im not suggesting otherwise, but the guy didnt suck every start.  He had some very good games in fact.  if you dont believe me look it up, there was a stretch from mid-late may thru June early July that he was actually quite good there for a while compliling an ERA in the 3-4 range and putting up some very good starts.

Lost in the fact that the bad starts were terribad he had more quality starts that Richards did and his Ks per 9 were between Wilson and Weaver and his K/BB ration was over 3-1.  how that equates to a guy that got hit like a pinball machine in other starts is confusing, sounds mental to me as the stuff was clearly not always absent.

When he was bad he was horrifically bad, no question... but when he wasnt a grease fire he was actually not to bad at all for a bottom of the rotation guy.  He was one of the biggest jeckle/hyde pitchers i can recall in recent memory outside of Santana and looked what he did the year after.

Look im not saying i WANT him there but the fact is he is on the roster and is part of the equation. if we got that guy that wasnt a dumpster fire we would be in terrific shape... if we got the other guy then Skaggs gets here sooner rather than later... not to mention we need to see what Mulder does which might make it all moot.

[Stradling]

You are absolutely right flop, but I just can't see the Angels starting the season with him in the rotation. We all have to hope he has a great spring, like last year, and some other team has an injury and will take him off our hands and we send them about $5 million of his salary.

[floplag]

Noone is going to take him unless he turns it around.. and if he does we have no reason to deal him.

I suspect they are looking at trades, which has been my preferred method all along, to acquire a better option perhaps in ST or mid season, but if none of that pans as of right now im betting that wall that has all the real depth charts almost must have him at #5 going into ST.

[Stradling]

flop, he had a great spring last year.

[floplag]

yes, i know.. precisely why i have said that Skaggs if he starts in AAA should be ready to get on ap lane at any time... though i am really interested to see Mulder in ST.. i think that might be looming larger than people think.

[Stradling]

flop, I really want Mulder to make it back. Even if he can pitch a handful of games for us, I think that would be great. Also, you add in the fact that he could be a pretty great mentor to guys like Richards, Skaggs and Santiago. He could be more valuable than his stats.

[St1ck]

That Jeff Fletcher is full of shit. 

[Cdaniel]

flop, I really want Mulder to make it back. Even if he can pitch a handful of games for us, I think that would be great. Also, you add in the fact that he could be a pretty great mentor to guys like Richards, Skaggs and Santiago. He could be more valuable than his stats.

It would be awesome if Mulder made the team. I wouldn't mind seeing a Williams role for him. Not sure if he would though.