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Angels recall Rengifo and Buchter, place Milner (10 day) and Barreto (COVID protocols) on the IL

Angels recall Rengifo and Buchter, place Milner (10 day) and Barreto (COVID protocols) on the IL

Bundy next to go? The Braves and White Sox are interested!

 

My Prediction: Traded to the New York Yankees. 

The Yankees have lost Gleyber Torres for 3-6 weeks and prior to his injury he's looked anything close to his 2019 campaign on both sides of the game. 

His replacement Tyler Wade is slashing a robust .167/.257/.490 and is nowhere near as good defensively at SS as Simmons. The backup to Wade is Jordy Mercer who isn't worth a bag of gum balls. 

The Return: The Angels land either active RHP Jonathan Loaisiga or one of the following SP prospects: Luis Gil, Luis Medina, Roansy Contreras or Alexander Vizcaino.

EDIT: Adding the Tommy picture to this post as I will be posting this thread to the Angelswin Twitter account - John Taylor

Gameday Thread: Angels vs. Mariners (8/28/2020)

Angels recall Walsh and Quijada, option Sandoval and Hermosillo

It's widely known that before the trade Billy Eppler made this offseason to acquire Dylan Bundy, the Angels GM has swung and missed on acquiring & signing viable major league starting pitchers to date. One could also argue his track record of trading for and signing major league hitters is questionable as well you consider Cozart & Upton, but he's done much better in that department than pitching. Goodwin, La Stella and in a small sample size Stassi have been pretty solid. 

The jury is still out on Canning and Sandoval, one of which he drafted and the other who Eppler acquired from Houston in the Maldonado trade. There's also hope in the Angels 1st round pick Reid Detmers, Chris Rodriguez and a few other pitching prospects down the road, but in terms of results from the arms he has acquired, drafted & signed to date, there is little to be desired.

Let's take a look....

Chacin: 4.81 ERA, (2016)

Nolasco: 4.44 ERA (2016), 4.92 ERA (2017)

Meyer: 3.74 ERA (2018), 5.68 ERA (2017) 19 total starts across two seasons * RETIRED

Lincecum: 9.16 ERA (2016)

Despaigne: 8.20 ERA (2018)

McGuire: 6.07 ERA (2018)

JC Ramirez 4.15 ERA (2017), 9.45 ERA (2018), 4.50 ERA (2019) *Used mostly as a starter

Pena: 4.58 ERA (2019), 4.18 ERA (2018) across 15 starts *Used mostly in relief

Sandoval: 5.19 ERA across 13 starts

Canning: 4.62 across 22 starts

Ohtani: 4.39 ERA across 12 starts

Peters: 5.38 ERA (2019) 

Cahill: 5.98 ERA (2019) 

Harvey: 7.09 ERA (2019) 

Stratton: 8.59 ERA (2019) 

Andriese: 6.50 ERA (2020) 1 start, mostly in relief

Teheran: 10.38 ERA (2020) 3 starts

.......

Bundy: 2.48 ERA (2020) through 5 starts! 

WINNER WINNER CHICKEN DINNER!!!  

Most people can say "you win some, you lose some" in life. Billy Eppler unfortunately has whiffed more than Dave Kingman blindfolded when it has come to acquiring viable major league talent that can take the ball every 5th or 6th day. 

If the rotation doesn't turn things around prior to the trade deadline and if the Angels miss out on yet another playoff berth since Eppler became the GM prior to the 2016 season, the Angels GM may find himself out of a job shortly after the conclusion of this 2020 campaign. 

So here is an update on how the pitchers that were signed or traded for this past offseason are doing.  Some of the arms that we missed out on via free agency or via a trade are doing quite well and others are not. Thankfully management passed on those guys. That said, if there was ever an offseason where a team had more of a glaring weakness than the Angels did in terms of starting pitching it was this past offseason.

Did they do enough? Should they have given the likes of Keuchel and Ryu contracts in addition to the Bundy acquisition and passed on Teheran? Did they count on Ohtani returning to his 2018 form a bit too much? Questions Questions?!?!

Missed Offseason Targets: 

Gerrit Cole: 2.75 ERA, 0.89 WHIP

Dallas Keuchel: 2.70 ERA, 0.98 WHIP

Hyun Jin Ryu: 3.19 ERA, 1.03 WHIP

Zack Wheeler: 2.76 ERA, 1.10 WHIP

Kwang Hyun Kim: 1.69 ERA, 1.03 WHIP

Tyler Anderson: 3.45 ERA, 1.21 WHIP

Brett Anderson: 3.52 ERA, 1.26 WHIP

Taijuan Walker: 4.00 ERA, 1.07 WHIP

----

Dodged Offseason Bullets:

Stephen Strasburg: 10.80 ERA, 1.80 WHIP (injured)

Matt Boyd: 8.48 ERA, 1.74 WHIP

Kyle Gibson: 5.73 ERA, 1.48 WHIP

Rick Porcello: 6.43 ERA, 1.64 WHIP

Madison Bumgarner: 9.35 ERA, 1.56 WHIP (injured)

Jake Odorizzi: 8.10 ERA, 1.60 WHIP (injured)

Alex Wood: 9.00 ERA, 2.00 WHIP (injured)

Tanner Roark: 4.91 ERA, 1.73 WHIP

 

----

Signed or Acquired:

Dyland Bundy: 2.58 ERA, 0.89 WHIP

Julio Teheran: 9.17 ERA, 1.70 WHIP

Matt Andriese: 6.50 ERA, 1.50 WHIP

 

My Take: The moral of this story is develop your own pitching through the draft and draft as many arms as you can.  If you are going to go outside of your organization for pitching help I think it's best to sign or trade for durable arms or to go after high risk/reward types on the cheap.

Gameday Thread: Angels vs. Astros (8/25/2020) - Let's play TWO

MLB: Wednesday's Game Postponed, Rescheduled for Sept 5th (Doubleheader)

Gameday Thread: Angels vs. Astros (8/24/2020)

Angels announce scheduling changes for the Astros series

https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2020/08/angels-trade-rumors-dylan-bundy.html

Gameday Thread: Angels vs. A's (8/23/2020)

Check your baseball card collections everyone, Trout's rookie card sold for $3,936,000

A Trout rookie card is still the missing piece of my collection, and most likely will remain that way until I win the lottery, lol

https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/29723239/mike-trout-rookie-card-becomes-highest-selling-sports-card-all

Gameday Thread: Angels vs. A's (8/22/2020)

He is now top 10 in AL batting since that terrible start. It wasn't that long ago we were all worried about him

I didn’t think it was possible the Angels would be this bad. So I never thought Epplers job was in jeopardy this season. Now that we’ve seen them play like hot garbage early on. If this keeps up and nothing changes do you think that Eppler will be employed by the Angels next season? I for one think I’ve changed my mind. I think if this season continues like this. He is likely done here. And may not make it through the season. 

If you were the GM would you trade the following players/prospects in an attempt to ramp up the team to succeed in 2021 & beyond?

Jo Adell and/or Brandon Marsh (for the likes of a Clevinger/Pleasac type)

Dylan Bundy (One-year of control, could be a good middle of the rotation guy on a winning playoff team). 

Andrelton Simmons (If a team loses a starting SS or is not getting the defense they need to succeed in the playoffs, I can see him being moved) 

Brian Goodwin (Prior to last night's game Goodwin had a +.900 OPS and has been a solid contributor who can play all 3 OF positions)

Andrew Heaney (While he was our #1 starter going into the season, he could be a legit backend guy on a winning team that's struggled to get any production out of their #4 or #5 guys)

Griffin Canning (Had a good minor league track record, 2nd round pick and has shown flashes of brilliance at the big league level)

 

I love baseball but sometimes I don’t understand what’s wrong with this sport. It’s infuriating this is actually something. 

Let's take a moment and talk about after the playoffs and after this who 2020 mystery season ends...

Angels will have to make some big decisions on what to do with some core players.

Andrelton Simmons is expected to become a free agent and the money he may command could be used in much better areas to give the Angels a much better chance at competing. 

As much as I love watching Simba make ridiculous plays at SS his style of play has become very one-sided. His bat has struggled (though the injuries haven't helped), and David Fletcher has shown that he can provide solid defense with one hell of a bat. I said this last year too that Fletcher should become the shortstop and the Angels need to use the money for pitching. 

After missing out on the Cole sweepstakes last offseason, the Angels are in desperate need to keep acquiring pitching. Dylan Bundy looks to lead the staff next year as the Ace, but with Ohtanias a big question mark for 2021, the Angels need to bolster their rotation with premium arms. And no, Heaney/Canning/Teheran aren't aces. They need to make a run at Trevor Bauer and/or Marcus Stroman (like every team will). The FA list is deep so there are other names on there as well...

Secondly, Justin Upton. With Brandon Marsh waiting in the wings and Upton flirting with the .100 line, I don't think the Angels are considering moving Marsh in a trade deal for a good arm any time soon. 

I understand 2020 is a crazy year where everyone is off (kinda), but we can all agree that Upton batting and in the outfield is a hazard without even discussing his bearish stat lines. 

Maddon has done a good job recognizing that Upton and Pujols are becoming issues and not playing them as frequently as Scioscia/Ausmus did and this could potentially put the bug in Eppler's ear to do something. 

Either way, as much as I love watching Simba bless the fans of Anaheim, his potential new contract could be used for someone to really help put the Angels over the hump. The offense and defense is there (without Simba). It's just time to get the last few arms needed to dominate. 

Same winning lineup as last night with the exception of Adell for Upton! 

Let's face it, at this point of the offseason, none of us thought our biggest pitching acquisitions would be Bundy and Teheran. Knowing that not much else appears to be on the horizon any time soon, I started to dig in to Bundy a little bit more. For whatever reason, I kept thinking about a correlation between Bundy and Arrieta for the obvious reasons. Not only were they both Orioles pitching in Baltimore's bandbox, but they were also both promising young talents that never really materialized in Baltimore. On top of that they both ended up on a Joe Maddon coached team, which makes me think that Maddon could have been a reason for the Bundy trade (Maddon was hired by the Cubs in 2014 after the Cubs acquired Arrieta at the 2013 TDL).  

So, I started to look deeper and it seems the two have some similarities just based on their top level peripherals.

Bundy - Age 26 Season

4.79 ERA


4.73 FIP


1.355 WHIP


9.0 H/9


1.6 HR/9


3.2 BB/9


9.0 SO/9


Arrieta - Age 26 Season

6.20 ERA


4.05 FIP


1.369 WHIP


9.6 H/9


1.3 HR/9


2.7 BB/9


8.6 SO/9


Now, when looking into Bundy more, I came across this article from Going Deep: https://www.pitcherlist.com/going-deep-dylan-bundy-should-make-a-few-simple-changes/

To summarize, the article talks about a comparison between Bundy and Corbin and the desire for Bundy to adjust his pitch mix with increases in slider and changeup usage. The article also notes a change in Bundy's pitch mix starting at the end of 2019. Bundy significantly bumped up his sinker usage, which helped his HR/FB and HR/9 to come down to earth (and Bundy has always been killed by the long ball against his four seamer). Not only that, Bundy also saw improved changes to his ERA indicators as well as improvements to his fastball after the change, which has always been his worst pitch. The author wonders what a sinker, slider, changeup combination would look like for Bundy considering he began inducing many more groundballs instead of hard hit fly balls off his four seamer that resulted in HR's in Camden. 

Now I am not saying that Bundy is going to become Arrieta, far from it. Arrieta has always thrown his sinker pretty regularly and Bundy will probably never have the type of sinker that Arrieta uses. But I also think Bundy can be much better for a few reasons:

No longer pitching in Camden.


Callaway and Maddon


Increased usage of a sinker/slider/changeup combination


Time will tell. 

I will also add that if Fletcher continues his awesomeness, La Stella proves that his 2019 season was no fluke & Ohtani continues to hit the way he has recently and the way we know he can this is going to be one hell of an offensive force.

I mean, Castro and Stassi have what 6 home runs between them already. That would be a pace of nearly 40 HR in a regular season from the two.

Goodwin seems to have also shown that like La Stella his 2019 was no fluke as well.

Now if we can just get production out of one of Adell or Upton, this may become the best lineup in baseball. Even Pujols hasn't been too shabby!