Dave Saltzer

Guys, this is quickly becoming my favorite ongoing article style on the site. Please keep it up all season long--it's truly a great reason to log on here every week for this.

Thank you for posting this. Great read indeed. Some thoughts: 1) A lot of this is Jerry Dipoto. Say what you want about the man, but I believe he's doing a LOT to improve the organization overall. He's gotten the organization to overhaul its approach to player development and how much it spends on it. He hired Servais, and that was a great pickup. 2) In talking privately with many of the coaches in the system, I had heard about this, but in a different way. Some who declined to be interviewed about how or what they coached responded with comments like "you know all the answers, there the same ones that you've been told all your life. Just make it simple and do them" or comments to that affect. 3) The Angels have moved a couple of coaches up a level this year. I had thought that maybe it was to keep the same coaches with the same players. I'm now more convinced of that and will try and figure it out this year. 4) I don't think it's entirely fair to blame our lack of post seasons entirely or even substantially on Brandon Woods. That's way too much blame for one person. There is another person who has a much greater role in the lack of post seasons, and he isn't a player IMHO (or owner, coach, manager, or anyone else in the organization--maybe someday I will write about it). Yes, the failure to develop Brandon Woods had long term ramifications, but that's not all his fault either. 5) I think that this article actually makes the case more for scouting than analytics. A scout can tell you if a player is coachable, how well he responds to adversity, how dedicated he is to doing mind-numbing drills to make a skill ingrained. Numbers alone cant tell you that. 6) As I wrote in the intro, the Angels organization is not as bad as Baseball America and other organizations make it out to be. Too many of them rely on the number of high round draft picks and don't look always look past that. We had 4 teams in the playoffs last year (and one barely missed it). Even if you figure some of our teams were slightly old for their leagues, there must be more to it. Look at the improvement in OB% and HRs hit (both of which Dipoto has emphasized as important and probably pushed for drafting--look at Cal Towey as a prime example of that). 7) Really interested in watching Yarbrough's development this year.

Thank you all for the kind words about the article. It's sad to think that we will be entering into that era when we will start losing our Angels heros, but, as a franchise that is over 50, it will happen. We need to preserve and save as much of the team's history as we can before it is all gone.

I also have a strong feeling that they will challenge him with a jump to the IE 66ers. He should do very well there too.

Glen is really stepping into good form in these articles. Keep 'em coming!

I asked Jeff Fletcher about the possibility of them having to wait until the draft in June to sign a deal and whether or not he thought the Angels would be interested then. He said he didn't think that either would be available at that point, so, it's not a likely scenario.

Can we pin this to the first page please so as fans read the profiles on #1-30 they can refer back to the list?

Snyder has great power, but generates it with a long swing which could be exposed. I sure hope not. He's a great guy. Originally drafted to play 3B, he's made the switch full time to 1B. If he can cut down the number of strikeouts while maintaining or increasing the number of walks in Double-A, he'd shoot up the depth charts quickly.

He is one that I definitely have my eye on and am hoping has a breakout season. A true potential leadoff hitter is something that we could use, and then drop Trout to the #3 spot. He has some speed and if he can get on base, add a little pop, could be a nice spark plug for the offense.

We have been getting some questions about players off of the list. We hope when it is all done to do a just missed the list category.

When he was first drafted, Andrew Ray had some of the best batting cage power that I'd seen in a while. Last year was the first year that he finally put it into play during a game, and it showed. However, he really needs to cut down on his strikeouts. In his career, he has struck out nearly 30% of the time. We had a discussion about including him in the list in the 40-50 category, but ultimately other players beat him out. He would be in our keep an eye on category if we included that this year.

He is new to the system, so we didn't have as much "eyes on" with him. He is intriguing because he could become a strong LOOGY, but Scioscia generally hasn't operated with pure LOOGYs, so, we will see how it plays out this year. If Scioscia will play him, there's potential value there if he can dominate lefties. Lots of questions that still need to be answered to be ranked substantially higher.

Thanks Doc. I am very strong on Alvarez, and think that he could be a future closer for us and a part of the bullpen this year.

Thank you!

I would think after seeing the Angels lead the league in blown saves over the past few years, that it would be apparent that having a nails bullpen does indeed make a difference. The Angels, and Scioscia, were at the best when the team operated as a conveyor belt from the starters to the closer and didn't give away many wins that they had secured. And, when the bullpen was at its strongest, it gave the team the best chance to come back into games.

Reasonable minds can and should disagree, especially when ranking things that involve value judgments. That's why we finally published the factors that go into our evaluation of the players so that people can understand how the list is built. I would disagree with your assessment that position players are more valuable. With the escalation in the price for pitching, especially on the free agent market, I expect the Angels to continue to draft more heavily in favor of pitching. Having a surplus of pitching will net more in trades for position players, and will allow the Angels to continue to sign FA hitters while controlling their pitching costs long term. But, as you pointed out, there is a lot of volatility. That's why we do consider proximity to the Major Leagues a factor. There's no doubt that more of the Angels talent lies lower in the organization as a whole. Over time, as spots open and as the players prove themselves at higher levels, they should have a trajectory through the rankings on our list.

I will answer the question. First off, I am a big proponent of Jeremy Berg. As I wrote here http://angelswinblog.blogspot.com/2013/08/the-angels-should-promote-jeremy-berg.html the Angels should have promoted him last September and at least taken a look at what they had inside their system. However, as we outlined in our introduction, we consider a multitude of factors to determine our list. In Jeremy's case two factors really made it hard to rank him. They were: 1) the Angels only real organizational strength lies in right-handed relief pitchers; 2) the Angels signed Joe Smith who throws side-arm (one of the key advantages that Berg had) making him even more blocked. When a player is blocked, as we discussed in the intro, he has to be lowered on the prospect list because any team trading for him won't offer up as much since they know the team cannot play all the players at one time. Frankly, I don't know why the Angels didn't give him a shot last year. It would not have cost all that much and at times fixing the bullpen last season made a lot of sense. I thought he would have added a lot to our bullpen that needed a different look (which finally the Angels realized and addressed with Joe Smith). I do believe in results on the field--the type that Berg has put up over his career. But, at this point, the strength of the organization lies in right-handed relievers, and there are several who have more definable roles and have the potential to pitch in more high-leverage innings. One good way to look at the list is to look at how the players stack up by position. As the list stands now, for right-handed relievers (assuming the current starters don't get moved to the bullpen) the list is as follows: 1. R.J. Alvarez 2. Mike Morin 3. Cam Bedrosian 4. Ryan Chaffee 5. Jeremy Berg Alvarez and Bedrosian have the potential to close. Morin remotely could close, but is best suited for an 8th inning role. Chaffee is coming on strong after converting to the bullpen. The next best RH reliever in our organization according to AngelsWin.com is Jeremy Berg. Both Berg and Chaffee will pitch side-by-side most likely this year in Salt Lake, so we can get a better chance to see how they compare. As we said, ranking these players was very tough (we had lots of discussions on this list) as the overall differences between the players were very slight in many cases. Chuck and I both want to see Berg get his long-overdue shot. We hope that he continues to showcase his stuff and does very well this Spring to earn that shot.

Coming soon!

Thanks everyone. I really enjoyed getting to know Grant a bit more. Really came across as a good guy, and I hope he does very well this year.

I am with Chuck on this one. At that price, I seriously don't get the negativity towards signing Garza.

Or at least equally great years. Peter is a GREAT person. He was the first current Major League Angels player that I interviewed when I went into the clubhouse for the first time and he has ALWAYS been great to the fans on this website. We should only want to see him succeed now and in the future.

Good analysis Robert. I do think there is some room to quibble about the rise in the cost of a WAR because some of the players who have pushed it up have been paid a premium to move to a less desirable team (Cano) or had value to a particular franchise beyond the performance on the field. So, there may be a little room to fiddle with the numbers and reason to think that they might not be so high.

Thank you for a good report. Why don't you come out and hear him again at our Spring Training Fanfest?

Believe it or not, it really doesn't come down to that with every players or even most of the players. I know of several on the Angels and several on other organizations who left money on the table. Most of the offers, especially for the elites are fairly comparable and it more often than not comes down to the fit between the player and the organization.

For a player like this, it's more about what the tone and future of the organization is. Go back and listen to both the Pujols and Hamilton pressers. Both talked about the feel they got from the organization. Both talked about how they liked the direction and the future of the franchise. A GM and owner trying to set the right feel isn't going to bother tearing down another organization (any boss who does that is just showing that in the end, s/he will tear you down in the end if the results aren't met). I would bet that they go into the meeting doing more listening to what the player's goals and desires are and then show how those can best be met by the Angels . . . along with a big check!