Dave Saltzer

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.

Hermosillo is intriguing to me, only just turning 19.    If some power were to come, he could become a decent MLB player.

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.

What's your assessment of Andrew Ray? Power hitting RH in low A until he got hurt.

 

In 21 games, he's hit .365/.365/.765 with eight home runs, eight doubles and 22 RBIs, bringing his season line to .271/.293/.536 with 11 homers and 34 RBIs in 51 games.

 

http://www.milb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20130627&content_id=51895638&fext=.jsp&vkey=news_milb

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.

As Glen said I appreciate all of the work that went into this publication, thanks to all involved!

 

Overall I like the list! Borenstein seems to be in the right place as is Cron, Alvarez, et. al.

 

The only player that stood out to me as "out of order" was Brian Moran. It really seems like he should have been in the Top 25 IMO.... his arm is pretty live. However considering the fact that none of you probably had a chance to even see him play yet and his relative "newness" to the org his low ranking is completely understandable to me.

 

Really great job and looking forward to the write ups!

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.

Great job everyone!!!

 

I love this stuff.  Excited to see the profiles.

 

I like the Alvarez ranking.  Very bold. 

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.

Always worth the wait

Thank you!

Don't get me wrong, I really like Alvarez. I actually think he has a shot to make the team out of Spring and be an integral part of the bullpen this year.

 

It's just tough for me to value a reliever that much since they don't make as big as an impact compared to an everyday player or starting pitcher. 

 

It doesn't matter too much where he's ranked though if he comes up and can be our best reliever. We really need that impact arm in the pen and Alvarez has a very good arsenal that will generate strikeouts at the big league level. 

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. 

Guys I'd rank higher:

Mike Morin (7)

Zach Borenstein (9)

Alex Yarbrough (10)

Eric Stamets (14)

Cal Towey (24)

Michael Fish (26)

Matt Long (27)

Sherman Johnson (28)

Michael Snyder (30)

Wade Hinkle (33)

Tyler DeLoach (34)

 

Guys I'd rank lower:

R.J. Alvarez (2)

Kaleb Cowart (4)

Mark Sappington (5)

Hunter Green (6)

Ricardo Sanchez (8)

Cam Bedrosian (12)

 

I'll always take the relatively proven position player over the pitching prospect who hasn't done anything just because pitching is so volatile and position players are more valuable. I'm also a proponent of tangible production over raw tools.

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.

Why Is Jeremey Berg ranked so low? If I remember correctly he was lights out last year.

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.

I want Peter to have a great year, only to be outdone by the year Freese has.

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?

It is all about money and years. Whoever offers Tanaka the most will get him.

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!

Here's a thought that may work in our favor: with the Angels he will be the ONLY Japanese player on the team, making him the center of attention for the Japanese press and will have a very compliant local press core to deal with here. In New York, he will play second fiddle to Kuroda with the Japanese press while having a hyper critical local and national press core. Here, there with be far more drama made of match ups with the Rangers and Yankees with him as the Star. If the money is more or less even, that may make a difference. I hope we get him.

There needs to be a mix of fans, broadcasters managers and FO types who vote for the HoF.

See my post in the HOF thread re: fans. I maintain they must be added.

I am just curious where there needs to be this. I am undecided at the moment, but am leaning against it. If it were solely up to the fans then there would be extreme homerism and cases of outrage against ballot box stuffing, etc. If fans are truly so upset, don't go visit the HoF or tune in to the swearing in ceremonies.

I get that the way it is right now isn't perfect. Some crusty old guys are not taking their job seriously. But, is that just a case of the individuals failing to do their job rather than a flaw in the system?

I honestly don't have a resolution to this. Maybe allowing teams to designate some blog sites to vote on behalf of the fans and some specific bloggers who are more attuned to the fans themselves to vote might work. Or, it might lead to more problems as before.

I am really following the arguments from people and don't have a strong opinion either way.

Dave it's a great article and is spot on about the teams lack of leadership. But let's be real, Albert Pujols needs some leadership training because a slumping or injured ballplayer can still be a good leader in the clubhouse. Was it Torii Hunter who said that Albert Pujols has a bad attitude and pouts if HE has a bad game even if the team wins? It's a team sport and you win or lose as a team.

There are multiple facets of leadership. I don't know if Pujols is the kind of guy who would take every player under his wings and mentor him, much like Torii did with Trout. I do remember him demonstrating more on the field leadership trying to pump up the team as he was getting his 50 doubles in 2012. 

I think adding Baylor specifically was to fill the vacuum created with the departure of Hunter so that Baylor, a former MVP would develop Trout into a current MVP (he should have won both years IMHO) as well as develop someone like Kole Calhoun.