AngelsFaninGA

My guess is they'll either keep costs the same or even look to cut some costs (operationally or by offloading a contract or two). New ownership usually has a very specific way they want to do things so unless the deal is in the final stages during free agency and the new ownership group is directing Perry on moves, I don't expect much. 

Understandable. Transition year while the team is in a sale process. 

Yep. It was him or Montgomery 

Understandable. Transition year while the team is in a sale process. 

Understandable. Transition year while the team is in a sale process. 

I’d assume it would be the same in any job. You need structure but not micromanagement. You need discipline but you need the last amount of discipline to get the result you want. You need open lines of communication and you need to be approachable. If you do those last couple of things well you can have a lot of rules. 

Unfortunately 90% of the guys that we were cycling through the 5-9 spots in the order are beyond any help. 

They're actively trying to win and still about to drop a second straight to a team fielding the likes of Ernie Clement and Nate Mondou

I haven't really drilled into it but is his swing really that long? Obviously it's no Trout swing, but it doesn't look awful. 
In some ways I'm reminded of Kaleb Cowart, who I was convinced would figure it out at some point. He had all the tools but he'd just swing through pitches. Ultimately I think he just didn't have the MLB caliber hand / eye coordination required to make it. 

A surefire way to brighten everyone's mood is to end the season with 15 straight games against the A's, Rangers, and Twins

A surefire way to brighten everyone's mood is to end the season with 15 straight games against the A's, Rangers, and Twins

A surefire way to brighten everyone's mood is to end the season with 15 straight games against the A's, Rangers, and Twins

A surefire way to brighten everyone's mood is to end the season with 15 straight games against the A's, Rangers, and Twins

A surefire way to brighten everyone's mood is to end the season with 15 straight games against the A's, Rangers, and Twins

I appreciate that they're winning, but they literally do this every year

I appreciate that they're winning, but they literally do this every year

I appreciate that they're winning, but they literally do this every year

Loop in to ruin the shutout

Capel can eat shit. Random hot hitting rookie scrub that'll be out of the league this time next year

They do seem like exactly the type of pitchers that pitched for the Angels in the early 2010's and put up a forgettable 5 ERA across 30 innings before being released

I had totally forgotten that Capuano and Maholm pitched for the Angels.  I wish it had stayed that way.

Seeing Ward prove his hot start wasn’t a complete fluke is such a relief for next season. Dude has been on fire.

In case y'all missed it. Might as well send that ball to Cooperstown now.  20220928_193452.mp4  
 
 
 

Meh. Not a fan of rushing things in a lost season. Let him spend next year in AAA and if he performs well call him up next September

An above average offensive team will get about 6200 plate appearances per year.  
I don't know the major league avg for the top 9 PA's so I'll use the halos for the last few years because it's applicable at least in part as to how injuries, days off and performance will impact that average.  
For the last 5 years it's about 450 PA per player.  Or about 4000 PA total.  
Which means that about 1/3rd of your PA come from players that aren't in your starting 9.  
That's 2000 PA.  Or lets call it 5 players averaging 400 PA each.  
Even if you have a very unusual season where all 9 of your starters don't lose at bats due to poor performance and very little due to injury and occasional days off, you're talking about probably around 1200 PA.  So even in an ideal situation you're still gonna have 3 guys getting 400 PA.  
So we're going to go into the off season and potentially into 2023 with question marks in LF, 1b, 2b, SS, 3b, and C.  
I don't think it's fair to compare the Angels to monster payroll teams like the Yanks, Dogs or Mets in terms of how they're able to create depth.  
But Atlanta might be a good comp assuming a reasonably healthy Rendon next year and if so, Trout, Ohtani and Ward combine to cancel out their top four of Swanson, Riley, d'Arnaud, and Harris.  They combined for about 20 WAR.  I think our top 4 can do that.  And even if the Halos top four don't quite get there, it's less important for what I'm trying to show here.  Because, let's be honest.  If injuries, or poor performance keep that from happening (again) the offense really only has a chance of being solid at best and probably about average.  
But let's look at the rest.  
Outside of their top 4 for WAR, they had 10 other guys with 140 or more at bats.  Those 10 guys accumulated 8.5 WAR.  The remaining 292 PA came from 9 guys for a total of -1.5 WAR.  
To keep things even, I'm excluding Rendon.   The Angels had 10 guys with 150 at bats or more outside of their top 4.  And accumulated 2.1 WAR.  The remaining 19 players had 886 PA.  For a total of -4.2 WAR.  
The Atlanta offense and defense is at 27 WAR and in 7th overall in mlb.  17 WAR higher than our current level.  About 7 of that currently is the delta between our top 4 and theirs.  So how do we come close to making up that additional 10 WAR from the offense.  
That's a lot of ground to cover.  First off, the reason we have -4.2 WAR in 889 PA is because of poor performance from the 10 above that.  So if those next ten perform more capably, you can make up about 2.5 of that from just addition by subtraction. 
So the other 7.5 has to come from those other 10 guys.   
You can't put the team in the position to get -1.6 WAR from 1b, -0.9 WAR from C, 0.5 WAR from 2b, 0.8 WAR from SS (not as bad as I thought because of defense), 0.1 WAR from LF.  But there's no way you can make that up merely through a better bench.  
Backup C upgrade is easy.  Rengifo and Fletcher can make up some ground at SS and 2b.  Especially if you get a SS and Fletch becomes one of your bench guys.  But where you're gonna get most of your bang for your buck in the starting lineup is at 1b and LF.  And frankly, those are likely to be the least expensive of all the positions needed AND spots that are much more easily backup with bench depth.  
And considering where this team is at from a timing standpoint, can you wait for Adell to turn a corner or for Walsh to rebound?  I just don't think you can.   Teams can get by with 0 wins from C and even limited production from another spot such as SS.  But not from -1.5 WAR combined from both LF and 1b.  
So in the end we need about a 3 win delta from 1b, 2 win delta in LF, about 1 win from C, about 2 wins from 2b (which I think we already have) which gets us there and if you can grab a couple of wins from the bench (more addition by subtraction), it's not entirely crazy to think we could go from a bad offense to a good one or at least one that's decently above average.