nikkachez

This is one area of concern for me, I think Perez and Maldonado are fine as backups, but one has to start and finding a catcher on the free agent market in upcoming years just isn't an option (unless you want to overpay for a 32-year old Jonathan Lucroy next winter). Catcher is a position of long-term uncertainty for me (up there with second base, third base, and left field). 

3 hours ago, Inside Pitch said:

Career .249/.302/.402-.711 OPS away from Baltimore

Combined .250/.302/.422 - .724 OPS (94 OPS+) 2013-2016

Iannetta managed a 105 OPS+ and a 716 OPS as an Angel....   Weiters made 15 Mil last year.    His bat hasn't been that impressive.
 

 

Thaaaaank you

I wish they had oooooone more impact bat to slide Trout up to the 2 spot, I think he should hit 2nd anyway, but I'd feel way better about it if they had just one more big impact bat.

1. Yunel

2. Trout

3. Mystery Hitter

4. Pujols

5. Calhoun

6. Cron

Drool*

Maybin, but we'll see a lot of Revere 

Hell yes! That should be a fun 4th outfielder. 

13 hours ago, ettin said:

If we don't do well this upcoming season I am pretty positive that Eppler will use our viable trade chips (of which we would have a few) to acquire players to fill the holes we will inevitably have, probably in left field, the rotation, and/or the bullpen. Between now and next offseason Billy will almost certainly acquire a 2B that he tried to get this offseason with the same names like Hernandez, Wong, Villar, et al on his radar. I agree with Doc that our 3B solution next year will probably be Marte and/or Cowart (or in a platoon) primarily because of team payroll.

It certainly is possible the Angels could sign someone like Moustakas but it will put pressure on the team payroll because many of our arbitration players like Richards, Calhoun, Shoemaker, et al are starting to escalate significantly. Of course there are places where we can cut payroll like Nolasco and Street (both trade deadline guys if we aren't in it by mid-July) but I think the Angels will hand out at least one or more extensions to help provide cost certainty to the payroll over the remainder of Trout's controllable years.

 

Uhhhh we don't even want Street, why would anyone else (for anything of value too)? The answers to those positions are not by trading Yunel, Nolasco, Street, Espinosa, or any of the other impending free agents unless Eppler pulls of a miracle and lands an everyday second baseman for 2 months of Yunel Escobar. Their best bet would be to get Heaney/Trop back and trading a starter for an area of need (which also makes me uncomfortable). 

5 hours ago, ettin said:

To be honest this is something to consider: Machado is so good defensively that it might, dare I say it, be overkill with Simmons to his left. The Angels may prefer a 3B with really good reaction speed, instincts and a good glove with other tangibles such as power or good hitting rather than a guy with great lateral range because they have Andrelton manning SS. Someone like Moustakas might be a better fit in the Angels eyes.

 

Moustakas seems like an Eppler-type move. He's a very solid third baseman defensively, he makes a ton of contact, walks at a decent clip, good pop. He'll only be 29, he's from Los Angeles, fills a long-term need of the franchise, coincides with Eppler's ability to spend and with the new CBA, you're not forfeiting a 1st round pick. It makes too much sense honestly. 

So I think that's how Eppler will end the splurging drought, probably won't won't be a huge market for third basemen next winter, Angels should capitalize on that. What concerns me is the need for a left fielder, second baseman, catcher, and some more pitching. Sound familiar? Hahaha 

And there are no answers for those in free agency next year unless they want an aging Lucroy 

One more season of Yunel, thank god, I'm not a big fan of his. 

Moustakas next winter or Machado the winter after that, that's what I'm hoping Eppler is waiting to spend on. Machado could change the course of the franchise. Plus the new M&M boys hitting in the middle of the lineup? Mike and Manny in the peaks of their careers, babyyy (Machado will be 26 when he's a free agent, Mike will be 27 heading into the 2019 season). 

Must've been one of the easier primers to write-up (next to center field)  

But seriously, Andrelton''s the best defensive player in the game. Him and Espinosa will be a lot of fun to watch. Dreading the idea of watching Yunel again, though. 

It's early, but this draft is heavy on collegiate pitching, exactly what the Angels need. I'd love to end up with Lange, his curveball's filthy, him or McKay would be nice gets for a system that lacks pitching. 

2 minutes ago, ukyah said:

I'm willing to believe in the base principle, but i have a very hard time discounting the importance of the caught stealing percentage, while fully acknowledging that it's far from an individual statistic, meaning the pitcher and receiving fielder play a part in it.

1

Antiquated, while you can't let teams around and carelessly, it's not a major aspect of the game anymore. And the more we learn about catching defense, the more it just becomes another factor in evaluating catching defense.

Goddamn, I feel like I've had to post this link a million times, HERE IT IS AGAIN if you're interested in seeing how the Dbacks are trying to evaluate it. And here is how it factors into another way of evaluating pitchers, Deserved Runs Against. Give both a read. They're worth the time.

Everyone seems wary of it because they don't know what it is.  

20 minutes ago, ettin said:

I thought about Parra previously, because he checkmarks a lot of boxes you want in a 4th OF, but he has an AAV of $9M which is really pricey for a 4th OF type. Also you'd essentially be taking on negative value because his stock has plummeted since his free agency signing. Heck you never know it could be 3 or 4 birds, 2 or 3 stones type of situation. Most trades are one-for-one's or two-for-ones. More moving parts the more unlikely the trade becomes to be honest but Parra does fit the 4th OF bill. Wolters would fit the pitch framing bill (and honestly in Coors Field I'm not sure a pitch framer is quite as valuable in that environment).

5

Can't see why teams would undervalue pitch-framing just because of where they play (especially a team trying to extract as much value from their pitching staff as possible). 

15 minutes ago, ettin said:

Notably @nikkachez I could see the Angels trying to trade for Tony Wolters from the Rockies. They need a catcher that can play more games as their current projected tandem of Wolters and Murphy have barely just cracked the Majors. They could prefer someone like Perez who is a more established catcher in terms of repetitions. If the Rockies 1B free agent choices fall through (Encarnacion and Trumbo) I could possibly see a trade of Cron and Perez for something like McGee, Wolters, plus ? to fill other areas of need on the team and then pick up someone like Lind on the free agent market. Just a thought (among many, many, many, many possibilities).

 

Interesting idea, he ranks very well in terms of catching defense, offensively, he's kind of like another Martin Maldonado. He does another thing Eppler seems to be trying to improve: baserunning. It's catcher, so obviously you're not looking for a burner, but using FanGraphs' baserunning metric (BsR), they made a huge upgrade from Bandy (-3.5) to Maldonado (-0.3). Wolters runs very well for a catcher, and it showed (+2.0 BsR). The Angels were 27th in baserunning last year, Maybin, Espinosa, and Malonado replacing Bandy will help with that, but it's another subtle way to improve a team. You get that much better defensively, Wolters is an improvement over Perez with the stick, and he adds value on the bases. 

I wouldn't trade Cron in that deal (not even really that keen on trading Cron), but maybe kill two birds with one stone? I'm sure they'd like to get rid of one of their left-handed outfielders, and at the top, I'm sure Gerardo Parra's there. Send Perez with an "Austin Adams of the world" for Wolters and Parra? Get your left-handed hitting 4th outfielder, another catcher to complement Maldonado, and you clear up the catching situation. He's their starting catcher, so I'm sure they're not eager to deal him, but I like the idea. 

2 minutes ago, ettin said:

Love the discussion in this thread by the way.... Unfortunately I think the Miguel Montero train has passed. It was something I thought about for the Primer in terms of Montero being a possible "two birds, one stone" Eppler trade candidate where we send a long term controllable piece in exchange for Montero's remaining one year of control plus another prospect (I was thinking Zagunis to fill LF long term). However the Angels only have about $10M-15M left to spend off of payroll in terms of Average Annual Value (technically they are about $21M-25M away from the CBT threshold) and Montero's AAV is $11M so unfortunately this ship seems like it has sailed.

3

Yeah, it's mostly wishful thinking. He's a free agent next winter, might make sense as a veteran stopgap to help out with run prevention, catcher's another position of uncertainty moving forward.  Maldonado's only under control for two seasons. I don't think Perez has a spot long-term. Just another thing Eppler's going to have to piece together. 

Put it another way, Judge mentioned on MLB Network that he estimates moving Chris Sale from the White Sox catchers to the Red Sox catchers (still not a great pitch-framing team, but certainly better than Chicago) would've saved him 6 runs. That doesn't sound like much, but if you scratch off 6 runs, that lowers his ERA from 3.34, down to 3.10. That should benefit the pitching staff, and improve them without adding anybody else (but they should add somebody else). 

4 minutes ago, Blarg said:

I sure would like to see more complete data on umpire calls regarding pitchers tendencies to be closer to the strike zone on their missed pitches and strike calls on the corners as opposed to pitchers that their misses are well outside the zone and if they get the same borderline calls. Some of the catcher stats may be more linked to the quality of the pitcher on the mound than their framing abilities. The Angels did not have much quality take the hill last season on a consistent basis.

 

I see where you're coming from, obviously, the quality of pitching will improve just by starters coming back healthy and, hopefully, a few more improvements through FA/trade. But there was one piece from an article I was reading that might help answer your question (assuming I read it correctly). It used Zack Greinke as the example, and Greinke's really interesting because, while he does have a reputation as a finesse pitcher, he lives outside of the strike zone and does his best work when he throws outside the zone. During his amazing 2015 season, Greinke had a career-low in pitches thrown in the zone with only 39.9%. That would make sense, if hitters are swinging at pitches outside of the zone, they're either going to miss or make weak contact. Having a catcher that can frame those properly and even steal you a couple calls is a nice luxury to have, and a huge reason the Diamondbacks essentially swapped out a horrible pitch-framer (Castillo) for a very strong one (Mathis). Another Diamondback, Patrick Corbin, is another guy who lives on the edges of the K Zone. It helps pitchers paint the zone, obviously leading to harder pitches to square up. 

The difference between Castillo and Mathis in terms of pitch-framing?

Quote

A Dbacks catcher tends to appear. And he tends to fall short of Mathis in the called-strike department. In 2016, Mathis converted 16.4 percent of pitches taken in those zones into called strikes, compared to Castillo’s 13.6 percent.

With those rates, you’d expect Mathis to secure 411 called strikes for every 2,500 pitches taken in those zones while Castillo gets 339 calls.

 

If you want to read more into the thinking behind it, I looooved this article Beyond the Boxscore did to evaluate the Mathis signing, aside from actually signing or trading for quality pitchers, this seems like a good way to help out in-house options, namely guys who live in the bottom-of-the-zone and produce groundballs (Garrett, Tyler, and Nolasco). I think Maldonado will mostly benefit Garrett, he's such amazing movement on all of his pitches, being able to go lower in the zone will only help the amount of weak contact-induced. Really, it sounds like a beneficiary to guys who live low in the zone. Another reason I really wanted a Brad Ziegler type of pen arm.  

3 minutes ago, Oz27 said:

For a little more information, here are the framing scores for catchers with a connection to us.

Perez: -2.5

Bandy: -1.3

Soto: -0.4

Maldonado: 2.1

Graterol: -0.1

And for overall fielding runs above average...

Perez: -0.8

Bandy: 0.6

Soto: 0.0

Maldonado: 4.3

Graterol: -0.1

 

Dude, awesome, thank you so much for this. Wish they could've done Perez for Maldonado instead, but I'm sure Milwaukee wanted to take a chance on Bandy's better, albeit not spectacular, bat. I am curious to know if Eppler has intentions on trying to improve Perez's spot, but with the current group in the free agent market, I'd be surprised if he goes that route. Like I said, I know Montero was unhappy about his role with Chicago at the end and I know they want Contreras to get plenty of time there, I'd love to have him. 

Just curious, where'd you find those numbers? I'd like to check out the total rankings, see if there are more "secret" alternatives Eppler could be looking at. 

Jonathan Judge, from Baseball Prospectus/the top tier evaluators of catching defense thus far, breaks down the number of runs each team saved or gave up due to pitch framing. 

Dodgers: 25.6
Cubs: 24.1
Giants: 22.2
Mets: 21.9
Astros: 19.1
Toronto: 16.2
Yankees: 9.4
Nationals: 9.1
Cardinals: 8.2
Rays: 7.1
Pirates: 6.0
Padres: 5.1
Brewers: 4.4
Orioles: 1.3
Braves: -0.2
Indians: -1.0
Angels: -3.9
Red Sox: -3.9
Rockies: -4.9
Marlins: -6.1
Tigers: -8.5
Rangers: -11.1
Phillies: -11.3
Royals:-12.0
Twins: -16.3
Diamondbacks: -16.8
Athletics: -16.9
Mariners: -17.7
Reds: -22.7
White Sox: -26.4

If Chicago feels like Miguel Montero is too pricey as a backup catcher, I'd be happy to take him off their hands. Just something to think about moving forward, the Angels improved going from Bandy to Maldonado, but they're still a mid-tier team. Upgrading over Perez could be worth following. Don't think it's a coincidence a lot of elite teams are at the top. 

13 hours ago, eaterfan said:

If:

Richards throws 170 innings

Bedrosian seizes the closer's role

They hold onto their top 5 prospects

Skaggs takes a step forward

Then I'll consider it a successful season.

 

Cherry on top:

Add more prospects through the draft or trades

Trout wins MVP

Make the playoffs

 

This, Wild Card would be good enough for me. 

Oh and for Texas to suck, that would really make it a successful season. 

Welp, there goes Ziegler. 

Have a feeling Eppler isn't going to do much in the FA relief market. 

4 hours ago, Angel Oracle said:

First Abreu contract (2009) was genius.

Second one (2010-2012), not so much

 

He was amazing in 2009, good in 2010, and then yeah, his decline began. 

But anyone who says "they weren't a fan of Abreu" clearly didn't watch the 2009 team. Him and Figgy at the top of the lineup were incredible together. 

1 hour ago, Angel Oracle said:

Feliz is probably the best choice.

I don't know why I can't get on board with Feliz. 

He's still really young, throws hard, K's people (10.23 K/9 with Pittsburgh). I do have questions about the HUGE spike in homeruns given up and the amount of hard contact he gave up (career average of Hard Contact % is 28.5%, it went as high as 37% in 2016). The 1.68HR/9 is a bit alarming. But the BABIP's so low, weird year for his strand rate as well. Peripherals didn't like him either. 

Just an off year? I'm not sure, but I'm surprised more teams are chomping at the bit for a 28-year old, hard-throwing reliever. 

10 hours ago, ukyah said:

ziegler and feliz would be fine. the angels definitely need another good reliever, i think they need at least two.

Definitely, if it's two, I'd really like to see a lefty added

There goes Tazawa, sounds like Ziegler's about to sign soon too.

Dang, I'm digging the FanGraphs love recently. Keep them coming.