Corona

LOL 
 
I knew Eppler was in over his head but this is f'n embarrassing 

Eppler officially sucks as a GM.  We just got worse now and in the future.

Teams are getting top prospects for will smith and we're getting Ricky nolasco and a failed prospect for Santiago rofl. 

Nolasco is a 34 year old starter and Meyer is a former first round pick by the Nationals in 2011.  I don't get this, why would you trade for a MLB pitcher?  So stupid.

Wow.  

And he has how many wins to show for it?
Trade him because it is merciful. 

Lol I just turned the game on, my reaction.
 

Career over? This thread is 15 months late.

Nah. He'll milk it until his contract is over. Coke doesn't buy itself.

That is the Angels' record at the new Yankees' Stadium since it opened in 2009. Not a single series win. 
If you include the postseason, their record is 8-27. 

Lol I just turned the game on, my reaction.
 

Matt Thaiss
MattThaiss
MatThaiss
Mathaiss
Mathiss
Mathis!!!!!!

LOL what the hell is wrong with this team. Reach for a catcher 2 years in a row. 

The single most annoying thing about this team is not the anemic offense, or the inconsistent rotation. No, it's going to take a dump in the 7th inning during a close game and then coming back to see they're down by 5 runs. That shit seems to happen far too often. 
It's not an easy fix either. The bullpen needs a complete makeover. We can start by wrapping Salas in an American flag and dropping him off in Fallujah. Then send Bedrock to a shrink for a minimum of 3 visits a day.

So here we go again.  I feel like this is my triannual bullpen review.  I could essentially copy and paste one year to the next with the exception being the second half of 2014.  
Some people don't trust WAR for individual relievers, but it's a pretty solid indicator for a bullpen overall.  I will also include win probability added as it takes leverage into account.  
We have, of course, one playoff appearance in the last 6 and perhaps going on 7 years.  
2010 - 1.3 WAR (20th), 2.31 WPA (12th).  With only 80 wins that season, a better pen wasn't likely to make much of a difference considering that we were 10 games back in the division and 15 back in the WC.  
2011 -  0.4 WAR (28th), WPA 0.60 (19th).  We won 86 games that year ranking 10th in off/def WAR and 4th is SP WAR.  The wild card winner had 91 wins that year and the div winner 96 wins.  It would have probably taken a top 10 bullpen to make a difference, but it was certainly the main weak spot for this team.  
2012 - 0.6 WAR (28th), WPA -2.10 (24th).  We won 89 games.  Best offense in baseball by 8.3 WAR.  Starting pitching was an issue (20th WAR) that year but even with that, they had the 4th least reliever innings so it wasn't like the pen was over worked.  They were just horrible.  The WC teams had 93 wins and div winner 94.  Even with that, the pen made a huge difference in my opinion.  
2013 - 1.3 WAR (27th), WPA -0.16 (22nd).  Horrible pen that wasn't going to make a difference because of how bad the starting pitching was.  
2014 - 3.6 WAR (13th), WPA 5.33 (8th).  98 wins.  Second half pen was lights out with 3.8 WAR and 5.46 WPA.  Both #1 in baseball.  Great offense (2nd in WAR) and solid starting pitching (13th).  Very similar team to the 2012 squad with a little less offense and a little better SP.  The pen was the difference and in particular, the second half pen.  
2015 - 2.8 WAR (17th), 3.29 WPA (11th).  Pen was about avg.  Didn't hurt us too bad.  Didn't help us too much.  Last year's team lacked talent and overachieved in general, but imagine if there was a legit lock down guy in that pen.  
2016 - -0.1 WAR (26th), -0.55 WPA (24th).  We are 13th in reliever innings so far.  I thought it would be worse.  Missing Street hasn't helped, and even though we've relied pretty heavily on most of our main guys, they have been bad and likely haven't felt the effects of the increased work load as of yet. 
Overall, we have 10.2 WAR (29th) over the last 6.3 seasons.  3.8 of which came in the second half of 2014.  A WPA of 9.02 (16th) with 5.46 of that coming in 2014 2nd half as well.   That's a lot of late inning disappointment over that period.
SP during that time is at 66.3  and offense/defense and offense 154.1.  Our overall record has been 541-485 (9th)
As a corollary, the pen from 2004-2009  had a WAR of 26.6 (4th) and a WPA of 35.17 (2nd).  The team was 567-405 during that time.  
Starting pitching had a WAR of 87.0(2nd) and Offense/Defense had a WAR of 127.4 (11th)
 
Since this year's numbers haven't really moved the needle, our SP+OFF/DEF from 2004-2009 (214.4), and 2010 to current (220.4) is virtually identical yet the winning pct of .583 vs.527 can essentially be allocated to the bullpen.  That's the difference between a 94 win season and an 85 win season.  Also bear in mind that a huge portion of the bullpens value over the last 6 1/3 seasons came during 1/2 a season.  While I think 9 wins per year is probably a bit much to allocate to our poor bullpens, I do believe that the effect of a good bullpen vs. a bad one is much greater than just their differences in WAR or even WPA.  Probably somewhere in between and around 5-6 games per season.  I also think that because of Scioscia's style of managing, a better pen makes him a disproportionately better manager.  The rest of it probably has to do with the fact that you only have to win a baseball game by one run so the differences in starting pitching also has a significant effect.  
Playing the coulda shoulda woulda game in regards to the past is not something one can win.  There is no way to know what would have happened.  What I do know is that all things point to the fact that under our current style the pen has a clear impact that is greater than expected by just the numbers involved.  
 

That was a manly homer. I kinda want to go cut down a tree with my balls hanging out now.

Borderline top 100 prospects turn into aces when facing this 'offense'.
 

Vlad jr got around the same, meanwhile we gave BALDOQUIN 8 mill. 

Yes, he was a highly touted prospect. Somehow the Rangers signed him out of Latin America which, as an Angels fan, I had no idea you could do. Oh well, back to ignoring the international market. Hopefully the team can draft the next CJ Cron in the 1st round again next month

Mazara got a $4.9mm signing bonus as a 16 year old
 

Baldoquin, what an effing total flop!

What are you talking about ao, are you already forgetting when we blew our load on highly touted juggernaut ROBERTO BALDOQUIN 

Was Mazara that highly touted?    Never heard much about him before 2016.
Be nice if Moreno would ever sign someone with ANY talent out of Latin America!!!! 

Lol @ the Angels scoring 11.

How could you even think this wasn't going to happen, the guy was hitting .283 with an .822 OPS. There is no way the baseball gods would have allowed that out of an Angels catcher.