GA16

My predictions: All of Bour, Cozart, Upton and Lucroy return to 2017 form.
Calhoun, sadly does not. But Adell is promoted on August 1st. And he's as good as people think he going to be.
Taylor Ward would win 2nd year player of the year award if it was a thing, as he dramatically improves his major league career average to over .300, as he hits .315 with a .380/.450/.830 slash.
Trout is a 110% better than 2018 Trout. And plays in 161 games. WAR approaches 12.
Skaggs and Heaney both win 15+ games. Harvey though wins 18+
Allen leads a good pen.
All of this leads to a 820 runs scoring team which somehow allows only 650 for a 170 run differential and a 97-65 record.
The Astros take a step back behind a diminished offense and losing two starters hurt as the new young guys don't step up to fill Keuchel or Morton's shoes.
They go 94-68, losing the division to the Angels in the final series, where both teams start said series with 94 wins.
Winning the division, the Angels are the #2 seed, playing the Cleveland Indians in the first round, as the Astros lose to the Yankees in the WC game. The Yankees take on the Red Sox in the other divisional playoff, and the Red Sox win that series. In the ALCS in game one in Boston, Ohtani hits 3 HR over the Green Monster and Albert somehow goes 5-5 as the starting 1st baseman. The Angels win Game 1 with a score of 17-3. The Red Sox never recover, getting swept out of the playoffs by the Angels.
In the NL, The Dodgers win a close game 7 over the Rockies and head to the World Series to make it the first LA World Series.
It goes 7 games, and the Angels triumph in a killer extra innings game that proves they are the best team in Los Angeles.
 
 
 

Marsh for one year of Gray would be awful.  

https://www.nbcsports.com/philadelphia/ruben-amaro-jon-heyman-wrong-quite-bit
https://deadspin.com/josh-donaldsons-agent-says-jon-heyman-is-full-of-crap-1828867831
https://www.thegoodphight.com/2018/5/17/17365716/jon-heyman-published-a-dumb-rumor-about-gabe-kapler
and there are more where these came from. Jon Heyman is full of crap and a liar.

The Angels front office is airtight, so much that the local guys don't have inside info. Trout obviously doesn't talk to the media. His agent has never been one to make a media spectacle of his clients.
Whoever is whispering into Heyman's ear, they aren't from Trout, his representation, or the organization. 
Hyman doesn't know crap.  

Or....
Maybe they could actually talk to Trout and tell him the plan.

The Angels trade Zack Cozart and Kole Calhoun for Wil Myers.....hear me out.
The Angels don't need Cozart. With Fletcher, Ward, Jones and Rengifo all close to ready, the future of the infield won't require Zack's presence. And Calhoun? It should not be difficult to upgrade over him, and regardless, 2019 would be his last in an Angels uniform. Wil Myers is coming off a down season, but is smack dab in the middle of his prime and is an annual 30 HR 20 SB candidate and middle of the order presence, so long as he's healthy. In 2019, he could play RF, and 2020 and beyond, he could slide over to 1B to make room for Jo Adell. 
Now let's look at the numbers. Myers is owed 73 million over the next four years. By trading Zack Cozart, who is owed 25 million across the next two, and Kole Calhoun, who is owed 11.5 (includes buyout), Myers would cost the Angels around 4 years, 37 million. Extremely reasonable given his upside. And here is perhaps the best part, Myers only makes 5 million in 2019, which means the Angels would be shaving 18 million off the 2019 payroll. They could very easily sign Mike Moustakas to a one year deal (you know Eppler loves those) and a decent reliever at that rate. 
SS Simmons, CF Trout DH Ohtani, LF Upton, 3B Moustakas, RF Myers
The top and middle portion of the lineup would be very dangerous.
And why would the Padres do this? They need a 3B or SS, which Cozart fills, they could flip Calhoun at the deadline, which only further clarifies their OF log jam, and total, they save 37 million in the long run. Cozart serves as a bridge until Tatis arrives and Urias is fully developed. And for a cash strapped team like San Diego, an extra 37 million can go a very long way. 
I know, it sounds a little crazy, but it could work out for both sides. 

Fletcher: Killing our boners one post at a time.

Zaidi expects to make a move in the next few days...
https://www.nbcsports.com/bayarea/giants/farhan-zaidi-expects-giants-roster-move-next-three-or-four-days

Trout's a good reminder that life, even baseball, isn't only about winning. I know that it is a game, and the point of a game is to win. But winning the WS is only one moment in the year; most of what we experience is the day to day, from each of the 162 regular season games to offseason Hot Stove. Winning is a moment, the process is the entire year. And even when you win, you enjoy it for awhile and store it in your memories to revive every so often, but you turn back to the new season and enter the process again.
I'd even go so far as to say that winning is secondary; enjoyment of the process is primary. Even if winning is the goal of the game, the process of getting there - the "quest" - is most of what we experience. And a great source of my enjoyment of the process is watching the greatest player in the world play in an Angels uniform. You can't put a price on that, although it has immense monetary value. He puts seats in the stands, and he creates a legacy - as the greatest Angel ever, the greatest player of his generation, and one of the greatest players of all time.
So yeah, I want to see Trout remain an Angel, even if it costs an absurd amount of money. He's worth it - and more. 
 

There are some who are disappointed with Eppler's relatively modest off-season so far: he didn't sign any big name free agents, whether intentionally or because they simply wanted to play elsewhere. No Corbin, Ramos, Happ, Eovaldi, Morton, Donaldson, Familia, etc - all players that would have significantly improved the team. Instead we got a strange group of players in  Matt Harvey, Trevor Cahill, Justin Bour, Jonathan Lucroy, and Kevan Smith--not to mention his usual few clean peanuts.
Now the offseason isn't over. The two biggest fish--Bryce Harper and Manny Machado--remain on the board, as well as the top free agent catcher, Yasmani Grandal, and top reliever, Craig Kimbrel. There are alsoquite a few other interesting options such as David Robertson, Jed Lowrie, Dallas Keuchel, Mike Moustakas, Asdrubal Cabrera, Marwin Gonzalez, DJ Le Mahieu, Brian Dozier, etc. And of course there's Kikuchi.
But the Angels, presumably, only have another $10-15M to spend. That pretty much prices them out of Harper, Machado, and Keuchel. Kimbrel seems unlikely, and if Grandal still expects 4/$60M+, he won't be donning an Angels uniform. Maybe the Angels take a flier on a reliever as well as an infielder, although it is also possible they are basically set with what they have.
Eppler has been known to surprise us (e.g. the Andrelton Simmons trade). But the moves so far tell us quite a bit about what  his plan is. Consider that they are all one-year deals for players mostly coming off down years, who are solid bets to provide decent returns, but also with small chances of being huge bargains if they rediscover former glories. In other words, they aren't the type of players that you acquire if you are dead-set on competing in 2019; they are the type of players you acquire if your focus is on the future and are filling holes in the mean-time, yet also don't want to write off your chances of competing in 2019. In other words, they are the type of players that you can hope will surprise, but probably shoudn't expect to.
If Eppler was focusing on the so-called "Trout Window" of 2019-20, he'd have gone hard after a more reliable starter--if not Corbin, then certainly Keuchel or Happ. He'd have signed at least one elite reliever, and have upgraded the offense in some significant way - either offering more to Ramos or signing Grandal. He also could have traded some of their prospect capital for further upgrades. A few other tweaks and the team could have been a good bet for 90 wins. Yes, it would have pushed the budget up higher, but he could have done so while staying under the salary cap.
But the problem with that approach is that while it makes the team better over the next few years, it lessens the chances of long-term success through tying up funds in more good but non-premium players (Keuchel being a prime example). The Angels already have a near-term salary problem, with $80M owed to three players in 2019 (Trout, Pujols, Upton), $84M to the same three in 2020 (plus another $15M to Simmons, to make it $100M for four), and if we assume that Trout is extended for $40M/year and Simmons for $20M/yr starting in 2021, that's $113M for four players in 2021. That's also the year Tyler Skaggs hits free agency and Shohei Ohtani has his first arbitration year. Thankfully Cozart ($12.67M/yr) comes off the books, so that helps a bit.
In 2022, the Angels will (hopefully) be paying Trout, Simmons, and Upton something like $90M, but then Upton comes off the books, but then you have to factor in extensions for various players, rising arbitration, etc. 
Fielding a competitive baseball team is expensive. Unless you're willing to spend $200M+ a year, you need to be savvy and try to fill as much of your roster with low-cost talent. The best way to do that is through farm development. You focus on growing talent from within, then you extend the best of that talent, and augment the team through free agency and trades. But you protect that farm talent as best you can, because it is the source of your low-cost talent. 
The temptation for many a GM is to trade that talent for "Proven Veterans." Sometimes this is the right thing to do (e.g. Simmons), but sometimes it is devastating, both by leaving the farm barren of talent and requiring more money spent on free agency, and you end up with crippling albatrosses like Wells, Pujols, and Hamilton.
Back to 2019. What I see Eppler doing is focusing on the 2020s. He hopes to be competitive in 2019--that's why he did spend some money, rather than just "playing the kids." But he refuses to dip into the quickly improving--but still delicate--farm system. The Angels, by general consensus, have a farm system ranked somewhere around 10th in the majors. A big trade or two could quickly set them back to around 20th. Continued careful cultivation for another year or two puts them in the top 5. 
Now the farm rankings aren't important - they are rather subjective and conjectural, after all. But what they represent is the point: the quantity and quality of talent. The farm system is getting riper year by year, but isn't quite there yet. In another year or so, it will really start bearing fruit as players like Canning, Suarez, Thaiss, Rengifo, Adell, Marsh, Jones, and Sandoval start contributing on the major league level. Further waves include Soriano, C Rodriguez, Hernandez, Bradish, Jackson, Knowles, Adams, Deveaux, and Maitan.
Last year we saw rookies such as Ohtani, Barria, Anderson, Buttrey, Fletcher, Ward, and Hermosillo. Most of these guys will get better in 2019, when we'll see Canning, Suarez, Rengifo, and probably Thaiss and Adell. In 2020 we'll see Marsh, Jones, Sandoval, and probably others. In other words, each year will see the graduation of promising young talent, with a cumulative effect of both increasing the talent in Anaheim, and also decreasing the need for higher price free agents. 
Eppler knows this, and doesn't want to a) trade this talent away, and b) block the talent with older, more expensive and lower upside players.
Now obviously there's a balance. It is easy to overrate prospects, and probably only a few of the guys I mentioned will become stars, a few more impact players, some quality regulars, and a bunch will be either bench players or minor league flame-outs. But again, that talent pool represents the priceless commodity of "low-cost, high-upside talent" and it has to be protected.
The plan for 2019 is, again, to try to field a wildcard-capable team, but not at the expense of the future. My guess is that Eppler looks at the AL and thinks, "I can either spend big and trade away talent and improve my chances of making a wildcard but not win the division, or spend less, keep the talent, and still have a decent shot at a wildcard." In other words, the Angels almost certainly couldn't seriously compete for the division or be a lock for the playoffs in 2019, and the cost to simply improve wildcard chances in the short term is just too great, and too debilitating to the franchise in the long-term.
2020 will be a further step forward, with more of that young talent graduating and maturing. By 2021 that young talent should be really starting to flourish and be the core of the 25-man roster. In fact, I could see a 2021 team that is comprised mostly of players below age 28, except for a few notable exceptions: Trout, Simmons, possibly Upton, maybe one of Skaggs or Heaney, a few others. 
So the Eppler plan is to continue strengthening the farm, while retooling in the majors in ways that give the team a chance to compete over the next couple years, but with the eye of turning this franchise into a farm-driven powerhouse in the 2020s.
Its a good plan, but requires patience.

Alright, this turned out to be quite long. If you want to skip the statistical process I just spent the last hour and a half nerding out on, skip down to the Summary.
What is a #1-5? 
There is no technical or definitive agreement on what these mean, although the general view is something like this:
#1: A Cy Young candidate; a dominant starter.
#2: Very good starter.
#3: Good starter.
#4: Average starter.
#5: Mediocre to poor starter.
Further definitions:
Ace: #1 caliber starter
Staff Ace: Best starter on a team
Top of the rotation starter: #1 or 2.
Mid-rotation: #3-4 starter; possibly weak #2.
Bottom-of-the-rotation: #5, possibly weak #4.
 
But those are highly subjective. Can we come to something more definitive? Not really, but I'll give it a shot. I'm only going to look at 2018, because starters have changed over the years - pitching less and less, and numbers are always fluctuating. Also, I'm lazy and this is just a start.
There are five slots in a rotation, 30 teams in the majors - that's 150 starting slots. Now of course many more pitchers start games. All things tolled, 343 pitchers started at least one game in 2018. Or to break it down further:
1+ start: 343 pitchers
5+ starts: 238 pitchers
10+ starts: 183 pitchers
15+ starts: 151 pitchers
20+ starts: 124 pitchers
25+ starts: 92 pitchers
30+ starts: 56 pitchers
33+ starts: 13 pitchers
35 starts: 1 pitcher
OK, now I'm going to make some assumptions. Let's say that in any given year, the ten best pitchers in baseball are #1s. Why ten? Well, consider that there are six division winners and four wildcards - that's ten. So the idea being that ideally or on average, every playoff team has a true #1 starter (of course it never really works out that way). Let's also say that there are twice as many #2s, or 20 in all. That gives us 30 #1 or 2s (top-end starters), or one per team. I think that makes sense. So we could fill it out like so:
#1s: 10 (#1-10)
#2s: 20 (#11-30)
#3s: 30 (#31-60)
#4s: 40 (#61-100)
#5s: 50 (#101-150)
That gives us 150 in all. Anything below that is a replacement pitcher, a fill-in, call-up, etc.
Pitcher Rankings
So how to determine how to rank pitchers? WAR? A lot of people (myself included) don't like WAR as much for pitchers as for hitters, because the Fangraphs version at least is based upon Fielding Independent Performance (FIP), which is basically how a pitcher's ERA "should" look if you equalize fielding, luck, etc. But it penalizes the Jered Weaver types: pitchers who aren't hard throwers but find other ways to get people out (Jaime Barria fits this mold). 
Fangraphs has a stat called RA9-WAR, which is basically WAR that is based on actual ERA. But even that has issues. I'd prefer to look at a bunch of factors: WAR, RA9-WAR, ERA, Innings Pitched, K/9, and BB/9.
OK, now let's look at the last pitcher in each of the above rankings as the baseline level of performance in those statistical categories. In other words, the idea is that your typical #1 would rank at leaste #10 in all of the categories (again, it doesn't always work out that way, but we're looking for generalizations here). Here is out the different starter types would look, based upon all starters with at least 50 IP, or 178 in total:
Rotation Rank: (cumulative stats) | (rate stats)
#1: 5.6 fWAR, 6.1 RA9-WAR, 200.2 IP | 2.53 ERA, 2.95 FIP, 11.07 K/9, 1.64 BB/9
#2: 3.1 fWAR, 3.9 RA9-WAR, 180.2 IP | 3.28 ERA, 3.56 FIP, 9.93 K/9, 2.08 BB/9
#3: 2.2 fWAR, 2.4 RA9-WAR, 160.1 IP | 3.76 ERA, 3.87 FIP, 8.76 K/9, 2.60 BB/9
#4: 1.3 fWAR, 1.3 RA9-WAR, 126.1 IP | 4.26 ERA, 4.31 FIP, 7.61 K/9, 3.07 BB/9
#5: 0.4 fWAR, 0.2 RA9-WAR, 76.0 IP | 5.16 ERA, 5.10 FIP, 6.45 K/9, 3.84 BB/9
Anything below that last line is essentially Replacement Level or worse.
OK, so remember that those are minimum numbers in each category, with the maximum being just below the rank above. For example, a #2 should have an ERA of at least (around) 3.28 ERA, but somewhere below 2.53. Etc.
The Angels Rotation
So how did the Angels staff perform? The Angels had 16 pitchers start at least one game, with 7 of them pitching at least 50 IP. Here they are by IP, with their equivalent rotation rank according to each statistical category (I rounded up in a couple cases, where they were close enough; e.g. Heaney's IP), along with Matt Harvey: 
Pitcher: (Cumulative stats) fWAR, RA9-WAR, IP | (Rate stats) ERA, FIP, K/9, BB/9
Andrew Heaney: 3, 4, 2 | 4, 3, 3, 3 (average 3.1)
Jaime Barria: 4, 3, 4 | 3, 5, 5, 5 (average 4.1)
Tyler Skaggs: 3, 4, 4 | 4, 3, 3, 4 (average 3.6)
Felix Pena: 4, 4, 5 | 4, 3, 4, 4 (average 4)
Garret Richards: 5, 5, 5 | 3, 4, 2, r (average 4.3)
Nick Tropeano: r, 5, 5 | 5, r, 4, 5 (average 5.1)
Shohei Ohtani: 5, 4, r | 2, 2, 1, 5 (average 3.6; 2.5 by rate alone)
Matt Harvey: 4, 5, 3 | 5, 5, 4, 3 (average 4.1)
OK, let me interpret that for you. First of all, "r" stands for Replacement Level - meaning worse than #150 in the majors. Pretty bad.
The stats are in two groups, before and after the |. The first group are cumulative stats - essentially, how the pitcher performed relative to a full season. The second group are rate stats, meaning the quality of performance.
Summary
What does all of that mean? It means that Heaney is basically the definition of a #3 starter; Skaggs is #3-4, Barria is a #4, although rate stats see him more as a #5. Pena is pretty much the definition of a #4. Richards performed like a #3, although in very limited time. Tropeano is a #5 at best. Ohtani performed like a #2-3 overall, although in very limited time. Harvey was probably a #4 overall.
So let's say the Angels go into 2019 with a rotation of Heaney, Skaggs, Harvey, F Pena, and Barria, with Tropeano as the #6, and that they perform as they did in 2018. That gives them a rotation of a 3, 3.5, 4, 4, 4, and 5. Not so good.
But there is room for improvement. Skaggs has a good chance of being a solid #3, as does Harvey. But as you can see, extrapolating from 2018, the Angels have a rotation comprised of guys in the 3-5 range, with an average of 3.7 through the first 5, which means that the average Angel starter is basically a good #4.

drive home listening to mlb network heard something funny.  
The had on Mike Ferrin to talk about the Goldschmidt trade and Jeff Joyce was asking Ferrin about the likelihood of the dbacks trading away other players 
paraphrasing, he said on a scale from 1 to dipoto, what are the chances.  

The Angels recently hired 3 coaches from Driveline, which Bauer is really big on. So you have to think the FO is very interested in him. 
With all being said, it really seems like we need to unload Calhoun's $10M to make a deal like this happen.

The Angels recently hired 3 coaches from Driveline, which Bauer is really big on. So you have to think the FO is very interested in him. 
With all being said, it really seems like we need to unload Calhoun's $10M to make a deal like this happen.

FWIW, I'd be okay with Greinke if Arizona ate a small amount of the contract. He's due 95.5 M in actual cash for 19-21, as his signing bonus was already paid presumably. The D'backs would have to pick up what ever was deferred from previous years, Cot's believes it's 62.5 M from 22-26.
Arizona would have to pick up the 10M deferred in the three years he played with them, plus most of the other 32.5 M (10.5 in 19, 11 in 20, 11 in 21) deferred money he is still owed.
This would reduce his cost to the Angels to 62.5M, over three seasons. The luxury tax calculation would be 34.416 but that way the D'backs would be responsible for roughly 13.5M of that, meaning, that he'd be essentially a 21M pitcher. I can live with that for three years.
Unfortunately to get him and get them to still pick up 10-11M in deferred money, the Angels would then have to give up prospects of significant value.
Yet, I think Calhoun going back in the trade could reduce the amount of money they'd have to pay, meaning they only pick up deferred money in 20 and 21. That makes Greinke roughly a 31M expense in 2019, but then down to 21 in 20 and 21.
That helps both sides, so then say, we gave up David Fletcher or Renfigo, Brandon Marsh, and Matt Thaiss, in addition to Calhoun.
That seems mostly fair.
 
 

I've been a lurker here for years. I recently moved to the mid shift at work and figured I could kill some time posting here now.
I've been an Angels fan since sometime around the mid 1990's when I was about 10 years old. 
Looking forward to this hot stove season! 

Honest answer, i dont think he moves a finger till after the rule 5 draft and all the non tender madness is behind us on anything of substance at the ML level.   For him thats like an early Christmas. 
He has little choice, the assigned budget wont get it done so hes going to have to find a few gems in the rockpile then figure out how to spend whats left.

I think what you mean is....
“Why are the Angels decision makers not leaking their plans to the media?”
As much as Id love for Eppler to tell me everything he’s going to do, it’s not really in his best interest to do that. I do what I can to get crumbs. 
 

He has one year of arbitration remaining.  The Angels could simply arrange a trade for him and get him for nothing and offer him arbitration.  Jon Schoop being a one year stop gap could be beneficial.  If he bounces back, the Angels get the middle of the order production they need, and could attach a QO to Schoop at the end of the year and collect another high draft pick.  Or if Schoop ends up sucking next year, it's only a one year pact, meaning he wouldn't be blocking Jones or Rengifo. 

I think that much of the hate Dipoto gets from Angels fans now is partially attributed to the way he left the organization in the middle of the season. Compounded by the many poor decisions he made during his tenure; Baldoquin, Clevinger, Hamilton, Wilson etc...He was also a very charismatic guy, so when he showed his true colors it made it that much worse. 
Under Eppler, the long term health of the team is looking astronomically better than it was under Dipoto. Granted the current state hasn't been what we all have hopped for. However, I think when grading Eppler's current performance, the numerous pitching injuries sustained in the last 3 years need to be considered. The team most likely would have still missed the playoffs 2 of the 3 years that Eppler has been here, but we had a pretty decent chance of making the WC in 2017 had it not been for all the SP injuries and Trout's thumb injury. It has also been said that Eppler "made Ohtani happen" and that he "crushed the presentation". It is quite possible that Ohtani would have landed somewhere else had Dipoto presented for us. The fact only, that he was instrumental in acquiring Ohtani is a huge vote of confidence that we have the right guy in charge.
So while I think there is a bit of homerism in the love for Eppler, it seems clear that he has done a remarkable job and I think the true fruits of his efforts will be realized in the years to come. 

I think that much of the hate Dipoto gets from Angels fans now is partially attributed to the way he left the organization in the middle of the season. Compounded by the many poor decisions he made during his tenure; Baldoquin, Clevinger, Hamilton, Wilson etc...He was also a very charismatic guy, so when he showed his true colors it made it that much worse. 
Under Eppler, the long term health of the team is looking astronomically better than it was under Dipoto. Granted the current state hasn't been what we all have hopped for. However, I think when grading Eppler's current performance, the numerous pitching injuries sustained in the last 3 years need to be considered. The team most likely would have still missed the playoffs 2 of the 3 years that Eppler has been here, but we had a pretty decent chance of making the WC in 2017 had it not been for all the SP injuries and Trout's thumb injury. It has also been said that Eppler "made Ohtani happen" and that he "crushed the presentation". It is quite possible that Ohtani would have landed somewhere else had Dipoto presented for us. The fact only, that he was instrumental in acquiring Ohtani is a huge vote of confidence that we have the right guy in charge.
So while I think there is a bit of homerism in the love for Eppler, it seems clear that he has done a remarkable job and I think the true fruits of his efforts will be realized in the years to come. 

Pipe dream of the day, reading about the Cardinals interest in Goldschmidt and Greinke, and thinking about the glut of players on both Arizona and St. Louis...
...wouldn’t it be something if Albert had decided his knees are done, this would be his final year, and he waived his no-trade to return to St. Louis for a bench role and last hurrah, and the Angels, Diamondbacks, and Cardinals worked out some insane 3-way deal to balance out the money and spare parts? Cards getting Albert and Goldschmidt and prospects, Angels taking on Greinke and hell, I don’t know, some combo of names like Fowler, Gyorko, Ray, Jose Martinez, Lamb, Arizona getting salary relief and Calhoun, maybe Shoemaker or Parker, etc. 
 Fun to dream.

^^^ well said, NO