Warfarin

4 hours ago, Chuckster70 said:

I'm saving my comments for the podcast, but check out Victor Rojas' take on this. Especially check out the comments and subtweets taking what he said out of context too. Nuts.

 

This is a very good perspective.  I do think though if the Angels make Ohtani available by trade, they'll like get the value that Rojas is referring to.  While this seems far fetched, perhaps the best version of this whole saga would be to essentially do with Ohtani what the Yankees did with Chapman and the Cubs years ago - trade Ohtani to a team, get a huge bounty in return, then re-sign him in the offseason, so you not only get to keep Ohtani long-term, but you also get several top 100 prospects to go along with it.

I don't think that is a likely scenario at all, but that'd be pretty cool to see, all things considered.

7 hours ago, totdprods said:

The bullpen can and always will need to be upgraded. As good as Soriano, Bachman, Webb, and Joyce may be, it’ll make them so much stronger if they have the ability to keep those guys fresh with an additional vet reliever. The offense and rotation needs seem to ebb and flow, but, bringing in at least one more good reliever would be huge. 

I like how they addressed with the offense with the Escobar and Moustakas moves, but they really need Trout to find his groove, Neto to return and can’t afford any other long-term injuries. But I think smaller, raise-the-floor moves (catcher? OF/1B? Bellinger?) could be sufficient if Trout and Neto and Rendon are in the mix. 

The rotation badly needs either a steady #3-4 guy to bump Anderson/Barria down a peg, or someone like a Giolito or Flaherty that can give you a big game behind Shohei in a playoff series. That’s a lot of pressure to put on Detmers and Sandoval scares the hell out of me in big games.

And on a side-note, I have a feeling Moustakas is gonna wind up being a huge addition. Dude seems absolutely thrilled to be an Angel, and like he has truly wanted to be here for awhile, and just has that vibe that he’s gonna click here and come up with some big hits. 

Joyce didn't really look that great before his injury, and all of the guys you mentioned are rather unproven in the long-term.  They can, of course, continue to be good, but it'd be nice to add another arm to that mix..

Someone to keep an eye on might be Hader.  The Padres are surprisingly fading away, further and further out of the playoff race.  I highly doubt they'd trade away anyone who they have control of beyond this year, as they are likely to compete again next year, but it's possible they could look at trading a pending free agent, such as Hader.

Adding Hader would be a huge addition to this pen, should he become available, and I imagine the cost wouldn't be THAT high, as even the best relievers don't cost too much for just a 2 month rental.

I am not sure why anyone would want to trade Renfroe.  We just saw how quickly depth can be depleted with our infield injuries.  Keep the depth and hang onto Renfroe.  

1 hour ago, Mark68 said:

I was never a big Moustakas guy. That being said, I like this. Perry is not fucking around. We need infield depth and he went out and got it. Essentially, Moose > Walsh right now (and I am a big fan of Walsh). Obviously, this helps keep the lineup deep.

Right.  Basically - Moose is an upgrade over Walsh (in his current form) and Padlo.  It is sending a message to the team that their GM is willing to quickly make moves to provide reinforcements and reach the playoffs.  Those moves are likely popular in the clubhouse and important for morale.

Now, instead of Rengifo, Padlo, and Velazquez being counted on as starters, they are bench players, optioned, and/or DFA'd.

25 minutes ago, Blarg said:

He is still swinging at pitches out of the zone and living off of defense not being in the right place. 

I gotcha.  I'm not really hoping for any miracles, but I think if he can improve to, say, a ~700 OPS hitter who can play very good defense, I think he can at least be a serviceable backup who can function mainly as a late inning defensive replacement.

1 hour ago, Angels 1961 said:

I give Minasian credit for going all out trying to improve team. INF depth with Moose, Escobar and Fletcher helps for now. Have no idea when Rendon or Neto will be back. Biggest need is now BP. Devenski seems to have hit the wall. Bridge yo closer very weak right now. I like recent moves by GM trying to keep halos in race.

The downfall of this team for years has been having terrible depth, which is always exposed over the course of a full season unless you have stunningly good health, which few teams do.

Minasian did a solid job of building infield depth, but a wave of injuries have struck (once again), and we were basically being forced to trot out subpar replacements.  Acquiring Escobar and Moose, at least, provides us with replacement level or better players.

I'm a bit interested to see if Fletcher has improved his approach at all in the minors as well.  He started off poorly but has been rather solid since his slow start.  

46 minutes ago, Angelsjunky said:

Yes, this. It is almost like the traded for Escobar out of desperation, and then lined up who they really wanted and paid less for him.

I think Escobar actually is also being eyed to take Urshela's role for next season, too, given that Urshela is a FA.  He has an option for 9mil next year and effectively can serve as 3B/2B insurance.  It is unlikely Rendon will ever play a majority of a season, given all the health issues he has had, so it makes sense to have a solid backup in place.  Escobar will ensure that for us next year.

So in that context, I think that's a decent acquisition.

1 hour ago, Jason said:

This was always my understanding too. I did not expect him back until sometime after the ASB. I’m not sure why some felt he would be back in a week or two 

Right.  I have seen various MLB players out for months with an oblique strain.  Obviously there are various degrees of a strain, but I am assuming he will be out for a minimum of a month, but probably more.

I give Perry credit for doing what he can to help this team win.  Moose is obviously an upgrade over Padlo.  Not exciting, but he can play 1B/3B, provide a LHH, and essentially serve as a serviceable MLB option.

I agree with others that it hurts to see some MILB depth traded, but I think we actually are in fairly good shape in terms of both controllable MLB pitching depth and MILB minor league depth.  Ohtani is a wildcard, but Ohtani aside, we have Sandoval, Detmers, Anderson, Canning, and even Barria - all controllable for multiple years.  Bush, Silseth, Mederos, and Koch are all promising prospects as well.  While it always hurts to trade MILB depth, I think the quality of arms we parted with can be somewhat easily replaced.

8 hours ago, Second Base said:

Van Scoyoc is one of those pitchers we knew early on would be a major leaguer, based on size, stuff, demeanor, etc.. But he's had a terrible time with mechanics and finding the plate. He's be a big league reliever someday. 

Moose is a good hitter and makes this a deeper team in multiple ways. Obviously, it seems he'll be seeing the majority of starts at 1B. He's yet another option at 3B and 2B too on a team loaded with those. And he deepens the lineup significantly. When you've got guys like Moose, Escobar and Renfroe hitting 6-7-8 in your lineup, you've got some depth. 

Ok update with depth chart

1B: Moustakas, Drury, Escobar, Renfroe

2B: Drury, Rengifo, Fletcher, Escobar, Moustakas

SS: Fletcher, Rengifo, Velasquez

3B: Escobar, Moustakas, Fletcher, Rengifo, Drury

- When Rendon returns, he goes to 3B, Escobar moves to super utility (plays 80% of the time, just at different positions). 

- When Neto returns, he goes to SS, Velasquez is gone, Fletcher goes to strict bench role as a defensive replacement and pinch hitter. Rengifo likely gone too.

1. LF Ward 2. DH Ohtani 3. CF Trout 4. 2B Drury 5. C Thaiss 6. RF Renfroe 7. 3B Escobar 8. 1B Moustakas 9. SS Fletcher

I think all of this could be true, but I think Perry recognizes that the odds of everything being healthy at the same time is .. perhaps somewhat unlikely?  Rendon keeps getting hurt (though obviously the last one was not his fault), and it seems inevitable that someone else probably will - just the nature of the game.  So I think that is why we are seeing all these little moves - better to have too much talent, and then try to figure out how to shift the pieces, than the opposite.

That said, should everyone be healthy at relatively the same time, I agree with your assessment, though I think we'll see Fletcher optioned before they let go of Rengifo.  They will likely try to maintain as much depth as possible, and while Fletcher has an option (or can even be DFA'd and sent back to the minors as we just saw), Rengifo cannot.

9 minutes ago, DMVol said:

Drury has played a lot of 3b….just slightly less than 2b….

https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/d/drurybr01.shtml

 

7 minutes ago, arch stanton said:

But he's much better at 2nd which is why Rengifo is playing 3rd and not Drury

Yeah, this.  Given how they've deployed Drury, it seems they essentially have him pegged as our 2B/1B coverage.  I'm sure they could slide him over to 3B as needed, but would probably like to keep that as an "as needed" basis and not routinely scheduled.

From what I've read, it seems Padlo is a fairly decent defensive 3B.  Not sure how he'll fair offensively, but he's had a solid year in AAA with a good BB% and a respectable K%.  He'll probably slide into the Urshela role for now, and may get a fair amount of starts until Rendon returns.  We'll see how he fares in the big leagues.

7 hours ago, Trendon said:

Problem with calling either of them up is then you have to DFA them after.

So in the interest of retaining depth, Cabbage, Fletcher, or Soto may be the best options.

I am thinking that Padlo may end up sticking on the roster even after Rendon comes back.  Stefanic can probably be optioned back, and Padlo will serve as a backup for 3B/1B.  Drury will mainly cover 2B, but so can Rengifo, etc.

1 hour ago, Revad said:

I’m so confused.  Maybe just buying time to let Renfroe practice at 1b?  I don’t understand this move unless Fletcher is still unavailable?  How’s Padlo’s defense at 1st?

The Angels needed someone who could play 3B.  We have Rengifo and that's about it, so it makes sense to call up someone who can play 3B.

Notably, Padlo plays 3B/1B, which is effectively what Urshela covered.  Given Urshela is likely out for a long time (the rest of the season?), it seems to make sense to call up someone who covers the same positions he did.

53 minutes ago, Stradling said:

Padlo isn’t on the 40 man. Any guesses on the roster move?

Would assume it would be Suarez to the 60 day IL.  Only other option would be Urshela, which is possible given that his injury sounds rather significant.

1 hour ago, stormngt said:

I do think "analytics" have made front office to view baseball like it's a video game as the worship the "religion of advanced metrics".

I think Eppler did it too much with the concept of "the starter " and having pitchers gobthrough the order 3 times.

I think Minasian is doing it with the "Tammin" approach on relief pitching.

Advanced metrics has changed baseball but it should be used to advise managerial moves and not dictate in game decisions. 

I think the best FOs tend to have some blend of advanced metrics and traditional scouting.  I think Fangraphs (?) posted some grid years ago about the FO's, and how they skew towards one direction or another.  I can't remember where we fell on it, although I'm pretty sure it was generated during Eppler's era.  It seems to me that Perry has somewhat of a blend in his FO, based on his various hirings, but hard to say exactly.

2 hours ago, Docwaukee said:

dealers choice on which to keep but I'm not a fan of having both.  Especially with no options.  Personally, I'd move one of them in favor of Silseth who has options AND is a more viable option for a legit high leverage pen role.  

Truthfully, I think that is one of the biggest issues with the way our bullpen is currently constructed.  We have way too many pitchers who don't have any options.  It is essentially what led to one of our best relievers (Wantz) having to be optioned - because we didn't really have anyone else who could be optioned at the time.

Hopefully we are moving in that direction with time, as our young pitchers get closer to the majors and some of our poorer performing options are DFA'd/let go, but for now, the only way to cycle through relievers is to essentially have them get "hurt" and use the IL to call up a fresh arm.

6 hours ago, oater said:

It has not been the Angels' MO, but I wuld issue a QO to Renfroe, but would limit any multi-year offer to something like 2 yr/30 million. I view 2024 as somewhat of a transition year where we assess whether Adell/Moniak are long-term pieces for the outfield. 

I agree.  I don't see this team signing Renfroe to a long-term contract.  I get the impression that Perry will ultimately shy away from long-term deals.  Anderson's 3 year deal already looks rather questionable based on early results.

I think if Ohtani does indeed move on, which is my guess too unfortunately, I think Perry will ultimately just try to spread the money around on depth, to try to ensure we have as much depth as possible.  If you peer at the fWARs of this team, while some players haven't performed as well as we would have hoped, there aren't too many players in the negative fWAR territory for now.  That's a stark difference to last year, when we had many, many sub-replacement hitters getting lots of at bats.  That's very solid roster building.

10 hours ago, Trendon said:

Even after they used him in a leverage spot today?

You’re probably right, but I’d hate to see it.

He was used in a leverage spot, but against the bottom part of the order.  I think Silseth will get optioned when Tepera is ready.  It would not be my choice, but I think they will err on the side of trying to keep as many arms as possible, although I'd just prefer they move on from Tepera at this point TBH.

4 hours ago, mmc said:

We’re now seeing the importance of having strong catching depth, teams will have little desire to create a similar void for their organization, even if the guys you’d be trading for have minimal to no value in a vacuum.  That’s why I think our best chance at an external upgrade is taking advantage of someone’s roster crunch.  The Dodgers had their catching depth similarly tested due to injuries a couple weeks ago, their external solution was to sign Austin Wynns after the Giants DFAd him.

Actually what's interesting about that is the Dodgers are often thought of to have one of the strongest catching pipelines in baseball, but even that didn't prevent them from having to scrape the bottom of the barrel to fill their temporary gap.  

It just goes to show you how difficult the position is to fill.  Again, I think we actually HAD very good depth.  When any team loses their top two catchers, they will invariably suffer.

2 hours ago, mmc said:

Lots of people expected big things from Rengifo this year after his conclusion to last season, but he has really been struggling and is now out of options.  How much longer can he continue to produce the way he has before Minasian might choose to drop him from the roster, knowing he will aggressively drop players who aren't producing and there is real urgency to make the playoffs this year.  Or do you think he will eventually turn it around?

I think Rengifo is having his role adjusted.  He grades out rather poorly defensively, such that he isn't really ideal as a regular starting 2B or 3B.  I think they are instead reserving him moreso to face LHP, and rotating his spot around the diamond (2B, LF, CF).  

I don't think he'll be let go.  But I think he'll play more sparingly and in more select spots, barring injury to others (which, as we have already seen, can/will occur).

4 minutes ago, DMVol said:

Since Stassi’s return is so up in the air, I think Perry has to make a trade….wrong time of the year, I know, but you just about have to upgrade over Thaiss and Wallach….Maybe they think they can throw Thaiss out there and hope his rough edges on defense get smoothed out with regular playing time….we’ll see…

I think Wallach grades out fairly well defensively.  He has historically been a black hole offensively, although he has had a strong start to his AAA season.  All that said, if he can be good defensively, then we'll just have to take it, IMO.  

1 minute ago, AngelsLakersFan said:

I know this is an overreaction but I can't help but this is what we can point to that ultimately sinks this season. Giving up 5 runs in the 9th to the Royals then losing O'Hoppe for the season. If they had decent catcher's depth I might feel different but unless Stassi comes back soon and returns to form this is a huge hit.

What's actually kind of crazy about the situation is, entering spring training, we actually had shockingly good catching depth.  O'Hoppe was a top-rated prospect and Stassi, at the minimum, could be considered a very good backup.  We had Thaiss and Wallach, who would seem like decent fallbacks who can hold serve for short periods of time for short-term injuries.  And we had Quero, who while far off, is an exciting prospect.

That just goes go show you why teams so heavily prioritize catching depth.  We are now down our top two options, and you can quickly see what a huge drop-off it creates.

3 minutes ago, Trendon said:

What makes you think he’s gonna talk about what happened when he returns?

If it’s a sensitive and private matter to the extent that it’s not gonna be revealed publicly now, why would that change when he returns?

It appears likely that someone in his family is very ill / going through a difficult health situation, and the outcome of that is unknown, so privacy is maintained for now.  The situation will "resolve" in one of two ways:

1.  The person recovers.  Stassi opens up about it because the process is over and the person has recovered, and he discloses the difficulties involved.

2.  The person does not recover and passes away.  Stassi, having had the opportunity to grieve the situation, may open up about it at that point and how much it has impacted him, and so on.

Many people in their lives have ill family members and don't openly discuss it for awhile.  He deserves his privacy and the opportunity to deal with it in the way he feels is best.

26 minutes ago, ten ocho recon scout said:

Yep. 

The patience has run dry. And I say that as someone who's still not panicking (I still think it's a good team). 

Yeah.  I am generally rather optimistic, and I don't think this is a bad team at all, but I think it appears more of the same.  Losing O'Hoppe and now having C be manned by Wallach and Thaiss indefinitely hurts a lot as well, unless Stassi can come back soon.

The positive side, though, is it does appear that we are having a lot of growth in the minor leagues.  If Minasian shows he can draft and develop talent well, then that will make up for things and enable us to contend, but it does take at least a few years, at the minimum, to see that process play out.

I am bullish long-term, but I am not sure we will contend this year, and I think that if we fall out of contention, we would probably be best served to trade Ohtani and get multiple very good prospects, instead of inevitably letting him leave.

3 minutes ago, Angel Oracle said:

Still only 23, should be 100% for next season.

My goal now for them is just finishing over .500, and then re-sign Ohtani and contend going forward.

Give the young pitchers time to develop further and get the AA/AAA guys up here at some point for experience.

I suspect if we don't make the playoffs, Ohtani will probably move on to a team that offers him the opportunity to make the playoffs on a yearly basis.

It is hard to envision Ohtani staying after not making the playoffs once in the six years he has been here.