Reveille1984

Just looking at the names in the lineup, I don't think anyone is surprised that this team sucks ass

Jesus f*ing christ

I kind of want to see if Cozart can finish the year with a sub .100 BA out of morbid curiosity

Only the Angels

Simmons swinging out of his shoes

mini slump: over

Four guys in our lineup are hitting under .200 over 10% into the season. Left handed, right handed, it doesn't really make a difference at this point. We have tons of guys getting regular playing time that just shouldn't be everyday players. The loss of Upton/Ohtani is exemplifying how little depth we have.

Lebron would have put us over the top, what were we thinking letting him go to the Lakers

That... is not an exciting lineup. It's sad how pedestrian it looks without Trout putting the entire franchise on his shoulders per usual.

I guess "destroyed his ability" is more apt. You're correct, I can't read his mind. But bottom line he hasn't shown the ability to be a regular on a major league roster since 2017. Hopefully he keeps up his confidence with a 1 for 32/-59 wRC+ start to the season.

$13M per on a short term deal wasn't necessarily terrible, even if he reverted back to a run of the mill decent third baseman. It just looks terrible now since nobody expected him to be historically bad. Logically you had to expect 5 WAR seasons wouldn't become his new norm at age 32, but the injury bug has basically destroyed him and his confidence.

When Brian Goodwin is second on the team in WAR after 10 games, you know you've had a rough start.

WAR is an individual player stat, so your argument doesn't really make sense in this regard. It isn't meant to take into account how good or bad of a team that player is on. It's like asking if Trout's batting average is more valuable on the Angels because the rest of the lineup is so awful; it's just numbers put into a formula. It's independent of team performance.

He caught a case of the ol' Chronic Changes

We've sure had a lot of "gap years" over the past decade. One playoff series in nine seasons (likely ten after 2019) and Trout/Ohtani/Simmons are the only bright spots to look at position player wise on the current roster, with Ohtani not even playing. Upton is already out likely half of 2019 and will be 32 next year. Hopefully a lot of these kids in our minor league system pan out, because we desperately need an influx of talented youth both on the pitching and position player side. I'm trying to be optimistic for both this year and next, but I'm not sure what is going to be majorly different in 2020. Even if guys like Adell/Rengifo come up, there's still going to be a learning curve while they get acclimated to the bigs. We already have $135M allocated for 2020 before arbitration, and I doubt Arte is going to balloon our payroll up towards the luxury tax anytime soon. I'll stop there, just being a negative nancy.

My infant son has a case of the chronic changes, hopefully Heandog's diaper can be cleaned asap and he can resume throwing

Our lineup is Trout, Simmons, the re-animated corpse of Pujols and a bunch of guys. If Ohtani and Upton don't come back strong, we're in for a long, dismal offensive season.

This. You can't predict the future, you just prepare for it as best as possible. Having the most talented players allows better flexibility, especially when so few of these guys actually become contributing big league regulars. Drafting a worse player because of a potential positional need is hamstringing your talent pool for a guy that might have a 5% chance of ever sniffing the league, let alone becoming good enough to be a full-time, good player. If it really gets to the point where a hole on the major league roster is that glaring, you supplement with trades and free agency.

Why does this make him an asshole? Any player in the game would want Trout as a teammate, that isn't exactly a surprise.

I hope Trout's camp makes it clear one way or the other as to whether he feels good about sticking around Anaheim or not. If things get dire at least we can grab a massive haul in a trade situation to offset his loss a little bit. Worst case would be that the negotiations prolong and nothing happens, and he ends up leaving for nothing (ala Bryce Harper).

The argument that he should leave money on the table and just vanish is so tired. Anyone on the planet owed nearly $100M to play a professional sport, no matter how big of an embarrassment they were to their team, would never turn down that cash out of the integrity and the goodness of their heart. Blame Arte and the structure of guaranteed contracts in the MLB, not Albert. And technically he's still "competing in the game", so that quote that gets thrown out regarding him retiring isn't really relevant. He hit around .250 with 19 HR in less than 500 PA's last year. I am as aware as anyone that he is overall a bad player, but he is still able to provide a smidge of offensive value even if it should be off the bench. If the Angels have someone that can supplant him and provide more production then of course it's the job of management to have a tough conversation with Albert, but he's not going to put his own ass on the bench.

And our second round pick is 55th overall, people really seem to over-value draft picks after the first round. Players drafted around 50-60 that make the majors average around 2 WAR total pre-free agency, with 85-90% of them never sniffing a big league roster: https://www.fangraphs.com/tht/the-net-value-of-draft-picks/

Yeah, at $20M per it isn't at all enticing. Once you start talking about maybe $15M or less though for only 3-4 seasons, it becomes more intriguing (though there's probably a <10% chance of his market drying up that badly).

4/60 would be fine with me. Even if he becomes a low to mid 4.00's ERA middle rotation guy, having that for $15M a year is fairly cheap considering what starters are getting paid nowadays. I doubt he'll get that low though.

The biggest upside to a high tier farm system is cost-controlled talent that you can utilize on your big league roster for half a decade. Obviously that's best case scenario since so few of these guys actually become big league regulars, but it gives you options to keep your club from overspending in free agency as well as using your surplus of chips to fill holes and push you into the upper echelon of contention (grabbing a Manny Machado during the trade deadline, etc.). What's screwed the Angels over the past 5-10 years has been the worst of both worlds; namely a shitty farm system as well as an overpaid, underperforming big league roster hampered by endless pitching injuries. It isn't really possible to build a championship caliber club through FA anymore, you need to build from within and then supplement holes in free agency (e.g. Houston, Yankees, etc.). This is hopefully what Eppler is trying to accomplish and why we aren't blowing our load on players that will remove draft picks or only help in the near term. This will piss some fans off, but long term it is a solid approach.