Reveille1984

Cron will likely never reach those numbers in all honestly. The only thing he's doing better than last year is striking out less, but at the cost of his SLG% dropping 50 points. He is what he's always been; a DH with a mediocre bat.

gofundmang

Granted winning a game 16-0 this early into the season is going to warp the RD stats, but they are a very good baseball team.

They're 9-3 and leading the division... meanwhile we just got swept by the freaking Twins. Of all the teams you could be talking shit about you choose the Cubs?

Its probably too early to call the defensive shifts a fail with a 9 game sample size. All shifting does is play a cat and mouse game based on spray charts, it isn't rocket science. If hitters start adjusting to it then the shifting will just accordingly.

Why would you expect improvement? It basically IS the same team as last year offensively with Pujols a year older, Escobar coming off an unsustainable BABIP at age 33 and Simmons who is even worse offensively than Aybar. Throw in the rest of the turds like Gio, Nava, Gentry, Perez, and Cron and this is what we have to work with.

This org is the definition of one step forward two steps back. I come into the thread optimistically after seeing the title, then see the Sosh snippet about enforcing his bunty runnyball throughout the organization once again... great. Sucks to have such a negative view of my favorite team, but Sosh is played out and the more he permeates the organization the more stagnant we'll become.

The guy's 28 with no speed, power, defensive ability or real athleticism to speak of. I know we have to look on the bright side sometimes with this lineup, but let's not pass that dooby around too aggressively here.

Worst farm system, projected worst in the division and with one of the highest payrolls in the game... I guess we have Mike Trout still? Our division is probably going to be pretty much a crapshoot in all honestly though. Its pretty much the Astros and everybody else.

I don't think it would ever happen with Arte at the helm and his obsession with the "3 Million fans" mantra. Trout is pretty much the only real marketable thing about the team right now along with the fading corpse of Pujols and maybe guys like Calhoun/Richards.

How many of our major leaguers are really out of nowhere the last few years though? Maybe Calhoun has been better than expected, but he was always actually slightly underrated given how much success he had in the minors. Guys like Cron, Gio, Perez, Trumbo etc. are pretty much the definition of replacement level or worse. LF has been a black hole for years and we haven't developed an above average IF prospect since Howie Kendrick. Mike Trout has literally single-handedly saved the Angels from being a bottom of the barrel franchise, adding around 10 extra wins a year to the major league roster right out of the gate. Its actually mindblowing how few of the players we've drafted that have made zero impact over the last five years when you consider how massive the MLB draft is. Every team has guys in their system that come out of nowhere to perform above what is expected of them. The fact that we haven't regretted many of our trades just means that the guys developed in our system actually go on to still be crap somewhere else, which isn't really a positive. Like Dochalo iterated to, you have to pick a direction at some point and just bite the bullet if necessary. You can only be competitive for so long when A.) you never rebuild or package expensive major leaguers for younger players and B.) draft terribly and continuously throw away the few decent prospects you do have to supplant the major league roster.

When he appeals and is reinstated in 3 years, he'll be our #1 prospect!

I feel like we've had the worst system in baseball going on five years now. It really is pretty pathetic at this point.

Billy "Clean Peanut" Eppler

Doesn't seem to make any sense honestly. We won't go over the luxury tax threshold to address a dire need in LF, but we'll go over for a 33 year old Howie Kendrick while losing a draft pick?

No offense, but you should really get an editor or second pair of eyes to look these over before publishing. Tons of minor spelling and grammar errors strewn throughout the article. But yeah, it's kind of sad when the solution to not sucking is "well, we have to just pray to whatever gods that might be listening that these mediocre, dime-a-dozen nobodies become above average regulars." The players in our farm system are about as intriguing as a piece of dry toast.

Fair enough. I just don't think he has the potential for more that you speak of. You don't see many SP's suddenly figure it out at 28 and put together big seasons, especially guys with mediocre control. I guess being a lefty helps him out and his mileage is pretty low. I just feel like he's worth more to us than what we'd get from another team.

Hector is pretty mediocre, not sure what the fascination is with him. He's already 28 and last year was his first season throwing over 150 innings. He's pretty much a .5 - 1 WAR pitcher with continually mediocre peripherals. The only reason he's outperformed his FIP numbers by nearly a full ERA point the last few years is his absurdly high strand rate (top 5 in baseball the past two seasons) and that he's an extreme fly ball pitcher pitching in an extreme fly ball friendly park.

This. Has anyone actually looked at the outfield FA class for next off-season? It is a variable turd cluster of old, weak-hitting scrubs. The reason to go after one of the remaining guys this offseason is the fact that we don't have the pieces to trade for an above average left-fielder and there's literally nobody to sign next offseason that is a long-term solution. Gordon, Cespedes and Upton are not the perfect fits for us and they'll definitely be overpaid. But our other options are even worse and we don't have time for a "transition year" with our current situation.

Shhh, stop your logic.

Yes. He shouldn't even be a consideration, IMO. He'll be a 1.5-2.0 WAR player that we're losing a top 20 pick for.

It's not that Simmons wasn't a need for the more distant future, but instead that there are more urgent needs than blowing our very limited prospect load for a position we were already set for in 2016. If we sign somebody worthwhile and go over the luxury tax for LF then the Simmons trade looks a lot better and nobody will give a crap. if we sign a couple of washed up hasbeens to create a shitty platoon situation then what was the point.

He's been a top 5 outfielder in MLB per WAR over the past three seasons only behind guys like Trout, Harper, McCutchen and Bautista. Not sure what more he can do to be an "All-Star level player".

We do draft pitchers, then trade them away for Simmons