BTH

I'd say it's the opposite. Eppler came from the Yankees, and he wasn't successful closing deals with higher tier guys. A GM who can find value on the margins and at the bottom tier of free agency is important, especially for the Angels. The Angels have Trout and Rendon as stars, but they need to complement them, and they need to pick up players on value deals.

I'm interested to see if a number of free agents sign in the first few days of this week. I wonder if some players are just going to want to go into the holidays knowing where they will be playing so they expedite the process at the beginning of this week.

If I were the Reds, I'd ask for Fletcher in a Castillo deal. I wouldn't blame them for asking for him, but I'm not sure it benefits the Angels to give him up, especially since he is still pre-arb.

I'd guess that most of the people hired by Eppler get replaced. It's still kind of unclear on who is and isn't remaining with the organization. Eric Chavez and Ben Francisco were both Special Assistants to Billy Eppler, so I'd assume they aren't going to be with the organization moving forward, but there hasn't been any mention of their statuses.

The addition of Brian Parker from the Dodgers makes me think that Swanson may be headed out. Although we don't know what Parker's position will be, Parker was the Jays Director of Amateur Scouting when Minasian was with the Jays, so I wouldn't be surprised to see Parker take over for the Angels in that same role.

If the new front office could help players like Barreto, Rengifo, Jones, and Thaiss develop, that'd be huge. At the very least, those players need to be at or above replacement level. It kills the team every year when players like them are producing negative WAR.

I don't think either of those people were the Angels lead analytics guy. Like I said above, I believe that Kevin Ferris, who is the Angels Director of Quantitative Analysis, is the Angels lead analytics guy. Anderson was an assistant to Kevin Ferris. He is leaving to be the Reds head of analytics, but I don't believe he had that job with the Angels.

Joe Maddon literally said yesterday, and I quote, "Did you want to put all your eggs in one basket? Did you want to attempt to fill the basket up a little bit more by not spending whatever you have for one particular pitcher? So these are things that Perry and I have been talking about."

Maddon's comments yesterday made it sound like it could potentially be either or in some aspect. Now I don't think he meant Bauer alone vs. multiple players at different positions, but I do think he was indicating that signing one player to a big contract limits what you are able to do with the rest of the roster. Of course Minasian views Bauer as a possible option, I just don't think it is the likeliest option. But that's just my opinion, and I could get proven wrong.

I based what I said off reading into what Maddon said yesterday. Yes, it is my opinion, which is why I started the sentence off with "I think.

I know that both Strangio and Martone left, but I'm not sure if either of them was running the analytics department. They hired Kevin Ferris from the Rays a couple of years ago to be their Director of Quantitative Analysis, and I kind of figured that he was in charge of the analytics department. I believe he's still with the organization, but maybe he wasn't in charge of the analytics department.

Improving the game-planning and defensive alignments would probably take more buy-in from the coaching staff, which could make it tougher to see improvement.

The Angels did? That's news to me.

They could probably improve their game-planning, game-calling, and defensive alignments a bit this upcoming season. Some of the stuff Minasian has talked about seems like it may take a couple years to be fully implemented.

The Angels figure to add starting pitching, but the odds that the Angels acquire a starting pitcher in the next week are significantly lower than the odds that they acquire a starter from December 26 to February or March. So I'll say no, the Angels don't get a starting pitcher before Christmas.

I think the only way the Angels sign Trevor Bauer if Arte decides that Bauer is the guy he wants. Arte has done that in the past and did it just last year with Rendon. If Perry gets to build the team the way he wants to, I'm pretty sure that he doesn't sign Bauer and instead spreads the money around.

Who lost their lead analytics guy?

I think Bauer is going to want more than 4/$100M. Payroll does clear up after 2020, but the Angels will also need to re-sign or replace Bundy and Heaney.

I wonder if a player would rather take a backloaded deal this offseason. The reason I speculate about that is because there is less certainty that a full season will be played this season than there will be for other seasons. If you're a player, you'd prefer that a salary of $25 million is prorated rather than a salary of $30 million.

I get this same impression as well, and I also agree with it. Spreading the money around not only allows them to add in different areas of the roster, but it also gives them greater flexibility. If you give Bauer 25-30 million a year for 4-6 years and he flops, you are stuck with him and his contract becomes a burden that prevents you from adding to other areas for those 4-6 years.

Looks like Maddon will meet with the media today at 1:30 PT: https://www.mlb.com/angels/news/joe-maddon-2020-managers-week

I'd love for the Angels to get at least one more quality setup-man type bullpen arm. Whether it's Hand, Bradley, Greene, or someone in a similar tier.

If Perry has actually convinced Arte Moreno to invest into the front office and baseball operations department, that would be huge. It feels like the Angels have lagged behind in those areas compared to other teams.

I also feel like San Francisco could be a team that swoops in for Bauer. They have shown a willingness to spend money on pitchers in the past, they've stated they want to add more pitching, and they're a very analytical team with smart coaches, which would likely be very appealing to Bauer. Also, his agent/significant other(?) is from the Bay Area and grew up a Giants fan.

Might as well throw out a random prediction... Angels acquire Carlos Carrasco from Cleveland on January 25th.