ettin

The problem was not totally in keeping Wood.

 

It would seem to be in two parts:  a) scouting not effective enough to find enough solid prospects, and too many of the real prospects got traded (Corbin, Segura, in time Skaggs, etc.) and too many of the wrong prospects were kept (Wood, D-Mac, etc.). 

 

I sure hope that changes in the next 3 years, because otherwise we will be going down this same path then.

This I would agree with for the most part. Segura probably wouldn't have hurt us so much if our cupboard wasn't so bare already.

I really believe in Dipoto's plan (I'm talking his strategic long term plan in building the farm) but only time and patience will reveal how well we really do in player development and drafting.

Dipoto is correct in trying to build a "moving window of contention" where we constantly have a nucleus of good players who can compete that are supplemented by a good farm system. We are on the first steps heading towards that goal and I think this year's draft will help supplement the 2015-2017 nucleus.

The only fly in the ointment is how well the nucleus performs year-to-year. Unfortunately we have hit a severe road bump.

Perhaps the Angels problem ettin, that they've been using free agency to build a nucleus and not as something to supplement their team.  

 

And as for Trout, I'll say this.  If ever there were a player I'd be willing to gamble obscene amounts of money in, it would be him.  

Yes that is what I said at the end of my first post. Like you, I disagree with the idea that you use money to buy free agents to build a nucleus in principle. However some teams can afford to do that very thing and the Angels happen to be one of them.

I would love to see the Angels redevelop their farm system and I think Jerry is working on that issue as we speak (Draft is on June 6th right?). I think it is part of his long term goals for the club and I think a big part of the reason he went to free agency the last two years is that last years draft, this years draft and next years draft are overall very weak on talent. I recently read from one article that this years draft was given a 45 on the 20-80 scouting scale in terms of talent.

I think Dipoto looked at the opportunity to sign free agents and give extensions to core players to build a contending team now and for the next 2-4 years while we rebuild the farm system slowly last year and this year and then start to accelerate those efforts as we move forward. His idea, and I am paraphrasing Dipoto, was to have the "moving window of contention" that would allow us to field a team that has the potential to compete each and every year.

Which is why by no later than after his 3rd full season, and assuming he continues on like this, Trout needs to be given a long contract deal.

And make sure that if he isn't given one after this season, that they don't again give him a low salary under $1 million.

I fully agree with this and I would go even further and offer him a record-breaking money contract that covers the rest of his career and keep him an Angel for the rest of his playing days. There is no denying his athletic ability and talent and I don't think the Angels would regret it (could of course be totally wrong).

$400 million/15 year contract? Plus option years? Don't give him the opportunity to possibly go into the Hall of Fame wearing another team's cap. This really is an opportunity for the Angels to give him the most massive contract in history and lock up what appears to be a perennial HOF talent. If you are a gambler this is about as sure a bet as they come in terms of baseball talent. I don't mind waiting another year or even two but this should get done two years before he hits free agency if not sooner.

Keep in mind gents, this is NOT about whether or not the trade was worth it.  This is about a potential shift in the way teams do business.  Prospects that have higher upside down in A Ball are bigger risks that organizations feel they could recuperate from if dealt.  But when you have an extremely high upside prospect (and though I didn't add it in the article, he specifically said that if national publications weren't so "unreliable" meaning they have an agenda, Segura would've been a legitimate Top 10 prospect) teams will no longer go about trading them away when they are at AA and AAA. 

 

Meaning if these guys are dealt, they'll be on the move down in A Ball, not when they're on the Major League doorstep as Segura was.  Which makes sense because the team that receives such a prospect receives a tremendous amount of value both short term and long term and no one has to wait around and wonder whether or not this kid is going to make it. 

This idea has been exhaustively discussed on different sites. It is simply a result of higher free agency prices and the recoginition that controllable, homegrown talent can be given long-term extensions that generally have a much better chance of being more value-added for their team.

Those teams that can run higher payrolls will have a slight advantage in that they can still use the free agent market to acquire areas of need but the trend is moving back to using free agency as a supplement to build your team not to create the nucleus of it (unless you are the Dodgers, Yankees, Angels, etc.).

Yeah he's definitely killing it. Unfortunately he is about the only one who is really destroying the ball. Cron and Grichuk are starting to pick it up (Lindsey too) as Scott reported on but a lot of our other position prospects are not doing that hot right now.

I'm in, if I haven't been banned for being an apologist.

No but you will have to play right field and hit 9th.

Why does Arte get smitten so much by one hit wonders (GMJHGH) or big performances (Ghost Pujols)?

Why is he so seemingly obsessed with passing up the Raviners for attention?

AO, I don't think the big performance comment is fair since you, yourself, advocated that the Angels get a "feared hitter". I do think that the decision to give Pujols the contract was motivated in some small part by the opportunity to bring a franchise name to Anaheim which, in turn, allowed Arte to execute his new FOX deal. I think they also hoped that Pujols would perform like traditional Pujols but alas....

Great updates Scott!

One thing I might not have made clear in the article, or didn't even discuss really, is that I think this team as it stands, with perhaps another starter brought in, could be competitive for the next few years. The talent is there - there's just something not clicking. But if Pujols and Hamilton start producing, this team improves vastly.

 

So while it seems rather unlikely that the Angels make the playoffs this year (although, to be honest, I haven't completely given up hope - as naive as I sound), I'm not quite ready to throw the towel in on 2014-16 and trade Kendrick, Aybar, Vargas, etc. I'd rather see the Angels address the main weak spots from this year.

 

To put that another way, the gamble Arte & Jerry made is that they invested in the team that's on the field for the next few years. They've got to stick with it, for the most part, unless they don't want to contend for the next five years if they want to completely rebuild the system from the ground up. And then, if they do that, they'll have a similar situation as Miami is facing with Giancarlo Stanton. They've pretty much have to stay the course and hope that this team can start performing, and at least make things interesting until the farm system is revamped and the next "great" homegrown Angels team takes the field in 2017 or 2018.

Well, frankly, buying these free agents was the better route to go at the time those decisions were made. Last year's First Year Player Draft and this year's draft were considered very shallow in terms of high-end talent. Was it smarter to spend the money on free agents and extensions to put in place a contending team for the next 3-5 years or was it better to keep the draft picks and take the lesser talented prospects in the players pools last year and this year?

I think Dipoto made the best decisions he could at the time and I don't regret that. Next year's draft is also projected to be poorer than average. We have a good nucleus but you are correct that something is not "clicking".

Best post by LTH on the new website yet. 

 

I'm feeling a lengthy winning streak in the near future now. 

Oh wow! I like 2 game win streaks! It means we might win a series if they don't overlap!

It makes me sick they wasted this offensive talent by rolling out this pitching staff. Very frustrating.

 With all due respect Shane, the offense has sucked too. The only waste going on is by the players.

Bourjos is a slightly better CF than Trout.

Bourjos is a much better LF than Trout. (Trout is not a very good LF)

 

Having two elite centerfielders means that one must necessarily be underitilized. Problem here is that Trout seems to be out of his element moving to LF, and has a difficult time performing offensively when he's not playing his preferred position. Cabrera moving out of his preferred defensive position to make room for Prince Fielder, without losing a step offensively, is a valid argument for why he should have won MVP.

 

Note: I can post videos if people disagree

Totally disagree with this statement. There is a very large outfield out there and this defense is designed to cover a large part of it. By having two exceptional defenders in LF and CF you can shift Trout towards CF, shift Bourjos towards RF and allow Hamilton/Trumbo to move closer to the RF line. It provides more comprehensive line drive and flyball coverage which increases run prevention.

Even if you had 3 CF's playing the OF it still would have some value as even the most elite outfielder has some limit to their range and even 3 elite defenders couldn't cover the entire OF (although in that scenario they would probably come close).

In the end two elite defensive CF's add value and run prevention. Three CF's would still add value, although probably marginally so.

Hellickson is fine, and meets all of my above criteria.    I was referring to the trades we've made the past few years.

 

It was fine when Teixeira was acquired, because you could get a draft pick for losing a FA acquired in mid-season back then.

And we only traded a player in Kotchman who was replaceable (by Morales) if Teixeira left.

 

Talent like Segura does not come along every day.   Bad idea to trade him for a rental.

Well this has been discussed to death AO, but, in the end, it is about winning championships and at the time Greinke was someone who could give us that opportunity potentially. You have to give to get. I liked Segura but the reality was that the FO preferred Aybar over Jean and I didn't mind the attempt to win.

This is where I do think he deserves blame.  People keep saying it's not his fault the system is awful -- fine.  But he's not really done much to try to compensate for that situation.  We needed three SPs for the MLB rotation going into this year..  he added three, and Blanton was arguably an overpay.  Who was signed as insurance? No MLB ready arms at AAA and this team signed NOBODY as a fall back option -- instead it lost Brad Mills to the Rangers..  lol.   What we didn't need was a 125 million dollar RFer and while everyone and their brother seems content to pin that on Arte, I still believe a GM has to have the balls to say hey -- my plan is different.  Everyone seems all gung ho that he might put Scioscia in his place but apparently nobody seems to care he caves when Arte walks into the room.  That is worrisome to me.  Stoneman inherited an even uglier farm system and a significantly less talented roster and a meddlesome team VP in Tony Tavares, the big difference is he knew how to stand his ground.

 

About two years ago, I read some articles regarding the fact that MLB teams were facing a shortage of good to above average pitchers over the next 5 years (meaning from approximately 2011-2016). A lot of teams had either locked up their ace pitchers and/or had a good group of cost-controlled prospects. There was a shortage of free agent pitchers projected through the next 5 years. Considering the fact that we traded away most of our prospect arms I think Dipoto was faced with a situation that was difficult to manage in the near term. It seems that they wanted Greinke but weren't prepared to break the bank and went with plan B which was to make our offense so good that it would compensate for a lack of good pitching. Obviously that plan has its holes in hindsight but I'm not sure where Dipoto was supposed to find reasonable AAA starting pitchers that he could trade for without losing more prospects from other areas? We don't have a lot of trade pieces that other teams want to get the proper pitching depth that we desire. We can't really buy good pitching depth at the AAA level with money (i.e. it's not free agency)?

 

IMO, Dipoto should have been significantly more aggressive on the international market before the rules changed, we weren't..  Scott Servais is supposed to be this awesome advance scout and yet there haven't really been any Chone Figgins for Kimera Bartee or David Eckstein waiver wire pick ups.   There have been ZERO discard pile additions along the lines of Lou Pote, Brendan Donnelley, Ben Weber, or Al Levine.   Kevin Slowey was signed by the Marlins for less than a mil.  His career WHIP, H/9 BB/9 HR/9 and K/9 aren't that far removed from what Blanton's numbers in fact, most of those rates are better.  Carlos Villanueva was signed for 5 Mil -- look at his stats last year and what he has done for the Cubs to date.  Kevin Correia is another guy that's doing pretty well who was signed for cheap. 

 

Considering that our international system was damaged (lack of scouting, etc.) upon his arrival I'm not sure how the front office was supposed to go out and field the resources in time to evaluate the plethora of international players before that rule change? Servais is only as good as the scouts on the ground and if we don't have any or even a few running around trying to evaluate players the information that the front office needs to base decisions on isn't there? I suspect, moving forward, you will see better results but I think it is difficult to evaluate the front office on this issue. It is hard to invest millions based on word-of-mouth when you don't have professional eyes evaluating talent.

 

Yes the fam system is ugly, but it's not like there aren't replacement level talents that could have been signed on the cheap.  We just didn't really sign enough of them.  Sorry but when you have as much front line talent as the Angels were thought to have, you don't add more to the top and ignore the depth. 

FWIW, I do believe Dipoto was under pressure to win now, my hope is that ownership has figured out that it's okay to take a step back in order to compete over the long haul.  I think getting rid of Dipoto would be a mistake, but to say he's not the architect of this debacle is IMO, going easy on him.

 

Again, I'm not sure how much depth there was to be had in the first place. You also forget that sometimes players don't want to come to your team for various reasons, whether it is preferences to play on the East Coast, family obligations, etc. It is not all cut and dried as we pay them and they will come.

I'm not totally disagreeing with you IP but there are shades of grey to a lot of what you said that we are not privy too. I think Dipoto's design for the pitching staff was a reasonable idea in principle since we decided to go the Hamilton route (and lets not forget that the Hamilton signing was also made to weaken the Rangers.... oops?) and create a "powerful" offense. Both have failed unfortunately.

Take a deep breath -- I was speaking specifically to his pursuing guys with a track record of putting up strong FIP in particular...  FIP is purely theoretical in its nature and it's entire premise is built upon if everything else being even.   To go completely in one direction was a massive risk, I didn't fault him when he did it, but I pointed out it was a very saber-slanted approach and I was very curious to see how it would play out.   In Blanton's case, it's been horrendous.  Hanson and Vargas haven't been bad, but only Hanson has managed even a league average ERA among the SPs.

 

And you can argue at his having looked at the risks -- but, the fact that there were few fall back options in the system it makes it very clear he ignored much of the risk.  Guys like Barry Enright and Michael Roth have started games.   

I would disagree with that statement IP. FIP measures the things that a pitcher CAN control which are home runs, walks, and strikeouts. It is not theoretical at all, it measures real world results for each individual pitcher. The 'even' part of the sentence is a bit misleading as each individual pitcher has a talent level that varies some from other pitchers, such as Felix Hernandez vs. Luke Hochevar, for instance.

Fernando Rodney's back?

Herpes?

Clap, clap, clap...... wait.... the clap?

He potentially reminds me of Vlad Guerrero's skill set  Players like Guerrero and Aybar are hackers swinging at pitches they sometimes shouldn't be swinging at. I agree with most of everyones comments but we will see how Cron does against more off-speed and breaking balls and whether or not he can take a little more walks. Love the power and ability to make contact. Strange duck we have here.

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/fielding-independent-game-recap/

Notably in Blanton's start the other night neither side gave up any home runs or walks, resulting in the Angels pitching staff having a 0.12 FIP vs. the Royals 0.79 FIP.

I'm not here to debate FIP or start an argument about its value or lack of value, but, as I pointed out in a pre-season article, the Blanton signing was a statistical play on Jerry Dipoto's part where Jerry thought that bringing Blanton into pitcher-friendly Anaheim would bring his career 4.3 ERA (at the time of the signing) closer to 4.00 or even below it and provide our staff with a pitcher who could eat innings (of which Joe has consistently averaged about 190 IP per season).

Unfortunately, as you are all aware, this experiment has completely failed so far. As a side note, remarkably, Blanton still sits at a 4.10 xFIP which is supposed to indicate that he has pitched well despite coughing up too many long balls. Really the most interesting part is that the projection systems see him pitching better than he has year to date (which is still below average, sadly).

In the end it seems Blanton is just one of those pitchers that consistently defies his peripherals (With Weaver being the opposite side of that coin).

Ettin, we are pretty much over MHD's contribution and have moved on.

Yeah but he bashed so many other posters in previous PBK threads, using the 2012 season as his platform, it is just super obnoxious to then use the sample size argument to bash his success this year. I'm done Eric, but if people don't stand up and point out potential flawed arguments and abuse, the terrorists win.

Small Sample Size....if he wasnt doing well and you'd say he just needs more AB's...wouldnt you be using the same argument? You would...because you have.

You are, by far, the biggest Bourjos troll. You use the small sample size to justify your opinion of his season last year and then use it to bash him this year. You used to contribute well to this board at one time and now it is your PBK soap box.

Was at the game tonight, Trout never ran full speed and kind of just jogged into Weiters when the throw came in.

With the way that ball was smoked, if Trout is going he needs to be on his horse.

Just a very pathetic play to see develop and fail.

They cut to Trout turning the corner at third and he certainly didn't seem like he was going full speed. It also looked like he may have not cut the corner at third very well as he seemed to almost lose his concentration and footing after passing the base. Either way he was out by a mile. Markakis has a good arm and the ball got to him fast so perhaps Dino shouldn't have sent him but at the same time Mike looked like he didn't take the best route at full speed. If he had it would have been a lot closer at the plate, especially if Trout slid in.

LOL....yes, I was waiting for a post like this.....LOL

Fans People on this board did not let me down!

Fixed

Awesome post Chuck! I feel the heat of the rage when I put my hand close to the part of the screen your post occupies.

You're rubbing Chuck's post? We need a special private forum for this type of material Chuck, please.

To answer this a bit further Scott if we really wanted to completely reboot we should do it the way the Astros are currently doing it and trade off any extraneous assets that we don't want to build around.

So clearly we would keep Trout as a centerpiece to the team, in that scenario, and build around him. Players like Pujols, Weaver, and Hamilton have full no-trade contracts so unless we get their blessing to trade them we would be faced with a core of Trout, Pujols, Weaver, and Hamilton to build around.

You would then have to decide if players like Trumbo, Bourjos, Aybar, Kendrick, Iannetta, et. al. would be tradeable pieces that could bring back a lot of prospects as a group. But it also begs the question again as to why you would sell someone like Trumbo or Bourjos that have approximately 4 years left under club control and not use them as additional pieces to build around? This is why the team needs just a little re-tooling not a complete makeover, but I digress.