mulwin444

1 minute ago, Ender said:

Ya'll must be as bored as I am if you're posting The Onion articles and then end up yelling at each other.

Well, it is January 28th so, you know...

7 hours ago, RendZone said:

Absolutely. As a baseball fan I acknowledge what the Astros did was wrong. As an Angels fan I just can’t blame the Astros for our playoff drought. 

Nobody is doing that...seriously, quit being such a fucking knob all the time.  Can't you give us a winter break from your relentless nonsense and pick up in spring training like the players?

You know, stretch out a bit with some slight Pujols digs - "Whoa-ho, I bet you didn't know the aging player we signed 8 years ago to a 10 year contract...still has two years left!!!1!  Can you believe that?!"

And then follow up with some wind sprints - "You guys said something positive about Dipoto once!  Remember!!  REMEMBER!!!"

And then maybe play some interquad games before throwing down some real knowledge bombs like "The Angels got outbid by the Yankees for Gerrit Cole...I thought Arte was going 'all in'?!" and "Trout hasn't been to playoffs since 2014, Whah!!!!" and "Yacht fUeL!!!"

I'm just saying pace yourself...in order to be a sustainable troll you have to pick and choose your moments otherwise you won't have the energy to complain about what we didn't get after trading deadline. 

3 minutes ago, Taylor said:

Claude knows more about the inner workings of the Angels than Jeff Fletcher does.

On 1/24/2020 at 1:16 PM, RBM said:

I thought so also when we traded for him but I looked into it in more detail and noticed some changes he made in the 2nd half last year.

He led MLB with 41 HR's in 2018. In 2019 he gave up 29 HR's but only 9 in the second half.

I certainly think that this is Eppler's thought process.  There are not many starting pitchers that are under 28, have two years of control, have averaged close to 170 innings over the past 3 seasons, and has some upside that won't cost someone like Marsh or Canning.  Eppler saw an opportunity and snag him for some speculative Rondons.

12 minutes ago, Inside Pitch said:

I just like Gibson's warts better.   Gave up a lot of hits in front of awful Twins defenses -- seriously, awful.   GB rate for his career of 51.5%    Both guys had k/9 Rates of 9.0 last year, but Gibson sports a career HR/9 of 1.05 to Bundy's 1.67.   In the age of launch angle that's a big difference.

Read an article last season about Bundy I thought was interesting:

https://www.pitcherlist.com/going-deep-dylan-bundy-should-make-a-few-simple-changes/

"Bundy bumped his sinker usage up significantly for three games, and then for the rest of the year, it hovered around 10%, which he had only done in one game prior in 2019. This alone is encouraging, but the results were too.

First, let’s see how it affected his strikeouts and walks, as well as ground-ball and fly-ball tendencies:

The strikeouts went down some, and the walks went up some. That’s not a good combination, but his HR/FB and HR/9 both came down to earth, and he started inducing a lot of ground balls. Right now, our top priority is to get Bundy’s home run numbers to come down from where they are, since they are so drastically bloated. This change seems to have achieved that, at least temporarily.

Next, let’s take a look at his ERA and ERA estimators:

Across the board, this looks really good. The sample size isn’t huge, but this is more than a month of pitching (47.1 innings pitched), and there’s a substantive change that we can point to."

It goes on from there but it brings up some good points about how, if he mixes up his current repertoire, there could be noticeable improvement.  I wonder if it wasn't something along these lines that prompted Eppler to snag Bundy. 

On 1/24/2020 at 11:44 AM, Inside Pitch said:

Well, I didn't want Bundy... I would have much prefered Gibson to Bundy....  I see Bundy are more of a project and a reach than Gibson at 3 years 28 mil guaranteed, but I actually believe Bundy might be the better upside play.   Still, I think at one point I said Bundy was one of the guys I didn't  at all.   I always worry about guys that are looking to relearn how to pitch after seeing their velocity plummet like Bundy has.  There are tons of guys who do just that and go on to have successful careers, I just was hoping for more certainty.  

I saw Teheran as being the better "project" pitcher and he was my Bundy.  Teheran has the much better track record but he too has seen his velocity evaporate and would benefit from moving away from his FB usage.  I actually wonder if the Angels targeting them both is due to some in house belief that they can find something to unlock with both their sinkerballs.    May just be as simple as thinking the defense will be a huge plus for them -- but, they are just as likely to set records for HRs allowed given their recent histories.

Key for both is if they buy into moving away from their FBs

I can see HR concerns for Bundy but it certainly will help him moving out of the AL East.  He's also been pretty steady with 9.0+ K/9 over the past two seasons so he's still capable of missing bats and HR totals actually went down from 41 allowed in 2018 to 29 last season in about the same amount of innings in a season that saw record HR totals.  I guess I look at Gibson and see a guy who also gives a lot of hits, some HRs, same walk totals as Bundy but strikes out less people, and I am not seeing what separates them.

1 minute ago, Inside Pitch said:

I was a pretty loud proponent of signing both Pineda and Gibson -- because I viewed them as potential value pick ups.  Gibson has it in him to be better than he's been, stuff wise.  I think pitching in front of Minnesota's awful defenses may have hurt his numbers some -- but the thing with him is the ability to eat innings.  Pineda was a pure upside play.  When he's been healthy he's always been a solid pitcher with the ability to dominate at times.    Ultimately both guys signed for cheap -- and that IMO was the primary reason to target them both.   I regret missing out on those two guys more than the name guys people here lost their shit over..    Alex Wood was another guy I was talking about as early as October.  

Gibson would have been fine as a value play but don't you think his acquisition becomes a little redundant after the Bundy trade?  He's getting $5 mil and will be arbitration eligible next season as well.  To me, trading Rondons for Bundy and his two controllable years seems like the value play as opposed signing Gibson to a 3 year commitment.  They seem similar so what am I missing in regards to Gibson?  

Again, in regards to Pineda and the timing of his signing, I'm not sure other teams were really being considered beyond the Twins.  I mean, I heard zero rumors about his agent saying he's available despite reports that a number of teams were interested in signing him.  Everything came together really fast...

9 hours ago, Second Base said:

Yeah I'll give you Ryu. I mean I would've invested 4/80 in him, but can't deny the existence of those red flags.

Gibson is more than a fifth starter and we'll see that come to fruition in Texas. Pineda is healthy and has been for a stretch now, and when he's healthy, he's had stretch runs off absolute dominance. Twins got him back cheap. 

And the funny thing about those geographical preferences, they don't mean jack squat if you offer more money. If money is equal, does Cole pick NY? Doubtful. I know he said championships but that's just playing to the crowd. Corbina and Wheeler are on Eppler, not on some notion that they don't like Southern California. 

The one I won't pin on Eppler is Charlie Morton though. The only two clubs he'd play for were the Braves and Rays and he stuck to that. 

But then again, sometimes losing out isn't all bad. Eovaldi comes immediately to mind.

I mean, I guess anything is possible with Gibson, like any pitcher with a modicum of talent but this a 32 year old who has had two good seasons (2015, 2018), was 4.84 ERA 95 ERA+ 1.444 WHIP last season, and 4.52 ERA 94 ERA+ 1.411 WHIP lifetime in 7 total seasons who also gives up a lot of hits and a decent amount of HRs going to Texas...so, yeah.  Maybe he becomes a solid 3 starter or something but you can see why Eppler didn't commit $30 mil to him when you basically traded for a younger, cheaper version in Bundy (4.67 ERA 95 ERA+ 1.330 WHIP lifetime).

Pineda was really good in 2019 after missing a season and a half due to injury, and it sounds like his PED issue was was questionable enough that the MLB knocked it down from 80 to 60 games on appeal, but, without knowing anything around the negotiations, I can't say if ANY team had a shot at Pineda outside the Twins as he signed Dec 5th, 3 days before the Winter Meetings.

In regards to Cole, the money was never going to be equal.  The Yankees were willing to offer 9 years to a starting pitcher...only the Yankees (maybe the Dodgers) can reasonably absorb $300+ million in guaranteed money and keep chugging along if things go south.  So, Angels match 9 years, here come the Yankees - 10 years, more AAV, you matching that still?

Corbin only entertained offers from the Phillies, Yankees and Nationals...and he only went with the Nationals as they were the only team willing to offer a 6th year.  

1 hour ago, Glen said:

I get that.  However, to me our starting staff right now isn't much better than it was last season, and at the very least it has as many question marks.  It looks like Heaney will be our #1 starter, we're hoping to get 100+ innings from Ohtani, and it just gets more questionable after that.  I hope I'm wrong, but it looks like this season could be a repeat of last season for the starters.  Terheran and Bundy could be Harvey and Cahill, or they could be a decent improvement.  Sandoval could get better, but he also could flame out.  Just so many question marks again, and we did sorta the same thing we did last offseason.

Look at Cahill and Harvey's few seasons before signing in 2019...now look at Teheren and Bundy.  Not even comparable...

1 hour ago, Second Base said:

Oh please.

No one, and I mean NO ONE at this point blames Eppler for Cole or Strasburg. Kluber neither. But you've completely missed on Wheeler, Ryu, Gibson, Pineda, and even Corbin from last year.

You use the logic that Ryu's own team didn't want him back, except that logic is so backward and flawed that if it were even remotely true, no player would EVER change teams. Free Agency wouldn't even exist. 

Gibson is 5 starter and we already got those...Pineda has spent half his career on the DL and just got popped for PEDs...so, no.

Both Wheeler and Corbin were East-coast bound so how much money are you outbidding the Nats and Phillies for those two?

As for Ryu, couldn't have laid it out better than Fletcher.

6 minutes ago, mymerlincat said:

Nope, just being honest.  Absolutely no one who isn’t an Angels superfan thinks we have any shot at the playoffs with the pitching we have.  It’s embarrassing.  5 years into Eppler’s tenure, 5 years of the best player of this generation’s prime, and we still aren’t expected to make the playoffs.  All this talk from Arte about going on and Billy fails to deliver once again.  And of course, the same posters are making the same excuses.

Ok, so, knowing you had zero chance at Cole and Strasburg and very little chance to compel Wheeler to come out West, who do we sign/trade for?

You're good with a Marsh-centered package for Kluber?

Going 6 years $100+ mil on Bumgarner? 

Want to match 4 years on Ryu?

Is your less embarrassing scenario committing 4 years to Keuchel as opposed to 1 year to Teheren  despite essentially being the same pitcher at this point?

1 minute ago, Dick B Back said:

Just saying “hi” since this turned into a dick thread.

Not sure if it's "tricky" yet so stay tuned...

1 minute ago, Stradling said:

Yep.  But you know Eppler and his dick and stuff.  

I get Eppler is harshing some people's buzzes around here with the thoughts that we could have conceivably bought a pitching staff in the offseason or that a wayward GM would trade a frontline starting pitcher for a handful of Rondons but the reality is he competing against other highly competitive teams, some with deeper pockets or farms, that are trying to win as well.  Fact is, we got better, all around, he did his job without sacrificing the immediate or longterm future and still has financial flexibility to make an impact move.

Yes

3 hours ago, True Grich said:

 

"..tampering with a new load..."

Zack No!-zart

I think they were already a sub-100 win team just based on losing the pieces they have to this point but some other things they may contribute:

 - AL West is going to be competitive.  A's have put up back-to-back 97 win seasons and a lot of the same people are returning, the Rangers's offense and bullpen are not great but they have a solid rotation, and Angels have obviously added some pieces to announce their intention to contend.  Depending on who stays healthy, the AL West, 1st and 2nd Wild Card will be tight.

 - The Astros rotation is Verlander and Greinke (both over 36), McCullers coming off Tommy John Surgery, and some mix and match options and the bullpen lost Rondon and Harris.

 - With sign stealing exposed, does Altuve continue to bat near .300 .900 OPS?  Will Bregman continue to be a 8+ WAR player? Does Yordan Alvarez continue to post a 1.000+ OPS as a 23 year old?  Lots of questions as to if they will maintain their more recent offensive output.

 - They have a target on their back...not just in the AL West but around the league.  They should expect no quarter from the the opposing team or fans in general

2 hours ago, tdawg87 said:

I still haven't beat it but I'm fully aware of how great it is. 

I'm used to the classic GOW games, where you just fuck everything up mashing the buttons.

The new one is awesome but can be difficult...especially against the Valkyries 

1 hour ago, beatlesrule said:

One of the best games I've ever played.

Yep, the reboot is fantastic 

1 minute ago, mymerlincat said:

Madero and Beasley are our #11 and 18 prospects.  I wouldn’t call it nothing.

Madero was DFA'd after a AA which saw him produce 5.72 ERA 1.572 WHIP 11.7 H/9 7.5 K/9 in 89.2 IP...Beasley was pretty "meh" as well between AA/AAA.

Maybe one or both turn into a decent reliever at some point but they need depth now and got somebody who can produce at the MLB level with potential for some upside.

Pretty close to nothing...

4 minutes ago, Jay said:

 

He's 4.50 ERA 90+ ERA+ former starter that can pitch multiple innings, can produce groundballs and had a 10.1 K/9 last season.

He's MLB level depth 

(Eppler makes minor trade for cheap, relatively effective, multi-inning pitcher with options for nothing)

Angelswin: "That's it, Eppler?!  You're obviously done now that you did something and it's January 14th and you obviously can't make any more moves obviously!  What the hell!  I can't believe this is the only move you're going to make to address the pitching the rest of this offseason...presumably!"

2 minutes ago, AngelsLakersFan said:

We shall see if a trade occurs but someone like Wood could’ve been had for just money. Getting a clearly better starter will at least cost us Marsh. Waiver wire fodder is not going to be good enough to merit discussion.

And you aren't guaranteed to get clearly better spending $4 mil on Wood either.  This is a guy who couldn't pitch beyond 7 starts due to a back injury.  Maybe he comes back and pitches like he did in 2017-2018 but, if your ambitions are the playoffs, you want something more predicable.  Again, Eppler could have totally dropped the ball here but his focus is guys with a history of durability.