Brent Maguire

http://nesn.com/2016/12/pablo-sandoval-looks-noticeably-slimmer-in-workout-videos-from-fort-myers/
http://nesn.com/2017/01/pablo-sandoval-has-reshaped-himself-this-offseason-john-farrell-says/
had to see this one coming

Not sure if this was posted elsewhere but Fangraphs has now had 2 articles praising the Valbuena signing:
http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/luis-valbuena-to-take-flight-in-la/
http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/mark-trumbo-and-the-everyday-player-tax/

The position player side of the roster is still remarkable, even without Trout, Harper, Betts, etc. How about this lineup for fun:
LF Yelich
C Posey
1B Goldy
3B Arenado
RF Stanton
DH Lucroy
CF Cutch
2B Kinsler
SS Crawford 

I hear you and they all add something to the team, but think you overrate Revere. He's got a career OBP of .320, with a high of .342 in 2015 - hardly the stuff of legends and not worthy of the "better leadoff hitters" category. OBP is, by far, the most important stat for a leadoff hitter, and he's about average.
Now as a fourth outfielder? Nice pickup.

Well @totdprods beat me to it but looks like we have a similar idea. Odorizzi is a solid and reliable #3/4 guy but he's no stud by any means. Just solid production for 3 cheap years, which is why it'd take someone like Cron to fetch him. 

I recently tweeted out a proposal: C.J. Cron, Carlos Perez and Eduardo Paredes for Odorizzi and Enny Romero. Rays get a cost controlled slugger w/ year to year improvements, a solid defensive catcher w/ control and a potentially nice reliever. Angels get 3 years of a mid rotation starter in the middle of his prime and a left handed reliever/starter with a huge fastball and good slider. Angels run the risk of Cron blowing up with a .280/.340/.450 type season but Odorizzi brings a huge dynamic as he makes the rotation WAY more reliable in 2017. Romero also has some big potential as a flame throwing lefty out of the pen and already has strikeout success in the majors. 
No clue how the Rays view Cron but they're searching for a 1B/DH and Cron would give them a long term answer there. Angels could hypothetically sign Wieters in this scenario too.
Richards/Shoemaker/Odorizzi/Skaggs/Nolasco
Escobar/Valbuena/Trout/Pujols/Calhoun/Wieters/Maybin/Simmons/Espinosa 

Love this deal. You lock up one of your best players through his age 29-32 years and aren't on the hook for some potential albatross. Realistically, they're only saving 5-15 million dollars but that's creating some nice excess value. If the team is competing, they have a good player locked up in his prime for 10 mil a year. If the team is stinking it up, plenty of teams would be calling for Calhoun in a potential trade. With that extra year of control, he's a very valuable commodity. 

Horrible news. My prayers go out to his family and friends. Such a shame. 

Love this deal. You lock up one of your best players through his age 29-32 years and aren't on the hook for some potential albatross. Realistically, they're only saving 5-15 million dollars but that's creating some nice excess value. If the team is competing, they have a good player locked up in his prime for 10 mil a year. If the team is stinking it up, plenty of teams would be calling for Calhoun in a potential trade. With that extra year of control, he's a very valuable commodity. 

One name not being thrown around enough, IMO, is Tommy Hunter. Back surgery kept him out a good chunk of last year but since he switched full time to being a reliever, he's been pretty darn good, averaging between 0.3-0.7 WAR the past 4 years. He generates lots of grounders and doesn't walk many, making him a fit with the Angels defense. A 1 year deal would be great but I'd even be willing to throw a club or player option in there as well based on how many innings he reaches in 2017. 

Yes he's only 30 but he came up super young and is already near 2,500 innings pitched. It's not unreasonable to assume he's experiencing a natural decline that all pitchers inevitably face. 

Dipoto was a stats guy, and we were all so happy to finally have a stats guy after years and years of 'walks are a false stat,' runny bunt and whatever Vernon Wells was.
What I love about Eppler is that he is so obviously a scout at heart. He loves himself some raw untapped talent, and yet the very first thing he did as general manager was to build an epic organization and league wide statistical database headed by some, like, NASA stats engineer or something nerdy as fuck like that.

True. I guess my point was teams look at Dipoto as a guy who will come in to try to push a team that's close to winning in a full win now mode. There's no doubt he's one of the best at making trades happen and getting the guys he wants. The results obviously have been mixed but it seems like quite a few teams do value him. 
FWIW, I like Eppler's approach much, much more. Towards the end of Dipoto's tenure, I'd cringe anytime he traded a worthwhile prospect for some marginal upgrade in the bullpen or for some bench piece. Eppler is building the farm while also slowly improving the MLB team. 

Yes he's only 30 but he came up super young and is already near 2,500 innings pitched. It's not unreasonable to assume he's experiencing a natural decline that all pitchers inevitably face. 

Felix has declined in every meaningful way for 3 straight years now. On a 3/79 contract, you can probably get a team to trade for him and throw in some decent prospects but the idea that he'll fetch a lot in return is probably inaccurate. 
2014: 2.14 ERA, 2.56 FIP, 2.51 xFIP, 6.1 WAR, 92.4 mph fastball
2015: 3.53 ERA, 3.72 FIP, 3.33 xFIP, 2.9 WAR, 91.8 mph fastball
2016: 3.82 ERA, 4.63, 4.45 xFIP, 1.0 WAR, 90.5 mph fastball 
With the amount of innings he's racked up, it's not that crazy to think he'll be more of a 3/4 starter going forward. I think teams are smart enough nowadays that there won't be teams lining up to send their top prospects away for Felix and his whole contract. That said, if he bounces back a bit this year to a 2.5 WAR 3.50 ERA type of season, I'm sure they could find more interested teams with only 2 years remaining on his deal. 
*EDIT* Beat me to it Oz. 

Also, I think the circumstances around Eppler's hiring were very unique. A normal GM job opens up, it means bringing your people in, including manager, the the owner just says, "Build me a winner."
That circumstance is simple. It isn't easy, but it is simple.
Eppler came in with an owner with a history of meddling in operations far too much, and now a sudden unwillingness to spend the money to build a winner. To further complicate matters he has inherited a coach that has long been considered a GM as well. He's hard nosed. He has his way of doing things and if you don't like it, too bad.
Eppler has to somehow build a winner, while working with an owner that has outright refused to spend money for 3+ years, all the while consulting a manager that's become rather archaic in his ways. 
And to make matters worse, Eppler has to start with the worst farm system in baseball, and severe international spending restrictions in place.
If Eppler builds a winner with all these obstacles in place, he'll be the best GM in baseball. I think personally, he'll build a strong farm and get us into contention working like this. But we won't be the class of the AL West unless Arte opens up his wallet again.
We are walking into next winter with no 2B, 3B, LF, no more international spending restrictions, and no more Hamilton contract. Arte must spend money for a winner now.

Dipoto is back on his binge moves again. 
 "The Mariners have acquired right-hander Yovani Gallardo and cash from the Orioles in exchange for corner outfielder Seth Smith, the teams announced today."
Then, he did this:
"The Mariners have moved swiftly on a second trade of the day, adding outfielder Jarrod Dyson from the Royals in exchange for righty Nate Karns, according to Bob Dutton of the Tacoma News Tribune (via Twitter)."
The first move was weird but the 2nd move makes the 2 transactions make sense. Dyson>Smith and Gallardo/Karns are probably a wash at this point but Gallardo is more expensive. M's now have Martin/Dyson slotted for 2 outfield spots and some combo of Haniger, Gamel, Heredia for the 3rd outfield spot. 
Jerry is an interesting GM. I'll give him that. I'm pretty happy that Seattle is going all in as they've lost a lot of club controlled players this offseason. If 2017 doesn't end well, they could go downhill very quickly. 
 

One name not being thrown around enough, IMO, is Tommy Hunter. Back surgery kept him out a good chunk of last year but since he switched full time to being a reliever, he's been pretty darn good, averaging between 0.3-0.7 WAR the past 4 years. He generates lots of grounders and doesn't walk many, making him a fit with the Angels defense. A 1 year deal would be great but I'd even be willing to throw a club or player option in there as well based on how many innings he reaches in 2017. 

Dipoto is back on his binge moves again. 
 "The Mariners have acquired right-hander Yovani Gallardo and cash from the Orioles in exchange for corner outfielder Seth Smith, the teams announced today."
Then, he did this:
"The Mariners have moved swiftly on a second trade of the day, adding outfielder Jarrod Dyson from the Royals in exchange for righty Nate Karns, according to Bob Dutton of the Tacoma News Tribune (via Twitter)."
The first move was weird but the 2nd move makes the 2 transactions make sense. Dyson>Smith and Gallardo/Karns are probably a wash at this point but Gallardo is more expensive. M's now have Martin/Dyson slotted for 2 outfield spots and some combo of Haniger, Gamel, Heredia for the 3rd outfield spot. 
Jerry is an interesting GM. I'll give him that. I'm pretty happy that Seattle is going all in as they've lost a lot of club controlled players this offseason. If 2017 doesn't end well, they could go downhill very quickly. 
 

One name not being thrown around enough, IMO, is Tommy Hunter. Back surgery kept him out a good chunk of last year but since he switched full time to being a reliever, he's been pretty darn good, averaging between 0.3-0.7 WAR the past 4 years. He generates lots of grounders and doesn't walk many, making him a fit with the Angels defense. A 1 year deal would be great but I'd even be willing to throw a club or player option in there as well based on how many innings he reaches in 2017. 

I'd guess there's zero chance Trout explores this route for obvious reasons. He's already getting paid a pretty penny, he doesn't seem like the type of big ego type to explore this route and the backlash he'd receive makes this scenario very unlikely. I'm actually surprised MLB hasn't just fixed this little quirk(discusses it in the article) considering how many problems this could cause. Plus, it puts Californian teams at a significant disadvantage. 

I'd personally move October to 2nd best. There's less games and it gets tough when there's only a game per day near the end of the month but like we saw this past October, it's some of the best baseball played all year long. April is always #1 for me because it means we get non stop baseball for the next half year. 

You don't have to spend a lot of money to have a good bullpen.  But if you don't, you have to have some arms in your minor league system to fill those gaps or you aren't going to do well.  Successful pens are very much a function of the pitching depth within your farm system.  Particularly in the upper levels.  
In the past, your failed starters became your relieves.  But more and more we see guys being converted to relief earlier in their development.  Even still, it's kind of a mixed bag as to when a minor league player will become a stud reliever.  
It was a saber truth that spending on a bullpen whether cash or prospects, was unacceptable.  Metrics across the board gave little value to players who would pitch all of 50-60 innings per year.  Replacement value was stingier than that allocated to starters as it was predicated on the everyone moving up a level without any adjustments for leverage.  Yet, over the past few years, we have seen even the most saber savvy teams spending huge on bullpens with big dollars and bountiful prospect hauls.  I think this tells us that the use of proprietary metrics among various teams has determined reliever values to be much higher than previously thought.  
So where have the halos fit into all this madness?  
First of all, let's consider performance.  Using WAR to evaluate relievers was the primary reason why they were undervalued initially.  WPA takes leverage into account but it's not predictive (or at least that's what the consensus was early on).  I think teams are using some hybrid that allocates additional value based on leverage.  
Since 2010, the halos have accumulated 10.5 WAR from their bullpen.  Ranking them 29th.  Their WPA during that time is 5.63 which may not mean much to many, but it's essentially a point system allocated to their performance with leverage included.  They are ranked 20th.  Another way to look at this is the SD to MD or shutdowns vs. meltdowns.  Whether a relievers performance increased or decreased their teams win probability by a specific amount (+ or - 0.06).  We ranked 19th in SD and 19th in MD.  
So the pen has actually out performed their WAR value which makes sense in that they've been better in higher leverage than lower leverage (+6.09 ranking them 12th in terms of the difference).  
I only have easily accessible data for bullpen payroll from 2013.  During that time, we've had a WAR of 8.2 (25th), and a WPA of 4.83 (15th).  Again, showing that we have performed much much better in high leverage situations and not so good when neutralized for leverage (22nd).  Another interesting characteristic of our pens is that even though we have been league avg by era in high leverage, we have the worst xFIP in baseball over the last 7 years.  
I think this tells us a couple of important things.  
One, pen management has been pretty good.  I know that flies in the face of how many here feel in regards to Scioscia, but the bullpen has actually done decently well in high leverage and mostly failed in less important situations.  In order to understand how that works though, you have to know when situations are high leverage vs. when they aren't and that, frankly wasn't intuitive to me until I looked at the charts.   It was quite surprising.  My biggest annoyance with Scioscia's pen management was/is bringing in crappy relievers when we were tied or down by a run.    
As an example, let's say we're down by a run going into the 7th innings and MS brings in Salas.  The leverage when he tows the mound with no on and no out is 1.0.  Conversely, If we are up by a run and we bring in a new reliever with no on and no out, the leverage is 1.7.  If we are on the road, it's even more dramatic.  Down by a run?  0.8.  Up by a run? 1.9.  
So this tells us that while Scioscia likes his pen roles, the right guy is generally pitching in the right spots.  Could it be a bit better?  Maybe, but the end result means that the job was getting done more than expected relative to the talent value of the players.  
Two, our bullpen depth sucked.  Even though the high leverage guys did about average, the rest of the pen pretty much sucked creating multiple problem like never giving the team a chance to come from behind.  Like having to stick to a schedule based on scenario and giving for very little flexibility.  And perhaps most importantly, not playing to the strength of your managers decision making process.  
The trend from 2010 to 2016 is what I found to be interesting.  
Total pen WAR league wide was 73.6 in 14,235.1ip in 2010 vs. 102.6 in 15,893.2 ip for 2016.
2016 had the highest WAR and # of relief innings in the history of baseball.  
And here is the way teams spent on bullpens from 2013-2016 
2013 - 546 mil with an avg of 18.2. Total of 415 players.  Halos were 18th spending 16.7mil
2014 - 560 mil.  Avg of 18.7 mil.  Total of 390 players.  Halos - 21 mil
2015 - 530 mil. Avg of 17.7 mil. Total of 428 players.   Halos - 16.7 mil
2016 - 550 mil. Avg of 18.3 mil.  Total of 417 players.  Halos - 11.2 mil.
So while the trend is to use relieves for more and more innings, the outlay and # of players used has fluctuated much over the last four years.  That said, I have a feeling we are going to see a substantial jump in total outlay but my guess is that the number of players used might be pretty similar.  
We can also see that the halos have trended down in bullpen expenditures even though the rest of the league has stayed the same.  Although likely a consequence of payroll restrictions, pen arms didn't usually cost all that much on the open market.  Which is probably why we are now seeing a market adjustment this year.   
There is no doubt that the Angels bullpen has cost them wins over the last several years.  Not as many wins as I expected in the from those late inning high leverage situations but more so from those opportunities to keep games close ie holding deficits and ties.  While it was pretty easy to shore up a bullpen in the past, the secret is out and teams are going to be spending more and more money on it because they are relying on those relief innings.  
Eppler is the self proclaimed finder of minor league free agent talent that helps major league teams, but we have seen him take it to the next level this year.  He has acquired a slew of once highly though of arms via his clean peanut detector (patent pending) as opposed to tapping the free agent market.  I have to think that even if we had the financial resources to pay for pen help, this would still be the route he takes as there is no clear correlation between how much you spend on a bullpen and how well they perform.....yet.  But I think that's coming soon.  Which means that, as with any major league team assembly method, there will be market inefficiencies to tap.  
Regardless of whether the SP holds up, 2017 is very important in determining if one of Eppler's primary theories is correct.  It's a litmus as to his worthiness and I feel a very important one because if he and his team are truly talented in this regard, it gives our farm system that much more time to develop and means that he has found a cost effective way (at least for the time being) of shoring up a very important facet of the game.  Pitching depth.  While I don't expect him to pull a front line starter out of his hat via this method, it could obviate the necessity for that 220 inning guy who pitches to a sub 3 era.  There could be a trickle down effect where the entire staff benefits.  I'd certainly invest in whatever airline is between SLC and John Wayne.  
 

I wish I shared the same optimism about Gatto. Struggling in the minors is one thing. Getting shellacked in the lower minors like he did in 2016 is another. I like his build and arsenal but many reports I've seen on the guy have not been fairly encouraging for him. 

Like many of other moves, this move went under the radar for Billy Eppler but could end up being a nice pickup. Pounders doesn't need to be a world beater if he's called up this year. What he needs to do is be serviceable and keep the team in games, which the crop of Weaver, Chacin, Lincecum and Huff weren't able to do in the back of the rotation for the Angels. Between Pounders, Meyer, Campos, Lamb, Banuelos, etc, you at least have some upside arms who can offer a higher floor than some of the guys the Angels ran out last year.