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Pancake Bear
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Posts posted by Pancake Bear
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If you can get Bauer without losing Adell and too many top ten guys in the system, I think you gotta do it. Any guesses how much Cleveland asks for on just Bauer?
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Good.
Although does anyone else see irony in he and Sosh retiring (probably) the same offseason? Maybe it’s just me.
- Billy_Ball, Taylor and failos
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13 minutes ago, stormngt said:
Your right....Vegas weather sucks! That's why millions visit the city every year.
Personally I think the Angel's stay in Anaheim but some of the comments about the lack of viability of Vegas is really funny.
It isn't SoCal. That's reality. I'm sorry if you were offended. People don't go to Vegas for the weather, they go for the entertainment and gambling. It may not be Texas, but it isn't Orange County. Only team where Trout could improve on that would be maybe San Diego.
Of course, being a weather geek, Trout might like playing near more extreme weather. Either way, being (apparently) a fairly chill, small-town kinda guy, I don't see him having interest in playing in Vegas, and my point stands: The Angels lose re-signing negotiation points if they move.
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I think Trout signs for 10 years, 400 million. I don’t think the other two will get close to that number. Just my opinion.
When Philly reportedly says they’ll spend stupid money and that they’ll outbid everyone on Corbin, why didn’t they sign Corbin, and why hasn’t Machado or Harper signed with them yet? Simple - they’re not ready (yet?) to go to 400mil.
The Yankees have a lot of money but young guys they want to extend as well. They wouldn’t go over 100mil with Corbin and stood pat at 5 years.
The Dodgers are still holding steady on not giving out big contracts outside of a few in-house re-signings.
Owners are more reluctant to try to buy championships when half the contracts go south. Plus, you get more acclaim when you win smart rather than with your pocketbook. I think Moneyball and analytics are mostly the reason teams are shying away from those big deals. Why spend half a billion if you can don’t have to?
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34 minutes ago, tdawg87 said:
I agree but to be fair, all it takes is one owner willing to shell out that money.
38 minutes ago, Sean-Regan said:Doesn't mean it won't happen, but so far there's little evidence beyond journalistic speculation that owners will take the 400mil plunge on Bryce or Manny with Trout on deck, and a fair bit of evidence - the reality that contracts just haven't jumped nearly that high yet (as we should expect to see) if it's going to happen - that it won't.
Hence, my qualification.
Making absolute bets is a fool's gamble, but it seems to me that (for many reasons, some of which are articulated in the article) Harper and Machado aren't going to get as much as people are speculating. However, due to the fact that these aren't extensions, the age they're hitting FA at, etc. it is *possible* they beat my estimate. I'm just taking the under, and I think the probabilities are on my side. But we'll see.
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Basically what I've been saying: 400 million for Machado and Harper is highly doubtful. Not because they shouldn't, simply because owners seem hesitant to go that far yet.
Doesn't mean it won't happen, but so far there's little evidence beyond journalistic speculation that owners will take the 400mil plunge on Bryce or Manny with Trout on deck, and a fair bit of evidence - the reality that contracts just haven't jumped nearly that high yet (as we should expect to see) if it's going to happen - that it won't.
My prediction remains 12 years, 360mil is the most either of them walk away with and neither will get 400.
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If the Angels move out of SoCal, that eliminates at least part of the incentive for Trout to hang around. Let's face it, the team changed quite a bit over the last seven years. Loyalty to teammates won't be enough reason to stick around. If they leave, you lose a couple of plusses: Nice weather; chill fans - loyal fans you've been playing in front for the last seven years. I don't think those things are remotely deal-breakers, but I think the idea of playing in front of the same fans in SoCal isn't nothing to him.
Not saying he stays or leaves in either case, just pointing out that moving would potentially give him less reason to stay.
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5 minutes ago, jessecrall said:
This team won a World Series with JARROD WASHBURN as its ace. The 2015 Royals had a similarly uninspiring crop of starters. A reliable bullpen and a good defense can make a pretty mediocre collection of starters look better than they are, now more than ever. Health and depth are bigger concerns than landing some front-line ace for $20+ million a year.
We tried that approach this year. You can survive with average starters, but if they can’t make it through 5 innings, even a good bullpen is going to look like crap. Pretending that the bullpen is the problem and the rotation is mostly fine is about the most delusional thing I can imagine a fan thinking, and that’s saying something considering how far we as fans tend to be adrift from reality in our biases.
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Hopefully we’ll finally have dumped the idea that pitchers can and should hit every fifth day in ten years. The notion that anyone can hit at a major league level in just one game a week was disproved decades ago, and yet here we still are. Proves how much baseball fans are like sheep: ‘We need to keep doing this because we’ve always done it that way’.
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Garcia’s peripherals look better than his results every other year. That said, I’m not sure why you trade a steady left handed for an older, inconsistent righty whose best results and expected results aren’t really better than the guy you’re trading away: Garcia isn’t cheaper, so the only thing I can figure is that either they feel they need a right handed more, or they think Alvarez is about to implode, or they think Garcia is better than his FIP and xFIP suggest.
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1 hour ago, Hubs said:
AL? All of the others are NL hitters, which of course Harper is as well, but I'd think that all of the other guys you put will stay with or wind up with NL teams. Harper I think may end up in the AL, even if not with the Angels, but somewhere.
Khris Davis might well be the most overrated player in baseball. The dude got MVP votes despite having a lower (offense-only) fWAR than Ohtani. It’s hilarious how backwards that is.
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Why they might: Harper is an on-base machine - his worst season was .340 (.340, .368, .344 in his first three seasons), and since 2015, he hasn't gotten on base at worse than .373 (four seasons, two of which were over .400). He's only 26, which means he's still got probably 4-5 years of that level of OBP.
Eppler loves OBP. A lineup of Harper-Trout-Ohtani-Upton would be as good a top four as you'll see in the league.
Positionally, Harper *could* fit on the team between RF, 1B, and DH. If the Angels were committed to the idea, they could make it work.
Why they won't: Money. The reality is that you can only afford so many big contracts. To be competitive without massively exceeding your budget every year (which Moreno seems committed to), you have to take advantage of cheap talent (like Adell). Adell almost certainly won't be as good as Bryce Harper, even as inconsistent as Harper has been (fWAR last five years: 1.6, 9.3, 3.0, 4.8, 3.5).
It would be a lot of fun, admittedly. But if you make that move, you probably have to move Adell (settle for Marsh or Adell as Upton's replacement in a couple of years). That gets you a solid pitcher (or Realmuto - although I don't know why we do that with the abomination of a rotation we have if we're signing Harper), which maybe makes you good enough to go all the way, although teams that build on offense and ignore pitching tend to struggle from what I've seen.
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As long as we’re indulging the where-would-Harper-fit-in-our-lineup fantasy, I’d just point out that it would make more sense (to me) to bat him in front of Trout (Harper-Trout-Ohtani-Upton) rather than Ohtani. Harper’s OBP is better and Ohtani doesn’t seem *quite* as good at drawing a walk as he does hitting bombs.
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25 minutes ago, Ace-Of-Diamonds said:
Wouldn't to be the GM or owner that let Trout leave as a free agent because they didn't have the balls to release Pujols and surround Trout with enough talent to win in the post season.
That’s the owner’s problem, not the GM. Eppler has no control over any of that.
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1 hour ago, UndertheHalo said:
I think there’s like a 99% chance that Albert Pujols will not retire though.
You’re underselling it.
OP:
Retiring, he’d lose *a lot* of money. Why would Pujols do that? Pujols still thinks he is good.
Eppler can say or think what he wants. Unless he arranges a buy out, Pujols will start the season at 1B. A phantom DL stint is the more likely approach.
(Also, Eppler didn’t fire Butcher.)
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Harper can play 1B. At least, that’s what I keep hearing.
Not that I’m advocating for that or anything. Carry on.
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4 minutes ago, Chuckster70 said:
2B.
Let Cozart and Ward battle it out for 3B.
Would be nice to add Grandal too.
They’re not going to add Grandal - he declined his qualifying offer. No chance they give up a compensation pick for him.
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Only team with more reliever innings and less inning pitched by starting pitching than the Angels: Tampa.
And, if I’m not mistaken, they were deliberately running a four man rotation. In other words, no team had a worse starting rotation than the Angels or relied on the bullpen more in a traditional setup.
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Russell Martin is awful and expensive.
Cervelli would be cool if he can play 1B also. Basically, if we’re getting a bat first C, he should be able to play 1B part time.
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5 minutes ago, Second Base said:
Eppler has been transparent about him prioritizing pitching over hitting. I agree with you that we need to focus more on hitting because it seems like a greater future problem, but Eppler seems confident in the young players like Fletcher, Ward, Thaiss and Rengifo being able to step in and produce if necessary.
Should be interesting to see if that happens. AngelsWin is probably not going to be thrilled if David Fletcher or Taylor Ward are expected to hold down a position the whole year, or if Rengifo and Thaiss end up hitting .330 and in AAA and are still kept down in favor of Pujols and Cozart.
If Fletcher performs a whole season like he did in a small sample last season, I'd be happy enough with that. Gold Glove 2B and a decent (albeit, below average) bat. Value isn't limited to OPS.
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1 minute ago, Kody Mac said:
Neither of those are "bad" choices
I’ll grant that Andujar is probably a safe bet for #2 in AL RotY, but it isn’t particularly close. Ohtani should be an easy first pick whether it’s AL only or all of MLB. His season was historic.
As for JD? LOL. He’s at best 3rd (comfortably below Trout and Betts) if we limit it to batting. Add in everything else, and...well, let’s just say he probably shouldn’t even be top 5.
That’s not just AL, btw - the players voted him ‘player of the year’. He’s closer to outside the top 20 if we include pitchers than to #1 in that category.
This is what happens when you think two-dimensionally about baseball. There’s more to the game than homers, and RBI’s are a lot less meaningful to player analysis than the prevailing wisdom of a few decades back once believed.
- Angel Oracle and Taylor
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Thoughts?
in LA Angels | MLB Daily
Posted
Someone is touchy.
The Summer months? You mean, when they’d be playing baseball? As opposed to the rest of the year when Trout wouldn’t be living there? Thank you for proving my point.