Oz27

1 hour ago, Jeff Fletcher said:

I was told the other day that the industry doesn't value Cron very highly and the Angels couldn't get much for him now. He needs to clean some things up in his game before anyone will give up much for him, or before the Angels will commit to him. 

This makes sense, when you look at how the market treated sluggers with limited positional value this offseason. At this stage it is pretty reasonable to assume we won't see substantial improvement in his walk rate, so any big value boost will probably need to come from a HR surge. That always seemed possible but really hasn't come close to eventuating yet.

16 hours ago, Dochalo said:

so, interestingly, fangraphs has adjusted their projections but I don't see that the Zips data has been added.  Regardless, they took a win from us overall.  As far as I can tell, they pushed the offense down about 3 wins and made up part of it with some pen wins.  I look at their overall offensive projections and they just look a bit light to me.  As an example, they've got Kole at 2.9 wins when he's averaged a win better than that over the last 3 years.  While I can see why they have projected Maybin, Espinosa and Cron as they did, I think those three spots have potential to make up a ton of ground.  

 

Those projections are updated now, to include both ZiPS and Steamer. http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/instagraphs/heres-where-the-projections-disagree/

The Angels are at 83 wins, so they didn't get bumped down quite as much as I thought they would. They can still change over spring training as playing time estimates become easier to make, but clearly the Fangraphs systems believe we should be slightly above .500.

If the season went exactly as Fangraphs projected, we would end in a three-way tie for the second wild card spot with the Mariners and Rangers (with the Astros winning the division). http://www.fangraphs.com/depthcharts.aspx?position=Standings

Looking at the lineup from Weaver's MLB debut really puts into perspective how long he was with the Angels. Dallas McPherson, Tommy Murphy and Adam Kennedy were all there and Kevin Gregg pitched in relief. Also Javy Lopez, who was about 400 years old at the time, hit cleanup for the O's.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/ANA/ANA200605270.shtml

16 minutes ago, California Cajun said:

Reagins couldn’t do the job and Dipoto couldn't get along with Scioscia.  I don't think either is the case with Eppler and he'll do a great job.

Whether or not those things are true, there were cases in the reigns of both GMs where Moreno had an unhealthy influence.

35 minutes ago, Angels#1Fan said:

You (or anyone else) don't need my permission to crap on Weaver in this thread...that's pretty obvious. Most however would recognize that this isn't the place for it, but you have a need to defend your honor and your stats which is what's most important, so it is what it is.

Whatever, this really isn't an argument worth having so I've deleted the post. I still don't think it's unreasonable to respond to something someone else decided to bring up but I'll let it go.

On a more important note, how has nobody mentioned/posted the greatest Weaver moment ever?

On 2/19/2017 at 9:48 AM, Dochalo said:

 

switch 'our people' with 'we' meaning 'I' then yes.  Normally he says 'we' which includes himself.  It's a small thing, but I think he made a very specific point to say it the way he did.  Of course he's gonna have input on any player - especially the ones the require 9 figures to obtain - but I think the big problem was worrying about Reagins being incompetent.  So he intervened.  Then it was worrying about JD doing what he wanted without input.  

The proof is in the pudding.  But Arte is a pretty honest guy.  Probably too honest actually.  If he's gonna allow his baseball people to advise him on who the team should acquire then that is much better than doing it the other way around where he 'advises' his baseball people as to who the team should pursue.  

Okay, that is valid. I'll file it in the "I'll believe it when I see it" section, though. When he has clearly had too much influence with the previous two GMs, it's natural to worry (or even assume) that won't be changing.

1 hour ago, Dochalo said:

the most important quote:

Moreno says. “If our people feel it’s a player who fits, that’s what we’re going to do,” says the owner. “We’re going to try to win.”

Hasn't he always said things like this?

$3 million? Damn, Scott Boras is seriously good at his job.

Good luck to Jered, anyway.

1 hour ago, Dochalo said:

Just for kicks, think of Weaver as the anti-Trout.  

I'm not sure it's about better or worse in terms of 'how you take advantage' of sequencing on offense.  It just it what it is for us.  We have a fairly unbalanced lineup.  It's not luck that Trout is put in a position to have more opportunities.  It's on purpose.   Couple that with the fact that the lower 1/3rd of our lineup was a veritable black hole and it's obvious how sequencing would play a role in how we scored.  Think of it this way.  If you took last years team and instead of Calhoun and Escobar in front of Trout, you put Perez and Simmons.  Now assume that each player in the lineup produced at the same level as they did.  Wouldn't you agree that the team would score less runs overall?  Of course they would, but they'd have the same rs/g by base runs as a team.  

It's tougher to reconcile on the pitching side.  There was probably a fair amount of luck there.  Oddly enough, the difference in ra/g from baseruns to true is the same as the difference in our FIP to ERA. The biggest offenders in that regard?  Weaver, Santiago, Tropeano, Nolasco, Smith, Guerra, Ramirez, Achter and Bedrosian with minor contributions from Richards, and Valdez.  The opposite was true for Shoe, Alvarez, Skaggs, Morin, and Meyer.  We've essentially dumped most of the lucky guys.  

None of that matters really to what we will be this year though.  But if you take the pitching at baseruns and the offense at what actually happened by true runs scored, we were about a 75 win team.  Right in line with our actual record.  

My overall point is that picking 76 wins as our mean implies that there is essentially a 50/50 chance that we are worse than we were last year.  Giving us about the same odd to finish with 71 wins vs. 81 wins.  Our offense alone is likely going to get us a minimum of 20-25.  We had a 6 WAR pitching staff last year and it was absolutely horrendous.  But the projection systems show our most likely outcome as what we did last year.  Do I really think we'll win 90 games?  Of course not.  But It's hard for me to look at this team and wonder how they'll lose 88 again. 

On the base runs stuff, I've done some elementary research into this to determine if there is a relationship between getting a large performance of your offense from one player and outperforming your base runs offensive expectation. The five "most concentrated" offenses in 2016 (by which I mean the teams who got the highest percentage of their wRC team total from one player) were the Braves, Angels, Reds, Astros and Blue Jays. Of those, the Angels and Reds outperformed their base runs expectation by a lot, while the Astros, Blue Jays or Braves were all very close to their base runs expectation (the Braves were under, the Blue Jays were over and the Astros met their expectation exactly). The five least concentrated offenses, by the same measure, were the Mets, Royals, Rangers, A's and Red Sox. Four of those five actually outperformed their base runs offensive expectation. Looking at one season is far from conclusive, but there is not an apparent strong relationship between having your offensive production concentrated in the way ours is and outperforming your base runs expectation There doesn't seem to be much of a pattern at all, from what I can tell. All of this has been a long-winded way of saying I think it was probably just luck and will once again be up to random chance in 2017. I don't think we're much more likely, if at all, to outperform our base run expectation by 50 runs than we are to underperform by the same margin.

Anyway, on the key point, it isn't hard to see why projection systems would think our pitching will be awful again. Optimistic pitching expecations rely on breakouts (especially with the young relief guys), bounce backs (Street and Bailey are the obvious two to fit in this category) or successful returns from injury (Richards - and his layoff does impact his projections). Even with replacement level pitching, this is probably still a 70-ish win team. It seems safe to say the pitching will be above replacement level, but do I see it being 15 WAR better? Probably not. Even 10 feels a little optimistic. Overall, I think 76 might be slightly low on the over/under, and I would take the over. But I don't think it is as unreasonable as most others here think it is.

8 minutes ago, Dochalo said:

I will but it relates to Mike Trout being a huge chunk of our offense.  Like about 1/3rd.  you can't help but 'sequence' when that spot in your order is providing that level of production relative to the rest.  If sequencing isn't something you take advantage of, then why build a lineup at all.  Just put the hitters out there in the order of best to worst.  

In saying "not something we can take advantage of", I meant I'm not convinced it is something we would be better at taking advantage of than anyone else. I know Trout represents a huge chunk of our offense but sequencing luck still plays a huge role on the level of impact his hits deliver.

What I'm saying is I don't think outperforming base runs is something that is sustainable, or which can be counted on. We had the biggest difference between base runs W/L expectation and the pythag expectation and the gap was pretty big. We actually outperformed our pitching base runs more than our hitting base runs (we were .29 runs/game better than our base runs expectation on the pitching side and .23 better on offense). Even if the offensive out-performance was sustainable and more than luck, I would struggle to believe the pitching aspect was any more than random chance and definitely not something I would count on happening again.

18 minutes ago, Hubs said:

And Also, I'm being optimistic. I know what I am talking about, because I've looked at the numbers, and I see trends. My analysis is not a "homer" analysis. 

I also am a realistic person, while I hope they will do better than the 84 wins fangraphs projected them at, I also don't hope anyone on my favorite team has a shitty or sub par or injury marred year. I don't want to assume that. I realize not everyone will have a good year, but being optimistic at this stage, instead of pessimistic, is good. 

Projection systems don't see when a player turns a corner, or when a player comes into his prime, or when they have a breakout. It can't assume because it's only using past performance or league averages to assume what a player will do. If we assume a players 26-30 years are better than his 21-25 years, what does that mean for Trout? Is he going to have a 15 WAR season someday? They also usually use the last two seasons heavily so what does that mean for a player like Tyler Skaggs or Ricky Nolasco? Pitching in Minnesota was horribly bad, isn't his year with the Dodgers more predictive? Skaggs does not have more than 10 games in 2 seasons.

 

And what makes you think any of these issues benefit the Angels over anyone else? Other teams have players the exact same thing could be said about too. Projection systems aren't perfect, but that path of thinking does not automatically lead to them selling the Angels short.

7 minutes ago, Dochalo said:

sequencing is going to play a big role for us.  The lineup has been created to take advantage of sequencing.  

I'm not sure I buy that argument. Do you have time to elaborate? The evidence I've seen makes me think sequencing isn't really something you can "take advantage" of.

13 minutes ago, Dochalo said:

so I get that whatever line is set is meant to get an equal amount of money on either side.  

but just doing the math in my head, I find it hard to fathom we could be worse than last year and they are putting at that as our mid point.  

Our offense is good.  we're probably at close to 25 WAR offensively and defensively alone.  That put's us at about 70 wins.  So they are basically giving a 50/50 chance that our pitching is as bad or worse than It was last year.  

I'd probably take the over on it too. But it isn't the slam dunk that people here are portraying it to be, mainly because it's not that hard to imagine our pitching being horrific again.

15 minutes ago, Hubs said:

Over 76.5 is a great bet too. Seeing as the Angels rated out at 78 by the numbers last year and were 4 games unlucky. Also this was with a virtual black hole offensively at 2B, LF, C, and bad defense from 2B and LF. Plus losing five starters to injury (actually six if you count losing Skaggs for the majority of the season), and starting Chacin and Lincecum. All of the bad starters from last year are gone, and most of the sub-par bullpen too. But still, 76.5 games is the projection? Please.

By base runs we were a 71 win true talent team last year.

And, simply, every team's fan base thinks their team is much better than it actually is. There are people thinking just like you about their team on every baseball message board on the internet.

Atlantis Casino has set our over/under win total at 76.5. Astros are at 87.5, with the Rangers at 86.5 (the under here is a great bet) and the Mariners at 85.5.

http://www.espn.com.au/chalk/story/_/id/18657559/chicago-cubs-lead-way-first-nevada-sportsbook-releases-2017-mlb-win-totals

How likely is it that a scientist invents a Mike Trout cloning machine between now and opening day? That is probably what would be needed.

Good stuff, Doc. Interesting read.

Those bullpen numbers are pretty damn scary, particularly Street. It is scary to think he and Bailey will combine to throw a huge percentage of our key relief areas early in the season. Hopefully some of the younger guys get a chance to impress and move past them in the depth chart early because there are some interesting relief arms in the system, on top of Bedrosian.

Just a note on the Fangraphs 84 win projection. That is effectively a 'first draft' projection, based on the Steamer system. In the next few weeks they will release their final projection, which includes both the ZiPS and Steamer systems and is then adjusted based off playing time estimates. ZiPS seems to be quite a bit less optimistic about a few of our players than Steamer is, especially on the pitching side. Therefore I'm guessing Fangraphs' final projection for us will be around 80 wins.

I really enjoy Pedro Moura's work. That was a good piece.

I think some here are underestimating how difficult returning from serious brain surgery would be, as well as the potential for it to not be a smooth ride along the way. Hopefully he'll come back and pick up where he left off because that would be pretty damn remarkable.

Guerra's peripherals were awful and I had little faith he would repeat his success or even come close to it. Nevertheless, this is bizarre.

2 minutes ago, Dochalo said:

you were using WAR for the hitters which is park adjusted.  then you used era for the pitchers which isn't.  but your point about the numbers for MM not supporting that it's a hitters park is correct.  Funny that I always just assumed it was and I think a lot of others around here have as well.  thanks for bringing that to my attention. 

Its park factor has sharply declined over the past four years or so, from strong hitters park to pitcher park. I wish I had a good explanation for that ... but I do not.

42 minutes ago, Hubs said:

Seriously, its because they are not. Their pen is better. Ok. That's fine. Their rotation is not that good. In 2015 Keuchel pushed them way up, but last year they allowed 701 runs to our 727. 

Their starters allowed 469 runs (445 ER) in 917 IP for a 4.37 ERA. Our starters (including Weaver, Chachin, Lincecum, and a bunch of cast offs) allowed 476 runs (448 ER) in 877.1 IP for an ERA of 4.60.

That's not a huge difference. In fact, if you just take out Lincecum, we drop to 435 runs (409 ER) in 839 IP for an ERA of 4.39. 

And I deconstructed the lineup via WAR, but just looking at top 12 returning and new players:

Altuve 7.7 WAR, Correa 5.9 WAR, Springer 5.0 WAR, Gattis 3.0 WAR, Bregman 1.8 WAR, Marisnick 1.7 WAR, Gonzalez 1.2 WAR, Reddick 2.6 WAR, McCann 0.9 WAR, Beltran 2.0 WAR. Hernandez 0.3, Gurriel 0.2. = 32.3 WAR

Trout 10.6 WAR, Simmons 4.2, Calhoun, 3.4, Cron 2.1, Escobar 1.6, Valbuena 2.6, Pujols 1.4, Marte 1.2, Carlos Perez 0.6, Maldonado 0.8, Espinosa 1.9, Maybin 1.9 = 32.3 WAR

PECOTA is under the impression that all of our guys take a step back and a lot of their young guys take a step forward. Maybe this happens, but I don't see it.

Comparing ERAs between pitching staffs operating in entirely different environments is worthless and no other stat backs up that point. Astros starters were 13th in MLB in fWAR last year, while the Angels were 28th. The Astros' starters were 11th by xFIP, the Angels were 30th.

Also, your claim that PECOTA is saying many of the Astros young players will take a step forward is wrong. It predicts a 3.8 WARP season for Altuve when he was worth 6.1 WARP last year. It also projects Correa, Gattis, Aoki, Reddick, Beltran, McCullers, Keuchel, Fiers and McHugh to be worse than they were last year. It expects a breakout from Bregman and marginal improvement from Springer. When you look at the Altuve, Keuchel and Correa projections in particular, it is actually possible the system is being more pessimistic about the Astros than it should be.

The good news is that MLB finally seems to recognize we need to do something to make the sport more interesting to the masses. Games are taking too long and there isn't enough action. But the bad news is the solutions so far will all either have minimal impact or are just bad ideas. If we're going to actually address the problem, pace-of-play adjustments like limiting mound visits and limiting time between pitches will help to an extent. But in an extreme strikeout era, games are always going to take forever and involve a heap of strikeouts which aren't all that interesting for casual observers. Doing something to reduce the number of strikeouts, creating more balls in play and fewer deep counts, is the obvious path forward in my opinion.

2 hours ago, Hubs said:

In summary, I am having trouble seeing the +150 runs gap between the two teams according to PECOTA. (PECOTA has them +121 and us -29). That's why their rated 15 games better.

Seriously, how do you not look at Houston's lineup, rotation and bullpen and reach the conclusion that they are a hell of a lot better than us? They were 10 games better than the Angels last year in the raw standings and 98 runs (or 11 wins) better than us by base runs. They have plenty of scope to be much better than they were last year, too. They should be one of the best teams in baseball. The Angels, well, not so much.

32 minutes ago, fan_since79 said:

The most dreaded words this year will be "forearm tightness"

 

Don't forget "dehydration".