Search the Community

The Era of Mike Trout and Shohei Ohtani is Now In this Angelswin.com Trade Deadline Series, we examined the Angels standings in the League and how it impacts their Playoff Odds, made some practical assumptions about their potential posture heading into the Trade Deadline (July 30th), determined their areas of need, and probed prospective partners in any deal, whether the Halos decide to buy or sell (or both!). Here is a graphic of all of the teams with at least a 10% chance or more of making the playoffs in 2021, as of July 10th, 2021: 2021 MLB Playoff Odds for All Teams with >10% Chance as of July 10th, 2021 The top grouping represents the six Division leaders. Below that sit the Mets and the Rays. Further down, the Blue Jays, Rays, and Yankees are jockeying for position. Then, the grouping at the bottom, contains the Angels, Reds, Braves, and Phillies. It should be noted that as of July 15th, 2021 (5 days after this graphic), the Indians and Braves have slipped below 10% (6.7% and 7.4%, respectively, Angels sit at 15.4%). Based on this information, as of July 10th, 2021, the Angels have improved enough that GM Perry Minasian is likely recommending to owner Arte Moreno that they commit resources to make a more aggressive move to continue competing, even though the team will probably only be in the discussion for a Wild Card spot. This could include obtaining a front-of-the-rotation starter (if they can find an appropriate one in the market), a new backup catcher who can, preferably, hit right-handed pitching well, and one, possibly two, relievers, one of which should be competent against left-handed hitters. It seems ill-advised and unlikely, based on our research, that the Angels will consider a large acquisition in right field, at least at this moment in time. Author’s Note: And, in fact, the Halos signed Adam Eaton, prior to publication, likely as a platoon partner in a corner outfield spot, because he has excelled against right-handed pitching over his career. Again, the trade market may not support these needs and, certainly, there will be other teams the Angels have to compete with in the marketplace. In baseball, goals often go unrealized and many deals are never consummated. This will, however, in the author’s opinion, not deter the Angels from improving at this point, whether it is a blockbuster trade or one or more smaller transactions to help the Halos gain the extra inches they need to cross the playoff finish line. When you have a legitimate opportunity to get to the World Series, you should consider any reasonable moves to get there, particularly if it improves the team in the long-term as well. Now to be clear, Perry Minasian will be monitoring the teams performance for the next couple of weeks and if things shift dramatically in the loss column and the trade market looks inviting, for the assets the Angels are potentially selling, they could go the full sell route and add additional pieces for 2022 and beyond, likely making the team even more competitive in near-future seasons. This is what we talked about early on in this series about the information that is available to the Halos versus the information available to us, as fans. Do not think, for even a second, that the Angels front office has not contacted every team in baseball to check on player availability and also interest in our obtainable assets. Information is power! So whether it is promoting Matt Thaiss or Anthony Bemboom, behind the dish or acquiring Reese McGuire, trading for Max Scherzer, Luis Castillo, Shane Bieber, or even a guy like Jon Gray, sticking with the productive Taylor Ward, bringing up young Jo Adell, or picking up an established right fielder, or even snagging one or two affordable relievers like Chafin, Tepera, or Hudson, the Angels should have some trade space to upgrade the team. Also, with Mike Trout returning from the Injured List, this will only make the team leaps and bounds better and, if you tack on one or more trades, you can transform the Angels enough to make a real difference in 2021 and, possibly, beyond, if the new acquisitions have additional years of control. Trout returning, alone, could potentially bridge the current 4.5 game divide in the Wild Card race, not to mention a healthy Upton and Rendon returning near the end of July. The Angels seem poised, whether it is now or later, to make some noise in the A.L. West and Perry Minasian and the Angels front office know this and will do their best, based on the information available, to make it happen sooner, rather than later, for a 2021 Angels team that, to date, deserves the opportunity to improve and punch their own ticket to the playoffs. Author’s Speculative Opinion: The Angels will attempt to add a front-end starter with more than one season of control, but the trade market may not accommodate this need. It certainly is a missing piece of the puzzle that the Angels need to solve and one of our top outfield prospects will be the likely centerpiece of any deal for a controllable starter. If the Angels are targeting a pure rental, Moreno would probably kick in Luxury Tax money to pick up Scherzer and if the Halos want more years of control (more likely) someone like Luis Castillo or Shane Bieber may be possible. Additionally, the Halos will likely promote Matt Thaiss as the backup catcher to Stassi, he probably has enough chops to play a passable catcher and his bat can play at the Major League level, making him the cheapest “acquisition” at the Trade Deadline. The only roadblock will be if Thaiss cannot play at least marginal defense, thus necessitating a trade for a guy like Reese McGuire or another. Also, it would not be a surprise for the Angels to promote Adell at some point, but Taylor Ward’s bat has been solid and they have now taken a flyer on Eaton’s left-handed bat, so they could keep Jo down the rest of the season and start him in 2022 (Adell has 153 days of service time, not quite a full year, thus starting him in '22 would give the Angels a full six years of control). The Angels could also move Juan Lagares and promote Brandon Marsh to give him some Major League experience so that is a remote, but possible, transaction as a backup outfielder. Also, the Angels could move one or more of Bundy, Quintana, Heaney, and Cobb in order to promote one or more of Griffin Canning, Chris Rodriguez, Cooper Criswell, Jaime Barria, or top prospect Reid Detmers, for example. Finally, I could see Minasian picking up one or two of Richard Rodriguez, Andrew Chafin, Daniel Hudson, and/or Ryan Tepera in trade, probably out of the latter three or even promote internally, bringing Jose Quijada backup or perhaps one of Andrew Wantz, Hector Yan, Jake Reed, Boomer Biegalski, Jhonathan Diaz, and/or Jake Faria, to hold a more permanent spot the remainder of the season. If you were the Angels GM, what would you do? Post your thoughts in the thread and continue the conversation about the Halos future!

By Robert Cunningham, Angelswin.com Senior Writer Special Request: Hope for Education is a small, targeted charity sponsored by Angelswin.com. I am humbly requesting a small donation as we enter the New Year and hope that you are in the giving mood as these kids need help to learn in a safe environment from this very deadly pandemic. Please lend a hand, even if it is only a couple of bucks, it does make a difference. Thank you for your time and attention! Important Note: First of all I would like to say Happy New Year! I hope all of you and your families are implementing best-practice safety guidelines as outlined by the Center for Disease Control, including wearing masks out in public, washing your hands often, and exercising physical distancing protocols. Not only is COVID-19 potentially life-threatening there are now reports of long-term physical and psychological damage to those that survive. Take care of yourselves out there both physically and mentally, the Angels family needs to stay strong so all of us can enjoy Mike Trout now and in the future! At this point in the off-season, it is easy to say that the Angels bullpen is already revamped and, in fact, may continue to evolve even further, prior to Opening Day, after a dizzying array of non-tendered contracts and Rule 5 and trade additions. The previous administration placed a lot of emphasis on acquiring relievers through the waiver wire, minor trades, and the rare free agent signing. By focusing resources in other areas, Eppler and company actually did a fair job of building a Major League bullpen, albeit it lacked a true, sustained closer type. Eppler’s front office focused a lot on high spin rates and acquiring arms that threw a good fastball and curveball; the latter is a good pitch that works against both sides of the plate, negating some of the need to find those lockdown lefties. Minasian’s reign has yet to give us a lot of information on how he will approach building a good relief corps but there are three data points to discuss here. First of all, the quick strike and addition of Raisel Iglesias is significant, as it adds a clear, proven back-end bullpen arm that is capable of closing out games on a regular basis for the Angels. Raisel is stronger from the right-side with his fastball, slider, and changeup combination which can shutdown a right-handed heavy team. Per FanGraphs, out of all qualified relievers in 2020, Iglesias was in the Top 5 of Wins Above Replacement (WAR). In fact, over the last two seasons, he ranks 8th with only lofty names like Nick Anderson, Taylor Rogers, Aroldis Chapman, and Brad Hand, ahead of him. Despite the fact that the Halos, currently, only have him for one season, there is a lot to like about bringing him into the fold for 2021, particularly due to the fact that the Angels are projected to have a fairly tight 5.12 Runs Scored per Game (RS/G) versus an 4.82 Runs Against per Game (RA/G), which means the team may find itself in more close games, where they will lead by a small amount of runs, creating a high leverage situation that Iglesias can help solve. Additionally, the Halos front office struck during the Rule 5 Draft, acquiring Jose Alberto Rivera, a young arm from the Astros organization. Rivera features a big fastball, averaging in the high-90’s, curveball, and splitter. Clearly the new Angels front office is gambling that the heater/curveball combination is mature enough to fit in middle relief and, just like the Eppler era, this feels like a worthy gamble, despite the fact that the Angels will need to keep him all season or send him back to Houston if they cannot keep him on the active roster. Also, the team recently signed left-hander Alex Claudio to a one-year deal, for $1.125M. Claudio is the pure definition of “soft-tossing lefty” and, as expected, gets left-handed hitters out at a pretty good clip, although he does okay versus right-handed hitters as well. This should give Joe Maddon a specialist option out of the bullpen on an as-needed basis. Finally, we can glean some information about the players Minasian non-tendered/traded versus the players he kept on the 40-man roster. Guys like Noe Ramirez, Hoby Milner, and Matt Andriese were lower velocity types, whereas arms like Gerardo Reyes, Luke Bard, Ty Buttrey, Mike Mayers, and Kyle Keller all throw in the mid-to-upper 90’s. High velocity appears to be a real draw for the new Angels GM. Notably most of these bullpen arms that were retained have fastball/slider combos in their repertoire lending to the idea that Minasian and company may be making a point to go with guys whose 2nd pitches are sliders, which is a notorious same-side strikeout weapon, i.e. pure strikeout potential seems to be preferred, over creating poor contact or pinpoint control by the new front office. Basically, it appears, on the surface, that the initial emphasis is on strong strikeout capability. High strikeout rates are an important element in Major League Baseball so it is a bit refreshing to see a little more importance placed on it, although it did appear that Eppler’s group was on to something regarding high spin rates (difficult for hitters to see) and targeting guys with good curveballs (ability to get batters out on both sides of the plate). We will see how this plays out moving forward with Minasian, but the route he is initially focusing on is also a good path to run prevention, i.e. less hitters on-base results in less runs scored. Moving beyond the philosophical discussion, the Angels currently have, as of Dec. 31st, 2020, the following pure, bullpen arms on the 40-man roster (number of Minor League options remaining are in parentheses after each name): Luke Bard (1) Ty Buttrey (2) Alex Claudio (0) Raisel Iglesias (0) Kyle Keller (1) Mike Mayers (0) Jose Quijada (1) Gerardo Reyes (1) Jose Alberto Rivera (R5, 3 after the 2021 season) In addition, as mentioned in the Rotation article, Dillon Peters (0), Jaime Barria (0), Felix Pena (1), and Hector Yan (2), may be viewed as starters but they could also, possibly, work out of the bullpen, too. In fact, Barria and Peters are out of options so they will need a home on the active roster if they are to play in 2021. So to start, it should be noted that the Angels may or may not retain all of these names. Player’s can always be designated for assignment, so none of this is set in stone yet. Trades, signings, and waiver wire acquisitions could still change the landscape, quickly, too. All that being said if you were to take what the Angels have now and line it up into a group of eight relievers to start the season, it may look like this: Raisel Iglesias (Closer) Mike Mayers (Setup) Ty Buttrey (Setup) Alex Claudio (Specialist) Gerardo Reyes (Middle Relief) Luke Bard (Middle Relief) Jose Alberto Rivera (Middle Relief) Felix Pena (Long Relief) Now, certainly, you could substitute Keller or Quijada in middle relief, if you like, but these two, as well as Reyes and Bard, have a Minor League option remaining and the Angels will need Minor League bullpen depth, so a couple of them will start the season down in AAA or AA. Additionally, Peters could easily be the long reliever with Pena starting the season in the Minors, as well. When you look at this projection, on paper, the back-end of the bullpen seems fairly strong, particularly with the addition of Iglesias. However, it is the middle of the bullpen that leaves some room for doubt. Reyes, Bard, and Rivera have some good stuff but they are mostly unproven in the Majors, particularly Rivera. It might be useful, then, for Minasian to acquire one more quality middle reliever with some experience in the Majors and a pedigree of success. Yes, that is not always easy to find in a relief arm, considering their year-to-year variance, but it is not impossible. Really if we can find one more back-end or good middle reliever, the bullpen will be in pretty good shape and could possibly absorb the loss of an Iglesias, Mayers, or Buttrey, if they were to go on the Injured List for an extended period of time. Additionally, it could allow the Halos front office to option down someone like Bard or Reyes to create more depth or even flat out replace a borderline relief candidate, with a preferred choice, on the 40-man roster. Considering how many relievers and Minor Leaguer’s were cut loose, due to financial impacts, finding another impact arm, at a reasonable price, should not be terribly difficult. Based on the Angels own payroll restraints, this will either be a trade, for an inexpensive, controllable, upside-type, or a simple less-costly Major League signing, not dissimilar to Alex Claudio. Certainly, Minasian could do more and perhaps he will when it is all said and done, particularly if we do not net a guy like Bauer or some other expensive starter, utilizing the old approach of spending on the bullpen if the market for starters is too overpriced to play in. In the end, the Angels bullpen was a bit above average in 2020 and, with the addition of Iglesias, it likely improved, despite the subtractions, so another addition now or later, at the Trade Deadline, could push the Halos bullpen into the Top 10 in baseball, potentially. Expect: It really feels like the Angels can make room for one more solid reliever by possibly trading one of their current relievers (maybe Bard or Peters) or even designating them for assignment, to create space on the 40-man roster. This addition could literally come from anywhere at this moment, through free agency (maybe Brad Hand or Archie Bradley, if the Angels lose out on Bauer, a mid-tier guy like Shane Greene, or perhaps a veteran like Darren O’Day or Mark Melancon) or trade (perhaps someone like Chris Stratton or Richard Rodriguez from the Pirates in a Joe Musgrove based trade or Rowan Wick, Hector Neris, or Scott Oberg, for example). Surely, Minasian and company could stand pat and add another arm closer to the Trade Deadline, but the opportunity to strike now, under a new regime that is remaking the team in their own image, may afford a more aggressive, fresh start to our relief corps, heading into 2021.