Good morning Angels fans! How are you today?
Angels News
Optimism about Shohei Ohtani is on the rise again. Not just Deadspin, Fangraphs is excited. I want to believe! Oh, oh, oh Ohtani!
Angels are hoping that team chemistry helps get the most out of the players. But phrasing it as ‘banking on’ makes it sounds more like crossing fingers. Really should not use that if you wanted optimism, OCR.
Despite what you think of Jo Adell the prospect, Jo Adell is a great human. At a time where African American baseball players are getting more focus with the Negro Leagues celebration and upgraded to MLB status, current players and youth from this demographic is still not represented largely due to cost. Jo Adell and more than 150 players have raised millions to get these kids an opportunity to play.
MLB.com has their Top 30 prospect lists out and the Angels’ one is rather telling. Marsh and Detmers made the MLB Top 100. But hey, at least 15/30 are pitchers this time!
Effectively Wild has released their preview for the Angels. Also the Royals, if you are interested in that I guess.
Around Baseball
Remember when Manfred said the ball would change? Well Blake Snell has noticed. The ball isn’t going as far and the seams are thicker.
538 has difficulties projecting 2021 due to the weird 2020 season. Which, if true, makes the other predictions also more unreliable than usual.
Baseball is back at the Olympics this year, but you can’t go see them live. Japan has banned foreign spectators for the Olympics. Since the 2024 Paris Olympics won’t have Baseball, the next time you can watch Olympic Baseball in person is in 2028 in Los Angeles.
Zack Greinke continues to be odd. He apparently sat in on Odorizzi’s arbitration hearing in 2018. This is despite Odorizzi being on the Rays at the time. Greinke wanted to know the process. They share the same agent which is why this was even possible.
Want sad news? The 2021 World Baseball Classic was supposed to start already. Scheduled for March 9th-23rd 2021. Won’t happen of course. It won’t happen again until 2023 now.
Remember knuckleballers? Well Baltimore has one and are showing him off. That is so beautiful…
Anything I missed? Post below for upvotes.
Maybe I’m just being excessively hopeful, but the team looked better today.
This is a follow up to yesterdays discussion regarding the Angels lack of player development; If you want to understand Maddon his Angel Legacy and why he bleeds Angel Red, I recommend watching this video he took last year when he toured the Angels old minor league practice facilities.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwR_8Mv4elg&list=RDCMUCS7H_WWPj5_qfD-zoUzuX2A&start_radio=1&t=2494s
He doesn’t get into the meat of the Angel player development process until about 6 minutes in but he covers a lot of ground giving insight into the Angel Player Development way from the early 80’s through 1994. What’s obvious to me is Maddon is, first and foremost, a baseball coach not just a manager.
Despite their mediocre field success I think the Angels had a vast history of success with their minor league program from the late 70’s up though the mid 2000’s There are many unheralded coaches from this period that were instrumental in the development of many future major League players including the core of the Angels lone world series team. Guys like Bob Clear, Howie Gershberg, Marcel Lachemann ( even though he was a manager) Sam Suplizio, our current first base coach Bruce “Jeter” Hines and of course Joe Maddon.
I’m not sure why the Angels have got away from the approach teaching fundamentals, making baseball fun but trying to be innovative. ( The Angels used a sports psychologist?) Its obvious to me that some where along the way Reagins (who came up through our system) DiPoto and/or Eppler all got away from what appeared to be a very successful program. Maybe part of the problem was Sosh since he had so much power in the organization after Stoneman left but he was a player turned manager that probably knew very little about player development.
I’m glad Maddon dug up Suplizio’s old book on outfield defense. Lets get the whole organization back to fundamentals while still utilizing the latest technique development software and pitch spin recording machine.
Because of Arte
Arte is a guy who believes in investing as little as possible while getting the biggest ROI ( austerity where it matters…….pitching and player development ). Sign a big splash high profile hitter every 7 yrs and ignore the pitching and farm system. Pretty simple approach that former pariah Clipper’s owner Donald Sterling used to treat his team like a toy while being a flea on the Laker’s ankles. Gonna be interesting to see what we do in the MLB Draft and on foreign player signings ( Billy Eppler BTW also didn’t get any Latin pitching talent back in 2018 since Jessica DeLine reported back then that he signed more OF’s again. ).
It’s a good thing there aren’t any dominant economic systems inspired by Arte’s methods.
Yeah, we blew most of our pool money on some asshole named Ohtani that can’t pitch in the 17-18 signing period.
well written comment! being compare to the clippers, ugh but true
It’s been a long time since I’ve been as excited about a prospect as I am about Marsh. Also, that list contains mostly players drafted by Eppler – it is possible those drafts were better than they first appeared.
Speaking of Eppler, is it correct he has not landed anywhere? Anyone else find that strange?
I don’t think he’s landed anywhere but I don’t find it particularly strange. He’s getting paid through 2021 anyway. Could just be waiting for another GM job to open up
Where?
He was terrible here ( 5 straight losing seasons, no other GM in our history has that black mark against them but him. ).
The worst farm system in MLB during his tenure and even if Brandon Marsh is the next Mickey Mantle or Mike Trout now that Jo Adell didn’t quite live up to our own Willie Mays version then he still wasn’t very good. A F student can get a question right on a exam with 4 choices out of luck.
Hey 2002 Meet Harry Dalton Former Angels GM extraordinaire 1972-1977. He had 6 consecutive losing seasons despite the advent of free agency and 6 seasons of prime Nolan Ryan and could drink long into the night with Mr. Autry. So being as Angel fan, you can be pretty certain that there’s been worse losing precedent in our history
Life will be a lot less stressful if you just take it for granted 2002 is 90% bitch and 10% research.
Fan71 is right. The huge “athlete pile” Eppler assembled does have an off chance of being pretty good. Even pitching wise, Detmers, Canning, Pina, Yan, Kochanowicz, Rodriguez, Aquino, Daniel, Hidalgo and Holmes all have some pretty exciting upside. 2/3 of those names have yet to really even pitch all that much due to injuries and Covid. Some of our middle infield and OF talent like Knowles, Paris, Vera and Jackson could also crack the top 100 at some point and I half way expect Adams to be in the top 100 next year…. that guy has progressed like a beast in a lot of areas.
Because our current valuation of his pick ups is so low, but there are a lot of very young athletic guys in the system, we will most likely find that Epplers pick ups were better than we realized in a couple years.
And yes, Eppler will get a job someplace, though maybe not a GM job. Soggy wankers like 2002 need to pick their nemesis. If Arte is truly the devil who digs holes, then the rest of MLB knows it, and Eppler will probably work again.
HaHa You are probably right but I think a 10% estimate would maybe a little too generous for 2002.
In theory I have absolutely no problem in drafting raw(er) athletes ( although there is an endless line of draft failures in this area) but like any aspect of “Moneyball” if you identify an overlooked area of potential player talent that can be leveraged, you need to construct a program that can effectively support and develop that talent.