Morning Angels fans. Yeah, it has been a rough August. Have some links in these dog days.
Angels News
The Angels have been nad this August. Really bad. But at least O’hoppe is now at AAA? Yay?
How about Mike Trout? Still TBD, but he spoke about it.
With how desperately the Angels need anyone, that Daniel Murphy still didn’t get called up means he knows he is done and so he retired. He was trying to make a comeback in the Angels minor league system but has given up and hung it up.
Around Baseball
As we are in the middle of August now, we can see who are the real contenders and who are not. The Sneks fell hard while the Mariners are making a run. But what is really odd is how the Padres suck despite being in the good corner. Maybe Manny cursed them.
So, who could have it worse than the Angels? Maybe the Rays as Wander Franco news gets worse and worse every day. If he really is done for his serial underage, uh ‘dating‘ girls that have come to light, he would have torpedo-ed a Rays season. How certain are the Rays that he won’t come back this year? They rushed their top SS prospect. And then there is a real possibility that the team may move. Oh and they have injuries piling on.
That’s heavy. Isn’t there anything lighter? Former MLB star Miguel Tejada has an arrest warrant? Yeesh.
Actual happier news. Infamously bad umpire Angel Hernandez loses his appeal on his discrimination case. He now legally sucks and MLB is not racist for keeping him out of big games.
As Hawaii deals with fires, former MLB star Shane Victorino is doing something about it.
Anything I missed? Post below for upvotes.
FYI – Anaheim’s ex-mayor is going to jail over the Angel stadium deal.
The bit about conducting “dress-rehearsal” meetings with the Angels negotiating team that included Carpino is pretty explosive IMO. They all knew they had to rehearse an acted-out sequence of debate to get it throught he public hearings.
Wild!
It’s unclear from the article if that was just Sidhu’s idea/intention to hold the dress rehearsals with the Angels or if it actually happened.
The fact the deal did at one point get approved though makes me think it happened.
I’ve been so absorbed in all this discussion here today, that I just discovered we’re already in the 7th inning of a game. And leading 1-0! And I made a guess as to how we got the 1 run, and I was correct.
So funny that when you have such a great player on your team, and the team has been generally struggling, you can quickly guess who probably hit a solo homer.
What a boring Little League World Series game between Cuba and Japan. Between two teams, there was only 1 base hit. 😉
I hate to put it this way, but since the Halos are generally out of contention at this point of every season, I look forward to the LLWS. I will catch as many games as I can after work.
Of course, my comment was tongue in cheek. The game was riveting. They may see each other again in the international final. The announcers said that Musashi Fuchu team(where I grew up as 1st to 4th grader) do not practice 20 plus hours on weekends, but just few hours. It is good to hear that Japanese coaches are becoming more humane. I am also glad that Cuba was able to send their little league team for the first time. If Trump were POTUS, that would not have occurred.
I keep thinking that Silseth will be our ace next season. All hail the Mighty Trash Panda.
I read somewhere that Silseth was advised to slow down his breaking ball so that it would arc more when he was sent down to SLC. If that is the reason why he is looking like an ace, whoever advised that should be rewarded with $$ bonus (and replace Wise/Hezel).
I just hope that next year Silseth doesn’t take after Detmers, who reportedly solved everything by speeding up his slider when he was sent down to SLC last year.
Haha, I (Silseth fan) keep thinking he’s setting himself up for the regression we saw from Detmers and Sandoval this year.
But all of this is normal – it takes 3-4 years for most young pitchers to iron out their kinks. I didn’t understand when the front office was convinced Silseth is a reliever earlier this year, and I’m not convinced he’s this good as a starting pitcher after thrown into the fire post-ASB. Truth is somewhere in the middle, I think – but he has the repertoire to be a 3/4 guy if everything comes together.
I am just listening to Japanese podcast until the Angels game. When Angels asked what vehicle Sho wanted back in 2018, he chose Hyndai. I don’t know what vehicle he has now, but it must have caused pretty spicy controversy in Japan in that he decided on Korean car instead of Japanese. The podcast explains that Sho did not want the Angels to spend too much (I assume that the contract included a car for transportation purpose) because Hyndai was one of the most inexpensive cars at that time. I recall that he did not even bother to get a drivers’ license at that time. I wonder if Ippei is paid extra for being his designated driver.
If the Angels provided Ohtani with a car for his personal use, then the value of the personal use would have been included in Ohtani’s wages and subject to federal income and employment taxes. I assume California would also tax for the value of the personal use. Perhaps Shohei chose an inexpensive car to mitigate his tax bill.
Wow, I did not know that Ippei was Sho’s personal accountant. I wonder if Ippei minored in accounting at UC Riverside.
Sho pays 37% Federal and 12.3% California income tax.
$30 MM x 49.3%=$14.79 MM in tax.
If he made the same amount of money in Japan.
$30 MM x (45% (national)+10% (prefectural))=$16.5 MM in tax.
So, it is $1.71 MM cheaper to live in Anaheim than Oshu.
Just for a little more heartbreak, Edgar Quero had himself a two HR night for the White Sox AA affiliate Birmingham Barons last night, including the walkoff knock to win it.
Since the trade:
Edgar Quero: .340/.379/.500
Lucas Giolito: 8.14 ERA (1.571 WHIP, 2.6 HR9)
It is what is. Still think the Angels will suffer more long-term from the pitching they gave up this year than from missing Quero, but you really want more value in return for (what will soon be) a top 50 prospect than 2 months of that.
Yo quiero playoffs
Don’t worry… I’ve been assured by many on this website that prospects have little value and rarely make it to the majors.
Ugh – cheap shot. Here’s the data – hat tip to JJ Cooper on Baseball America:
So Quero may have the odds in his favor to not only make the major leagues, but also be very productive and have a career longer than 5 years. Who really knows what the future holds. However, it is completely accurate that since the trade Giolito has shit the bed while Quero has delivered impressive results.
Well, to be fair (to me), if we want to apply to the context at which people were “assuring” me, this was talking about trading our highly regarded prospects away. You provide some data here, about first-rounders, etc. However, that only focuses on drafted players, when they are drafted. The context for me was the worth of the prospects in the system at the current time. It would be interesting to see what the data is on “top prospects,” e.g. the top 3 for each team.
Never did I argue that I objected to trading away our Round 19/Round 20/etc. draft picks for an attempt to make it to the playoffs. (But who would trade with us for that? Obviously no one.)
Most of these debates always devolve into trees vs forest obfuscation.
During the period the Angels made the playoffs with regularity, they also had a highly rated farm system, or were within a year or two of having one.
A year ago at this time, Baltimore and Tampa had the top two farm systems in baseball, and Texas had the #6 system, per Fangraphs. Those three teams currently have the best records in the AL, and the swings of Baltimore and Texas relative to previous performance have been dramatic.
People can do all sorts of things with statistics, and point anecdotally to individual prospect flameouts, but across large data sets, the correlation between farm system improvement and successive team performance is pretty compelling.
I think I take away different messages from this analysis (which I’m familiar with and have used to argue contrary points in the past).
The message isn’t that organizational and prospect rankings carry little weight and it’s all a big crapshoot. I think this analysis actually proves that prospect success is strongly correlated with prospect rankings, as higher draft picks clearly have a higher chance of making MLB rosters (as high as 93% among first rounders in 2004). And nearly 18% of prospects (in their 30 year data set) making MLB rosters is quite a solid hit rate given most of those draft classes were 50 picks deep – and remained 40 picks deep until COVID hit.
Saying five out of six prospects never make the Majors and 9 out of 10 don’t make a big impact isn’t saying much about prospect value in any case – because most prospects are not drafted with the expectation of being anything other than organizational filler, with some beating the odds to pleasant surprise. But teams don’t trade for MLB players from the bottom 90% – they trade from the 10-20% of prospects who are their star performers, and who have proved themselves far, far more likely to fall into the 10% of prospects who stick on an MLB active roster.
There are miles of difference between saying “we’re going to cut 20% of our sales staff” and “we’re going to cut 20% of our top 30 sales producers”. It could be the difference between actually making more money and having your revenues decrease by, say, 50%.
In short, I think that this analysis proves that (1) prospect/farm rankings carry weight, (2) losing top-ranked prospects carries a cost, and (3) there are a lot of unheralded, unranked prospects who never make it.
Yeah, what he said.
😉
Hated that trade from the moment it was announced. It’s like mortgaging the future for nothing. Damn. But thanks for the info.
It seems to me that Perry thought trading for Giolito/Lopez/Moustakas/Cron would help to convince Ohtani to re-sign with the Halos this off-season, since it proves dedication to winning and all.
I wonder if this plan has buttercupped in Perry’s face, though.
Japanese newspaper was amazed that there was a whole section of Globe Life Field last night that was courting for Sho to come to Texas. Angels have Mets next weekend, and Mets, already expressing desire to acquire the best Japanese pitcher in Yoshinobu Yamamoto off this season, will go all out to appeal to Sho, which will surely produce frenzy amongst fans in Queens.
One of the strategies that Eppler (assuming that he is not fired by Cohen at the end this season) will use is that Mets will have #1, #2, and #3 Japanese starters if he can convince Sho to be part of ‘Japanese team’.
And they are not looking to reach playoff next season.
We should bring back Shiggy and stick it to them.
It’s a weird gambit, and a head-scratching logic. If you want to convince Shohei to stay, you need to prove to him that success is sustainable, not that you’re willing to make ill-advised impulse purchases for short-term gain. The Angels have provided copious evidence of the latter – they didn’t need any fresh reminders.
All of that short-term value disappears by the offseason, when Minasian needs to make the case that a long-term contract with the Angels is likely to include several trips to the postseason in the near-term.
I still think Seattle made/makes the much stronger case. They might not touch the playoffs at all this season (though their 30% chance is much better than the Angels’ <1% chance). However their measured, rational approach to the trade deadline conserved all of their vaunted young arms, and their team pitching remains top two in the MLB in WAR, FIP and ERA. And four of their starting five are between the ages of 23 and 26.
Many people still question Dipoto’s deadline trade of Sewald for Rojas and Canzone even though they won last night in extra. If they had Sewald, they would have likely won last two games against KC & the Sunshine Band. Did they not want to retain Sewald for some reason? ( Sewald @ $4.1 MM with one more year of arb and UFA in 2025.)
Yeah, the Sewald trade is a puzzler. But I guess Kolten Wong and a water cooler can cause a general manager to act in desperation.
😆
I tend to agree with Grant Bisbee’s take on that trade:
“Jerry Dipoto understands that a value of a high-leverage reliever pitching well is always out of whack at the trade deadline, especially when the reliever has another season of team control left. This move might cost the Mariners a win or two over the rest of this season, but they got a potential long-term outfield solution in Dominic Canzone, and they got one of the greatest “If this dude pans out, he’ll be so much fun” prospects in baseball with Ryan Bliss, a 5’6” contact-and-vroom machine. If just one of these guys becomes a regular, it’s an easy win for the Mariners, but if Bliss even reaches 80 percent of his potential, he’ll be a cult hero for decades.”
Shorter version: The Mariners’ bullpen is deep. High leverage relievers are volatile. The guys Dipoto got back are interesting, with some ceiling.
FWIW, Bisbee gave the Mariners an A on this trade, and Arizona a B-. YMMV.
Because I was watching Root Sports, pregame show featured Canzone when he debuted as Mariner, I have noted him to be genuinely excited to play for the Mariners and really fun loving kinda guy, sharp contrast to Jarred Kelenic with now infamous Gatorade Cooler incident. You are right. Dipoto is not looking at this season per se, but for the next few seasons.
If we had traded Ohtani, I was really hoping we’d dump Estevez and Moore for exactly this reason.
I saw many places where people posted the idea that Ohtani should have been traded away (along with a lot else), and then the haul we got in return would have actually MORE convinced him to re-sign with us, because he’d see our plan to improve (at least, for those of us convinced that re-signing Ohtani was a big objective). That logic makes sense to me, and I would think it made sense to Ohtani.
However, there were plenty of other claims posted throughout the net saying “if the Angels traded Ohtani, the understanding is that they would have no chance of getting him back.” I don’t know if I believe that at all or not.
It is so rare for a player that is traded in his walk year to re-sign as a free agent with the team that traded him. I can’t think of anyone other than Rickey Henderson who did so. But then again, Shohei has a habit of doing the unexpected.
I believe the case many people were citing was Aroldis.
I was of the mind (and still am) that Ohtani would not re-sign regardless of what happened at the deadline, and regardless of whether the Angels made a deep postseason run.
The man is a sophisticated, high-information player, who is going to choose a team that is in a stable, healthy state – in terms of resources, future playoff probability, and organizational culture. There are arguments for why that team might be Seattle, SF or the Dodgers, but really not the Angels.
The only reasonable argument for keeping him at the deadline is that he is a deeply enjoyable and generational player, and the team is going to be so damn fucked when he’s gone, that you might as well ward off complete and abject darkness for two more months before the cellar door clicks. When Sho is gone, the Angels may become the least watchable team in the game.
It’s is, and was, a “we’re dead anyway” logic – and Minasian’s no-future-but-the-present moves fit that outlook.
Yikes.
Well that is certainly sobering.
If that was truly Perry or Arte’s goal with those trades for 2 month rentals of mediocre major leaguers (all of whom would be gone by the time Ohtani makes his decision) then the Org is worse than I feared.
If this were a Corporation that I was the CEO of, I would already be planning on a company without Ohtani rather than making desperation plays to try to keep him and screw up the Company for the future with that desperation.
I don’t think I would start Detmers tonight; I would start a reliever then bring in Detmers. Maybe take a little pressure off him.
Or maybe what is wrong with him is being told to don’t throw strikes, let the batter swing and miss hitting the outsides of the plate.
Teams are recognizing that as a group the Angels pitcher’s miss the plate a lot and walks are easy. Or they know the mistake will happen because the pitcher is behind in the count. Just the opposite of what we do while batting. Swinging at the first pitch has worked out well this season.
Can anyone explain why Detmers is starting today? The confidence in him being able to pitch 5-6 decent innings right now is about a 1 on a scale to 10. Why put him out there? He should be working on stuff in simulated games or the like.
this is a simulated game.
😂
Being played by an unstimulated team. Being watched by an unstimulated fanbase. All involved feel the need to be on stimulants.
Simulated or stimulated?
You can’t chase wins every game.
Take is going down as a Nevin classic.
Who else would you start particularly with Ohtani skipping a start?
They should have started Canning and not brought him in the other day. They aren’t smart.
Understood but given where they are today- who else would they start?
Escobar. Seriously, does it really matter? If we can’t compete at least emulate the Savannah Bananas and have some fun out there.
Yes!! Savannah Bananas!!
Someone here (who will remain unnamed) was gaga for Velazquez as a plus defender and told me I was dead wrong of my negative assessment of his skills. I was told the numbers don’t lie. Is that a .909 fielding percentage I see with negative dWAR and DRS? I guess the eyes tell a lot too.
You know that for his career he has certainly been considered above average with the glove, this season, along with what seems everything, his fielding has fallen off a lot. But then, the team as a whole has been incredibly poor in the field. Part of the problem is the talent and part coaching.
He suffers from Angel Yipitis. A condition where previously legit defensive shortstops are given an opportunity here (Jose Iglesias and David Fletcher to name 2 more) but suddenly suck giant balls to go with their deteriorating bat.
Funny stuff, the Yipitis is very catchy too, the whole team caught it this year.
Coaching? They have coaches?
Posted at Lone Star Ball: https://www.captiongenerator.com/v/2291705/hitler-the-laa-angels-fan
Contains NSFW closed captioning. I wouldn’t turn the sound on.
I lost it at “It’s like the whole team is Jo Adell.”
Its ok. He has a .956 OPS in AAA this year.
truth. I had to laugh
This was amazing.
First time I’ve agreed with Hitler!
Ha!
“At least we still have the rally monkey”.
Damn right.
It’s a funny idea that needs work. Raving Hitler should be Arturo and the three should be Minasian, Nevin, and Wise.
Or even the team pres and VP’s.
That chart with 1 run decisions explains why San Diego is where they are, grouped with Oakland and Kansas City.
That’s a lot of data. There’s probably a good reason for this dismal 26-42 record, making run differential irrelevant in predicting how they’ll finish.
If we were Padres fans it would likely be obvious because we’d have game info we could point to
Eric – that is also why the algorithms have the Padres with much higher playoff odds than we would expect with their record. The Pads have arguably been one of the unluckiest teams in baseball. If that luck turns around, they could easily go on a significant run.
By comparison, the Angels win-loss record in close games is about what one would expect so the issue with the Angels is NOT about a good team that has been exceedingly unlucky. It’s about a mediocre team that is playing about where one would expect.
I’m telling you, we need our bats to come alive. Instead of starting Detmers, let him throw our guys BP. Their confidence will skyrocket.
I’ve gone down the unadvised road lately of imagining just how awful the Angels could be next year without Ohtani.
Seventy percent of the pitching starts Ohtani would have made for the Angels in 2024 will now be made by a struggling pitcher who will have a meltdown and make the game a hopeless case by the fifth inning.
For thirteen of the Angels’ series this year, Ohtani was the team’s leading run producer. If that is missing next year and is replaced by a rotation of third and fourth string level replacement players, the Oakland A’s might not be a last place team next season.
If Ohtani departs for another team this off-season, does that have a domino effect on the quality of the free agents the Angels will be able to sign? Why would a good free agent player choose to sign with the Angels if he is not going to be able to be Ohtani’s teammate?
So, you assume that if we do not resign Ohtani, we won’t go after FAs. Also, FAs (who people here are always motivated by money) will say no to Angels money because one star leaves?
I find this nonsensical. Sure, the team is playing badly and fans are sad – but stay reasonable.
Ohtani’s not signing with the Angels will have the short term impact of a lot of hitching and moaning and a loss of short term ‘fans’ who were really only fans of Ohtani.
Long term, I think it could be a positive. The team will hopefully have a new owner and will focus on building on its core of young players supplemented by some quality free agency signings made possible by payroll flexibility.
The 2024 UFA list gets rather weak after Ohtani…..
We’ll go after players like Anderson and Renfroe
100%….without fail, more of them. That’s how we roll.
There is only one way this ends: we bring Jamie Moyer in for a come back attempt.
This isn’t nonsensical, it is perfectly reasonable.
We’ve had many years to see that if Arte signs his big ticket item and gets his payroll in the $180MM range, he stops there and has us fill the roster with bargain bin.
And we’ve seen countless examples of free agents deciding where they want to play, and choosing to play for a competitive team instead of losing. Not all do that, but many.
None of that appears nonsensical to me.
https://www.mlb.com/angels/news/angels-injuries-and-roster-moves
There’s been some debate about getting key players like Trout, O’Hoppe and Neto back on the field this year versus shutting them down for the year.
I’m firmly in the “back on the field” camp – even if we’re not going to playoffs. Particularly with O’Hoppe & Neto as these guys need as many reps as possible so that Perry can properly assess and build the roster for 2024.
There are numerous questions that will need to be answered so having some peace of mind that C, SS and Trout are “good” would make the offseason strategy a bit easier.
I agree re O’Hoppe and Neto – but I would not rush them back. Let them be 100% before putting them back in so that they are truly good for 2024.
Trout is an interesting issue. That injury can be nagging. He had surgery. I am on the fence since he was not destroying the ball when he left. I could be convinced either way on him.
It doesn’t sound like he can harm the hamete further. It is ‘just’ the healing from the surgery that may cause lingering pain.
When Trout is ready, let him play. There is still six weeks left in the season – and any success can lead to more confidence moving forward.
Trout needs to show he can actually play baseball over most of a season. He has to come back this year — otherwise you cannot rely on him at all next year. You can pencil him in the lineup but you need to have a big asterisk there noting until injury sidelined him for an extended period.
You already have that with Rendon.
Cool side note, my wife one this signed photo at an auction:
Nice
…..And it’s called strike 3 right down the middle….that ends the inning, no runs, no hits, 12-3 Rangers after 71/2.
The Foundation Building Materials’ keystone of the game for the Halos tonight against the Rangers is “I Can’t Take It” by Cheap Trick.
The Angels have had the crap kicked out of them by the two Texas teams this week, and now Reid Detmers is slated to take the mound for the Angels tonight. The once promising Angel pitcher has given up 14 earned runs in his last 6.1 innings pitched. It feels like we’re headed for a slaughter at the hands of the Rangers tonight, and I just can’t take it anymore.
https://youtu.be/j-HZsigMODE
That Smell…..of bad baseball….💩🫏🚽
https://youtu.be/hib4n9RmFrQ
The hardest job in all of baseball is rebuilding a franchise from top to bottom, it takes years. Lots of trial and errors along the path to being successful and winning. Under Arte Moreno it was always sign the big names and they will come, and they did and do buy tickets still. But at the expense of being a winner, which would have produced another one million more fans a year or close to it. Imagine Trout being like Mantle every year in the playoffs.
PTP did his job this year, it’s the Player’s who choked the chicken. If you can’t hit, run, field, or pitch well enough to win, you deserve the record you get, a losing one at that.
We had no SS at the start of the year. Playing Gio out of position or depending on Neto to come through as a recently drafted rookie we’re not real options when the season began.
If I remember, we thought Fletcher would be the SS.
Actually Gio at Shortstop was not bad at all. I dont think anyone thought Fletcher would regress as much as he has which I believe is the result of a debilitating injury.
I know he got to play with his brother but missing a large portion of spring training after major surgery the year before probably wasn’t a good idea
Im curious what the sprint speed data is on him as well as his defensive range before and after the injury.
His speed is GONZO.
Who is we? I have been saying for over a year that Fletch is not a SS. There was tons of evidence that his numbers were below avg at SS, but decent at 2B, when looking back to his good season. Some people kept suggesting that we were set at SS because we could just put him there, but there were many people (correctly) objecting, pointing out that he is out of position there.
We, in my recollection, was the team (who basically rolled with Fletcher and Rengifo at SS until Neto was forced up).
Meh. Seemeddubious that Fletcher could handle it, seemed like a blah-toon at best.
Disagree. Cult hero David Fletcher was the starting SS with Urshela & Rengifo as back ups. We also avoided the mistake of throwing “Rendon Money” at the top SS Free Agent. Neto was elevated out of necessity, but I don’t blame Perry for this situation.
The biggest and probably only miss by Perry this past offseason was the Anderson signing, otherwise, he out together a fairly talented team IMO.
Perry is the only bright spot in this otherwise black hole of an Organization.
Agreed. I hope he’s retained and given more time to right the ship. Assuming that Shohei is walking, Perry is going to have significant financial flexibility to build the roster…..
Agreed. He is the only one I want to stick around. I think in time he could right this ship.
Disagree. Anderson started off poorly, but has been pitching much better of late, except for his last stinker in Houston. I think he will remain a serviceable mid to end of the rotation arm through the end of the reasonable contract.
Hard to make that case by the numbers, really.
Anderson splits by month:
Look deeper at that July stretch where he pitched “better” and it’s really quite a mirage. He had a 1.50 WHIP and teams were hitting .282 (well above league average) against him, and most of his statcast metrics looked a lot like June – he just got much, much luckier.
He was also very pitch inefficient in that stretch, pitching five innings or fewer in the majority of outings. His mid-July contest against Houston was instructive: he threw 85 pitches in only three innings, and put 8 men on base, but emerged somehow with only 1 ER surrendered. 3 ERA!
But no one would consider that a performance even worthy of a backend starter. It’s mop-up or taxi squad level work.
I agree. Regardless of what anyone thought was going to happen we were going into the season without a catcher, second baseman, or a shortstop. They promoted O’Hoppe, and used players from the bench to play SS and 2B. Fortunately Perry had acquired major league reserves this year for the infield depth. But the fact is we started the year in a hole. We lucked out in a few cases because I don’t believe that O’Hoppe, Neto, Moniak, or Thais were envisioned to be significant contributors this year. We had no outfield depth and no legitimate 1B back up. I think Perry probably did the best he could with the resources he had. Going in, they also had to be counting on Ward and Walsh for a lot more than they provided. A lot of things went south that exposed the weakness of the organization but there were some pleasant surprises as well. The bullpen wasn’t very good at the start of the season but Perry did a nice job of rebuilding it. We really all knew that the plan was very success oriented and required almost everything to go right which it didn’t. The big question is where do you go from here.
I just read through an article on HaloHangout about 3 offseason mistakes the Angels made, and I actually really agree with one of them. That they didn’t go “all in” early enough (during the offseason). I don’t know if that was because Perry was content with what he did, or because Arte put the usual spending limit on him (we may never know).
I’m sorry, but if it happened to be Perry’s decision, then I think that was a huge mistake (but I’m inclined to believe it was Arte’s usual limits).
We should have signed better players during the offseason instead of scrambling to put nitro into the engine at the last second.
Not making the playoffs again, nearly last in MLB’s farm rankings. When does the nightmare end? https://www.mlb.com/news/mlb-pipeline-2023-midseason-system-rankings?t=mlb-pipeline-coverage&partnerId=zh-20230816-1003656-mlb-1-A&qid=1026&utm_id=zh-20230816-1003656-mlb-1-A&bt_ee=LJjiSMBemX86QZnR1kw1J8U0uCGGDf4PWz5SEDJDhmtgjeo8uxitLHxKhsdNZe3L&bt_ts=1692196024123
The Angels have been rated near the bottom of farm system ratings for 10 years, with still producing Sandoval, Detmers, Canning, Neto, O’Hoppe, Marsh, Adell, Fletcher, Thaiss, Ward, further back Trumbo and Calhoun. I know that the farm is weak, but it is not so dire that it is useless. We seldom make trades of veterans that bring back top notch players and the team does not draft well. Also the team likes to play games when drafting with the slot money.
Angels did not produce Sandoval – Houston did.
Angels did not produce O’Hoppe – Philly did.
Angels did not produce Neto – his college did.
I’m not sure you should have Adell in any successful prospect list.
Angels did not produce Mike Trout. His Mom and Dad did.
Your logic is beyond silly.
Sandoval was not a product of the Angels system. Neither was O’Hoppe. At most they are examples of good trades.
Neto you have an argument but he was really developed playing college ball since he spent almost no time in the minors. Arguably he is an example of good drafting.
Sandoval played in our Minor League System for years on and off. To Argue such a stupid point of whose system our younger players played in is asinine and makes little difference really.
Sandoval was traded to the Angels in late July 2018. He has been starting consistently for the Angels since the start of the 2019 season. He has not returned to the minors since that time. So he spent ‘years and years’ in the Angels’ system? At most it was 6-9 months in the Angels’ system.
Careful throwing that ‘asinine’ word around since that could be a pot calling the kettle black kind of thing.
Sandoval was developed by the Astros system. He arrived developed. He spent almost no time in the Angels!’ minors.
O’Hope is the same thing. He was developed by the Phil’s.
I just don’t think you can use them as examples of players the Angels drafted and developed.
Sandoval was developed in the Angels farm system and at the major league level. After being traded at the trade deadline he pitched 27 games in the Angels farm system over the course of 1-1/2 seasons. He got a late season call up in 2019 and probably would have spent a large chunk of 2020 down on the farm but there was no minor league games in 2020 due to the pandemic .
My focus is drafted and developed. But your point is well taken. There are shades of grey.
I agree Grandpa the argument is asinine.
Shouldnt the Angels also get credit for Moniak’s development even though hes only played 33 games at the Great Salt Lake? It’s my understanding part of his development was the work he put in during last offseason under the Angels coaches tutelage and spring training. The Phillies had him for 5+ years and couldn’t even get a season in the minors with an OPS over .750 despite 1000’s of plate appearances.
What is a travesty is the Angels inability to develop consistent pitching ignoring any type of international system and asingular focus of trying to turn raw high school athletes into major league ball players.
I think both can be right. My focus is drafting and developing players. That means identifying talent, obtaining it through the draft and developing it into major league contributors. I don’t think Sandoval and O’Hoppe really qualify within that definition.
Tweaking players who have spent years in another team’s system is a different analysis. While that may be a form of development, it does not require the level of building-block development that comes from acquiring raw talent and turning it into a major leaguer.
Maybe Renfroe too….not sure how, when or where he was produced.
We may have drafted Sandoval, but we sure as heck had him in our Minor League System for years, O’Hoppe was brought up to the majors by the Angels from our minors. Did Neto not play in the minors first?
Sandoval was acquired in July 2018 and has pitched in the major leagues since late 2019. He spent, at most, 3/4 of a season in the Angels minor league system.
I think we are arguing minutia. My focus was players drafted and developed by the Angels. To me Sandoval and O’Hoppe do not qualify. But you see it differently. Sounds good!
may not, oop’s
Sandoval had already made his way up to AA over four seasons in Houston’s farm system (a top five system in 2014) when he was traded in summer of 2015.
He was a high school draftee, so really all credit goes to Houston in getting him to a level from which many players are selected directly to the Majors (see Neto, Joyce, Bachman).
The Angels haven’t really developed a high school draftee into a starter since Nick Adenhart (2004 draft class), so it stretches credulity a bit to suggest the Anaheim farm made Sandoval what he is. He was 21 years old, carrying a 1.37 ERA against advanced competition in a hitter’s league, when he was flipped for Maldonado.
Why Houston would trade him for that is anyone’s guess, but he was already close to MLB ready, and made it to the bigs in a year flat. Under the current regime, he probably would have made in to the active roster in 2-3 months.
Thank you for that Turk’s. You expressed what I was trying to point out way better than I did. Appreciate it.
The Angels used their farm system and other capitol to acquire them so, yes they are Halo products.
I accept that perspective. I disagree as I have stated, but I respect your opinion.
Not to pile on, but Trumbo was drafted in 2004, 19 years ago, when the Angels farm was considered one of the strongest in the sport. Calhoun was drafted 13 years ago – the Angels were in the top ten in several rankings after the ’09-10 drafts. So they prove the opposite – good players emerged from a farm system recognized as being good.
Grandpa, I think your argument template here is the most common one from Angels fans when prospect gurus tag the team’s farm as being among the worst in the sport: a list of names is produced of current and recent players who spent some time (often very little) on the Angels farm, and then made the active MLB roster.
But fans from every team in the MLB can produce a list of names of players who their team drafted who made an active roster. The salient point is: how much did they help the MLB team, and comparatively, was that more or less than other teams got from their farm systems?
There’ve been several large data-set analyses at this point that have shown that, since the 2009 draft, the Angels have produced the least WAR from drafting 2010 on than any other team in the MLB, or have ranked in the bottom five in terms of farm system output overall (inclusive of MiLB free agents and trades).
Since 2012 on, only one drafted Angels player has produced 5+ WAR across his career to date, per Baseball Reference: David Fletcher, who is no longer an MLB player. Ward comes close at 4.9 WAR.
Obviously, there are other ways to acquire prospect talent (Ohtani and Sandoval exceed 5 WAR in their Angels careers), but drafting is a big part of it, and the Angels have been pretty unsuccessful at it for a decade-plus.
We are all aware of the Angels suckage, but we have accomplished this with using backups, cast offs, ands journeyman in the field. On the mound the Angels had every right to believe that Anderson, Detmers, Sandoval would perform at a higher level than bottom of the barrel.
The 3 biggest questions I pose are for Perry Minasian, are as follows:
My answers to your questions. But first – every team deals with injuries. Houston has had a ton of them. As havre the Dodgers. It is these team’s strong and deep Organizations that make the difference.
Now to your questions.
1. If the Ohtani signage issue was not hanging in the balance – Phil would be gone. The Angels don’t want to appear to be in disarray. If Ohtani leaned (which I think is a near certainty) Phil will likely be gone. Of course Phil is also inexpensive which might save his job.
2. Injuries occur within a 162 game season. But add in cuts on strength and conditioning and not focusing on nutrition and they can happen with more frequency.
3. This is likely philosophical within the coaching staff. There would have to be a wholesale change- but again that would give the appearance of something being wrong which they don’t want to do because of Ohtani’s upcoming decision.
Hope this helps! In short, the Angels Org is a complete and total mess and Arte needs to go for it to change.
While every team deals with injuries at some point during the season, have you ever seen a team go through so many injuries that 7 of 9 starting players on opening day would be gone?
Angels conditioning and nutrition weaknesses – source.
For years the Angels rank at the top or close to the top in DL/IL days. This year has been the worst, even backups to the backups have been going down.
Both Asstros and Dodgers have experienced injuries this year, but in the last 10 years they don’t come even close to what the Angels have gone through.
Astros have had unbelievable injuries this year. They basically had all their starters out for extended time.
It is well known and has been published at various times that the Angels Org is one of the worst re strength/conditioning and nutrition. These were areas where cuts were made. The Angels minor league nutrition scandal made headlines .
Here is one Sports Illustrated article:
https://www.si.com/.amp/mlb/2021/07/24/angels-minor-league-players-critical-ownership-living-conditions-mental-health
Old news 71. Other teams like The Rays and Athletics were accused of providing even worse living conditions for their minor leaguers.
I was asked for an example. I provided one. Are you proud of this Org and the way it’s been run over the last decade?
Isn’t this an issue that the general manager and/or operations person should address? Arte is hardly the first owner that is seeking to trim operational expenses in one area or another. It’s
incumbent upon the C-Suite people to make the case with ownership and resolve the problem.
I agree. But I think in the case of this Organization, those people are Arte sycophants. People like Carpino, Kohl and Molly Jolly – who make up the “Organization” will not call Arte out on these issues. This is a major criticism I have of this Org.
Fair point.
After this article and a few others appeared, the Angels changed their way doing handling players and the lack of decent food.
Did they? Or do they want us to believe that? I’d have to hear directly from the minor leaguers and not the marketing Org known as the Angels.
Astros lost Altuve for an extended period, Brantley, McCullers for the season, Garcia for the season and many others. That’s at least as bad as the Angels’ luck has been. But their deep Org has kept them competitive.
We lost Stassi and then O’Hoppe at catcher. We ‘lost’ Walsh at 1B. At 2B we have had Drury out for an extended amount of time. At SS we had Fletcher out, and now Neto is out. At 3B Rendon is out for the year, and Urshela (back up for at least one of those positions) is out for the year. In the OF, Trout and now Ward are out for extended periods of time. Adell (meant to come in as a back up) also out for a long time. That is just the position players – leaving only RF (Renfroe) as a position without extended injury loss. (And Ohtani, at DH).
Then there is the pitching – Suarez, Quijada, Warren, C. Rodriguez, Devenski, Marte, Joyce and Bachman all out for the season. Canning, Moore and Loup were also out for a spell. Tepera was hurt and then just could no longer play. That is two starters and nine players from the pen. I am sure I missed some shorter injuries.
Honestly, who wasn’t injured. Renfroe (was on paternity list), Rengifo, Ohtani, Sandoval, Detmers, Anderson, Thaiss.
We added a ton of players – due to all of those injuries. Moustakas, Escobar, Grichuk, Cron, Giolito, Lopez. Some of them have also been hurt (Cron), or on leave (Lopez).
I find it hard to see how Altuve (for part of the season), Brantley, McCullers and Garcia is ‘at least as bad’ (even if you account for Abreu, Urquidy, Alvarez, McCormick and Maton, and Stanek’s bereavement). They have 3 players on the 60-day IL. Angels have 13!!!
You would need to have as much familiarity with the Astros and Dodgers to explore the depths like you have for the Angels. Both the Dodgers and the Astros have had major injuries throughout the season to numerous players, young and veteran. Short stints and long stints on the IL. My list of Astros injuries was not intended to be comprehensive.There are many many more that could be listed with an in-depth look.
To your points, I do not consider Rendon as having been healthy for at least 3 seasons. Same with Chris Rodriguez. Those guys have been gone for a long time.Also, Fletcher has been arguably ‘done’ for at least a season. Walsh has been done since 2021.
You also are including many players who have been gone for short periods (such as Renfroe paternity leave). All teams have that sort of thing. Anderson and Loup were relatively short stints.
Really, the injuries of meaning were Trout, O’Hoppe, Gio, Ward and Neto and maybe Joyce (arguably), Bachman (arguably). Thats a considerable list but not that different from other teams who have stayed in contention utilizing Organizational depth.
Yes – the Angels have had bad luck and lots of it for numerous seasons. But many teams that are competitive have bad luck and lose players for long and short stints. It’s the Angels’ lack of Organizational depth that has made these injuries the focus.
I listed every player on both the Angels and Astros that was on any kind of leave. I went through the transaction logs.
You can diminish all you want, but the injuries are not comparable.
I don’t intend to diminish. I just think injuries are a convenient excuse that clouds the real problem which is this Org. I don’t want anyone to focus as injuries and ignore the systemic Organizational problems.
You used the Astros injuries to talk about how strong their organization is. I simply pointed out that the Angels injuries have been more substantial – so you can’t really use the argument you are making (via the Astros) to demonstrate what you want to do.
There may be other arguments to make – but that one was weak because of the Angels historically bad injury rate this year. Maybe the org is bad, maybe Perry is turning it around, but it is really hard to see when players are as hurt as they are.
You and I disagree regarding the extent of injuries. You used guys like Walsh, Fletcher and Rendon to make your point. Those guys have not been productive in forever. Joyce and Bachman are too new to measure what their injuries meant.
The Angels starting pitching staff has stayed relatively healthy this season. They still have been mediocre except for basically Ohtani and lately Silseth.
Really it’s been Trout, Gio, Ward, O’Hoppe and Neto from the standpoint of (potential) impact players.
Plenty of Organizations have suffered losses as least as bad and stayed highly competitive. I mentioned the Astros (lost a superstar for 3 months and two top starting pitchers etc) and Dodgers (many injuries throughout the team) as examples.
Injuries are an excuse. If you want to ignore the deep fundamental problems with this Org and focus on injuries- be my guest. But it’s masking the real problems of this Org.
Rendon played 43 games for the Angels this year. How do you justify dimissing his injury as legitimate?
(If you want to add Urshela, who backed up Rendon, he is also hurt). That is just one position.
Altuve has played 50 games. Those seem equivalent to me.
Where do you rank Trout – if quality of player counts? Is he equivalent of McCullers or Garcia?
Then you grant Ward, O’Hoppe, Neto (but not Drury?). Do they add up to your other pitcher? Is that how you are equating things?
Injuries to our bullpen or the rest of our position players don’t count because – you don’t want to think about it? Or you don’t think they are any good, or are proven players? Stassi, Fletcher and Walsh don’t count just because you didn’t think they deserved to play already?
I don’t think most of the players you listed are impact players. Most of them are replacement level to 1 WAR type players. Good Organizations have players who can be plugged in and replace those kinds of players fairly regularly. Even Ward and Drury are replaceable within solid Organizations.
Rendon is, at most, a 2 WAR player (maybe). Same with Ursula. Yes, those loses hurt but if the Organization had developed a young third baseman (as most good orgs do) rather than presuming Rendon was the answer for the foreseeable future- there would have been depth to fill in at that position. In fact, collectively Rendon and Gio played in around 105 games this season producing 0.7 WAR. That is basically just above replacement value. You don’t think a good baseball Org would have a third baseman who could produce at least that much in their minor-league system?
Losing impact players (say 3 WAR or higher) is a different story. Trout obviously is an impact player (although he was having an off season before his injury). His loss was meaningful obviously.
We really cannot quantify O’Hoppe’s loss since this was his first season. Thaiss has filled in decently. Maybe that cost the Angels 1-2 WAR maximum.
The Neto injury was meaningful because he added solid consistent defense to a position that needed it. But he has played in 67 games and added 1.6 WAR so it’s not like the team has been without him for most of the season.
Goods Orgs generally figure out a way to get production even in the face of injuries. The Angels do not have the Organizational depth to do that.
From the MLB report:
It certainly isn’t good to slump just when one needs to go on a run.
it is the way
They definitely seem like a mirror image of the A’s this month. Perhaps a tad worse.