Mike Trout may be the best player in MLB, but the Angels' future may be the worst

[VariousCrap]

Yet despite another terrific season for their best player, the Angels are in dire shape. Even after winning two straight against the sad-sack Twins, they've still lost seven of their past 10 games. They own the third-worst record in the American League. At 29-37, they're on pace for their worst season since 1999, the final year before Mike Scioscia, and a season that ended with a young go-getter named Joe Maddon managing the final 29 games. And there's not a damn thing that any one player can do ... even if that player is the best in the game.

http://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/mike-trout-may-be-the-best-player-in-mlb-but-the-angels-future-may-be-the-worst

[Ray McKigney]

The guy who wrote that article plays ball like a girl.

[Troll Daddy]

Boo F***ing Hoo

Personally, I believe Trout is a team player and couldn't careless about garbage articles like this one. 

Does that mean Trout will extend with the Angels? I don't even think Trout knows at this junction in his career. 

Play Ball

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Chuck]

What a bunch of bullshit in this article. 

[Stradling]

12 minutes ago, Chuckster70 said:

What a bunch of bullshit in this article. 

Chuck I have it on good authority that "everything he wrote was true". 

[OregonLAA]

Keri is one of the best baseball writers around. He also has a pretty sweet jinx where when he says something the opposite comes true. So maybe it'll turn us around

[Oz27]

I know the butthurt response was completely predictable but what in the article are people saying is wrong?

I would argue we don't quite have the bleakest future as the Padres probably just have us covered. But holy crap our future looks bleak.

[Stradling]

It's only as bleak as Arte is cheap.  If he spends until the farm get healthy we could be decent in 2018.  

[TheHeathen]

1 minute ago, Oz27 said:

I know the butthurt response was completely predictable but what in the article are people saying is wrong?

I would argue we don't quite have the bleakest future as the Padres probably just have us covered. But holy crap our future looks bleak.

Bandy is looking like a major league caliber starting catcher, and he's on the major league roster. He got that part wrong in my opinion. 

[Oz27]

3 minutes ago, TheHeathen said:

Bandy is looking like a major league caliber starting catcher, and he's on the major league roster. He got that part wrong in my opinion. 

Our catchers have a  combined .601 OPS this season. That is awful. Plus Bandy hasn't played and had a .725 OPS at Salt Lake before he was called up. You could hardly use that to argue he's "looking like a major league caliber starting catcher".

[Oz27]

7 minutes ago, Stradling said:

It's only as bleak as Arte is cheap.  If he spends until the farm get healthy we could be decent in 2018.  

That attitude is precisely what got us into this mess.

[Stradling]

Just now, Oz27 said:

That attitude is precisely what got us into this mess.

No, spending $375 million on 2 players is what got us in this situation, well that and completely forgetting the draft and development side of things.  Why is it when people mention spending money they automatically assume buying the highest price guys.  

[Brent Maguire]

Keri is a very good writer and quite honestly, nothing he said in the article was really off base. I'd argue he sold Simmons short when he was brought up but everything else was pretty spot on. 

Unfortunately for the Angels, the Richards and Heaney injuries were tipping points. With those 2, competing could've been likely this year and in 2017. Without those 2, Eppler is going to have to be a magician to get this team back to competing. 

[Oz27]

Just now, Stradling said:

No, spending $375 million on 2 players is what got us in this situation, well that and completely forgetting the draft and development side of things.  Why is it when people mention spending money they automatically assume buying the highest price guys.  

The continual signing of free agents to deny us draft picks plus the regular trading away of prospects is a big part of why we are in such a bad place now. We can't go down either of those paths this offseason. Plus I would argue signing free agents now as a pretty optimistic push to get us to the playoffs is delaying the practically inevitable pain. This is going to hurt for awhile and signing mid tier free agents at this point is only likely to extend that.

[Stradling]

3 minutes ago, Oz27 said:

The continual signing of free agents to deny us draft picks plus the regular trading away of prospects is a big part of why we are in such a bad place now. We can't go down either of those paths this offseason. Plus I would argue signing free agents now as a pretty optimistic push to get us to the playoffs is delaying the practically inevitable pain. This is going to hurt for awhile and signing mid tier free agents at this point is only likely to extend that.

And I'd argue the inability to find a quality player in the draft past the first round is the reason we are where we are.  

Min the last ten years we've drafted Trout, Grichuk and Cron.  That's about it as far as everyday players in the draft.  

[bloodbrother]

There's no mistaking that this org is in bad shape going forward(as we sit here today) but I wouldn't say it's in the worst shape. Having a player like Trout gives them a massive advantage over other teams in shitty shape. They don't have to do as much to get back into being competitive.

 

[bloodbrother]

Just now, hangin n wangin said:

Wait, can someone please tell me what the writer said that was so inaccurate?

Maybe I missed something.

We can improve, of course, but it's going to have to be through spending money and there are two factors with that:

1) Is Arte even going to spend money next year? No one really knows.

2) Is the free agent class even worth going after? It's not a great free agency class.

They'll have money to spend with CJ/Weav/Joe Smith and other players off the books, but no, the upcoming class may be one of the worst in years so there isn't anything to really spend on.

This season and next aren't gonna be any good for the Angels. They'll still be without Heaney/Richards next year just like this season, and they won't have any big time addition in FA to help things. Seriously, the upcoming FA class for starting pitchers is pitiful

[Oz27]

1 minute ago, Stradling said:

And I'd argue the inability to find a quality player in the draft past the first round is the reason we are where we are.  

Min the last ten years we've drafted Trout, Grichuk and Cron.  That's about it as far as everyday players in the draft.  

There are a huge number of reasons and that has certainly hurt pretty badly. Our complete neglect of the international market, poor drafting, having poor draft picks and a prolonged push now to try to top up the team by trading away minor league talent from a poor system has left us very thin. We don't have the resources to fix those issues quickly by spending money and even if we did the options available this year are pretty crappy. I would much rather take a year of pain to try to get us back on track than spend in a futile bid to be good in 2017.

[bloodbrother]

For our sake we better hope he doesn't deem next years class as worth spending on because it isn't. Last thing this team needs is to free up money from bad deals only to then give it all away on other bad deals. Pretty sure the "best" hitters on the market are going to be like 34-35 yr old guys like Edwin Encarnacion and Jose Bautista.

If they were going to spend this past offseason was their best chance. For the remainder of this season, they need to sell off guys for any sort of help in the farm. In the offseason, they need to stick with cheap, small FA signings(The Daniel Nava's of the world) and hope they can get some quality out of that and ride things out for another lackluster season.

[Docwaukee]

3 minutes ago, Stradling said:

No, spending $375 million on 2 players is what got us in this situation, well that and completely forgetting the draft and development side of things.  Why is it when people mention spending money they automatically assume buying the highest price guys.  

or that they will automatically suck and be 10 years worth of Albatross.  Yes, you take that risk with the top guys, but teams supplement their current roster by paying for talent all the time.  You usually don't get a surplus of value, but many times you get what you pay for or slightly below.    

Here is a  surprising example of how it doesn't have to be that bad.  Jayson Werth has accumulated about 13 WAR over his 5.4 seasons with the Nats.  He will have been paid 80mil by seasons end and has two 21mil seasons left for age 37 and 38.  At the time, people thought that would be one of the worst contracts in the history of baseball.  Let's give him 3 WAR for the next 2.6 seasons.  If he holds to those numbers or even slightly worse, he'll have received about 8mil per WAR.  

Would I like for us to do better than that?  You bet.  Has Jayson Werth been a productive player and come close to living up to his deal?  Yes.  Torii worked out.  Vlad worked out.  Wilson isn't actually that far off.  

Maybe the farm provides a nice boost by the time 2018 rolls around, but I wouldn't totally count on that.  It's gonna take guys getting healthy and a couple of key free agent acquisitions to keep us competitive until we can really build up some young talent.  

[beatlesrule]

I didn't read but I don't need an article to tell me that or even remind me of how sad the Angels future looks.

[Second Base]

I used to get upset over articles like this, but I've seen them proven wrong too many times to care. I remember the Angels farm system was Mike Trout and no one else, and I used to scream my head off about Richards, Calhoun, Grichuk and Cron. 

I remember reading so many articles a year and a half ago about our lack of pitching and I'd swear on Tropeano, Skaggs, Ellis, Newcomb and Heaney.

This time, like so many others, we still have the prospects to compete again. This time around, we're actually in better shape. Trout, Calhoun, Simmons, Cron, Richards, Heaney, Tropeano, Skaggs....that's a solid young core to build around. Futhermore, we have 50 million coming off the books this year, and after next year we're losing Ham's 20 million. 

This team has the young core, prospects and financial security to rebuild into a contender in short order.

 

[John Stellman]

2 hours ago, VariousCrap said:

Yet despite another terrific season for their best player, the Angels are in dire shape. Even after winning two straight against the sad-sack Twins, they've still lost seven of their past 10 games. They own the third-worst record in the American League. At 29-37, they're on pace for their worst season since 1999, the final year before Mike Scioscia, and a season that ended with a young go-getter named Joe Maddon managing the final 29 games. And there's not a damn thing that any one player can do ... even if that player is the best in the game.

http://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/mike-trout-may-be-the-best-player-in-mlb-but-the-angels-future-may-be-the-worst

So what's your point? You want to trade Trout for a boatload of prospects?  That's NEVER going to happen!  So just turn the page and get on with your life.

[Angels#1Fan]

I would have agreed with you Scotty (about having a solid young core to build around) until Richards and Heaney went down and Skaggs taking much longer than expected to return. The problem here is that we lost our number 1 and 2 starters for at least two years with the possibility that they may not return at all and if they do how effective will they be?. (there's no guarantee see Skaggs)  All during the off season there was post after post by people counting on Skaggs this year and as we can all see now he can't be counted on to return anytime soon even now! The Angels are in a bad situation in regards to their starting rotation and it's going to take a good amount of luck for them to survive whats happened.

In addition to needing some luck with their injured players the Angels are going to have to make some prudent signings. The only way I think they can be competitive in 2017 is to venture into the free agent market. The question is will they do so..the answer remains to be seen. The starting pitching is in a shambles with far too few players to fill out the rotation. We don't have a number 1 starter unless Matt Shoemaker continues to pitch good (some of that luck that's needed) and we don't have a number 2 either. Positions 3, 4, and 5 are presently occupied by arms that just aren't getting it done. Perhaps Lincecum will bale us out for one of those spots but he's only signed for the rest of this year. And even if CJ Wilson comes back he'll be gone in 2017 along with Weaver.. Santiago, Chacin, Trop..nothing there imo. Santiago's inconsistency makes him no better than a number 5, the other two...

[VariousCrap]

5 hours ago, John Stellman said:

So what's your point? You want to trade Trout for a boatload of prospects?  That's NEVER going to happen!  So just turn the page and get on with your life.

 

I was just posting the article you goofball.