Angels Sign OF Ben Revere

[Jobu]

1 minute ago, Tank said:

good move and i'm completely in favor if signing revere.

 

until he starts to suck and I'm completely against it.

Let me just go on record and say______________

 

 

 

(Chuck, how long do we have to edit our posts...) 

[nando714]

51 minutes ago, totdprods said:

Choi DFAed. 

Horse shit

[Erstad Grit]

Exponentially  better platoon than Nava / Gentry

[Blarg]

48 minutes ago, totdprods said:

Finally, legit speed and a very good defensive OF all around. 

Another plus to Revere signing? Additional depth at the top of the line-up. Gives us more flexibility to move or dump Escobar without hurting the lead-off slot. Of course, that depends on how Maybin, Marte, and Revere are playing, but Revere brings top of the order potential. 
 

Revere's .260 OBP last year just screams leadoff candidate.

Focus Tot, he is a 4th outfielder and that doesn't create a scenario where Escobar is traded.

[Oz27]

While I don't mind this as a 'buy low' signing, the comments in this thread would suggest we signed a guy who posted a 109 OPS+ last year, not a 49 OPS+. His WAR and OPS+ last year were actually worse than 2015 Matt Joyce. I certainly wouldn't say it's a terrible move or anything, but I don't get the level of excitement over us signing someone who was worth -1.2 WAR and posted a .260 OBP last year.

[totdprods]

3 minutes ago, Blarg said:

Revere's .260 OBP last year just screams leadoff candidate.

Focus Tot, he is a 4th outfielder and that doesn't create a scenario where Escobar is traded.

Seriously? He's 29 and was hurt most of last year.
.342 OBP in '15, .325 OBP in '14, .338 OBP in '13, .333 OBP in '12.

If this guy rebounds, and there isn't any reason to think last year was the start of a sudden and abrupt decline, or Maybin continues at a level close to last year's, Escobar doesn't need to hit lead-off. 

[totdprods]

5 minutes ago, Oz27 said:

While I don't mind this as a 'buy low' signing, the comments in this thread would suggest we signed a guy who posted a 109 OPS+ last year, not a 49 OPS+. His WAR and OPS+ last year were actually worse than 2015 Matt Joyce. I certainly wouldn't say it's a terrible move or anything, but I don't get the level of excitement over us signing someone who was worth -1.2 WAR and posted a .260 OBP last year.

He was hurt throughout the year. He's been a solid everyday player for most of his career and he's only 29.

[Docwaukee]

Cool.  The nice thing about either Revere or Maybin is that they can play any OF spot and actually not be a horrible liability on offense.

Revere had a weird year on offense.  

a .234 BABIP, a LD rate 3+% below his career avg and about 5% below his previous three years.  and a fly ball rate of 26.5% which is about 10% greater than his career avg.  So he basically gave up 10% of his at bats over previous seasons as he's hit about .160 on fly balls for his career.  Also, his pull rate on those fly balls was 7.3%.  Meaning he just gave those ball zero chance.  

He also only hit .199 on ground balls last year and his career avg is .240.  They weren't really shifting on him either and his med and hard hit ball rates were in line with his avgs.  So he truly was getting unlucky on top of hitting way too many opposite field fly balls.  

I bring this up because he should be able to rebound to his career norms if he just hits the ball on the line or on the ground and has normal luck.  

The other thing of note is that he sustained an oblique injury in the first game of the season last year.  So his season didn't really start till may and he may not have been fully healed.  Probably why he was hitting weak fly balls to the opposite field so much.  

Anyway.  Solid pickup.  

[Inside Pitch]

Just now, Oz27 said:

While I don't mind this as a 'buy low' signing, the comments in this thread would suggest we signed a guy who posted a 109 OPS+ last year, not a 49 OPS+. His WAR and OPS+ last year were actually worse than 2015 Matt Joyce. I certainly wouldn't say it's a terrible move or anything, but I don't get the level of excitement over us signing someone who was worth -1.2 WAR last year.

Little guy with an oblique issue.   Last season was an outlier -- I don't get the "top of the order" talk either but I don't think they are adding him to be anything other than the 4th/platoon OFer..   Personally if he can put up an OPS+ of 85, I'd call it a success.

Revere is what he is.  A little guy with wheels.   

[Oz27]

2 minutes ago, totdprods said:

He was hurt throughout the year. He's been a solid everyday player for most of his career and he's only 29.

It's awfully dangerous to just assume he is going to bounce back to being productive. He played enough where last year wasn't a small sample and he was truly awful. In all of baseball, he had the fifth lowest average exit velocity last year for anyone with 100 batted balls. Nine pitchers with at least 30 plate appearances had a better OPS+ than him. It's hard to overstate how awful he was.

[Nowani]

I like the upside on this signing.   If he doesn't perform well at least it didn't cost much. however based on history (not last year) he has a chance to hit .300 and steal a lot of bases. Plus he will add to an already solid outfield. I like it a lot.

[Oz27]

5 minutes ago, Inside Pitch said:

Little guy with an oblique issue.   Last season was an outlier -- I don't get the "top of the order" talk either but I don't think they are adding him to be anything other than the 4th/platoon OFer..   Personally if he can put up an OPS+ of 85, I'd call it a success.

Revere is what he is.  A little guy with wheels.   

Yeah, I get it. He is a pretty good chance to be around a replacement level outfielder - with some upside to be better than that (although clear downside too) - and there are much worse moves we could have made. But people being so excited about signing someone who was worse than 2015 Matt Joyce is pretty bizarre. 

[totdprods]

14 minutes ago, Inside Pitch said:

Little guy with an oblique issue.   Last season was an outlier -- I don't get the "top of the order" talk either but I don't think they are adding him to be anything other than the 4th/platoon OFer..   Personally if he can put up an OPS+ of 85, I'd call it a success.

Revere is what he is.  A little guy with wheels.   

He's been a #1 or #2 hitter most of his career. I don't expect him to be that for the Angels so long as Escobar and Maybin are handling that role - Revere would be great hitting #9 since he won't strike out much and he'll give them speed on the bases when those high contact guys come up - but there's no reason to think that *if* he returns to his career norms he wouldn't be a nice guy to slot in at the top when he plays.

[Inside Pitch]

26 minutes ago, Oz27 said:

Yeah, I get it. He is a pretty good chance to be around a replacement level outfielder - with some upside to be better than that (although clear downside too) - and there are much worse moves we could have made. But people being so excited about signing someone who was worse than 2015 Matt Joyce is pretty bizarre. 

Like I said, the top of the order talk is IMO off base, but he's got top of the order type speed and he's got a history for hitting for average, so I get why people look at those things and are happy and making those connections, particularly after last year when the names in LF were Gentry, Nava and five guys people never heard of before.   

There are things to legitimately like, he's overrated defensively IMO but he's got the speed to overcome his mistakes.  Maybin, Espinos and Revere..... say what you will they all bring better wheels to the park than the guys they are stepping in for.  It's a one year deal so they can move him or move on from him without any real damage done.   It's also been a while since this team had someone that profiled as a pinch runner type, so I can see people being upbeat about that too -- particularly given who our manager is.   Espinosa, Maybin, Revere, they all can get around the bases pretty decently.  You know this team was going to be running like always so it's nice to see them adding guys who aren't slugs.

It's not sexy, but it's not stupid or the sort of "wishful thinking" type addition that I think some people were expecting.  If nothing else, it seems to at least fit.

 

[Docwaukee]

9 minutes ago, Oz27 said:

Yeah, I get it. He is a pretty good chance to be around a replacement level outfielder - with some upside to be better than that (although clear downside too) - and there are much worse moves we could have made. But people being so excited about signing someone who was worse than 2015 Matt Joyce is pretty bizarre. 

not sure people are excited as much as they are relieved that we got a reasonable backup OFer instead of Nava, Gentry, Buss and Ortega.  Check out my post on his last years numbers as to why his 2016 is likely an aberration.  

But yah, he could net us half a win below replacement if he doesn't bounce back.  

[ettin]

Again this is a near-perfect utility signing. He can give the team a really good pinch hitter and pinch runner off of the bench and will give you a really good at bat with his low strikeout rate and contact ability.

[Inside Pitch]

6 minutes ago, totdprods said:

He's been a #1 or #2 hitter most of his career. I don't expect him to be that for the Angels so long as Escobar and Maybin are handling that role - Revere would be great hitting #9 since he won't strike out much and he'll give them speed on the bases when those high contact guys come up - but there's no reason to think that *if* he returns to his career norms he wouldn't be a nice guy to slot in at the top when he plays.

Teams do stupid things all the time.  We used Aybar as a 1-2 hitter at times too.  

He does top of the order type things..  he makes contact, he runs well, but he's not the sort of bat I'd ever want to see at the top of the order anymore than I did Aybar or to a lesser extent, Adam Kennedy.   AK walked more...

I think hes a good bet to get to an 80-85 OPS+

[TroutCron]

1 hour ago, Angelsfan1984 said:

I really like this signing. He's exactly what we've been looking for. If pooholes can stay healthy and play 1b, we have a legit every day leadoff hitter who can fly. He can rotate with Maybin at DH, but in all likelihood he will just rotate based on the starter which is a bummer for both Maybin and Revere.

 

Revere

Escobar

Trout

Pooholes

Maybin

Calhoun

Simmons

Maldonado/Perez

Espinoza

 

Speed and defense...I really like it.

Pujols just had surgery on his foot. He will be the primary DH with Cron playing first most of the time. Revere will rotate around the outfield and should get 350+ AB. Pujols may be a le to play 50 games at first at best.  

[Inside Pitch]

Just now, ettin said:

Again this is a near-perfect utility signing. He can give the team a really good pinch hitter and pinch runner off of the bench and will give you a really good at bat with his low strikeout rate and contact ability.

If Eppler can find a couple BP arms I'll be pretty content with this offseason.  There hasn't been a move that we can point to as being an attention grabber but everything they have done seems to fit the overall picture without limiting their options next year or the year after.

Every single one of these moves could fail but at least they made sense going into the season.  Call it lowered expectations or just RELIEF..  But I'm okay with things just making sense again..

 

[ettin]

As I believe tots or ALF said (forget who) these types of moves continue to raise the floor of this team. They don't really change the ceiling all that much but the depth and utility that this team now has makes the floor a lot more stable and adds incremental value. The height of the ceiling will come more from the health and performance of players like Richards, Skaggs, Shoemaker, Street, Bedrosian, Cron, and the rest of our team.

[ettin]

1 minute ago, Inside Pitch said:

If Eppler can find a couple BP arms I'll be pretty content with this offseason.  There hasn't been a move that we can point to as being an attention grabber but everything they have done seems to fit the overall picture without limiting their options next year or the year after.

Every single one of these moves could fail but at least they made sense going into the season.  Call it lowered expectations or just RELIEF..  But I'm okay with things just making sense again..

 

I am very pleased by the moves Eppler is making within the constraints of what he has to operate in. Really like his approach and the moves to date. **** CLAPS **** CLAPS **** CLAPS **** CLAPS ****

[eaterfan]

10 minutes ago, Inside Pitch said:

If Eppler can find a couple BP arms I'll be pretty content with this offseason.  There hasn't been a move that we can point to as being an attention grabber but everything they have done seems to fit the overall picture without limiting their options next year or the year after.

Every single one of these moves could fail but at least they made sense going into the season.  Call it lowered expectations or just RELIEF..  But I'm okay with things just making sense again..

 

Yep. Keeping flexibility going forward was my main wish going into the offseason. This team won't be in a worse position after the 2017 season.

[Oz27]

21 minutes ago, Dochalo said:

not sure people are excited as much as they are relieved that we got a reasonable backup OFer instead of Nava, Gentry, Buss and Ortega.  Check out my post on his last years numbers as to why his 2016 is likely an aberration.  

But yah, he could net us half a win below replacement if he doesn't bounce back.  

I remember a lot of similar comments last year. "Nava and Gentry couldn't possibly be as bad as Joyce" was a pretty popular sentiment, even though their recent history suggested that was a pretty reasonable chance.

You're right, though, his BABIP should be better. But he showed no power at all (see my exit velocity point before). When you hit the ball that weakly and hit it in the air as often as he did, your BABIP probably isn't going to be very good. Hitting a lot of weak line balls and very few line drives is not a good recipe to get on base.

[Blarg]

56 minutes ago, totdprods said:

Seriously? He's 29 and was hurt most of last year.
.342 OBP in '15, .325 OBP in '14, .338 OBP in '13, .333 OBP in '12.

If this guy rebounds, and there isn't any reason to think last year was the start of a sudden and abrupt decline, or Maybin continues at a level close to last year's, Escobar doesn't need to hit lead-off. 

He has a career .320 OBP. Career and that is in the NL. He will be a 4th outfielder so he doesn't displace a full time player and thus does not create an opening for a new leadoff hitter. He also does not provide any new infield solution for 3rd base that replaces Escobar. You over value his addition to push forward your agenda without really thinking out what his true roster value is.

[ukyah]

i'm just gonna let totdprods speak for the both of us in this thread because he's saying everything i would in reply anyway.

it's pretty unfair to hold 2016 against revere when he has a pretty nice career behind him and he's 29. he had a joyce type year, where nothing goes right. anyone care to discuss joyce's 2016?

if you don't like some of his advanced metrics, that's fair. i'd love to have a fleet footed defensive LF'er that averages 41 steals a year with only 10 caught stealing, and can give you a decent obp of 320.

it's ok to disagree, but i'm perfectly content with an average ben revere season, and i'd hit him leadoff. if he hits in the nine hole and escobar continues his high 350 obp, then the angels may have a pretty potent lineup, with calhoun and espinosa being the swingmen.