Congrats to Angels All-Star Pitchers!

[JoJo26]

Ervin Santana!

Jason Vargas!

Zack Greinke!

Oh yeah....that's right...

 

[stormngt]

It was a big mistake to let Vargas and or Santana go.

[TroutField]

30 minutes ago, stormngt said:

It was a big mistake to let Vargas and or Santana go.

Didn't understand letting Santana or Vargas go at the time and still don't understand it. The Angels were hung up on giving Vargas 3 years instead of 2 

[JustATroutFan]

How was it a mistake letting both Vargas and Santana go? Vargas is a mediocre pitcher who is having the biggest fluke season I have ever seen anyone have. Santana was terrible in 2012 and had a lot of bad years as an Angel. He is a teaser.

[tdawg87]

Regarding Vargas: He's having a fluke year in a contract year. He also missed most of 2015 and pretty much all of 2016, so yeah. Would be nice to have him right now but 4 years for Vargas was a bit much. He proved so by basically being on the DL for half of it.

Regarding Santana: Yeah he's pitched well since the Angels traded him (for fuck all). They maybe should have kept him in hindsight, BUT the dude was a total headcase here and simply couldn't be relied on for year-to-year consistency. Guy just needed a change of scenery I guess.

Greinke doesn't count come on now.

[Inside Pitch]

10 hours ago, JustATroutFan said:

How was it a mistake letting both Vargas and Santana go? Vargas is a mediocre pitcher who is having the biggest fluke season I have ever seen anyone have. Santana was terrible in 2012 and had a lot of bad years as an Angel. He is a teaser.

Letting Vargas go was fine -- they were concerned about his health and didnt want to go the extra year KC was willing to go.  Their fears were proven correct -- he failed to pitch 200 innings his first season in KC and then only 55 innings combined the last two seasons.  

Santana was a pretty clear mistake -- his level of suckage was always overstated by Angels fans.  

bWAR

2008 - 5.0  219 IP, a better WAR total than any pitcher since.

2009 - (-0.2)  People always seem to forget he was injured to start the season -- he didn't make his first start til the middle of May and then was shut down again in June.  After a horrible 40 innings in the first half where he posted a ERA of 7.71, he gave the Angels 99 innings of 3.90 ERA the second half of the season.  Second best total IP and lowest ERA among SP to Lackey.  Weaver came in at 4.47 the second half.

2010 - 3.0  222.2 IP

2011 - 3.0  228.2 IP

2012 - (-1.3)  He was awful.

He basically had one bad season in his last five and an injury riddled first half of 2009.   

Angels pitchers have combined for as many 200 IP seasons the last five years as they got out of Santana over his last 5.   That's 25 rotation spots, for a total of 3, 200 IP seasons .vs 3 out of 5 from Ervin in his last five seasons as an Angel.  Hell, his 178 innings in that awful 2012 would have ranked first in 2016, third 2015 (2 behind Santiago), 2nd in 2014, and 2nd in 2013.  

Santana for all his warts could be counted on to take the mound and pitch..  he was underappreciated by Angels fans IMO.  Like Howie Kendrick, he was ripped more for what he wasn't than accepted for what he was.  Not saying he was as good as Howie - but they both took heat for having failed to live up to whatever expectations people may have placed on them.  Ervin gave up HRs....  Howie hit into DPs..    A lot of people focused on those things and not the rest of what they brought to the table.

 

[Angelsjunky]

I forgot Greinke was an Angel. Why didn't they extend him again?

Oh yeah, Josh Hamilton was more important.

[beatlesrule]

23 minutes ago, Angelsjunky said:

I forgot Greinke was an Angel. Why didn't they extend him again?

Oh yeah, Josh Hamilton was more important.

To be fair, the Dodgers blew away the Angels offer for him.  I shared the opinion of many here that resigning Hunter was a no brainer and never once thought Arte would be dumb enough to throw Greinke's money at Hamilton but that's what happened.  My point is that Greinke always goes to the highest bidder and that wasn't the Angels.

[eligrba]

4 hours ago, beatlesrule said:

To be fair, the Dodgers blew away the Angels offer for him.  I shared the opinion of many here that resigning Hunter was a no brainer and never once thought Arte would be dumb enough to throw Greinke's money at Hamilton but that's what happened.  My point is that Greinke always goes to the highest bidder and that wasn't the Angels.

It was a bad decision because Greinke added nothing to the Angels.  It cost the Angels Jean Segura for 8 games of Grienke........and no post season.

Fuck.

 

[zenmaster]

hindsight something something blah blah we suck blah blah pujols sucks

[ten ocho recon scout]

6 hours ago, Angelsjunky said:

I forgot Greinke was an Angel. Why didn't they extend him again?

Oh yeah, Josh Hamilton was more important.

Nah. They tried. Grienke made it clear from the second he got here it was strictly business, and hed go to whoever offered him the most. If we matched what the dodgers offered, they would have just offered more.

[ten ocho recon scout]

1 hour ago, eligrba said:

It was a bad decision because Greinke added nothing to the Angels.  It cost the Angels Jean Segura for 8 games of Grienke........and no post season.

Fuck.

 

I never even thought about it like that...8 games....f*ck.

To be fair, if we had a bullpen that year, it would have been a good move.

[stormngt]

10 hours ago, JustATroutFan said:

How was it a mistake letting both Vargas and Santana go? Vargas is a mediocre pitcher who is having the biggest fluke season I have ever seen anyone have. Santana was terrible in 2012 and had a lot of bad years as an Angel. He is a teaser.

You obviously haven't been paying attention to the pitchers that has been taking the mound for the Angels.

Yes Vargas is mediocre and Santana had some bad seasons.  It is much better to go with Cy Blanton and Cy Hanson.

 

Let's not forget about Wade Lenoc and Drew Rucinski

Let's not forget about Lincecum and Oberholtzer.

Yes it was smart to let Vargas and Santana go.

[stormngt]

6 hours ago, Angelsjunky said:

I forgot Greinke was an Angel. Why didn't they extend him again?

Oh yeah, Josh Hamilton was more important.

Seriously?  We signed Hamilton after Grienke left for the bigger  pay day with the Dodgers.  Hamilton signing was in response to losing Grienke.

[DMVol]

The unknown with Santana will always be the PED use.....he's been caught and you don't know what is going on there....that said, he's been pretty good since 2012.

[Stradling]

16 minutes ago, stormngt said:

Seriously?  We signed Hamilton after Grienke left for the bigger  pay day with the Dodgers.  Hamilton signing was in response to losing Grienke.

Yep.  

[Stradling]

All of this is just kind of dumb.  We are pointing out (to show our incompetence)  that the Angels didn't keep a guy like Vargas, but he wasn't great here, he has been injured most of the time sense he left.  It is no different than saying the Angels should have kept Kazmir, because 2 plus years later he will be good, despite the fact he was dog shit in the playoffs and his last half of a season here.  Should be have kept Blanton?  Or how bout Colon, where he was not good for a few years after leaving the Angels.  What else do Colon and Santana have in common?  They both had resurgences after leaving the Angels and they both had suspensions for PEDs.  

[JustATroutFan]

And as a few people have mentioned, Santana used PEDs. He still might be using them. Dude cheated and his numbers will have an asterisk right next to it.

[JoJo26]

Or MIKE BUTCHER...

[eligrba]

1 hour ago, zenmaster said:

hindsight something something blah blah we suck blah blah pujols sucks

Any competent organization has a process that reviews prior decisions to help make future decisions and to reduce the chance of making continuous poor decisions.  I work for an organization with no hindsight......hindsight can be helpful.

[Stradling]

6 minutes ago, JoJo26 said:

Or MIKE BUTCHER...

Butcher is the pitching coach for the Diamondbacks, they are #1 in the league in ERA+ with a 138.  They are 7% better than the next closest team, the Dodgers.  He might not be the problem.  Or hell he could be the problem and the talent might be that much better.  

[stormngt]

4 hours ago, Stradling said:

All of this is just kind of dumb.  We are pointing out (to show our incompetence)  that the Angels didn't keep a guy like Vargas, but he wasn't great here, he has been injured most of the time sense he left.  It is no different than saying the Angels should have kept Kazmir, because 2 plus years later he will be good, despite the fact he was dog shit in the playoffs and his last half of a season here.  Should be have kept Blanton?  Or how bout Colon, where he was not good for a few years after leaving the Angels.  What else do Colon and Santana have in common?  They both had resurgences after leaving the Angels and they both had suspensions for PEDs.  

My response is that we let Vargas go without having an equal or better replacement.  Vargas was average for the Angels however we frequently have had dog shit in the mound since.

[Ohtaniland]

5 hours ago, ten ocho recon scout said:

I never even thought about it like that...8 games....f*ck.

To be fair, if we had a bullpen that year, it would have been a good move.

Those eight games cost us Segura and the money was flipped into acquiring Hamilton. It was a complete disaster all around. I hated it from the beginning and when they refused to give Torii another season they got the fail they deserved. We are still paying for it. 

[Stradling]

31 minutes ago, CALZONE said:

Those eight games cost us Segura and the money was flipped into acquiring Hamilton. It was a complete disaster all around. I hated it from the beginning and when they refused to give Torii another season they got the fail they deserved. We are still paying for it. 

Well there is no indication we wouldn't have signed Hamilton either way.  I thought it was a good risk because it gave us another very good pitcher going down the stretch.  In hindsight I was wrong. 

[Dtwncbad]

Mistake letting Vargas go?  Really?  Sure because the Angels have suffered from being just one #4 starter away. . .