OK, Billy...PLEASE

[Docwaukee]

12 minutes ago, Troll Daddy said:

I prefer watching competitive baseball ... not selling off the team. What ever Eppler decides works for me. 

what is it about this current team that gives you any indication they're playing meaningful baseball?

mediocrity is the professional sports equivalent of a sac punch.  

[Second Base]

16 minutes ago, Dochalo said:

what is it about this current team that gives you any indication they're playing meaningful baseball?

mediocrity is the professional sports equivalent of a sac punch.  

Mediocrity is rough in baseball. If you're a cellar dweller, you know your role, but low on short term deals and swap them at the deadline for prospects that will help in your competitive window, which is 4 years down the road. In the mean time, just keep drafting and developing all those top prospects. 

If you're one of the top tier teams (Dodgers, Nats, Cubs, Red Sox, Astros), you acquire pieces at the deadline to make a run at winning it all.

But if you're a mediocre team, you're basically stuck. You're only 5 wins away from a playoff spot, so it keeps you playing free agency and spending money and trading prospects. At the same time, you're 5 games away from being a 4th place team, which would mean no trades and no major free agents.

If you're the Angels, you're in a tough spot. You don't have any payroll flexibility because your predecessors spent your team into a hole. You don't have any good prospects either because of those same predecessors, and you're a mediocre team that needs to be good while you still have the best player on the planet. So Eppler has to avoid free agency, not spend any money really, and build back the farm while at the same time build a winner. It's basically an impossible task.

The Angels only hope at this point is their rotation comes back, is healthy and pitches up to its ability. Because Richards, Heaney, Skaggs, Meyer, Tropeano, Shievetc...has the potential to make a run deep into the playoffs.

But if they aren't healthy and good, you might as well cut your losses as sell.

[Docwaukee]

8 minutes ago, Scotty@AW said:

Mediocrity is rough in baseball. If you're a cellar dweller, you know your role, but low on short term deals and swap them at the deadline for prospects that will help in your competitive window, which is 4 years down the road. In the mean time, just keep drafting and developing all those top prospects. 

If you're one of the top tier teams (Dodgers, Nats, Cubs, Red Sox, Astros), you acquire pieces at the deadline to make a run at winning it all.

But if you're a mediocre team, you're basically stuck. You're only 5 wins away from a playoff spot, so it keeps you playing free agency and spending money and trading prospects. At the same time, you're 5 games away from being a 4th place team, which would mean no trades and no major free agents.

If you're the Angels, you're in a tough spot. You don't have any payroll flexibility because your predecessors spent your team into a hole. You don't have any good prospects either because of those same predecessors, and you're a mediocre team that needs to be good while you still have the best player on the planet. So Eppler has to avoid free agency, not spend any money really, and build back the farm while at the same time build a winner. It's basically an impossible task.

The Angels only hope at this point is their rotation comes back, is healthy and pitches up to its ability. Because Richards, Heaney, Skaggs, Meyer, Tropeano, Shievetc...has the potential to make a run deep into the playoffs.

But if they aren't healthy and good, you might as well cut your losses as sell.

I like our improving payroll flexibility and our farm system is now probably on the verge of moving from the lower 3rd to mid tier.  

I should have qualified my original response to TD about the halos being mediocre.  They should be a lot better if not for injury.  They could be a lot better very soon as you mentioned.  Will all those guys recover and live up to their expectations?  Maybe.  Then a couple of solid bats makes the major league club pretty darn good.  If you can get those bats without significantly affecting your farm system, then why not try.  Worst case is that you end up mediocre again next year.  

But for now, you sell and get what you can.  Even if it doesn't move the needle much.  Maybe you get the secondary and tertiary pieces to acquiring something that will.  

Eppler is in year 2 of his tenure.  He'll have Mike Trout through year 5 of his time here.  Hopefully, at least.  

I like our chances of getting Mike to stay much better right now that I did two years ago.  Which is to say that I like the long term health of the club way better right now than I did two years ago.  

[Lou]

does anyone know where i can get an authentic Shievetc jersey? i have about $300 to spend 

[DMVol]

6 hours ago, Mr Meeseeks said:

Why didn't Eppler sell last year then?

He did......he traded the only guys on expiring contracts that had any value---Smith and Salas....pretty much the same deal as this year...

[Lou]

5 hours ago, Dochalo said:

what is it about this current team that gives you any indication they're playing meaningful baseball?

mediocrity is the professional sports equivalent of a sac punch.  

mediocrity reigns supreme in the AL

[Angelsjunky]

7 hours ago, Jeff Fletcher said:

So if he's traded Yusmeiro Petit and Bud Norris for guys who become the 12th and 15th best prospects in the system, will you be excited?

Absolutely. As others have pointed out, 12th and 15th best prospects can sometimes be quite useful. At this point, with the Angels five games back from the second wildcard and slowly falling farther and farther behind, I think Eppler should trade off as many expiring contracts as he can.

[Angelsjunky]

8 hours ago, arch stanton said:

FFS AJ, you start off season threads at the halfway point and you whine about the trade deadline on the 27th. Probably only takes you 2 licks to get to the center of a TootsiePop

You seem awfully curious about my licking capacity.

[Stradling]

13 minutes ago, Angelsjunky said:

You seem awfully curious about my licking capacity.

Something something @calscuf

[totdprods]

If the Rangers and Twins wind up selling in a couple days, it does potentially clear a couple more teams out of the WC glut. Billy could be waiting to see what those teams wind up doing as well.

[Lou]

8 hours ago, Stradling said:

I want us to trade parts but releasing players and calling up AA players is pretty stupid.  We have no one ready.  

we think they're not ready

we know the guys they would be replacing aren't 

[Stradling]

43 minutes ago, Lou said:

we think they're not ready

we know the guys they would be replacing aren't 

True, I guess I would need to see the list of players Claude would want DFA'd.  You know the list would include Valbuena, Cron, Maybin, Nolasco, Chavez, the pitchers who can't stay healthy, Revere, Calhoun, Pennington and Franklin.  Of that list I would release Franklin.  If we start to get the likes of Skaggs and Heaney back then you can entertain releasing the starters.  

[Lou]

I wouldn't release any starting pitchers 

[halomatt]

So the Angels are about five games out of the second wild card?  Seems close, but there are so many teams in front of them.  With no offense, mediocre pitching and a good bullpen.  I'd say trade off anything of value and get what they can for those players.  If the team loses, it just may put the Angels in a better draft position next year. (They're currently in the 13th position.)

[zenmaster]

We still suck.

[fan_since79]

10 hours ago, JustATroutFan said:

This Angels team has the tendency to toy with the FO and fans. Just when you think they are dead in the water and done for the season, they somehow put together a stretch in which they win like 3 out of 4 games to get back into the WC hunt.

...or the seven-game win streak in early September that brings the wild card tantalizingly close and gets everyone excited.

Then the crash and burn in the final week.

 

Edited July 27, 2017 by fan_since79

[floplag]

While i completely agree there are a few parts rumored to be sold that just create another hole.  Escobar and Maybin for example.   May not be popular but im ok with keeping them both for another year or two and addressing other needs myself as opposed to just adding to the list of issues. 

[zenmaster]

The elephant in the room is that this team is going to flounder in mediocrity until 2022 or whenever Pujols contract is up. Between the cash we are paying him and our skipper batting him 4th no matter what, it's just a hurdle that is tough to overcome without a drastic unexpected change (Pujols retiring, scioscia getting fired, arte selling the team, opening up payroll to Dodger like levels etc...). I honestly think we are kind of screwed for awhile. 

I'm a Debbie Downer today.

[Ohtaniland]

1 hour ago, Lou said:

I wouldn't release any starting pitchers 

If they come back healthy and ready to function as quality starters I agree. But if they show up pitching like pansies and start getting rocked and start complaining about one more ailment get them the Fuk out of here! 

[Second Base]

6 hours ago, Lou said:

does anyone know where i can get an authentic Shievetc jersey? i have about $300 to spend 

Easy to find, just looks for any place that sells athletic Ralston Schmidt gear.

[JarsOfClay]

15 minutes ago, zenmaster said:

The elephant in the room is that this team is going to flounder in mediocrity until 2022 or whenever Pujols contract is up. Between the cash we are paying him and our skipper batting him 4th no matter what, it's just a hurdle that is tough to overcome without a drastic unexpected change (Pujols retiring, scioscia getting fired, arte selling the team, opening up payroll to Dodger like levels etc...). I honestly think we are kind of screwed for awhile. 

I'm a Debbie Downer today.

I think you are 100% right.  With Pujols crippling the payroll and the lineup, Scioscia more concerend about Pujols' ego than winning games, and Arte refusing to go above the tax revenue - this team is literally screwed for quite a while unless they take drastic measures like the ones you described.  But I dont see that happening because they seem content with being mediocre.

[stormngt]

11 hours ago, CALZONE said:

The team is 3-5 years away from seriously contending. Where do both of these 32 year old pitchers fit into that plan? They're not going to be part of the long term plan so they need to be moved before they can't be moved.

I heard that same statement in March 2014 but it was ten years away.

[greginpsca]

You can't teach youth!

 

[stormngt]

11 hours ago, Mr Meeseeks said:

Why didn't Eppler sell last year then?

I think he did with trading Santiago and Smith.  We just didnt have anything else to sell.

[Stradling]

25 minutes ago, JarsOfClay said:

I think you are 100% right.  With Pujols crippling the payroll and the lineup, Scioscia more concerend about Pujols' ego than winning games, and Arte refusing to go above the tax revenue - this team is literally screwed for quite a while unless they take drastic measures like the ones you described.  But I dont see that happening because they seem content with being mediocre.

He's not crippling the payroll, that's complete nonsense.  The Yankees are paying Arod, Elsbury and CC, none of them have been good for years.  They are fine, because they draft and develop as well as sign players internationally.