List of 2017 Angels who have contributed nothing or negative value this year

[GrittyVeterans]

Danny Espinosa - 77 games (-1.4 WAR)

CJ Cron - 43 games (-0.5 WAR)

Ben Revere - 65 games (-1.1 WAR)

Luis Valbuena - 63 games (-0.6 WAR)

Jefry Marte - 39 games (-0.7 WAR)

Kole Calhoun - 97 games (0.2 WAR)

Cliff Pennington - 53 games (-0.1 WAR)

Albert Pujols - 91 games (-1.1 WAR)

Jesse Chavez - 20 starts (0.3 WAR)

Ricky Nolasco - 20 starts (0.4 WAR)

 

 

The underperformance from some of these guys is embarrassing. The vast majority of these players need to not be on this team next season. I don't know if theres another team that has that many below replacement level players hacking away for as many games as we've allowed ours to.

[tomsred]

The problem that remains is effective depth.  Some of these players could have been dumped or replaced earlier had we had a stronger farm.  Take second base for example.  Espinosa and Pennington could have been displaced sooner if Cowart would have not needed some seasoning in AAA.  Now that he looks ready it enabled Eppler to dump Espinosa.  If Sherman Johnson were ready, we could have dumped Pennington and/or certainly Franklin.

There is little Eppler can do with Chavez and Nolasco, we simply don't have enough warm bodies to fill pitching holes.  We have lost the war of sheer numbers of healthy pitchers.

Valbuena and Pujols are hard to dump because of the financial investment.  Nobody can solve the Pujols problem short of Arte.

Revere is doing fine.  He's hitting well over the last 20 games when he's had regular AB's.  Cron may have been a draft mistake.  Marte has flaws, that's why the Tigers gave up on him.  Cowart looks much more prepared than Marte.  If Marte struggles with hitting there really isn't much else there to keep him around.

These are all problems to solve this off season, unless Eppler gets lucky and walks into a steal because of the deadline pressure of the moment.

 

[NrM]

1 hour ago, GrittyVeterans said:

Danny Espinosa - 77 games (-1.4 WAR)

CJ Cron - 43 games (-0.5 WAR)

Ben Revere - 65 games (-1.1 WAR)

Luis Valbuena - 63 games (-0.6 WAR)

Jefry Marte - 39 games (-0.7 WAR)

Kole Calhoun - 97 games (0.2 WAR)

Cliff Pennington - 53 games (-0.1 WAR)

Albert Pujols - 91 games (-1.1 WAR)

Jesse Chavez - 20 starts (0.3 WAR)

Ricky Nolasco - 20 starts (0.4 WAR)

 

 

The underperformance from some of these guys is embarrassing. The vast majority of these players need to not be on this team next season. I don't know if theres another team that has that many below replacement level players hacking away for as many games as we've allowed ours to.

Thanks Eppler for finding these gems! You sure are great.

[Ohtaniland]

Meanwhile the fans that are waiting for the Angels to compete in the postseason are getting impatient. 

 

[GrittyVeterans]

11 minutes ago, Mr Meeseeks said:

Thanks Eppler for finding these gems! You sure are great.

Most of them are performing well below their career averages and what they've done in recent years. Not all his fault at all

[Troll Daddy]

Seriously WAR

 

[Docwaukee]

my favorite for board whipping boy to start the year was Espinosa.  

disappointed with Kole, Cron and Valbuena.  Thought they would be way better.  They really should have been.  

Albert is who he is now.  

Marte, Revere, Pennington, Nolasco and Chavez are not surprises although I thought Revere would be at least serviceable and not the TFD he's been.  

[tomsred]

I like looking at recent history on the regulars.  It's a pet peeve of mine about reducing everything to full year stats.  In the last 30 days here are the batting averages for the regulars with number of AB's in parentheses.  

Simmons .384 (73), Trout .316 (38), Revere .275 (51), Pennington .241 (29), Escobar .235 (81), Pujols .224 (76), Valbuena .207 (58), Calhoun .167 (78), Maybin .135 (52), Franklin .125 (24).  

The ones that stick out for me are Calhoun (for 78 AB's he has really sucked), same for Maybe over 52 AB's.  Those two could drag a team down quickly at this rate.  Revere has done better than most give him credit for 51 AB's and limited playing time until recently.  Simmons for the last 73 AB's is fantastic.  Conversely they can pick a team up.

I'm not advocating that batting average is an important indicator of a players overall effectiveness, but impressions about players get set based on performance early in the season, and performances of players who do well early, then turn sour get more acceptance by fans generally (Calhoun).  The converse, players who do poorly early, then turn things around (Revere) to some degree don't get as much credit.  Then there are those like Maybin (totally cold, turned totally hot, then back to frigid); one minute he's a bust, then fans want to extend him, then he's a china doll, so what is he?  We should be looking for consistency, like Trout, and this year's performance by Simmons.  Outside of those two players, no one can touch consistently good performance.  It doesn't have to be All Star level, I could argue that Pennington is consistent, not consistently good but consistent at his replacement level.  At least you know what you have, which is not much overall.

We are always going to have players who perform inconsistently within a season, and from one season to the next, but the more of them we have the tougher Eppler's job becomes.  It's the element player evaluation that is most challenging, the part that can't be extrapolated from past statistics or performance.  How do you know when a player will suddenly play below his norm, or above it (who is ready to break-out and who is ready to break-down, and is either condition permanent or temporary and for how long)?  Trying to guess correctly on that front has got to drive a GM crazy. 

[Lou]

6 hours ago, Mr Meeseeks said:

Thanks Eppler for finding these gems! You sure are great.

Eppler found Pujols, Cron and Calhoun?

[Stradling]

So last night on a flight to Austin I was watching some Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon.  He had two guys on and they were playing a game called, "Will it hotdog"? Basically the gist is they put things on a hot dog bun and take a bite and ask if you could make this a hot dog.  First thing they put was Sushi, took a bite, and yes you could possibly eat this as a hot dog.  Second thing they put on their was tomato soup in a casing, so it looked like a hot dog.  They all took a bite, will it hot dog?  The last thing they put on the hot dog bun and took a bite of was wet dog food.  Obviously the answer is, no it won't hot dog.  Did they really need to take a bite of it to know it wouldn't be good?  This thread is that dog food hot dog.  You know its been bad, but lets prove it anyway.  

[Inside Pitch]

8 hours ago, Mr Meeseeks said:

Thanks Eppler for finding these gems! You sure are great.

10 of the top 12 bWAR totals on the 2017 Angels belong to Eppler additions -- they have combined for more than 16.3 WAR with 60 games to go...    

 

[floplag]

i can only imagine what Valbuena's WAR would be without the dingers.

[ten ocho recon scout]

5 hours ago, Stradling said:

So last night on a flight to Austin I was watching some Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon.  He had two guys on and they were playing a game called, "Will it hotdog"? Basically the gist is they put things on a hot dog bun and take a bite and ask if you could make this a hot dog.  First thing they put was Sushi, took a bite, and yes you could possibly eat this as a hot dog.  Second thing they put on their was tomato soup in a casing, so it looked like a hot dog.  They all took a bite, will it hot dog?  The last thing they put on the hot dog bun and took a bite of was wet dog food.  Obviously the answer is, no it won't hot dog.  Did they really need to take a bite of it to know it wouldn't be good?  This thread is that dog food hot dog.  You know its been bad, but lets prove it anyway.  

Didnt aybar and callaspo play that game once?

[well_red]

13 hours ago, GrittyVeterans said:

Danny Espinosa - 77 games (-1.4 WAR)

CJ Cron - 43 games (-0.5 WAR)

Ben Revere - 65 games (-1.1 WAR)

Luis Valbuena - 63 games (-0.6 WAR)

Jefry Marte - 39 games (-0.7 WAR)

Kole Calhoun - 97 games (0.2 WAR)

Cliff Pennington - 53 games (-0.1 WAR)

Albert Pujols - 91 games (-1.1 WAR)

Jesse Chavez - 20 starts (0.3 WAR)

Ricky Nolasco - 20 starts (0.4 WAR)

Aren't a good number of these guys the definition of "replacement?"  What did you expect?

[Blarg]

Cliff Pennington is stoked that he is out producing future hall of famer, Albert Pujols.

[Blarg]

8 hours ago, Stradling said:

So last night on a flight to Austin I was watching some Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon.  He had two guys on and they were playing a game called, "Will it hotdog"? Basically the gist is they put things on a hot dog bun and take a bite and ask if you could make this a hot dog.  First thing they put was Sushi, took a bite, and yes you could possibly eat this as a hot dog.  Second thing they put on their was tomato soup in a casing, so it looked like a hot dog.  They all took a bite, will it hot dog?  The last thing they put on the hot dog bun and took a bite of was wet dog food.  Obviously the answer is, no it won't hot dog.  Did they really need to take a bite of it to know it wouldn't be good?  This thread is that dog food hot dog.  You know its been bad, but lets prove it anyway.  

The funny part of the story is that of all the ingredients that actually go into a hot dog also go into a can of dog food. 

[Blarg]

Kind of like the Angels roster.

[Blarg]

It's the circle of life.

[ten ocho recon scout]

32 minutes ago, hangin n wangin said:

And what does that dog food become?? Dog shit....

 

[Ace-Of-Diamonds]

 

I like looking at recent history on the regulars.  It's a pet peeve of mine about reducing everything to full year stats.  In the last 30 days here are the batting averages for the regulars with number of AB's in parentheses.  

14 hours ago, tomsred said:

Simmons .384 (73), Trout .316 (38), Revere .275 (51), Pennington .241 (29), Escobar .235 (81), Pujols .224 (76), Valbuena .207 (58), Calhoun .167 (78), Maybin .135 (52), Franklin .125 (24).  

C J Cron .350/.409/.700/1.109   

[tomsred]

2 hours ago, Ace-Of-Diamonds said:

 

I like looking at recent history on the regulars.  It's a pet peeve of mine about reducing everything to full year stats.  In the last 30 days here are the batting averages for the regulars with number of AB's in parentheses.  

C J Cron .350/.409/.700/1.109   

Yeah, I just didn't list him because the 30 day sample size is small.  I would like to see him play more though.