Big Changes Announced for Starting Rotation

[krAbs]

11 minutes ago, Angelsfan1984 said:

My eyeballs see a guy get absolutely lit up nearly every outing. Between him and Chavez we are getting non competitive starters for 2 of 5 games. That's not going to win a wildcard spot let alone a division.

Who is that? Some bullpen dude?

[Jeff Fletcher]

17 minutes ago, Troll Daddy said:

Nolasco also leads baseball in run support

What? He's actually close to the bottom 

Just looked it up. He's 65th of 66 qualifiers in the AL.

[Angel Oracle]

Ramirez' innings count needs to be watched the rest of the season.

Already at about 130 innings, after mainly relieving from 2012-2016

[ettin]

2 minutes ago, Jeff Fletcher said:

What? He's actually close to the bottom 

He meant for the other teams Jeff.

[nate]

4 minutes ago, ettin said:

He meant for the other teams Jeff.

haha!

I thought they should have given Skaggs at least one more start in AAA.  He has not done well so far.

[Troll Daddy]

7 minutes ago, Jeff Fletcher said:

What? He's actually close to the bottom 

Just looked it up. He's 65th of 66 qualifiers in the AL.

Actually the bottom is what I was referring too

 

sorry

[Angelsfan1984]

8 minutes ago, Jeff Fletcher said:

What? He's actually close to the bottom 

Just looked it up. He's 65th of 66 qualifiers in the AL.

I think he meant Nolasco leads the league in RBI's allowed for SP.

[krAbs]

6 minutes ago, Angel Oracle said:

Ramirez' innings count needs to be watched the rest of the season.

Already at about 130 innings, after mainly relieving from 2012-2016

He looks oddly good still, though. He kinda appeared to go through a bit of a dead arm period a while ago, but has bounced back pretty hard.

[fan_since79]

2 hours ago, zenmaster said:

Now let's swap out Nolasco for Heaney and we will be in business. 

I like it!

Heaney, Skaggs, Ramirez, Meyer, and Bridwell. We can win some ballgames with that!

Bridwell might even be the best of the group.

 

[totdprods]

I like that they're giving Scribner a shot and rolling with Cowart at 2B. 
It seems like the front office is trying to both audition new players and offer playing time to some fresh faces while still keeping an eye on contention.

[Farmbuildingfan]

1 hour ago, Hubs said:

The main reason the Angels are 53-55 and not 65-43 and in contention for the division comes down to offense not pitching. Don't get me wrong, Chavez and Nolasco have not been good. JC Ramirez has been better than expected and Meyer and Bridwell have both performed well. Amazingly with their top 6 starting pitchers on the DL, they've cobbled together a decent staff. They have a 4.28 ERA from their starters, and a 4.01 ERA from their relievers, it's actually slightly above average as a whole. ERA+ of 101. Nolasco and Chavez are both among the league leaders in home runs allowed and that is really their main issue. 

Most other counting stats have the Angels in the top 3rd of the AL in pitching. For comparison purposes, we rank in the bottom 3rd overall in almost every offensive category. We are 12th in OBP and AVG, 15th in SLG and OPS.

 

Quote

Hopefully the offense can keep up what they've done in the last ten games, and we can move into wildcard contention.

Collectively, the offense is no doubt the bigger issue, but as bad as the offense has been. the Angels are still about 59-49 if you replace Chavez and Nolasco with any two of the injured starters.

 Actually, I am writing this, not Hubs, beginning with " Collectively"..

 

[ettin]

1 hour ago, nate said:

haha!

I thought they should have given Skaggs at least one more start in AAA.  He has not done well so far.

I think in a normal situation yes they would have had him make another AAA start or two, I agree. However having him take a rotation spot from Chavez is probably an upgrade even if he is not ready, probably, so I get why they probably said screw it let's have Skaggs reduce the damage slightly.

Edited August 3, 2017 by ettin

[NachoPop]

It's telling that the starter with the most innings logged so far for the season is a guy that hadn't started a game in the bigs before this year.

[halomatt]

20 hours ago, Jeff Fletcher said:

Wasn't me. 

Chavez got $100K on his 10th, 12th and 14th start. He got $150K on his 16th and 18th. He got $200K on his 20th. 

So they paid him $800K already. 

He would have gotten $250K on his 22nd (next), then $250K on his 24th, $300K on 26th, $400K on 28th, $500K on 30th.

I find it hard to believe that pulling him from the rotation at this particular time was financially movtivated. The Angels payroll is like $170 million or something so these amounts are rounding errors. They were OK paying him $200K for his 20th start but $250K for his 22nd would have been too much?

The reason you sign a guy for $5.75M plus incentives, instead of guaranteeing him $8M is because you don't expect him to make 30 starts. And that's what happened. 

Thanks for the explanation. 

[Inside Pitch]

16 hours ago, totdprods said:

I like that they're giving Scribner a shot and rolling with Cowart at 2B. 
It seems like the front office is trying to both audition new players and offer playing time to some fresh faces while still keeping an eye on contention.

It helps that the guys they are auditioning likely offer the best chance at actually contending.