Angels explored RF upgrade.

[KDWells]

1 minute ago, Scotty@AW said:

Angels talked Schwarber with Cubs.

Interesting. Was just thinking about this the other day, most likely they see him as a potential first baseman.

[totdprods]

3 minutes ago, Scotty@AW said:

Angels talked Schwarber with Cubs.

I imagine pitching - Bedrosian and/or Middleton and/or starters - plus an OF prospect would be on the menu.

Makes some sense.

Other idea....Heyward? 

I have a feeling we will see Eppler pull off a pretty substantial trade this offseason and then fill other needs with minimal FA commits.

[KDWells]

3 minutes ago, totdprods said:

I imagine pitching - Bedrosian and/or Middleton and/or starters - plus an OF prospect would be on the menu.

Makes some sense.

Other idea....Heyward? 

I have a feeling we will see Eppler pull off a pretty substantial trade this offseason and then fill other needs with minimal FA commits.

Bedrosian and Hermosillo is what I was picturing in a hypothetical Schwarber deal.

[SoWhat]

20 minutes ago, Scotty@AW said:

Angels talked Schwarber with Cubs.

Hmm. I can’t find anything on this, did you get this from your personal source? 

[Stradling]

Schwarber would be a great get.  Big left handed bat, still young, and can fill a position of need.  The cost would be pretty big is my guess.  

[totdprods]

1 minute ago, Stradling said:

Schwarber would be a great get.  Big left handed bat, still young, and can fill a position of need.  The cost would be pretty big is my guess.  

Eating Zobrist or Heyward money would help.

[Stradling]

Zobrist at 2nd, even though he had a rough year last year and Schwarber at 1st, you could probably still pick up a 3rd baseman.  Schwarber is affordable, Zobrist is expensive at $29 million over the next two years.  

[ettin]

41 minutes ago, Scotty@AW said:

Angels talked Schwarber with Cubs.

Scotty where did you see this at?

[totdprods]

Man, I cannot recall the last time the Angels had so many potential targets, configurations, outcomes, avenues, etc. in an offseason.

[Second Base]

20 minutes ago, ettin said:

Scotty where did you see this at?

A little birdie. From what I understand, the Cubs aren't interested in moving him yet. If there was a trade, you have to think they'd be targeting some of our top prospects like Jones and Barria.

Who knows, maybe we brought up Calhoun.

[ettin]

1 hour ago, totdprods said:

I imagine pitching - Bedrosian and/or Middleton and/or starters - plus an OF prospect would be on the menu.

Makes some sense.

Other idea....Heyward? 

I have a feeling we will see Eppler pull off a pretty substantial trade this offseason and then fill other needs with minimal FA commits.

Heyward's contract is really unusual.

He can opt out after 2018. He can also opt out after 2019 if he gets 550 PA's.

His contract was front-loaded (due to his $20M signing bonus) so his AAV from 2016-2018 is $26M. If he does not opt-out after 2018, his AAV decreases, for one year to $20M for 2019. If, after that season he does not opt-out (or reach his 550 min PA's), his AAV for the remaining four years of his contract is $21.5M per year. Very odd contract.

Basically if the Angels were to trade for him they would have to assume he opts-out after 2018. If they pay for his total value in trade they would probably regret it. At $28M (the addition of the signing bonus was distributed over the first three years according to B-Ref) on a one-year commitment there is probably negligible surplus value, if that. So I imagine the Angels would not have to send much under that assumption.

However when you consider the 2018-2019 free agent class Heyward may be reluctant to opt-out of his contract after next year, unless he does well next season (3+ WAR minimum I would think) as he would be competing against many other free agents to get paid again. Which means the Angels could have him again in 2019 where he would probably opt-out after the season assuming he achieves his 550 PA's.

The Cubs could potentially be willing to cut loose on this contract due to the poor production so far and the risk involved. Of course the Angels would be absorbing the same risk in trading for him but we'd be potentially getting the back end AAV out of it too. Two years ago Heyward was a 6 WAR player. Based on 3-year rolling average he is about 2.4 WAR because of the last two years.

Not advocating it just pointing out the details.

If Eppler took that risk I'm sure they would ask for a guy like Schwarber to help balance out the risk load. Kyle probably has about $100M in surplus value based on his 3-year rolling average of 1.3 WAR (and here you have to assume he gets better because he is still so young) with the addition of .5 WAR per season over his remaining 4 years of control. This means the Angels give up a top propsect plus two quality prospects as well (Adell plus Rodriguez and Ward for example). Alternatively you could send Calhoun and two mid-tier types for Schwarber and a couple of low-level guys for Heyward.

The Angels could handle Heyward's 2018 salary without exceeding the Luxury Tax I think and Kyle makes the minimum in 2018. If Heyward does not opt-out after 2018 the Angels would probably exceed the Luxury Tax that year.

[totdprods]

3 minutes ago, ettin said:

The Angels could handle Heyward's 2018 salary without exceeding the Luxury Tax I think and Kyle makes the minimum in 2018. If Heyward does not opt-out after 2018 the Angels would probably exceed the Luxury Tax that year.

Would be pretty funny if two years after all the offseason buzz about which FA OF the Angels would sign from the Heyward, Upton, Gordon, Cespedes, Fowler offseason they wound up with two of them after all.

Doesn't seem very likely, but it again ties in with Eppler's admiration of defense and the rumors of looking to 'upgrade' RF, even if Heyward vs. Calhoun can be a little hard to see.

I bet the Cubs would love to redirect some money towards Darvish, Arrieta, Davis, Cobb, etc. and would love to shed Zobrist or Heyward in order to do so. 

[Inside Pitch]

1 hour ago, ettin said:

Heyward's contract is really unusual.

He can opt out after 2018. He can also opt out after 2019 if he gets 550 PA's.

I commented on this too recently -- I think that second opt out was put in by the Cubs to safeguard against him having a good half season and bolting -- he's had his share of injuries... another one of those speed power types that seem to break down...    

 

[Blarg]

A hell no to Heyward. Look guys, the outfield is set so quit the wet dreams of ridiculously high salaried player trades to fill right field. 

To steal a little from Bill Clinton, It's the infield, stupid.

[tomsred]

25 minutes ago, Blarg said:

A hell no to Heyward. Look guys, the outfield is set so quit the wet dreams of ridiculously high salaried player trades to fill right field. 

To steal a little from Bill Clinton, It's the infield, stupid.

Other than Stanton, I can't see any real reason to upgrade RF with someone who would only be marginally better than Calhoun.  Even a Stanton upgrade would still leave us with a serious condition in the infield, and very few bucks to properly address it.  First, second, and/or third has to be cleaned up in some fashion or we will have a real struggle to get to the playoffs.  In my mind we have to seriously fix two of those three needs.  We can then afford to piece together the third one with an in house solution, or someone cheap and somewhat risky (and young hopefully).  Then there are still needs in the bullpen, at least two of some sort.

[totdprods]

5 hours ago, Blarg said:

A hell no to Heyward. Look guys, the outfield is set so quit the wet dreams of ridiculously high salaried player trades to fill right field. 

To steal a little from Bill Clinton, It's the infield, stupid.

Sort of like how SS was set when we traded for Simmons? Or C was set when we traded for Maldonado? Or when 1B was set when we signed Valbuena?

Eppler preaches being opportunistic and he's proven to back that mindset frequently. And, I don't think anyone here is proposing straight one for one deals to acquire a RF - it'd be in a broader deal in which infielders are coming to Anaheim too. 

Plus it's a lot less stale than the million convos about whether or not Moose is worth it, how Dee Gordon sucks if he gets slow, or what fringe 1B is gonna be worse than Cron, or any of the other 'obvious' moves that Eppler invariably never makes. 

[totdprods]

So Kyle Schwarber was basically Luis Valbuena last year. Obviously loads more potential and upside and youth, but I can see where the Cubs could move him if it helps their staff. You'd think it would be better for them to package him with prospects and land a Chris Archer type rather than flip a 'one for one' (of sorts) for someone like Skaggs or Bedrosian though, unless the Cubs want to get Angels prospects as well to restock some of what they've dealt away recently.

Schwarber: .211/.315/.467/.762, 99 OPS+, 0.0 WAR in 129 games

Valbuena: .199/.294/.432/.727, 95 OPS+, 0.0 WAR in 117 games

[Second Base]

4 hours ago, totdprods said:

So Kyle Schwarber was basically Luis Valbuena last year. Obviously loads more potential and upside and youth, but I can see where the Cubs could move him if it helps their staff. You'd think it would be better for them to package him with prospects and land a Chris Archer type rather than flip a 'one for one' (of sorts) for someone like Skaggs or Bedrosian though, unless the Cubs want to get Angels prospects as well to restock some of what they've dealt away recently.

Schwarber: .211/.315/.467/.762, 99 OPS+, 0.0 WAR in 129 games

Valbuena: .199/.294/.432/.727, 95 OPS+, 0.0 WAR in 117 games

The Cubs are about to get expensive and have exhausted that farm of theirs. If they can trade one of their underperforming starters for one that does perform AND get a couple prospects in return, I think they may do that.

So if it were Calhoun and Barria for Schwarber, I think they would do that.

That would also completely morph the Angels current situation by having 1B covered, but now needing a 2B and RF (assuming Valbuena is the plan at 3B).

[Dtwncbad]

I was wrong about Heyward.  I really believed his raw physical skills and his body had just not quite synced yet and that he was a good bet to ratchet up offensively into a legit #3 type hitter.

Sometimes you are just wrong.

[totdprods]

39 minutes ago, Scotty@AW said:

The Cubs are about to get expensive and have exhausted that farm of theirs. If they can trade one of their underperforming starters for one that does perform AND get a couple prospects in return, I think they may do that.

So if it were Calhoun and Barria for Schwarber, I think they would do that.

That would also completely morph the Angels current situation by having 1B covered, but now needing a 2B and RF (assuming Valbuena is the plan at 3B).

And you could go year at RF - look at stopgaps that can lead-off Melky Cabrera, Jon Jay, etc.

[ettin]

10 hours ago, Blarg said:

A hell no to Heyward. Look guys, the outfield is set so quit the wet dreams of ridiculously high salaried player trades to fill right field. 

To steal a little from Bill Clinton, It's the infield, stupid.

 

10 hours ago, tomsred said:

Other than Stanton, I can't see any real reason to upgrade RF with someone who would only be marginally better than Calhoun.  Even a Stanton upgrade would still leave us with a serious condition in the infield, and very few bucks to properly address it.  First, second, and/or third has to be cleaned up in some fashion or we will have a real struggle to get to the playoffs.  In my mind we have to seriously fix two of those three needs.  We can then afford to piece together the third one with an in house solution, or someone cheap and somewhat risky (and young hopefully).  Then there are still needs in the bullpen, at least two of some sort.

I was just pointing out how unusual his contract was, not advocating him.

However I will say that Eppler really does appear to think out of the box so it is not completely crazy to think he would trade Kole and ???? for Heyward and ????? if he thought it would upgrade the team. The Cubs do line up with us in trade in a few spots so they are, to me, a potential trade partner.

That being said a Heyward trade would be just as complex as any other player out there making it pretty unlikely in the scheme of things. Also he has been pretty broken the last two seasons so he is fairly unappealing to me in comparison to Calhoun. Kole should only be traded if he upgrades us at one or more positions.

[Second Base]

4 minutes ago, totdprods said:

And you could go year at RF - look at stopgaps that can lead-off Melky Cabrera, Jon Jay, etc.

Something like that would give the Angels extra time to allow Hermosillo to develop and give them greater clarity as to whether RF is covered internally or if they need to go the FA route.

[Second Base]

I think the big thing I'm seeing here is that even when we think the Angels are set at a position, if the opportunity arises for Billy to improve the team at that spot without debilitating the team long term, he will do it.

I think right now, we're covered in CF, LF, SS and catcher. Everything else is up for grabs. 

[totdprods]

3 minutes ago, Scotty@AW said:

Something like that would give the Angels extra time to allow Hermosillo to develop and give them greater clarity as to whether RF is covered internally or if they need to go the FA route.

Yup. Doesn't close the door for Hermosillo in immediate future, doesn't block one of Adell, Jones, or Marsh from shooting into the bigs quickly. 

Schwarber's cheap salary definitely makes   it easier to stomach a Zobrist or Heyward or Moustakas or Kinsler or Gordon salary coming into play too, even more so if Calhoun's salary is shed somewhere in process. A lot of interesting scenarios to re-arrange some money.

Our OF is making collectively like $50-60m a year now so it is a little pricey, especially with prospects a year or two away.

[CanadianHalo]

Unless the cubs are “throwing in” Kris Bryant, hell freaking no to Heyward. 

I didn't want him two seasons ago I certainly don’t want him now