Shortstop candidates for the Halos

[Angelsfan1984]

13 minutes ago, Blarg said:

Or save the money and put Urshela on 3rd and move Rendon over. 

Ya if they move Rendon off 3rd, Urshela slides right in. I almost hope Swanson signs with the Cubs so the angels can look at their young SS. 

[DMVol]

3 hours ago, Rico said:

Any interest in Brandon Crawford?  Had an amazing '21 season, but crashed last season at age 35.  Owed 15 million in last year of contract.

Not a bad thought....Giants would need to eat some of his money....

[Angels 1961]

Crawford going to play 3B for SF

[Chuck]

If the Yankees miss out on Carlos Rodon, we could sign someone like Nathan Eovaldi and trade Patrick Sandoval for the Yankees top prospect, SS Anthony Volpe. They have Oswald Peraza projected as their opening day SS with Gleyber Torres at 2B. 

I know we'd lose a first round pick with Eovaldi but we'd gain a top 10 prospect in all of baseball and someone we could insert into our SS spot for years to come, with Neto at 2B. 

[Angels 1961]

I stay away from Eovaldi to many injuries. I would sign a Wacha on shorter deal.

[Chuck]

17 minutes ago, Angels 1961 said:

I stay away from Eovaldi to many injuries. I would sign a Wacha on shorter deal.

You could say the same thing about injuries re: Wacha and Rodon. 

[Warfarin]

49 minutes ago, Chuckster70 said:

If the Yankees miss out on Carlos Rodon, we could sign someone like Nathan Eovaldi and trade Patrick Sandoval for the Yankees top prospect, SS Anthony Volpe. They have Oswald Peraza projected as their opening day SS with Gleyber Torres at 2B. 

I know we'd lose a first round pick with Eovaldi but we'd gain a top 10 prospect in all of baseball and someone we could insert into our SS spot for years to come, with Neto at 2B. 

We'd actually only lose a third rounder.  We have already lost a second rounder signing Anderson.  Our next loss would be a third rounder.  Our first rounder is protected.

[Stradling]

50 minutes ago, Chuckster70 said:

If the Yankees miss out on Carlos Rodon, we could sign someone like Nathan Eovaldi and trade Patrick Sandoval for the Yankees top prospect, SS Anthony Volpe. They have Oswald Peraza projected as their opening day SS with Gleyber Torres at 2B. 

I know we'd lose a first round pick with Eovaldi but we'd gain a top 10 prospect in all of baseball and someone we could insert into our SS spot for years to come, with Neto at 2B. 

There is zero chance they trade Volpe unless they get a bonafide star out of it.  I don’t think we lose our first rounder, I think it is a 5th rounder, but maybe it is different because we pay into the revenue sharing or some rule like that.

[Stradling]

Thanks @Warfarin, I thought it as a 5th rounder, but I am sure you are right about it being a 3rd rounder. 

[Fake Chow]

Is it still protected if we are picking out of the top 10?

[Stradling]

The only pitcher I could see the Yankees trading Volpe for would be Alancatra.  

[Warfarin]

20 minutes ago, Fake Chow said:

Is it still protected if we are picking out of the top 10?

Yes, it is.  That changed with the last CBA (or maybe the one before that I forget).  First round picks are protected for all teams.  For us, it would be our second highest pick (round 2), then third highest pick (round 3), and so on.

[Angels 1961]

55 minutes ago, Chuckster70 said:

You could say the same thing about injuries re: Wacha and Rodon. 

Wacha would be shorter deal and lot less money. Wacha fit nice in 6-man rotation

[Chuck]

1 hour ago, Stradling said:

The only pitcher I could see the Yankees trading Volpe for would be Alancatra.  

Maybe. Sandoval is young and a proven starter in the big leagues. Volpe hit .249 this past season and has dropped in the latest prospect rankings. 

[Dtwncbad]

Many are bemoaning the flaws of Swanson.   Yes, he has his flaws.  Clearly not perfect.  If he was perfect, he would be 13 years and $350m.

But let’s not be silly.  Swanson would take care of a big glaring problem and the guy has some pop.  No longer would that spot be a black hole in the offensive lineup and I don’t anybody can deny the guy plays a damn good shortstop defensively.

I would be perfectly happy to have Swanson playing SS for the Angels everyday.

I don’t expect him to be a 6.4 WAR player going forward.

If he just plays ball, he is going to be 3-4 WAR, putting him into the top probably 7-8 SS in mlb.

Could he be a bust?  Yeah.  Anybody can be a bust.  Anybody.

If the chance of a free agent being a bust prevents you from signing good player that you need, then something is wrong.

This guy is the least expensive of the “big 4” so why not try to land him as the best overall value, as completely check off a huge need for this team?

[Blarg]

5 minutes ago, Dtwncbad said:

No longer would that spot be a black hole in the offensive lineup

Maybe you should look up his carer OPS+ instead of just taking last year's hitting line as an indication of his future performance. 

[BTH]

11 minutes ago, Dtwncbad said:

Many are bemoaning the flaws of Swanson.   Yes, he has his flaws.  Clearly not perfect.  If he was perfect, he would be 13 years and $350m.

But let’s not be silly.  Swanson would take care of a big glaring problem and the guy has some pop.  

Swanson would be more than acceptable at SS, but I think there are more interested teams that have more flexibility to pay him.

I’d be stunned if he goes to the Angels at this point.

[Dtwncbad]

9 minutes ago, Blarg said:

Maybe you should look up his carer OPS+ instead of just taking last year's hitting line as an indication of his future performance. 

Maybe you should read my post where I explicitly said “I don’t expect him to be a 6.4WAR going forward.”

In what sane, rational world is that exact quote anything other than specifically NOT “taking last years hitting line as an indication of his future performance”?

Are you drunk?  It’s a fair question.

[Docwaukee]

18 minutes ago, Dtwncbad said:

Many are bemoaning the flaws of Swanson.   Yes, he has his flaws.  Clearly not perfect.  If he was perfect, he would be 13 years and $350m.

But let’s not be silly.  Swanson would take care of a big glaring problem and the guy has some pop.  No longer would that spot be a black hole in the offensive lineup and I don’t anybody can deny the guy plays a damn good shortstop defensively.

I would be perfectly happy to have Swanson playing SS for the Angels everyday.

I don’t expect him to be a 6.4 WAR player going forward.

If he just plays ball, he is going to be 3-4 WAR, putting him into the top probably 7-8 SS in mlb.

Could he be a bust?  Yeah.  Anybody can be a bust.  Anybody.

If the chance of a free agent being a bust prevents you from signing good player that you need, then something is wrong.

This guy is the least expensive of the “big 4” so why not try to land him as the best overall value, as completely check off a huge need for this team?

I'm not sure I agree with this mentality.  Yes, anybody could be a bust but it's not like you're out there flipping a coin.  There are metrics and trends and historical data that allows you to make more informed decisions.  

If a 3 year deal is a bust then it's not a big deal.  Even a five year deal can be not great but at least not catastrophic.  So it boils down where his contract lands.  And I freely admit that I don't have access to the information a major league club would but even in what's available, I think there's some pretty significant risk in going above 5 years and getting into his age 34 season an above.  

He's obviously very good defensively and I would expect that to last for another 5 years so even if the bat doesn't play up the entirety of that time then he's about a 3 WAR player.  But therein lies the rump.  Looking at his last four years I would agree that his 2022 is an outlier and maybe you discount his age 25 season a bit because he was still developing.  So to me it's kinda between 2020 and 2021 of where I'd expect him to be for the first 3-4 years of that deal at least.  

He hits the ball hard when he makes contact which is why he's got seasons where his BABIP is elevated so I'm not as concerned about that.  What does concern me is if he just stops making as much contact and there's already precedent set for that.  

The other three of the big four essentially got lifetime contracts.  Which I would never ever do for Swanson.  And I think it's telling that we're hearing the dogs being mentioned as suitors for him because he's probably right in their wheelhouse for a shorter term and higher AAV.  Like a 3/90 or 4/108. 

I don't see the Angels playing in that realm so to get his attention they'd likely have to make the deal longer in order to get the overall amount palatable.  And for him that 6th year really scares me because I'm already concerned about getting more than 3 good years.  I think I can stomach two years of 2 ish WAR at the back end but those could easily turn into something even worse.  

I guess the TLDR is that I have concerns that he might become a mendoza line type of bat with 200+k within 3 years.  I don't have a problem with some catastrophic risk, but not for 6+ years.  

[floplag]

I have no interest in Swanson at this point, hes going to get way over paid for what he is.

I dont really want to make a trade that might cost us what we would need to make a better acquisition later such as Torres / Adames / Farmer, i fear it will cost us more than we get back.   None of those guys to me are worth Sandoval for example. 

At this point i wonder if Segura can still play SS or looking at Andrus as a stop gap... this is not what i hoped for, but thats what were down to.

The impact window has closed on us, we let it go by,  now we have zero leverage, and Ohtani has zero reason to extend. 

As usual we started off strong then failed in crunch time.  Unless Perry can swing some trade im not seeing right now that doesnt cost us too much on an already weak farm, were in deep trouble.

[Dtwncbad]

29 minutes ago, Docwaukee said:

I'm not sure I agree with this mentality.  Yes, anybody could be a bust but it's not like you're out there flipping a coin.  There are metrics and trends and historical data that allows you to make more informed decisions.  

If a 3 year deal is a bust then it's not a big deal.  Even a five year deal can be not great but at least not catastrophic.  So it boils down where his contract lands.  And I freely admit that I don't have access to the information a major league club would but even in what's available, I think there's some pretty significant risk in going above 5 years and getting into his age 34 season an above.  

He's obviously very good defensively and I would expect that to last for another 5 years so even if the bat doesn't play up the entirety of that time then he's about a 3 WAR player.  But therein lies the rump.  Looking at his last four years I would agree that his 2022 is an outlier and maybe you discount his age 25 season a bit because he was still developing.  So to me it's kinda between 2020 and 2021 of where I'd expect him to be for the first 3-4 years of that deal at least.  

He hits the ball hard when he makes contact which is why he's got seasons where his BABIP is elevated so I'm not as concerned about that.  What does concern me is if he just stops making as much contact and there's already precedent set for that.  

The other three of the big four essentially got lifetime contracts.  Which I would never ever do for Swanson.  And I think it's telling that we're hearing the dogs being mentioned as suitors for him because he's probably right in their wheelhouse for a shorter term and higher AAV.  Like a 3/90 or 4/108. 

I don't see the Angels playing in that realm so to get his attention they'd likely have to make the deal longer in order to get the overall amount palatable.  And for him that 6th year really scares me because I'm already concerned about getting more than 3 good years.  I think I can stomach two years of 2 ish WAR at the back end but those could easily turn into something even worse.  

I guess the TLDR is that I have concerns that he might become a mendoza line type of bat with 200+k within 3 years.  I don't have a problem with some catastrophic risk, but not for 6+ years.  

You cite the possible downside.  No argument.  He strikes out a ton.

But a very fair sample size of his OPS would be his last 4 years?

His average OPS over the last four seasons is .773.

Do you know where that would rank on last years team?  He would be batting cleanup.

Again, I am not predicting that he will be an offensive juggernaut.  But the guy is still in his twenties.  Normally guys will power have some of their best years in terms of power ages 29-33ish.

Forgive me if I am perfectly accepting of a guy that plays damn good defense and legitimately has the capability of hitting a three run homer to win a game in the 8th inning. . .compared to what the Angels have now at SS.

This is a fit issue for me.  We can pick apart his game pretty easily.  But the argument isn’t that he can’t be picked at, the argument is he changes a problem to not having a problem.

This team was ridiculously impotent in terms of SLG last year in 6 batting spots in the lineup.  Pitchers could just pitch around 3 guys and then sail through the rest of the lineup with zero worry that a mistake would cost them even a solo homer.  Swanson converts one spot in the lineup from that specific vulnerability to a guy pitchers need to pay attention to, who can hurt you.

Swanson doesn’t have to be an high level All-Star offensively to be a huge upgrade offensively at short.

Look, I really don’t care who they get to play SS.  But they have to be reliable, play really good defense and be able to contribute offensively.

Swanson checks off that box.  If they figure it out another way, fine with me.

I just don’t want to be so picky that the Angel pass on every player that could actually represent a real upgrade and end up with garbage again.

I think the team need to win over the next couple of years and it’s not my money and I prefer to spend for a solution than trade away talent from the system.

Given all that, I am not going to shy away from pursuing Swanson because he ain’t perfect and isn’t on the same level as the other 3 big name SS.

He is plenty good enough.

 

Edited December 14, 2022 by Dtwncbad

[Angels 1961]

1 hour ago, Dtwncbad said:

Many are bemoaning the flaws of Swanson.   Yes, he has his flaws.  Clearly not perfect.  If he was perfect, he would be 13 years and $350m.

But let’s not be silly.  Swanson would take care of a big glaring problem and the guy has some pop.  No longer would that spot be a black hole in the offensive lineup and I don’t anybody can deny the guy plays a damn good shortstop defensively.

I would be perfectly happy to have Swanson playing SS for the Angels everyday.

I don’t expect him to be a 6.4 WAR player going forward.

If he just plays ball, he is going to be 3-4 WAR, putting him into the top probably 7-8 SS in mlb.

Could he be a bust?  Yeah.  Anybody can be a bust.  Anybody.

If the chance of a free agent being a bust prevents you from signing good player that you need, then something is wrong.

This guy is the least expensive of the “big 4” so why not try to land him as the best overall value, as completely check off a huge need for this team?

His price will go up now with so many teams in play. He would be big SPLASH the janitor wants.

[Chuck]

Has anyone thought about trading for Fernando Tatis Jr.? 

What would it cost? 

 

[beatlesrule]

23 minutes ago, Chuckster70 said:

Has anyone thought about trading for Fernando Tatis Jr.? 

What would it cost? 

 

You have lol.

[Warfarin]

The Padres have emptied out their entire farm system and acquired / signed every star they possibly can.  They are as “all in” as any team can be right now.  I cannot fathom them trading away anyone right now.