OC Register: Swanson: Time for Angels and their fans to lean into the long game

[samwum]

2 hours ago, BTH said:

If you call playing young players in the majors rebuilding, sure.

IMO, there’s more to rebuilding than playing young players. It involves trading away players with value and investing in player development.

Agreed, + giving fringe prospects ABs to develop instead of journeymen with no future on the team. For instance Guillorme over Paris in tonight's lineup is looneytoones. 

Generally speaking its just not a cohesive rebuild or working towards the future. You have your Trout and Rendon here forever, you have your Ward and Rengifo and Canning and Sandoval in arbitration, and then you have 5-10 young players who you're excited about. And then there's this shitstorm 1/3 of the roster who has no future with the team. What the hell is that. 

My problem isn't that the Angels don't want to call it a rebuild. Everyone wants to avoid the R word. But just fuckin' sack up and actually do it if you're gonna do it. 

[samwum]

43 minutes ago, Stradling said:

This is why I continue to laugh at some guys on here. There’s very real evidence there’s a rebuild happening but they ignore that evidence. There’s evidence that a rebuild is happening but that doesn’t matter because the owner and GM won’t say it publicly.  Because it doesn’t fit into your self defined concept of a rebuild then it must not be happening. Oh and it makes zero since to trade players like Drury, Rengifo and Sandoval during free agency since there were free agents available. It’s much better to trade them at the deadline to maximize value. 

Well. With Rengifo and Sandoval a deal during the offseason would be fine. Because part of their value is derived from being younger and cheaper than available free agents. So I would be a little more careful with that talking point in the future. A team that wants them actually probably wants them as soon as possible. Kind of like how the Marlins and Padres didn't wait to trade Arraez. But I don't advocate for neccesarily moving them.

 

[Stradling]

7 minutes ago, samwum said:

Well. With Rengifo and Sandoval a deal during the offseason would be fine. Because part of their value is derived from being younger and cheaper than available free agents. So I would be a little more careful with that talking point in the future. A team that wants them actually probably wants them as soon as possible. Kind of like how the Marlins and Padres didn't wait to trade Arraez. But I don't advocate for neccesarily moving them.

And Sandoval was coming off a poor year. Both players have more trade value at the deadline when inventory of available players is less. 

[samwum]

12 minutes ago, Stradling said:

And Sandoval was coming off a poor year. Both players have more trade value at the deadline when inventory of available players is less. 

No, that's not really true. If the Angels had traded Luis Rengifo last offseason there would have been a significant market. 2-3 WAR 2B make more than $4mm in free agency. 27 year olds with 3 more years of under market value $$ aren't available in free agency. A lot of his surplus value is derived from his contract and youth. 

[Stradling]

1 minute ago, samwum said:

No, that's not entirely true. If the Angels had traded Luis Rengifo last offseason there would have been a significant market. 2-3 WAR 2B make more than $4mm in free agency. 27 year olds with 3 more years of under market value $$ aren't available in free agency. A lot of his surplus value is derived from his contract and youth. 

 

And now he has 2.5 years of club control and less options available for teams that want an upgrade. 

[samwum]

11 minutes ago, Stradling said:

And now he has 2.5 years of club control and less options available for teams that want an upgrade. 

Again, this is not true. You cannot get a player comparable to Luis Rengifo in free agency due to his contract and youth. His value is because he is young and cheap, in addition to being good. A team that trades for him is paying for 3 years of below free agent market pricing, not one half a season rental for a playoff push. Rengifo's value is not a mechanism of timing or short term desperation like Drury's would be.

[Stradling]

Just now, samwum said:

Again, this is not true. You cannot get a player comparable to Luis Rengifo in free agency due to his contract and youth. His value is because he is young and cheap. A team that trades for him is paying for 3 years of below free agent market pricing, not one half a season rental for a playoff push. 

And if you trade for him now you aren’t just getting half a season of him you are getting 2.5 seasons of him below free agent value in a more limited market because there are no free agent options. 

[samwum]

10 minutes ago, Stradling said:

And if you trade for him now you aren’t just getting half a season of him you are getting 2.5 seasons of him below free agent value in a more limited market because there are no free agent options. 

I've posted this like 4 times but there are no free agent options like Rengifo because of his youth and contract. That comparable free agent market you keep bringing up consists of literally 0 other players. Find me a 27 year old 2-3 WAR player making $4mm under team control who was available in free agency last year. It doesn't exist. That's impossible based on the way baseball contracts work.

[Stradling]

11 minutes ago, samwum said:

I've posted this like 4 times but there are no free agent options like Rengifo because of his youth and contract. That comparable free agent market you keep bringing up consists of literally 0 other players. Find me a 27 year old 2-3 WAR player making $4mm under team control who was available in free agency last year. It doesn't exist. That's impossible based on the way baseball contracts work.

Yea and yet there were other options. Now there aren’t even those options. So if you want an upgrade you have to trade for one. This isn’t a hard concept but you are pretending it is. There are less options thus creating a higher market. Plus there’s more clarity of what a team in contention needs. 

[Stradling]

I’ve learned today that supply and demand doesn’t exist. 

[samwum]

12 minutes ago, Stradling said:

Yea and yet there were other options. Now there aren’t even those options. So if you want an upgrade you have to trade for one. This isn’t a hard concept but you are pretending it is. There are less options thus creating a higher market. Plus there’s more clarity of what a team in contention needs. 

I understand where you're coming from but you're thinking of a quality long term asset like a low quality short term asset. I don't know what else to say. 

 

[samwum]

11 minutes ago, Stradling said:

I’ve learned today that supply and demand doesn’t exist. 

Fabletics exists, but it doesn't effect Vuori's sales.

[BTH]

3 hours ago, Stradling said:

This is why I continue to laugh at some guys on here. There’s very real evidence there’s a rebuild happening but they ignore that evidence. There’s evidence that a rebuild is happening but that doesn’t matter because the owner and GM won’t say it publicly.  Because it doesn’t fit into your self defined concept of a rebuild then it must not be happening. Oh and it makes zero since to trade players like Drury, Rengifo and Sandoval during free agency since there were free agents available. It’s much better to trade them at the deadline to maximize value. 

yeah, the free agent class was just littered with good 2B options.

now, it's questionable whether Drury's gonna even have any value after a rough offensive start + injury.

[jsnpritchett]

3 minutes ago, BTH said:

now, it's questionable whether Drury's gonna even have any value after a rough offensive start + injury.

Unless he comes back and hits about .350 for a month, I think his trade value will be negligible.  Probably something like a hard-throwing AA reliever with control issues, at best.

[BTH]

15 minutes ago, jsnpritchett said:

Unless he comes back and hits about .350 for a month, I think his trade value will be negligible.  Probably something like a hard-throwing AA reliever with control issues, at best.

hmm, that sounds like someone we're talking about in another thread. lol

[jsnpritchett]

2 minutes ago, BTH said:

hmm, that sounds like someone we're talking about in another thread. lol

Some team's bad version of Ben Joyce, pretty much.  Yep.

[Jeff Fletcher]

Rengifo is a free agent after the 2025 season. 
 

Carry on..

[Stradling]

1 minute ago, Jeff Fletcher said:

Rengifo is a free agent after the 2025 season. 
 

Carry on..

Thanks Jeff. Do you think he has more trade value at the deadline or last off season?

[Jeff Fletcher]

1 minute ago, Stradling said:

Thanks Jeff. Do you think he has more trade value at the deadline or last off season?

I don’t think you can answer that question since he’s so inconsistent you have no idea how good he’ll be going forward. He was also coming off surgery last winter. 

[James]

30 minutes ago, Jeff Fletcher said:

I don’t think you can answer that question since he’s so inconsistent you have no idea how good he’ll be going forward. He was also coming off surgery last winter. 

Surgery made a deal in the offseason VERY unlikely without a doubt. 

I would say that you are more likely to find a desperate team at the deadline over the offseason as well. 

[Angels 1961]

I would try and resign Rengifo to a 3 year deal. 3 years for 21 to 24 mill.

[Duren, Duren]

Positives: He's a switch hitter, which is rare. Has shown power to all fields. Is versatile in the field. Seems to be a good team player. 

Negatives: inconsistent at the plate, and loses discipline. Not a good fielder at any position. Adequate at best. Coming off injury is a risk for a longer term deal. 

With control through next season there is time to keep assessing his value to the team and in a potential trade. 

Given the injuries and lack of depth I think the Angels need to keep him through this season. And hope his health holds out. Unless a team makes an offer that clearly benefits the Angels rebuild. But he also will be playing for a new contract next year and therefore should have a lot of motivation. That might be a better time to think trade. Or even an extension if his play merits it.