Angelsjunky

Stormngt, if we understand "talent" as meaning how well a player is capable of performing then we need to look at their ability over the last year or two. "Underachieving" means that they aren't playing (this year) to their actual talent level. I think it is safe to say that the 2013 Angels, overall, are underachieving and far more talented than their 14-24 record would imply. So comparing 2013 performance to "true talent level" I'd say: Hugely underachieving: Pujols, Hamilton, Weaver (mainly by virtue of injury) Underachieving: Iannetta, Trout, Aybar, Wilson, Hanson, Blanton (he's not THIS bad) About right: Kendrick, Callaspo, Trumbo, Bourjos, Vargas, Williams, Frieri No one is playing over their heads right now. A week or two maybe Trumbo, Bourjos, and Jimenez were, but Trumbo has come back to closer to his true talent level, Bourjos got injured, and Jimenez belly-flopped. But the majority of the team is playing below their true talent level. Trout is getting there. His numbers now (.283/.348/.503) are reflective of his reduced BABIP (.320), but I expect all of that to go up and that he'll end up hitting around .300/.370/.540 or so for the year. The key is Pujols and Hamilton. Even if they're no longer players they were, they should be much better than this - they have a .709 and .605 OPS respectively! I don't think we'll ever see a 1.000, or maybe not even a .950 OPS from Pujols again, but certainly he's capable of .850-.900+, as is Hamilton. On the pitching side of things, I do agree that Vargas, Williams, and Hanson are all around average. But Blanton isn't this bad - I expect mediocre performance, not terrible performance. Wilson has been about average as well and was very good until the second half of last year - I don't know what happened to him. Weaver wasn't good when he pitched and has been injured, so either way he's performing less than his true talent level. So yeah, I think this is a very talented team that is underachieving.

Chuck, I was "jacked up" about Pujols and Hamilton in the same way I'd be jacked up if a Ben & Jerry's truck pulled up outside my house; I'd think: "Awesome! All the ice cream I can eat!! But...this won't end well." In other words, I liked getting both but I felt strongly that neither contract was a good one and both would end up disappointing. Certainly it is still too early in both cases to write them both off, but so far both have been huge disappointments.

The Angels are 11 out of 15 in runs per game, at 4.11 per game vs. the AL average of 4.43. I'd say the offense is a pretty big problem, if not the "main" one (which I would agree is the starting pitching). The starting pitching is very bad The offense is poor The bullpen is poor The defense is OK Not a good team so far.

In Dipoto We Trust, right? Come on - I want to hear more about his master plan.

I'm finally starting to lose faith in their chances of making it to the playoffs. I'm guessing they play around .500 ball the rest of the way and finish with 75-80 wins.

Well its probably a fluke, but it seems that every year some formerly mediocre player has a surprise break out. I think it could be called the Jose Bautista Award.

Because I know everyone is vitally concerned with Trout's WAR, here's an update. He keeps on creeping up the rankings - is now (as of 5/13) 7th in the majors with a 1.9 fWAR, ahead of Justin Upton (1.8) and Bryce Harper (1.6). Actually, the fWAR rankings are quite interesting this year - with lots of surprise names and young players. Carlos Gomez is still #1 with 2.7, and the top 10 includes players like Manny Machado, Jean Segura, Starling Marte, and Carlos Santana.

LOL

Chuck's digging deep for something to be excited about in the farm system.

So AZMike, you're saying that Josh Hamilton was Vernon Wells part 2 - a knee-jerk panic reaction to try to save face, that ended up making matters worse. If that's really the case, and if came from Arte in both cases, then he needs to study one word: Hubris. Learn your lesson, Arte.

Too early for what? To make a final judgment on Dipoto as a general manager? I agree. To say that his work so far has yielded poor results? I disagree. All I'm saying is that it is concerning that the results have been so poor so far. Do you disagree with that?

As for Segura, of course he isn't going to keep hitting like this all year. But he could finish around .300/.800, which makes him a lot better than Kendrick and Aybar.

Again, again, again...the point is not how any deal looked at the time it was made, but what the results have been. The big concern about the Dipoto Era so far is that the results have been poor.

Again, we can look at any single transaction Dipoto has made (except for perhaps Blanton, although I would add Pujols and Hamilton) and say that it made sense at the time he made it. But what worries me is the net result: not good. Again, I realize that it has only been a year and a half and Dipoto inherited Reagins' mess, but my concern is that he's invested such a huge amount in four players all in their 30s, and none (as of now) are performing as expected. That's a problem. So again, most of his moves have made sense at the time. But somehow the net result hasn't been good, and most look bad in hindsight.

Did she stop after saying three times or did you get to four?

Or worse, Peter Angelos.

If that's true, deepdrive, it doesn't bode well for the future because Arte isn't going anywhere.

All joking aside, everyone knows I like the stats quote Fangraphs and such. But all of that is secondary to the kind of heart and fire that you see in this video. That heart and fire is what wins ball games, what brings a team together. I hope the Angels can find that.

Peter needs to do yoga.

Why can't Scioscia do this? Best sports speech ever:

Chuck, I agree with your entire post (although might have made that trade 7 out of 10 times) but this is the problem: it didn't work. None of it is working. The problem with many of Dipoto's moves, and the sum of the parts is that it isn't succeeding. This goes beyond "hindsight is 20-20" - the proof is in the pudding and Jerry's pudding isn't turning out all that well. Considering that he's only been "in office" about a year and a half I'd be more prone to give it time if it weren't for the fact that he's painted himself into a corner. The fact that in 2016 almost $100 million is tied up in four players in their mid-30s is rather disturbing to me. Or let's take it a step further - here are the ages and salaries of four Angels in 2016: Pujols (36): $25 million Hamilton (35): $30 million Wilson (35): $20 million Weaver (33): $20 million I'm questioning Dipoto's judgement. There is nothing to complain about with regards to the Weaver deal - that looked genius at the time and while there are questions around Jered now, I'd do it again without much hesitation. But why didn't Texas push harder for Wilson? What did they know that Dipoto didn't, or ignored? And what about Hamilton? No one would offer him more than four years, and the Rangers were surprisingly ambivalent about him. What did they know that, again, Dipoto didn't or ignored? And what about Pujols? Why give a 32-year old who had declined in two previous years a 10-year contract worth a quarter of a billion dollars? Should we blame Arte? I don't know. The end result is the same: something is rotten in Denmark, something is broken in this organization and fixing it won't be easy or quick.

I would have liked to see Segura become a super UT guy like Chone Figgins started out as, spelling people at SS, 2B, and even 3B, giving the Angels a deeper, stronger bench. Chone did that for a year or two and got regular at-bats; if we had Segura this year in the UT role, my bet is that he would easily have got 400+ PA, maybe more. If he had out-played either Howie or Erick, one of those two could have been traded. But the point is that Dipoto seems all-too willing to trade away talented youngsters and go after aging (former) stars. This formula has never worked out for anyone. It didn't work for the Angels in the 80s and early 90s, nor the Yankees in the 80s and most of the 00s. The Yankees have only remained very good because of a deep farm system due to great scouting, and the fact that they have so much money to throw around. But they reached an "over-ripeness" in he early 00s and while managing a World Series win in 2009, have mostly fallen short since 2000. My worry is that the Angels will go the route of the Baltimore Orioles in the late 90s. The Orioles tried to buy a championship, fell short, and were left with an aging team and little young talent and went into a tailspin for a decade plus, and are only just now crawling out of it. The only way out, in my opinion, is if the Angels sit tight and stop selling off prospects (not that they have any left) and try to focus on building a strong farm system. The team they have now is one we're pretty much stuck with for the few years, with perhaps a few tweaks here and there. We'll likely see a rotation of starters coming in through free agency, but I think this is the team of 2013-2015 or so. All we can do is hope that Pujols and Hamilton figure things out, the pitching stabilizes, and Dipoto focuses on the farm.

Let's be honest here. I don't expect him to hit .333/.381/.537 all year and to continue his 9 WAR pace - maybe more like .290+/.800 and 5 WAR. But he is what I thought he could be in a best-case scenario: better than Aybar and Kendrick, and much cheaper. Now I suppose that you could say that given that Pena and Hellweg are likely to be solid bullpen arms or maybe decent starters, the Angels had to part with at least one significant prospect to get Zack Greinke. But here we are: with weak starting pitching, no Greinke, and watching Segura turn into one of the best middle infielders in the game. Why does this keep happening? It seems like an inordinate number of moves over the last few years - whether trades or free agent signings - just don't go the Angels' way. I want to know why. Is it the scouting? Lack of judgement on Jerry Dipoto's part, following the great tradition of Tony Reagins? Arte Moreno playing the puppeteer? The coaching? Indian burial grounds? What? Why is it that the the majority of players who come in from elsewhere struggle as Angels, while the majority of those who leave do well? That's a big problem. Maybe I'm looking at it selectively and it is an illusion, but I don't know...

First time since April 19-21 and only third time this season - that the Angels have won 2+ games in a row. That's pathetic, but also a bit heartening. Hopefully they can start blowing through these crappy teams and try to make it close to .500 by the end of May. It could happen.

I'm inclined to agree with Haren as well. The 2012 should have been kept (largely) intact. It played really well for most of the year, just started slow. The big loss was Zack Greinke, which would have been hard to make up for. But dialing back to November of 2012, I would have passed on Hamilton, resigned Hunter for two years, still traded Morales for Vargas, kept Santana and Haren, and gone into 2013 with a rotation of Weaver, Wilson, Santana, Haren, and Vargas, and a lineup the same as it is now but with Hunter instead of Hamilton. But alas, Jerry Dipoto isn't me (and, admittedly, doesn't have my 20-20 hindsight vision).