The Angels Hit Rock Bottom
The Angels won 89 games last year despite starting Mike Trout in the minors. After they promoted at the end of April, they played .580 baseball the rest of the way. Over the winter, they added Josh Hamilton, but more importantly, they added the Houston Astros to the AL West. 19 games against the Astros was supposed to give the western contenders a significant advantage, as they could pencil in 12 or 13 easy wins against a team that wasn’t even trying to compete.
Whoops. The Astros just swept the Angels — in Anaheim — and have now beaten LA’s other expensive disappointment in seven of their first 10 match-ups. In fact, the Astros may end up being the primary reason that the Angels miss the playoffs.
Here’s the Astros record against the AL contenders they’ve played:
Oakland: 0-9
Boston: 0-4
Detroit: 1-6
Texas: 1-5
New York: 1-2
Cleveland: 1-2
Against the other six teams making a playoff run this year, the Astros have four wins and 28 losses. That is a .125 winning percentage. Against the Angels, they are 7-3. The Astros have won a third of their game against the Angels, who have only represented 17% of their schedule.
And, unfortunately for Jerry DiPoto and Mike Scioscia, there isn’t really an identifiable fix to their problems. During their early struggles, their pitching was atrocious, and it seemed like their lack of arms was their biggest problem. Now, though, Jered Weaver is back, Joe Blanton has stopped giving up six home runs per game, and the rotation actually looks okay, if still not exactly fantastic. Instead, their four game sweep came because their vaunted offense got shut down by the worst pitching staff that a Major League team has assembled in over a decade.
Going into the weekend, the average hitter going up against Houston’s pitchers had posted a .370 wOBA. For reference, Ryan Braun has a .374 wOBA this year, while Robinson Cano is at .368. That’s the kind of production that hitters have had against Houston’s pitching staff.
The Angels put up a .270 wOBA against the Astros this weekend. For that same reference, Brian Dozier has a .269 wOBA this year, while Pete Kozma is at .276. The Angels offense spent the weekend hitting like a backup shortstop against a bunch of pitchers who belong in Triple-A.
So, now, a little more than a third of the way through the season, the Angels are 25-33, and they’re 25-33 because Josh Hamilton and Albert Pujols have combined for 484 plate appearances and +0.0 WAR. Sure, that’s not the only reason — the pitching really was horrendous for a long while, and they have been hit by a bunch of injuries to key role players — but this team was built to score a bunch of runs with Pujols and Hamilton in the middle of the order. Pujols has a 93 wRC+, Hamilton’s at 81. Pujols has been approximately as effective at the plate as J.B. Shuck while Hamilton has hit in the same range as Erick Aybar.
These guys are going to hit better. The Angels are better than they’ve played. But, if (when?) they fall short of the playoffs again despite a strong improvement in the second half, they may very well point to this weekends sweep as the difference between playing in the wild card game and sitting at home watching.
With 104 games to go, the Angels need to win between 65 and 70 of their remaining games to have a realistic shot at taking one of the two wild card spots. At the low end, that’s a .625 clip, which translates into a 101 win pace over a full season. At the high end, that’s a .673 winning percentage and a 109 win pace. It’s easier to win more than 60% of your games in four months than in six months, but that is still an extremely high bar to clear.
Last year, exactly one team won more than 62.5% of their remaining games after this same spot in the season. Because the season started a little later, the comparable date in 2012 was June 7th. The Oakland A’s were 26-32 at this point last year, and they went on a 68-36 run to finish the season, ending up with 94 wins and the AL West division title. If the Angels could replicate that .654 run over the rest of their games, they’d end up with 93 wins and have a pretty good shot at one of the two wild card spots, and maybe even the division if Texas fell apart.
But, again, one team did that last year. The next best winning percentage was the Reds, at .623. Winning at that pace would get the Angels to 90 wins, which could very well be on the outside looking in given the strong competition for the wild card spots this year.
Right now, our rest of season forecast calls for the Angels to be the fifth best team in baseball over the next four months and still finish just 82-80. The projections think Pujols and Hamilton will start to hit, and they see improvements from the likes of Aybar, Callaspo, and the pitching. But, for the second straight year, it may very well be too little too late.
It’s not impossible for the Angels to dig out of the hole they’ve dug themselves. They are just 7 1/2 games out of the wild card lead with four months to play. The teams they are chasing have flaws too. But those teams didn’t fall flat on their face when handed a home series against the Astros.
Dave is the Managing Editor of FanGraphs.
Their farm system is shockingly bad too.
they didn’t need to have a good system if their ML team performed up to its ability. Take a look at the Tigers for a comp.
Gump is making the point that there’s no cavalry coming by way of the farm system.
You need a good system when so much money in the future is already tied up and you can’t keep just throwing money at players and problems.
They do have plus human CJ Cron though: http://www.fangraphs.com/not/c-j-cron-plus-plus-human/
You said “if the A’s could replicate that .654 run over the rest of their games, they’d end up with 93 wins and have a pretty good shot at one of the two wild card spots, and maybe even the division if Texas fell apart.”
Actually, if the A’s had a .654 winning percentage over the rest of their games, they’d end up 102-60…
Don’t know if it said “A’s” earlier, but it says “Angels” now.
You have to wonder if Hamilton is just uncoachable or something at this point. Everyone in baseball seems to know his kryptonite except him.
Billy Beane maintained that all hitters are uncoachable when it comes to patience/strike zone judgment. Hyperbole, but basically accurate, I think. Old guys get more patient when the bat speed slows, otherwise, aaah.
So I’m certain Hamilton sees what he sees, so swings at what he swings at. And maybe due to aging, is just not as effective at it as he once was. I’m sure well before this year pitchers also tried not throwing him strikes, and Hamilton overcame it then. Maybe now, he no longer can.
Maybe he knows it too, but can’t change? Or maybe there has been too much positive reinforcement for poor approach due to his (before this year) extraordinary talent — after all, he does have a career OPS of about .900 despite said approach.
You are alive? How old are you? 200? Wow!
Maybe it’s those voice(s) Hamilton keeps hearing. No telling what they’re telling him. Maybe a little Thorazine would improve his game.
I would suspect that a guy who has to have a full-time babysitter to keep him from doing stupid,self-destructive things and whose wife will only let him have a couple of dollars in his pocket lest he wind up in an opium den in Bangkok is not very good at making rational decisions .
That may be the second most reprehensible comment I’ve ever seen.
How is that reprehensible? Yeah, there is some hyperbole in there, but the basic facts are all true, right? And someone who does this probably isn’t the most likely to change a pattern of bad behavior yes?
I am admittedly curious as to what won Cee’s award for the single most reprehensible comment he’s (she’s?) seen…
But, the fact that he is willing to hire a full time baby sitter and apparently listen to him and he’s willing to listen to his wife indicates that he recognizes the problem and is willing to do what it takes to get it fixed. This puts him above say a Daryl Strawberry who is unwilling to get help. So, maybe there’s hope.
Exactly. I know plenty of addicts who would never agree to such an arrangement. They might not have $100,000,000 to lose, but they do have mothers and fathers and sibling and children to lose. That he’s willing to do so means a lot when dealing with an addict.
If/when things don’t turn around, do they dare become sellers at the deadline? Which assets could the Angels feasibly move for any return value?
Depends on whether Moreno grants Scioscia and DiPoto the job security to sell without getting fired. Otherwise, just hold on and hope a turnaround comes, then argue “see, just bad early luck; it’ll work next year for sure”.
Even if Moreno told me I had the job security, I don’t know that I’d believe him. Probably wouldn’t.
This comment reminds me a thought I had years ago. Did anyone ever try to run a correlation test between the length of GMs and the trades they made?
Maybe we could group sellers and buyers in each trade by WAR or ML service years. And see if a GM is more likely to be seller when they just get on board and becomes buyer when he starts to worry about his job.
And given that I sure don’t see any non-young assets, they probably should just hold on and try it again next year. Least-bad solution that I can make out.
Take our Young assets, please!
(Granted, calling Delmon an “asset” may be stretching the meaning of that term just a tad…)
they don’t really have sellable assets. maybe Weaver but what’s the point if they’ll have to carry Albert and Hamilton anyway. They are going to have to be all in for a while.
Angels have quite a few “sellable” assets. Whether they WANT to sell these players is another story.
I have said for about a month now that the Angels need to put Trout in the lead off spot and Hamilton batting second. With Trout on base, pitchers will HAVE to throw fast balls and strikes to Hamilton because if they don’t, Trout will run wild stealing bases.
They then should have Trumbo hit third and Pujols fourth (since Pujols is having production problems because of his foot injury).
So the line up would be:
Trout
Hamilton
Trumbo
Pujols
Kendrick
Of course stick in the mud, do the same thing Scioscia wont even try this…..
Changing the lineup order. Amazing how many problems that solves in fans fantasies.
Hamilton’s struggles are less about needing to see more fastballs, and more about needing to swing at pitches in the strike zone. Pitchers could still throw Hamilton fastballs to deter the running game, but the way Hamilton is hitting right now the pitchers wouldn’t have to put them anywhere near the strike zone.
If given the opportunity to choose between “striking out Josh Hamilton on breaking balls and maybe letting Trout steal 2B” versus “feeding Hamilton fastballs and maybe keeping Trout at 1B” I doubt many managers would choose the latter. Not only can Trout steal a base against any pitch, you are suggesting opposing managers would be “forced” to guard against the equivalent of a sacrifice bunt (trading an out for a runner moving from 1B to 2B). The sac bunt has negative value in just about every situation.
If Trout is on First pitchers might still be throwing breaking balls to Hamilton but here are the catches;
1) Trout will have more opportunity to steal Second.
2) With Trout on and a threat to steal, one of the middle infielders is going to have to shade towards Second. So, even if Hamilton swings at a breaking pitch out of the strike zone and makes weak contact, there is a better chance of a ground ball finding a hole. Also, if Trout is on First and Hamilton pulls a ground ball there will be a larger hole on the right side for it to go through.
3) With Trumbo batting behind Hamilton, pitchers will be more likely to through strikes to Hamilton because, if they don’t and Hamilton decides to start taking pitches and drawing Walks, then you will have both Trout and Hamilton on base.
As it is now, with Hamilton hitting behind Pujols, Trumbo and sometimes Kendrick, opposing pitchers have no real incentive to throw strikes or fast balls to Hamilton because those three are not base stealing threats.
Look, the Angels have a losing record, are well out of play off contention and are having trouble scoring runs.
I know Tony LaRussa used to LOVE to have a power hitter batting second and it worked great. There are a few other teams who have power hitters batting second (I think the Yankees had Cano batting second last night).
My point is, Scioscia has had one third of the season to try and get the offense going and what he has done so far hasn’t worked. Aybar is currently slashing .268/.284/.362 while Trout is slashing .299/.371/.547. Yet Aybar continues to get at bats in the lead off spot. Why not put Trout in the spot he was successful at last year and a spot where the Angels would get more production out of? Then why not move Hamilton to a spot where he might have more success than he currently is?
If it doesn’t work, so what? If I were Moreno and I had spent as much money as he has the last three years and the Angels hadn’t made it to the Play Offs, I would be looking at Scioscia as the first fall guy. With the team struggling now, if I were Scioscia, I would be trying as many things as possible to shake things up and try to get things straightened out.
Agreed in large part because teams should really generally favor slotting their best bats toward the top of the order anyway all else being equal. But old school GMs like to stick w/ speedy, slap hitters in the 1/2 holes for the most part — they’re just very lucky to have Trout being that rare exceptional combo of bat-and-speed — so…
This is pure speculation. Many aspects of what you say have been disproved in multiple studies.
I’m sure the Angels have a lineup analysis program that provides something like the optimal lineup every day, and I’m equally sure that Sciosia ignores it, using “logic” similar to yours.
I like the sac bunt late, trailing by one run, first and second and no outs. Depending on the batter.
You’re missing the fact that opposing teams would simply pitch out to stop Trout from stealing, since Hamilton would still swing.
You beat me by 4 minutes, you little rascal!
Great minds, my friend.
Simple solution which I didn’t originally post but had already thought of; for the first three or so games after I had rearranged the batting order, I would tell Trout not to try and steal and would ORDER Hamilton to take pitches until he got a strike on him. That way, if opposing teams thought Trout was going early in the count and wanted to pitch out a few times in a row then all they would be doing is letting Hamilton get ahead in the count.
If Hamilton DID swing at a pitch before he had a strike on him, I would fine him the first time he did it and bench him the second time he did it.
My WHOLE thought process here is that Hamilton is being paid a LOT of money and is in a funk. If the Angels are going to succeed this year they are going to HAVE to have Hamilton hitting well.
By putting him after Trout and before either Trumbo or Pujols that gives Hamilton the best chance at success.
If your intent is to lose credibility, then you’re right, that is a simple solution indeed!
I have an idea. Let’s take our fastest runner, and tell him not to steal any bases for the next few days. And you know the guy we signed to a $125MM contract to hit in the middle of our lineup? Let’s prevent him from swinging the bat, even if it’s a fastball right down the pipe!
I have an even better solution. Make Hamilton back right handed! Then he wouldn’t be able to swing at pitches! I’m not sure how to prevent Trout from trying to steal though. Perhaps crippling him in some way would be effective.
Is there a link to this article on bleacher report? No offense but what is Ctownboy doing on Fangraphs?
I don’t disagree with you sentiment, Los, but there really is no reason to add “no offense” when you clearly mean to imply offense.
Wouldn’t they just throw a lot of pitchouts? Chances are, Hamilton would swing anyway.
That makes sense as a joke, but you guys can’t be serious about Hamilton actually swinging away at pitchouts, right? 🙂
No, they’re semi-serious; Hamilton swings at pitches 2 feet from the plate.
That, and get the Rally Monkey up in the second inning instead of the 7th.
Or get a Rally Banana Slug.
Stop feeding the hitters pre-game turkey sandwiches and warm galsses of milk.
How else are we going to get to play with their Mattel football game and EZ-Bake Oven?!
Before each game the whole clubhouse watches home movies of Trout’s boyhood trip to Michigan
Turn away, this is the part where they change me.
It’s a reasonable suggestion, actually. Not sure it’s a cure-all, but it’s something that would be worth a shot.
they need to do something to try and shake things up. to be fair, they were headed in the right direction until the Astros series. They can still make the division interesting. But they can’t waste much more time.
To be fair, they just got swept by the Astros.
um I know.
They’re kind of like the White Sox but with a bit more money sunk into the roster and at least one young star. Hamilton looks like he’s turning into a rich man’s Adam Dunn. Pujols looks like he’s turning into a rich man’s Paul Konerko only at a younger age.
At least Hamilton can play defense and help the Angels there where as Dunn is an Iron Glove on D and is more likely to hurt the White Sox …..
After this year:
Dunn = 1yr/$15m
Hamilton = 4yr/$100m
The Angels need to play .540 baseball the rest of the way just to finish at .500, seems possible. To play at a .625 clip would take a collapse from Texas who they play ten more times. They also play Boston 6 games, Cardinals 3, NYY 6. The schedule is not their friend.
The schedule is nobody’s friend this early in the season.
“And, unfortunately for Jerry DiPoto and Mike Scioscia, there isn’t really an identifiable fix to their problems.”
I disagree.
1-Find someone to take the remaining $228,000,000 of Pujols’ contract.
2-Find someone to take the remaining $125,000,000 of Hamilton’s contract.
3-Trade for a pitcher for someone like Segura. Looks like star.
It can’t be too hard to find a GM willing to pay $25M a pop for aging former stars. Seriously, I know moves go south now and then. But this is four years running that the Angels have made a major, major off-season move, only to have it blow up virtually from Day One.
You know where this all started? Once they decided to pass on Beltre, they felt the need to keep up trading for Wells. Once that didn’t pan out, they doubled down on Pujols. Then they needed to quadruple down on Hamilton, and throw Segura in for hahas.
Had they simply signed Beltre, and done nothing else, they’d have Beltre at 3rd, Segura at SS, Napoli at 1st, Morales at DH, Trumbo in LF, and Trout in CF. They could’ve put me in RF and still have an awesome lineup, not to mention about a gazillion $$$ leftover from not acquiring Wells, Pujols, and Hamilton.
The Beltre non signing looked idiotic from day one, especially since he ended up signing a reasonable contract that only looks like a bigger bargain after he became a perennial 5 win player. Sadly, the same could be said for the Tigers who passed on Beltre for the corpse of Brandon Inge which ultimately lead to a 9 year albatross. The lack of interest in Beltre during that offseason was puzzling to say the least
I think the game underrated the effect of Seattle’s stadium on Beltre’s bat that year.
“It can’t be too hard to find a GM willing to pay $25M a pop for aging former stars.”
Unfortunately, that GM is already employed by Arte Moreno.
Aside from Trout, is there anybody in the Angels organization that another team would want badly enough to eat one or both of those contracts? Neither of those albatrosses are moving without the Angels picking up a chunk of the tab. They had to pay 2/3rds of Vernon Wells’ remaining contract to move him and these two contracts are worse than Wells’ remaining contract.
Trout + Pujols + Hamilton for a C Prospect? I wouldn’t. I figure Hamilton and Pujols have negative equity of about $150M. Even at 7 wins per, Trout probably isn’t worth more than Hamilton’s loss at this point.
I’m tapped.
1-Find someone to take the remaining $228,000,000 of Pujols’ contract.
2-Find someone to take the remaining $125,000,000 of Hamilton’s contract.
3-Trade for a pitcher for someone like Segura. Looks like star.
So basically, there isn’t really an identifiable fix to their problems.
Not until there is a time-reversal machine.
When I watch the Angels, I can’t help but notice all the outs they’re giving away.
Their offense has hit into more GDP than any other team in the majors. They’ve also hit more SF than any other club. They’re the 4th best team at getting CS (behind Mil, Hou, & Ari), being successful in only 58.9% of their steal attempts.
Meanwhile, their pitching staff is dealing more walks than all but 5 teams. The defense has turned so few double plays… only 5 clubs have turned fewer. Only 7 teams have a worse Fielding %. And they’re allowing base stealers to run at will (they catch only 16% of ’em!!).
so they suck!
I wonder if the team is the wrong design for what Scioscia does (scrappy ball?). How does the line up compare (slg % etc, pitcher types) to the successful Scioscia teams?
All the more crazy that they have Trout dragging all those numbers down for them… :-p
I am very sad.
If the Yankees void A-Rod’s contract, maybe the Angels can offer him an 8 yr/$160 mil deal to secure 3B, sign Jose Conseco to 6/$100 mil to secure LF, and Babe Ruth to a century/$5 bil to secure the rotation and RF.
Maybe they can get Bobby Bonilla out of retirement!
bigger flop, angels or jays? as a jays fan i dont think i’ve ever died as much with every loss as i have this year.
The TO problems are far smaller. The biggest issue, from my perspective, is that Miami backloaded the contracts. Which meant that they got one year of Reyes and Buerhle really cheap, waited for them to be one year older, then traded the expensive years to TO.
TO would’ve been far better off just having signed Reyes and Buerhle when they were FAs. I think both trades were weak/bad, but don’t begin to compare to Pujols or Hamilton.
Think of it this way, if you wanted to trade Buerhle, maybe you cut a check for $33M. If Hamilton was traded, maybe LA cuts a check for $45M. If they wanted to get rid of Pujols, it would cost them at least $100M.
Reyes shouldn’t even be a part of this. When he heals up, there’s a reasonable chance he will return to being one of the best shortstops in the league. Hamilton isn’t hurt and Pujols may not get better.
I don’t disagree that he’s one of the best SS in the game when healthy, but his ability to stay on the field was a known concern when Miami signed him, and when Toronto acquired him.
He’s part of it because he is the lone remaining piece of their off-season dealings, which currently has any value. Four top-50 prospects, plus a ton of money, and all they have to show for it is Reyes, and they could’ve signed him for nothing a year earlier.
Much is being made about the hitting and starting pitching but not enough is being made of their bullpen. This team cannot compete with that bullpen.
how bad is the Pujols contract looking at this point? At the time, many people suggest Pujols contract was what you’d expect to pay for him but perhaps a little high in total dollars and total years, but at least more reasonable than what Prince Fielder got. Now? Fielder is still a productive hitter and Pujols is continuing to slide rapidly towards mediocrity and has a ton of dollars and years left to go.
Will Albert just retire in another 2 or 3 years? Or will he be paid a king’s ransom as a bench warmer for > 5 years?
given the choice of $180M or nothing I’d take the $180M. From a player’s perspective they make less than market value during their team control years, so I doubt they feel a whole lot of guilt about making more than market value during their free agent years. Particularly since the signing team knows the risk when they put the contract in front of him.
FWIW, Albert has said he will not stick around for the money, that when he can no longer play he will get out. I guess the question is, what standard of performance, and for how long, would he consider “no longer play”?
Another factor to consider is how much he wants to move up on all time lists. He will hit 500 HRs, for sure, but at the rate he’s going, he will have to hang around for more than 2-3 more years to reach 600. And will probably close to five more years to reach 3000 hits.
A lot of people say that, but it hardly ever happens in reality. I think Gil Meche walked away from more than $10MM when he retired, but I can’t remember anyone else. Certainly not to the tune of $100+MM.
Mark McGwire
Lots of guys walk away from a little bit of money. Billy Wagner for another.
Sandberg
Pujols also said he wouldn’t leave St. Louis over money. I think his wife is going to have a huge say in this. I’ve met her before and she’s not a nice person. I can’t imagine she lets him leave ANY money on the table, let alone $100M+.
IIRC – the general opinion here about the Pujols contract was that for it to work out for the Angels, almost everything would have to go right. IOW – that the contract was unreasonable.
This may be because I’m a Blue Jays fan, but I wish people would stop using the phrase “rock bottom.”
It is a meaningless cliche. Things can almost always and frequently do get worse.
This phrase has almost as little value when discussing baseball or, really, anything as the oft-trotted gem “going forward.”
This being this: Going into the weekend, the average hitter going up against Houston’s pitchers had posted a .370 wOBA.
They need to move Trout away from Pujols in the lineup. Pujols swings at way too many pitches. I can’t count how many times that Trout is on the move and Pujols has a foul ball. I wish there was a stat that counted attempted steals + foul ball.
And when Trout doesn’t run Pujols GIDP.
I wonder why Pujols can’t hit away from that team that has employed Mark McGuire as a hitting coach? Maybe it is the same reason he can’t hit as well without LaRussa (the former manager of Canseco and McGuire in their primes) as his manager. Anyone remember that Albert got a mention in Canseco’s book? Naaaah he is just in a slump thats all!!!
You read Canseco’s book?
Pujols was very successful long before McGuire was brought in. I sometimes wonder if Pujols isn’t older than he says he is simply due to his unusual career arc, but there is no evidence of steroid use.
I’m certainly not surprised by an “early” decline from Pujols.
I know Pujols is from the Dominican (where everyone lies about their age or name!), but he has lived in the US since he was a kid (he graduated from high school in Missouri) and is an American citizen. It is fairly unlikely that a fake birth certificate managed to pass US immigration’s scrutiny.
Probably not much incentive for his parents to lie about his age way back then… unless he was already looking like a baseball phenom I guess…
As for INS, they *all* have to pass at some point, so I doubt that makes much diff. If anything, I’d think INS would be more diligent about vetting age/birthdate for someone who’s signed for pro baseball than your average kid moving here…
He moved when he was 16 (if you believe him), that’s plenty old enough for a parent to drop his age a year or two in order to attract more attention from scouts. According to wikipedia, he was walked in most of his at bats his senior year because coaches thought he was over 18.
So this idea is by no means new and now with his “early” decline to match his “early” peak, we have an additional reason to think he’s a little older than he says…
Trade a pitcher for a bat like Segura? Yeah, that’s rich, considering the Angels traded Segura for Greinke!
David Cameron mentions the Angels have lacked starting pitching. Bet they could use the likes of Matt Harvey or Patrick Corin–both drafted by the Angels! The Angels drafted Harvey out of high school in 2007, but he opted to go to college. The Angels later drafted Patrick Corbin, but traded him to the Diamondback in the Haren deal. Included in that trade was also Tyler Skaggs. Skaggs lost the competition with Corbin for the 5th spot in the AZ rotation, but got the call-up for game one of the Diamondback-Rangers double-header after Ian Kennedy cut his finger doing the dishes. The 21-year-old Skaggs pitched 6 innings of scoreless 3-hit ball to earn the victory.
Back to Segura, the Angels drafted Jean Segura in 2007, but traded him (along with some other promising prospects) to the Brewers for Zach Greinke (look what that got them), and now Segura (as of last week) just happens to lead the N.L. in hits, batting average, and triples, plus 2nd in steals and 3rd in total bases, while also playing above-average SS.
At least they had the good sense not to trade Trout! Clearly the
front office is doing a good job of identifying talent, but you have
to wonder if Arte Moreno is driving the front office to acquire
big-name, big-$ talent (Pujols, Greinke, C.J. Wilson, J. Hamilton) to
the detriment of the team’s overall future success.
Why is this being minused? What he’s pointing out is that the Angels have drafted OK (debatable), but a la the 80s Steinbrenner Yankees have gone after the big $$$ FAs very much to their own detriment (don’t see how that is debatable, right now)
I don’t get it either, but I gave you a +1. 😉
🙂
Get a room you two!
I down voted it for missing that JoeBrady clearly realizes that they traded away Segura for a short, injury filled, rental of Grienke. But, now a feel bad because the rest of the comment was unknown to me and interesting. Particularly, the fact that Skaggs and Corbin both went in the Haren trade. This trade was mocked here because DiPoto claimed he was trading Haren for Joe Saunders because of Saunder’s winning percentage. Maybe this was a blind squirrel finding a nut, but the Diamondbacks are now the clear winners of that trade. Corbin and Skaggs could be anchors for years to come while Haren has faded.
Had I been a little smarter, I’d have added that they need to trade someone like Wilson for both Corbin and Skaggs. Sarcasm doesn’t always translate in print.
Why is this being down-voted? These are all true, sad things.
Wow, Corbin was in that trade also?
Pujols just hit a Rock Bottom on the Cubs.
Watch the angels are going to be the reason the Astros give up a third straight #1 draft pick to Miami.
‘The Angels are better than they’ve played’ been hearing that for 3+ years, it’s great for ticket sales. Just a rephrasing of “we’ll get’em next year”.
I still remember that guy who called in to the radio crying when they signed Pujols and Wilson, as if the WS was a lock.
Yes yes I know the Dodgers have flopped too, but we just got HR back, Puig is in and Kemp will eventually start hitting. No way we are worse than the Angels! Didn’t they trade for Greinke? Why not sign him? Didn’t the Giants trade Wheeler for Beltran?? Hope that doesn’t bite those teams in the future……
if i’m Giants, I’m ok with Wheeler/Beltran move considering the WS that they won. I’d trade anyone to get a WS (srs).
The trade was made the year before they won the World Series. The Giants could have Wheeler AND a ring.
Would Angels be better off right now if they had signed Loshe? Angels already gave away their top pick by signing Hamilton.
Here’s a hypothetical I’d like to see someone at Fangraphs take up. Imagine the prospect haul the Angels would get for Mike Trout – probably the biggest haul in major league history. I’d imagine just about any team would give the Angels their 3-5 best prospects. So the question is, if the Angels are truly frakked, would it actually serve the franchise to trade Trout? They’ve still got an excellent centerfielder in Peter Bourjos and could field an outfield of Trumbo, Bourjos, and Hamilton going forward, with Kole Calhoun 4th.
As an Angels fan I don’t want that to happen, but its interesting–if slightly nauseating–to ponder.
I don’t think any one team has the prospects to make such a trade in any way fair. It would have to be some crazy 3 or 4 team trade and the partners would have to take some of the awful contracts of the Angel’s hands, so these would have to be large market teams.
Teams could make a deal for Trout, it’s not like it’d be completely impossible to match his value. Off the top of my head I could think of a few reasonable deals for him:
BOS: Bogaerts, Bradley Jr., Webster, Barnes, and De La Rosa for Trout
MIN: Buxton, Sano, Gibson, and Rosario for Trout
PIT: Cole, Taillon, Hanson, Heredia, and Bell for Trout
ARZ: Skaggs, Bradley, Eaton, Davidson, and Trahan for Trout
Except Trumbo loses a lot of defensive value playing OF instead of 1B/DH
You’re still fracked if you keep Pujols and Hamilton’s salaries. By trading Trout, you’re basically pushing back your date of respectability a few years. You’d stink for 2-3 years, but even when the new set of prospects emerged, you’d still be stuck with even further declining Pujols and Hamilton hogging up $50M.
Absent finding another team like the Angels to dump Hamilton and Pujols on, you are in deep doo.
looks like money doesn’t solve everything
It is interesting to note how the “Astros Experience” serves to differentiate the Angels from Texas & Oakland…..As noted, the Rangers and A’s are 14-1 versus Houston, and most of those games have resembled a cat torturing a wounded mouse before killing it…..Anytime the Astros appear to be “in” the game, Beltre or Donaldson or Berkman or Cespedes will get a big hit and put them out of their misery. By contrast, the Astros are not only 7-3 against the Angels, but lost two of those games in the late innings and could well be 9-1…..there is little doubt that when Houston plays the Angels, they know they can stay in the game due to the dysfunctional Angel offense, and the hitters know that the two or three runs they scrape up might be enough to win, which is never the case against Texas and Oakland…..
Of course, the Angels against the Rangers & A’s (3-9 so far this year) kinda reminds you of a cat batting around a ball of yarn as well……it’s a deadass baseball team, no nicer way to say it.
On the issue of moving Trout to leadoff: I don’t understand why Howie Kendrick isn’t leading off. For most of the season, he’s had the best BA on the team, but he usually bats 6th or so. Why not have him and Aybar switch places?