Yep. With the end of the Pujols contract finally in sight, and with young players making the minimum figuring to contribute as soon as next season, I'm guessing that opens up a ton of room in the budget for a FA signing like Cole or Sale should he become available. They've also got a lot of redundancy in their top prospects which they can use to trade for an impact pitcher when it's time.
The team isn’t close to being good, please tell me why you believe that isn’t true.
The issue isn’t signing players, it’s the players he signed. Everyone knew Pujols and Hamilton would be bad contracts. It was also apparent our biggest hole was pitching, and Eppler and Dipoto did nothing to solve it.
Please explain what the hell you mean by that.
I don’t bloody well care what Keith Law says. The farm is not top 10, and prospect sites don’t think so either.
What I meant is you make bad points with poor arguments propping them up.
All of the other teams with star young players are winning playoff games. Mookie Betts, who is the second best player, at least in the AL, just won the World Series. Meanwhile, we have had the best player in baseball for 7 years, have won 0 playoff games, and aren’t any closer to winning any than they were before. As both an Angels fan and a baseball fan, there is nothing irrational about being upset of the state of the team. We have a top payroll, top attendance, and the best player in baseball. It is not irrational to expect more out of this franchise.
The bolded is where your argument turns nonsensical. It's fine to be upset that we aren't better than we are (Eppler's signings have been a mixed bag) but it's pretty much inarguable that the organization is in much better shape with much more prospect currency than they were when Eppler took over for Dipshito
I agree that his signings are very questionable, which is part of why I don’t like him. We need to allocate more resources to pitching. I also don’t like that Gio Gonzalez just signed for 3 million, yet we gave an inferior pitcher who is a noted clubhouse problem almost 5x the money. If Eppler’s goal is to rebuild the farm, he needs to blow up the team and not trade anyone besides Ohtani and Trout, because as it stands, the farm is not top 10.
You said it yourself that the team isn’t any closer to contending. Pitching has been our problem for years. Our only notable pitching prospect is Canning. Until we start putting a lot more resources until building an MLB caliber rotation and bullpen, I don’t like this team’s chances.
I don't believe I said they aren't any closer. I said there's still a ton of work to be done to become a championship contention. They had only one good prospect when Eppler took over (he traded him for Simmons). It's tough to make a team into a contender when that's the case. At least now they have a CHANCE to make the requisite moves to become a contender. Will they, is a different story
I agree, but I’m still not confident the organization values pitching enough for me to feel like they’re going to be capable of building a contender. When they prove that wrong, I’ll start being more optimistic
I envy who the Dodgers have in charge of their scouting, they've been finding studs internationally as well meanwhile Dipoto spent overslot to sign Baldoquin over Vlad Jr.
Eppler is not doing it the right way. He is trying to rebuild without fully rebuild when the team needs it. If he were smart and having a strong farm was really so important to him, he would trade everyone other than Trout and Ohtani to build up a farm system that is truly top 10, instead of the half rebuilding, half competing bullshit he has them doing right now.
A comparable situation would be if the Oilers had a top 10 farm system atm
The Angels are worse than the Oilers, at least the Oilers were able to develop another elite player like Draisaitl, and had the balls to fire their piss poor GM and manager, whereas we had to wait for them to step down. Not to mention when the Oilers had their great season, they at least made it a game away from the Conference Finals, whereas the Angels got swept in round one. I've made the comparison of these two teams for awhile now and it scares the daylights out of me.
It wasn't that long ago that the Yankees & Dodgers had one of the best farm systems in MLB & they did that without tearing it all down.
They also were able to build that while still being a good team, whereas we get neither one of those.
