MMC
Global Moderator
He hasn't done fine at all. I'm beginning to think you haven't been paying attention to how the team has played and what is going on with the roster moves.
Mike Trout is going to be a free agent in 2 years. He has won 0 playoff games and will likely not win any before his free agency. He can choose to stay with an organization that has been a complete joke, or he can go elsewhere, likely to his hometown team who is committed to build a contending roster, who can also offer him considerably more money than we can. He has no incentive to stay with the Angels and it's painfully obvious that he wants to win. One would think we have to either prove to him that we are going to win, or we will have to trade him and other pieces and start over. Eppler has no interest in doing either of those things. His plan is to collect prospects that he is convinced will build up a top tier farm (guys like Luis f***ing Rengifo), because if Trout sees that our farm is improving, he will be hopeful for the future of the Angels. But why would Trout stay with a team who hasn't done shit with him when he can go to a team that is winning now? He has no reason to sign long term with the Angels and will not be doing so in 2020. So the logical thing to do would be to trade Trout now since we will get way more in return for 2 years of Trout vs 1, but wait! He doesn't want to do that either because he is convinced Trout will stay. We have many good pieces we could sell off if that is the direction we want to take (Simmons, Trout, Upton, Heaney, Skaggs, and Lucroy, Harvey, and Cahill at the TDL), but nope, Eppler is somehow convinced the team is good enough as is, and the farm is good enough to where he won't have to trade major assets to improve it. So we are now stuck with watching 2 more mediocre seasons in which we will finish below .500 yet again, until we witness Trout walk in 2020 when we will REALLY start to suck.
Eppler is a horrific GM that is tearing the Angels apart. He needs to make significant changes to his plan, or he should be fired immediately. The Angels will continue sucking for years to come because of him.
EDIT: Also please don't use the Pujols contract to excuse anything. The Hamilton, Weaver, and Wilson massive contracts just ended and he did jack shit with the freed up money. Pujols being gone wouldn't make us all of a sudden open our wallets.
