Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 24: The Rays Are Rolling/Assessing the Angels’ Strange Season

Episode Date: August 20, 2012

The Rays demolished the Angels in a four-game weekend sweep, which gives Ben and Sam the idea to discuss the two teams’ divergent directions since the deadline and reevaluate Anaheim’s offseason approach.

Welcome to episode 24 of Effectively Wild, the daily podcast from Baseball Perspectives. I hope you enjoyed your weekend. I spent mine killing ants. Ben spent his laying by a pool in upstate New York. Ladies. Ben, how are you? I'm great. I'm bug-bitten, but otherwise well. Well, if you need any tips for killing bugs, I'm kind of an expert. I'm also doing well. I'm glad that we're talking again. It's been 72 hours, and a lot has happened in baseball.

Do you have anything in particular you would like to talk about? Yeah, I'd talk about the Rays-Angels series that happened this weekend. Well, I would just like to talk about the Angels in general. So I suppose those will go nicely, but probably we can split them up in the middle and change course a bit. So why don't you tell me what was significant about the A's Angels Rays. A's Rangers is almost Rays Angels. It's almost exactly the same. Tell me about the Rays Angels.

So it was a four-game series that started on Thursday and ended today. And the Rays swept, and they swept very, very convincingly. In Anaheim? Yes. And they outscored the Angels, I think, 37-14. And there was no Irvin Santana involved or anything like that. It was the Angels' real name brand starters. It was Wilson and Granke and Heron and Weaver. It was the guys who had put the Angels in the discussion, certainly,

for the best rotation in the major leagues after they acquired Granke at the deadline. And the R just, uh, pretty much steamrolled them. And now, uh, the rays are leading in the wildcard race. Uh, Baltimore also is up there because Baltimore is still winning a whole lot.

Um, but the angels are now four and a half out in the wild card race. And I guess I wonder if you look back at the way both teams went about things at the deadline, the race kind of stood pat, didn't really do anything except bring in Ryan Roberts. And at the time, it seemed kind of like they were caught in between because they were close to the wild card, and yet, I mean, they're a team that sort of always has to be looking forward. Just because of their payroll limitations,

they always kind of have to be thinking about next season as opposed to going all out in this one. And so by not doing anything, they took some risk of kind of giving up guys without getting much back. They, of course, had been connected to rumors about BJ Upton and James Shields and some other players, and they ended up doing nothing. And in the days leading up to the deadline,

the talk was that with Evan Longoria ahead of schedule in his rehab, they had kind of decided that it wouldn't be such a bad thing to give it a shot and that seems to be working out well for them whereas the angels kind of went all in with the cranky trade and now it's it's not looking so good for them it looks like they may have given up some good prospects in that trade and may not get a whole lot for it. So I wonder if one team kind of went too far in the chance to get a wild card. And to be fair, I mean, we had talked about how good the Angels were looking and how vulnerable the Rangers were looking in a previous episode

and whether the Rangers were in and how vulnerable the Rangers were looking in a previous episode, and whether the Rangers were in any danger in the division. So it's understandable to see why the Angels might have gone for it, but I wonder whether this is an example of one team adjusting to the new wildcard format and one team not. In fact, there was a lot of talk about the rays and the angels perhaps hooking up for a trade in which a package different than but in with some overlap um to the one that the angels gave up for grinky in exchange for james shields which um would have been even a starker difference between the two teams' actions at the trade deadline. Well, obviously it's hard to say until we know how this plays out. And it's also possible that the Rays will play exactly one more postseason game than the Angels,

and that this will be a little bit of a forgotten storyline. But yeah, I remember talking to RJ as the trade deadline came up, and he was talking about how unfair it seemed that the Rays were going to do nothing because Joyce and Longoria had been injured, that the team couldn't really see themselves as legitimate contenders because those guys were injured and that they were not quite equipped to play without them for such a long period of time. But, you know, the Rays are, I don't know, it seemed to me a little bit odd that they weren't a bit more aggressive all along. Now, I think that part of the issue could be that they might not think that the wild card, like we talked about in a previous episode, is a prize worth sacrificing all that much for. But, I mean, this is going to be the fourth year in five that they

make the playoffs if they do make the playoffs the only team i think in baseball that can say that is going to be the yankees um and they have basically the same core that they've had with you know obviously a few exceptions but ready ready replacements, it seems like, always waiting. And basically the same attendance, unfortunately. Basically the same attendance, yeah. And I don't know. I mean, yeah, I guess the Angels and the Rays are two teams that I think both have very strong rosters. that I think both have very strong rosters, both could have been seen as favorites or strong contenders for the American League coming into the season,

and yet find themselves in really different mindsets where the Rays still don't have any sense of desperation to win this year because they are well built for the future. They don't really have any window to speak of right now because they've just been able to kind of roll their young talent from one generation to the next, replenishing, extending. Matt Moore is signed until 2046. Ben Zobrist is signed forever. Longoria is still signed, I think, through 2018 if they want to exercise those options. And Jennings is in his first full year. Whereas the Angels, because of how much they invested this offseason, I think really felt – I mean, I'm projecting here.

So I don't want to imply that this is straight from Jerry DiPoto's diary. But I think that they probably have felt like they invested so much in the winter this year that to miss the playoffs would be too disruptive, especially for a fan base that has been, the attendance has been going down for a few years now. And I think if they miss the playoffs again, they're going to really lose a lot of their season ticket base. If they lose again, Mike Socha is going to probably be the subject

of a fierce civil war within the Halo blogosphere over whether he is the problem or not and whether he should be fired or not. And so I think that in a way, there's something nice about being a team like the Rays that doesn't have much invested, even though it obviously presents challenges. It relieves you of a lot of the pressures to continually chase championships. It gives you a little bit of flexibility to rebuild on a schedule that you want to rebuild on, to not make any moves for PR basically. And whereas the angels have to do that every year. And it's that,

it's that mindset that led to Vernon Wells a couple of years ago. It's that mindset that led to cranky. And those are obviously two very different moves. And I don't want to equate them in any way, but just as far as what the front office has to do in order to keep the city and keep the fan base and to keep the team behind it are very different. And it's an interesting challenge to having a $160 million payroll. It doesn't look great, I guess, that Oakland is four games ahead of the Angels in the division despite not making any Pujols-Wilson moves over the winter. Angels in the division, despite not making any Pujols-Wilson moves over the winter?

Well, nothing looks great. And let's transition now to my topic, which is that the Angels are so bad. And this is shocking to me. I mean, they're two games over 500 right now. They are two games over 500, the Angels. You know, the Angels won 88 last year. They added Mike Trout, Albert Pujols, C.J. Wilson, Chris Iannetta, the inverse of Jeff Mathis, Latroy Hawkins, Ernie Freire, and Mike Trout. Again, I'm just going to say that. And they're two games over 500. And the question I have for you is, do we now have to change our opinions of Jerry DiPoto based on these results? I don't know. I mean, over the winter, I certainly didn't think that those moves were going to produce a 500 team, basically,

not even considering the fact that Trout was about to become the best player in baseball. History. Yes, possibly. I mean, what do you see as the main problem here? I mean, of course, I wouldn't have expected Dan Heron to fall apart. I mean, we both expected good things from him. I mean, how do you think this is happening exactly? Because you look at the team and you, I mean, there's some shakiness in the bullpen. And then there are some also, there are also some guys who are better than would have been expected there.

And then the rotation is guys who sound like they would be good if you just say their names. And then there are guys like Pujols and Trumbo and Trout and people who are surpassing or meeting expectations, certainly. So how is this? I mean, are we looking at the opposite of the Orioles, that kind of team that is just not having things go its way? Or are there some deeper problems here? Yeah, well, I think that probably the main issue is that, I mean, my guess is that Heron and perhaps Santana have something physically wrong with him. And they have both been about probably 30 runs or so worse than they should have been up to this point. And that's a big deal. I mean, Granke has been mysterious since they picked him up.

But, I mean, obviously, we didn't even anticipate that Granke would be here when the season began. They're slightly underperforming their run differential, which wouldn't be notable, except that you kind of mentally adjust your calculations at the beginning of the year for the expectation that they will slightly overperform since it's been, I believe, eight years running that they have. So, you know, maybe there's three wins there and, you know, maybe there's six in Heron and Irvin. And, you know, they didn't really have a lot of depth in the rotation. And, you know, they didn't really have a lot of depth in the rotation. So when Jerome Williams' magic kind of dried up and Garrett Richards wasn't able to step up,

they didn't have, you know, they didn't have like a ready seventh or eighth starter. But, I mean, you know what teams do. I mean, as far as I can tell, the lineup has basically performed. Ioneta was hurt that hurt a lot because they had a, some Mathis level replacements around. Howie Kendrick has been disappointing, but I mean, the lineup's been good for the most part. It's a good defensive team too. It's a very good defensive team, I believe. And you know,

Weaver's been great. C.J. Wilson had been until somebody interrupted him on his start day in New York. But before that, he had been very good. So, I mean, I really think that they've underperformed in a way that's actually fairly easy to identify. And they probably, I don't know, they've won 62 games and they've lost 60. And at this point in the season, I think I probably would have expected them to have maybe one 72 and lost 50. So you're talking about 10 fewer wins, you know, and, and that's a, that's based on a fairly optimistic projection for them.

And that's based on a fairly optimistic projection for them. So I think that my – I guess what I would say is that I have a hard time evaluating. I always have a hard time evaluating based on results. And I generally think that it probably isn't fair to judge somebody on results, at least in the short term. I liked every move that DiPoto made this winter, at least in the short term. I liked the Freire deal. The Granke one was debatable, and I think I came around to liking it. And so I still think that I haven't changed my mind on him or on that front office at all, even though this season has turned into what has been really dispiriting for everyone around the team. Yeah. And I mean, it's not as if signing Albert Pujols

is necessarily something that changes your opinion of a GM all that much, I don't think. You know, I mean, he's the best player available. He's perhaps the best player in baseball. So signing him is not really an example of finding an undervalued commodity and it's also not an example of overpaying for some overrated veteran. It's sort of an in the middle move. Well, it's a different skill. The skill is not identifying Albert Pujols.

The skill is bringing him home. Which was not something that they expected to be doing, I don't think, right? The skill is not identifying Albert Pujols. The skill is bringing him home. Which was not something that they expected to be doing, I don't think, right? Not until about two days before. As you wrote about. I mean, speaking of people who are signed forever, do you think that Socia would be in any danger at all? I mean, he's a guy who predated the GM, which is never really a good thing for a manager.

No, that's true. It's been found out recently. Yeah, that's true. And obviously it would not look particularly good if the Angels did finish somewhere around where they are now. And yet he has been there forever. He is supposed to be there forever. I don't know.

You know the team and Socia better than I do. Do you think there's any danger that he would be sacrificed? My guess is no. And I hope that, I mean, probably me saying that will guarantee that he is because we are recording this. But my guess is no. I don't really sense any obvious, I mean, it would have to be really obvious for me to sense it, but I don't really sense any obvious tension between him and the front office. He, I mean, if there's tension, it might have been more the other way because they fired

his batting coach, which he had resisted for so long midway through the season. But I think he, I gather that he took it well. And Artie Moreno is still the power in that team. And Artie Moreno and Socia have always been very close. And I just think that in general, Socia is still held in very high esteem around that team and around baseball and around Southern California. So my guess is that he won't be fired after this year, even if he doesn't make the playoffs.

But I wouldn't totally rule it out, is that he won't be fired after this year, even if he doesn't make the playoffs. But I wouldn't totally rule it out, and I think that there were cracks showing last year for sure, even in a pretty good season. And, I mean, at some point everybody just about gets fired unless they win 16 division titles in a row like Bobby Cox. And really, Socha had a very good run in a weak division. I think he's a good manager, but he had a very good run in a weak division. He won one World Series 10 years ago as they commemorated during this weekend series against the Rays.

And I think there's a sense among certain fans for sure that they've underperformed as a team in a very weak four-team division they have always had the highest payroll in that division for a while it wasn't hard to win divisions and they didn't really go any further than that and so it'll be interesting to see it'll really be interesting for me to see because i'm here and i know a lot of the bloggers and commenters and writers who are going to be batting this around. It's going to be on fire. I was going to ask you, I mean, just because we brought that up, it's a little off topic. of thinking about that sense that new general managers fire their managers, the managers that they inherit, if they don't come in with a clean slate and hire their own guy.

And the explanation is always that they wanted their own guy. And so Jeff Luneau fired Brad Mills over the weekend, or at least, I guess, told him that they wouldn't be renewing his contract and decided that it would be best to let him go right away rather than have a lame duck situation. sort of motivated by the desire to put your own guy in the position and how much is actually the old manager's shortcomings or what are seen as his shortcomings. I wonder whether it's most often that the general manager just kind of wants to put his own stamp on the organization and not be saddled with his predecessor's choice, or whether it is actually the manager is in some sense incompatible with the new general manager's philosophies, and so he thinks it would be best for the team to make a move. I mean, it is, I don't know what the stats are as far as percentage of managers fired when a new regime takes power, but I would imagine it's very high.

What do you see as the primary motivation? of a manager is hard to measure and perhaps overstated, but the value of having a manager that doesn't make your life difficult as a GM, a manager that seems to appreciate the power dynamic of working for you, and that just generally doesn't sass you is probably pretty clear to each case. And so my, I mean, just a guess would be that it's probably, I don't know, maybe not quite putting a stamp on it so much as getting a guy that you hired and who knows that you hired him. But we should get Dan Evans to address this in a column someday because there is almost nobody in the world more qualified to speak to this than Dan Evans. So, Ben, let's wrap it up.

Twenty-two minutes, I believe. This is ridiculous. I'm going to have to talk to your boss about it. We'll be back tomorrow with more Effectively Wild, and have a great Monday.