Angels In Need Of Another Arm?

How bout they send Chone Figgins to the Cubs for Marquis or Dempster or Marshall + prospect(s)?

nobody wants marquis. id bet good money brian that u r a cubs fan. only a cubs fan would suggest something so ridiculous. as for the angels they are one of a very small number of teams that could afford to lose 2 starting pitchers. they had seven at least decent starters. plus lackey and escobar will be back shortly. they r fine.

This team has plenty of options, Garland/Weaver/Saunders/Santana/Moseley or Adenhart are fine for a couple weeks until their aces come back. If they did get someone, they would probably have a bigger problem trying to figure out what to do with Lackey/Escobar/Garland/Weaver/*whoever*/Saunders/Santana/Mosely/Adenhart when everyone was healthy…

I think you only get worried if one of them is going to miss much more than the expected 4-6 weeks…

I would feel much better with Moseley than I would with Marquis or Marshall. Neither represents an upgrade over Moseley and both will require something (cash in the case of Marquis and something of value to trade for Marshall).

With Adenhart having a fine spring they have plenty of options. I count 6 starters WITHOUT Escobar and Lackey. Will it be ideal? No. Hard to replace two of the top pitchers in the game. Can they limp through some league average starts to begin the year? Sure.

By the way - it is a ridiculous proposal.

First, if they trade Figgins who is going to play 3rd? And please don't even mention Figgins in the same breath as Marquis and Marshall.

Second, while Willits and Rivera are blocked, that doesn't mean they are without value to the club. Being the 4th or 5th outfielder on a team like the Angels doesn't make those guys less valuable. They (especially Rivera) could start on most teams in baseball. They have plenty of value to the right team.

BTW - they would actually be the 5th and 6th outfielders (although Willits will be AAA). You have Torri, Vlad, G Anderson, GMJ, then Rivera. Throw in Haynes as a solid back-up and they have plenty of depth. They DO need to trade but it shouldn't be made out of desperation. They need to take this opportunity and move 2 of the outfielders for minor league prospects.

Despite this run of bad luck the Angels need to be looking for a deal that makes them better tomorrow.

Rivera or Willits for one(or more) of the Rays many starters.

oooh i really like that rays starter for one of the angels in the outfield. that makes perfect sense. fills needs for both teams perfectly.

Devlsh, the Angels are always worried about tomorrow ~ hence the reason that they have not traded any of their prospects the last 5 years or so. They love to have um, and just wont let go of them no matter what it means ~ see the whole Cabrera mess…(infact, they have fewer trades than anyone in baseball from what I remember, and most of those are even to trade away old guys)

That being said, a Willits/Marshall deal isnt that bad. Willits does not have great skills, and is a complete unknown for the future. He is at a peak value right now because his hype is in full-bloom ~ but its gonna drop if they hold onto him. Marshall would be a fine stopgap (if they were that worried about the 5th starter) that they could stash in AAA afterward while prepping him for the pen for the future. Not sure how Willits helps the Cubs though, because he isnt any more experienced than what they are going with to start while having that crap-shoot BA leading to OBP concerns. Unlike Pierre, he isnt slap-happy, so if his BA isnt inflated by a huge BAbip fluke (like it was last year), then you could be looking at something like the 252/349/293 he posted in the second half last year. Would they really be happy with a guy who either takes a walk or is completely useless? (But I still cant see them not going with the 6 inhouse starters for the 5 spots until everyone is healthy)

Figgins/Marquis though ~ well, that aint gonna happen. When the Cubs asked about Figgins earlier in the offseason, they were told Ramirez. That should tell ya the likelihood of him being dealt… Or as mjremmerde put it ~ “There is zero, zero, and zero chance” :)

Ryan Dempster, Jason Marquis, and Sean Marshall are all expendable. We should to try to get a Chone Figgins and Willits. Though, *sigh* I want Brian Roberts a Cub before Opening Day I also think we should get Sherill and Payton and hope we do and not over pay. I would do

Sean Gallagher
Ronny Cedeno
Eric Patterson
Kevin Hart
Jason Marquis
and Cash
for
Brian Roberts
George Sherill
Jay Payton

And if tht could happen maybe we could trade Pie, or Colvin with others to Oakland for a Blanton or Harden.

Maybe the White Sox can get something for Nick Masset. He is out of options and doesn't really fit on the team. I am not even asking something really valuable, just something. Willits would be nice, but I won't hold my breath. I'll take a low level prospect. Whoever it is will probably end up in the White Sox top 10 if he is under 25 years old.

*** edit in previous post - should say "... the rest of the year Lackey, Escobar, Weaver, Garland, Blanton."

I can't say that adding a couple of guys the M's threw out because they pitched MISERABLY in the same division is going to help. They'd be just as good letting their young guys take a crack at it.

I don't see a need to trade for Blanton, either. They'll manage fine with what they have.

But dark, your pitcher still needs to be better than the other team's pitcher on a given day...

You could manipulate the schedule so that Horacio Ramirez's ERA would be artificially low, but so would the opposing pitcher's ERA. Horacio probably loses...

Jr,

Its playing to the affects to try to minimize your risk. If he is less likely to get shelled at home, then you are more likely to stay in the game as a whole.

Ramirez is actually a perfect example! In 2007 he posted a 5.59 ERA in Pitcher-Friendly Safeco, and it resulted in a 6-3 record. His ERA on the road though, was 8.70 and produced a 2-4 record. As a whole, the team was 9-11 in his starts overall ~ with a breakdown of 7-3 in Seattle starts vs 2-8 in starts on the road.

You can easily see that his team was better off with him pitching in Seattle; atleast the park factors helped keep him from getting shelled as badly, and gave them the opportunity to stay in the game. It doesn’t matter if the other pitcher experiences the same affects, as long as the needed production doesn’t get out of a realistic reach for your hitters. The M’s scored an average of about 5 runs at Home (4.72), so if he gives up an average of 5-6 at home then they are still in the game. The M’s also scored about 5 runs (5.09) on the road though ~ so his 8-9 road range isnt going to keep them in many games.

Since we are talking about the 5th spot, a spot which can easily be juggled around in the first month ~ well, you should easily be able to see where they can go with just about anyone who can atleast just keep them in games at home and in other pitcher friendly parks… It relies on your offense to produce more; but it doesn’t put you at an instant disadvantage, because your pitcher isnt likely to get shelled…

Maybe they should just hope that someone steps up and pitches well...

Dark,

You were talking about pitchers parks that suppressed number generally. The problem with that argument is that the effect equalizes itself; the opposing pitcher gets the same gain. The advantages are off-set. This is where the Oakland analogy is off. Oakland is famous for taking advantage of the perception surrounding the suppressed numbers in trades, not on winning games because of it. ("take fair pitchers and make them LOOK special").

Now, you may be trying to make an argument that the ERA's are not decreased equally for some reason, but you haven't articulated why. When you say that "it doesn’t matter if the other pitcher experiences the same affects," you lose me. If the opposing pitcher's ERA drops 3.21 points, as does Horacio's, then you are in trouble.

Sure, if you want to identify a specific park factor that presents an advantage that only accrues to one of the pitchers (i.e., pitcher destroyed by LH hitters), then you have a real advantage. But you didn't point to any of those.

PS Don't park factos make you believe that every park has a different, ideal BAbip?

Ok, well I didn’t realize that I had to articulate exactly why such things are the case and all the specific aspects that the Angels could take advantage of. Why not? Well, because I didn’t realize that this message board would be treated as if it was a college thesis up for critique; nor did I realize that someone would expect an answer to a question never asked…

Now, there are two aspects of advantages in Anaheim which can be described ~ one in which everyone is affected similarly, and one in which they are not. There is a global suppression of power that everyone experiences equally, but not everyone is affected the same by it ~ and this specifically is the more common knowledge aspect which can be taken advantage of with even a random-scrub pitcher. It’s a park which will minimize, and often eliminate, mistakes made from having an affect on the outcome of the game; dramatically increasing your chances of a win no matter who is on the mound.

So, not sure exactly sure what you wanted to do with your little remarks and vague questions; but if you want something specific explained then maybe you should specifically ask instead of playing games.

Also, you may want to rethink the theory of Oakland increasing pitchers trade value because of park effects. The team dominated the AL-W for years because of the fact that they built their lineups and rotations/pens to best suit their surroundings; with an end result of them competing mainly because they won upward of 50 of their 81 home games. Anytime you win 50+ at home, you have a great chance of making the playoffs ~ Oakland took advantage of their surroundings in every way possible. Seattle also seems to have figured this out themselves, building a team to take advantage of their park tendencies ~ the end results were they outperformed the expected and nearly made the playoffs with what seems like smoke and mirrors to most fans.

Someone above downgraded the seriousness of the Lackey/Escobar injuries and mentioned that "the Angels are deep and can get by for 1-2 weeks".

Here's the problem folks...It's just NOT 1-2 weeks of the regular season! Lackey out AT LEAST to mid-May, and Geoff Baker yesterday was in the Angels camp and published that he's hearing AT LEAST mid-June for Escobar!!!

YIKES!

I don't care what team in MLB it is, you lose your #1 & #2 starters for 6-10 weeks at the start of the season and that's going to have a major impact on your division rankings!

Seattle pulls off a Griffey trade now, OR signs Bonds, and Angels can kiss 2008 goodbye!

Just my thought!