Right-hander Julio Teheran was a key offseason acquisition for the Angels, but the right-hander has struggled out of their rotation so far. Manager Joe Maddon said Wednesday the Angels will move Teheran to their bullpen as a result, Maria Torres of the Los Angeles Times was among those to report. The Angels haven’t named a replacement, though Jeff Fletcher of the Orange County Register suggests it could be Jaime Barria or Matt Andriese.
The 29-year-old Teheran joined the Angels on a one-year, $9MM contract in free agency. At the time, he was coming off a long and respectable run as a workhorse in Atlanta, where he pitched from 2011-19. Teheran ended his Braves tenure with seven straight seasons of over 170 innings and a cumulative 3.67 ERA/4.23 FIP.
The production Teheran gave Atlanta would’ve been (and still would be) welcome for the Angels, who have struggled to find consistent rotation options in recent years. But Teheran, whose 2020 was delayed because of coronavirus concerns, has fallen flat in three starts, in which he combined for a mere eight innings. At the same time, he has already given up 11 earned runs on 13 hits, including six homers, with five walks against six strikeouts.
Of course, Teheran’s far from the only disappointment on an Angels club that hoped to contend this year but has instead gotten off to a dismal 8-16 start. They seem to be lining up as sellers heading into the Aug. 31 trade deadline, and with Teheran just a few months from another trip to free agency, the Angels could try to move him. That will be a tall order, though, unless he rebounds from their bullpen over a short period of time.
Should be Jaime Barria moved in as a starter
Angels might as well trade Trout. They just can’t put up a good enough team around him to win a championship.
Or trade their GM. The GM invests money in all the wrong ways.
Although I’m anything but an Eppler fan, it’s not the GM – it’s the Owner
Moreno’s a known busybody with a history of forcing his GMs to make certain moves for flashy bats he becomes infatuated with, regardless the cost, commitment, fit and longterm logic. The cash to those bats then makes it impossible to address other issues properly, leaving the Angels constantly looking in the reclamation bins for arms especially
Been this way ever since he bought the club, with the same issues dooming the team each season
The Starting pitching has not been good, but it’s not the starting pitching, it’s the bullpen. For years the Angels haven’t been able to do anything with the bullpen. Half the players are serviceable. Half the players are horrid. And you never know from year to year which half.
They come into a game and the game is over.
Not the GM that is all Arte Moreno. He likes going after big bat acquisitions instead of pitching.
What are you talking about? This is a good team that got off to a lousy start in a short season. The Angels hitting is top tier and they have a few great young pitchers (Canning, Heaney Bundy {who is only 28}).. The only real financial commitments Billy has long term are Trout and Rendon which both seem sound. Given where the farm and team were then he took over, I think he’s done a tremendous job.
“few great young pitchers (Canning, Heaney Bundy {who is only 28}).. The only real financial commitments Billy has long term are Trout and Rendon”
Regarding the contracts;
119 mil – 2021 to Trout, Rendon, Upton, Pujols
102 mil – 2022 to Trout, Rendon, Upton
That’s 221 million committed to the next 2 years, and it will once again cripple team additions for both seasons (!and it was 115 for the 4 in 2020, so not much change at all for those 2 more years)
Regarding the supposedly “young” pitching;
Both Heaney & Bundy will be free agents after 2021. Their ages don’t really matter much when the team only has about 8 months of (optional, arbitration salary) control left on them (plus, neither of them are that good anyway, regardless of a couple fluke games so far this season)
But with Eppler now seeing 5 straight years of sub-500 results (off an inherited club that was at a 525 w%) I expect he’ll likely be fired as the scapegoat this year. The results aren’t even remotely trending in the right direction (494 in 2018, 444 in 2019, 320 in 2020)
Its Artes’ fault though, not Eppler
Seems like we’ve been over this before. Trout has a full no trade clause. So they can’t trade Trout even if they wanted to.
Talk to Griffey first.
patience is a virtue
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.
That’s the Angels philosophy in a nut shell. Sign big hitters but ignore, for the most part, the pitching.
Not accurate at all. They traded for pitchers and tried to sign the big fish pitcher. Theyve also not really given away any TRASH long contracts to vanity stat players since Epp took over. .
The is like last year situation with Harvey and Cahill signings
And cahill looked good last night. Prior to angels pitches well. Bombs with them. Resigns elsewhere and pitches well again. Then again he has always pitched well against them throughout his career
But youre right, seems like more money given to a pitcher that doesnt work out in the least
You mean signing older burnt out pitchers on the back end of their career isn’t a good strategy?
I liked the Cahill signing, loathed the Harvey signing. And I liked the Teheran signing more than either of them.
I agree that the Teheran signing was the best of the three
The problem is a competing team has max one of those guys in a rotation. The angels were hoping for… 600 innings from them? Even 300? as someone said above, it’s been their problem for a long time. Constantly patchwork the rotation. Been this way since weaver
Anyone who picks this guy up next year is going to look really good.
Here comes all the Braves fans comments hahahaha!
That sucks for Julio, he’s a great dude and works extremely hard…Hopefully he can work his way back slowly but surely..
he shouldve signed with any of the 29 teams that aren’t a pitchers’ career death trap.
The Rockies front office is going to use this post when negotiating with free agent pitchers now.
i mean that staff’s numbers this year look good.
Trash take. Dude had COVID and basically jumped in with like 2 weeks of warm up. Sure seems like Dylan BUndy doesn’t regret coming to LA.
How do you know he’s a great dude and works extremely hard?
How do all these people know who is a “GoOd cLuBhOuSe GuY?”
And here I thought Koamalu aka Pads Fans aka outinleftifleld swore up and down that Teheran was a “better than league average starter.” Just one of the many times that guy was wrong.
If you look at his production every year before this one, that is very true.
Julio Teheran had a 91 ERA- and 103 FIP- He’s a solid average to slightly above average pitcher. Not gonna blow you away, but will give you a solid 3.60 ERA/4.50 FIP per season plus 17-180 innings.
*He was
“but will give you a solid 3.60 ERA/4.50 FIP per season”
You can’t just bank on a guy producing 1.0 ERA points under FIP every year like that. Eventually it will catch up to them
And in actuality, his FIP had been 4.95, 4.83 and 4.66 the previous 3 seasons
So the Angels really signed a 4.80/4.80 guy, hoping he’d continue bucking fate with a change of league and coaches
Can an Angels fan tell me why? I understand what type of pitcher he is, soft tossing, mid-low rotation guy. Was there anything that really prompted this?
His numbers are terrible, for one thing…
I’m an Angels fan and I think they are having a knee jerk reaction. They are looking for anything to change up the season. Definitely not much patience, but it looks like money wasted again at this point. Could turn around enough to get some value in a trade
he just didn’t have much time to prepare for season. ‘ah, you are out of covid lock-down? come up and start!’
6 homers in 8 innings. He must have neck spasms from turning to watch so often.
That’s a great line.
I’ve always thought his stuff would play up in the bullpen. He’s terrible the second and worse the third time through a lineup.
Also, not good through the first time.
Yeah but he’s horrid in the first inning
Halofan, where you at brah? Teheran still on your fantasy team?
hey, you, troll must be leaking of joy for this! get the heck outta here!
Like he wouldn’t have taken his victory lap to gloat if Teheran had a 1.00 era.
You don’t like it, pick more intelligent posters to agree with, like me.
lmao! dumb troll is a megalomaniac, too!
Lol yeah, right. Dumb troll, who argued for months for why Teheran was going to be bad and then he turns out to be bad, exactly as expected.
Leave the saltiness for the Angels AAA team, little guy.
@briffle. You argued for months Teheran was going to be bad..are you sure you didn’t mean years? I’m curious what argument you used that demonstrates you were right about a Teheran implosion? Nothing from his previous seasons should have given a clue to this.
I’m not going to take the time to do a deep summarization, this was between me and Halofan, he knows what I said and what I argued about since the Angels signed him.
Believe me, don’t believe me, disagree with my reasonings, whatever, I don’t care. I got nothing to prove to anyone about this besides Halofan, which I did. I made the arguments months ago, Halofan decided to take it to a personal level, and so now I need to remind him who was right.
All I’ll say, as a Braves fan who watched him pitch his entire career, you could definitely tell his stuff was going downhill the past two seasons. A decrease in velocity resulted in him living off the plate more, more walks, longer counts, and more inconsistency on a start-to-start basis. Sure, his overall numbers looked similar to past years (with a notably increase in bbs/9), but if you actually watched the guy pitch, you knew he was a ticking time bomb. At a certain point he’d stop being able to get out of jams, those close counts will turn out less in his favor, outs turn into hits, etc. We’ve seen it countless times before with guys who start to lose their velocity, eventually they lose the ability to consistently get guys out. It’s not like I had this huge analytical study into Teheran, I simplied watch the guy throw for years and noticed the changes.
So this Vision guy, whoever he is (never heard of him) can call me a troll or you can say whatever you want, but this has nothing to do with anyone but Halofan and I.
I got nothing to prove? I have to remind him who is right? Don’t be so dramatic. This is just a baseball conversation. And maybe it got personal between you and Halo but I recall several less than equitable comments on your end as well. Your opening comment to ME when we talked about Teheran was less than kind.
You and I had quite the long conversation about Teheran as well. If you recall, it started with you pointing to the eye test in which case I questioned your eye test and so we went some rounds after that and pretty deep. Don’t know why I’m not as special but I guess I’ll take my hurt feelings somewhere else. =D
You sticking with this comment, or going for round three?
Just joking. Honestly, I don’t really pay attention to who the author is on posts. It doesn’t matter to me who is posting, just the content of their post.
The only one who really stands out is Darkside. But I think he’s a robot since he usually posts one of a handful of generic posts in every thread.
Also, if we argued before about this, why are you asking me to repeat my argument?
Because the argument was unfinished. I’ve already made a general post down below though, so if you feel like taking it up than fine if not than no worries.
I’m not going through this whole thing again about Teheran after being proven right. I’ve already spent enough time about a player I don’t care one way or the other about. I already briefly summarized above why I thought he would be bad.
Again, to those who actually WATCHED the guy pitch (like many Braves fans who shared the same opinion as me about Teheran) for nearly a decade, you knew it was time with him. I’m not going to go dig up spin rates, velocity charts, pitch movement graphs, pie charts, or any other high end analytical stats from the past few seasons because you can’t accept being wrong and can’t accept that people who watched the guy pitch knew what was coming.
You weren’t proven right. Your argument is a non sequitur.
I don’t care how many fans agree with your eye test. Lot’s of people agree on things that aren’t true.
Teherans production has been proven year after year. And by the way..our argument was not based on one year. It was his entire career. If you think last year pointed to him sucking THIS year, than you might as well start predicting that Mike Trout sucks. I mean, you’ll be wrong until you are eventually right. But Teheran’s peripherals look similar to his previous years so I have my doubts about the peripherals you want to point too.
Also..be careful. You’re getting drawn into an argument. =)
“I don’t care how many fans you can point to that agree with you because you go by the eye test. Lot’s of people agree on things that aren’t true.”
OK, but people agreed with me on what was going to happen (Teheran being bad) , it happened (Teheran is bad), so it’s been proven true, yet you’re still arguing what exactly? That I didn’t prove it true in the way that you wanted me to so it’s not true to you when it actually is true?
You seem good at leaving key parts out. I never went just by the eye test and I never used just last season for why he was going to be bad. I’ve talked about his decling velocity over the past few seasons. I’ve talked about his bb/9 going up the past few seasons (2, 3.4, 4.3, 4.3, 5.6), among others. It’s not like there weren’t statistical warning signs. You combine that with the knowledge that comes from watching the guy pitch for a decade and you knew he was toast (or didn’t, in your case).
A person, who lived outdoors his entire life, tells a city slicker that it’s going to rain. He knows it’s going to rain because he has the experience and knows the conditions for rain. You’re the city slicker that can’t understand that he knew it was going to rain because you don’t have the knowledge or understanding that the other person has. That doesn’t mean the other person got lucky or came to the truth through some illogical reason. But you’re the type of person who will argue to the end of time about something that has been proven you’re wrong about because you can’t face the music.
Feel free to continue with this, but I’m going to bed and wiping my hands of Teheran until Halofan emerges from his basement.
Plus, I’m not sure you actually contributed anything worthwhile to this argument, besides a weak attempt at a straw man argument.
“OK, but people agreed with me on what was going to happen (Teheran being bad) , it happened (Teheran is bad), so it’s been proven true, yet you’re still arguing what exactly? That I didn’t prove it true in the way that you wanted me to so it’s not true to you when it actually is true?”
First of all, you haven’t told me anything about what makes you right. Saying he will be bad and him being bad the following year doesn’t prove your point. For example I say X is true because of Y. You haven’t given me what Y is. I’ve encountered plenty of Braves fans who thought regression was coming for a lot of years, but THIS time it’s true? Why? Like I said: you might as well start predicting Mike Trout is going to be terrible. You’ll eventually be right.
I used to agree with you about Teheran BECAUSE of his peripherals. Every year his FIP and xFIP were bad. But every year he didn’t regress. Why didn’t he regress then? His peripherals have been bad for a while.
Also, I didnt leave any part out. I was just referring to the portion you were talking about. I am more than willing to discuss his bad peripherals for the last SEVEN years which didn’t lead to regression. His terrible FIPs and xFIPS year after year, didn’t lead to regression. So essentially you have been wrong, Everytime you predicted he would fail and didn’t. But if you sit there, year after, saying he is going to go down flames, you would be right about every player eventually.
You seem to like painting analogies so I will respond in kind. You are the kind of guy who goes out to a witch doctor for help. He tells you that the chicken bones he’s reading says you should jump from 40 thousand feet because you will survive, sell your story and become a millionaire.
After reading that second paragraph of your last post I’m not sure you know what a straw-man argument is. Can you point it out?
Dang Julio, sucks not using the Marlins to pump your numbers every year
Every pitcher pitches against a last place team. Sherzer, Nola, deGrom all do as well. How can you keep using that argument?
Hmm..on second thought..
Hey Briff. What do you think of LOL Stay Crying’s opinion? Teheran hasn’t regressed at all. He pitched in an easier division and now he pitches in a harder one. That’s why all his production looked okay but playing in a more difficult division than the NL East has exposed what he has been all along.
I admit, I’m expanding on Lol’s idea but their pretty easy conclusions. What do you think of that idea, Briffers?
I just know from watching every Braves game for the past forever, (obviously when I’m able) that Julio gets very lucky, has a great D behind him, doesn’t pitch well at all on the west coast and got bombed by the nationals.
I’m glad I called this when they signed him
Maybe Jo Addell should pitch, cause he can’t hit right now.
mike trout hit ,220 in his first season over 123 at-bats. adell has had just 35 ab’s!
And like trout, Adell needs AAA time…
At the end of the Dodger series (3days ago) his K rate was over 50%. That’s… not good
i agree. but where are the aaa games?
Trout was also 19 not 21. Adel looks lost could be similar to Brinson and buxton as opposed to a Justin upton type player. Should have traded him for pitching.
Thankfully for the Angels, Dylan Bundy has produced enough for the both of them
Braves fans definitely aren’t surprised right now. He flat out forgot how to pitch the 2 yrs leading up to his exit.
Could not agree more with DTD. He was terrible the last two years, and he has no life on his fastball. If he doesn’t get the borderline outside strike he is in trouble. Although for 9 million maybe a better deal than Hammels,
Mets just did the same with matz
This must be Christmas day for all the Braves fans who love to rip on Teheran. All sorts of I told you so’s just READY to be rubbed into Angel fans faces. So all the those who are ready to jump on Angel fans or crazy Braves fans like me, I have a question.
What is it in Teherans production can you point to that is the great big warning that this kind of downfall was coming? I’ve seen LOTS of players struggle this year that is just out of character for them? Why is Teheran so different?
That’s the way she goes. Sometimes she goes, and sometimes it doesn’t. She didn’t go. That’s the way she goes.
I don’t have a dog in the fight, but I didn’t think this would go well for the angels either tbh. The fact he couldn’t hold a spot in a Braves rotation for multiple seasons.. one which wasn’t all that great to begin with.. plus add Ever increasing walk rates, etc
To me, not surprising he couldn’t last all year in the rotation. I think he got hit with covid and may have had even less of a chance than we all thought in December to have a good year, but I can’t say I’m stunned as an outsider either
2013 through ’18, he has had, at least, 30 starts per season. that tells me he, sure, was able to hold a spot in the rotation.
I stand corrected. I have no problem admitting I’m wrong when I am. I guess i was thinking of the 18 playoffs vs LAD+ the many online articles it felt like I’ve seen calling for his movement to the pen, as evidence they did it. i admit I hadn’t checked his b ref
Meanwhile, a quick glance at his FIP from 2017 on shows he hardly deserved to hold a spot, even if his era occasionally landed under 4+he stayed in the starting 5. And those walks oof. He hasn’t been a smooth 6 innings for a while if you catch my drift
What a brutal season for the Angels.. Who would have guessed that the Marlins would have more wins than the Angels at this point, despite playing 6 less games?
And just how many these one-year signings would we have to endure before the Angels realize that they are squandering away the best years of Mike Trout? I mean I understand you are waiting for Pujols’s contract to be up but spendings millions of dollars on a batter (Rendon) when you really need pitching is NOT SMART!!
angels chased after most of top f/a pitchers. one took an 1 year deal not knowing the market was hotter. another had to stay close to wife’s home town. another went to yankees despite a huge offer from the angels. yet another took a 4 year deal from another st desperate team, jays. and most know 4 year deal for ryu was a mistake. well, the angels will be able to draft another st at top 10 pick.
Once Trout signed that lifetime contract, they should have tore it down similar to what Atlanta opted to do with Freddie Freeman. There’s no guarantees a rebuild would yield results, but they’re not going to win other than lucking into a wild card once or twice.
It’s very simple. You’ve got to be able to develop your own players. I honestly do not know of any winning team in the history of baseball where you couldn’t point to a group of guys brought up by that team who were big contributors. Say what you want about the Yankees (truthfully) buying championships throughout the years, but they’ve always used free agency to supplement their established, homegrown core.
Well, they can’t exactly “tear it down” while they’re still stuck with Pujols, but yes they could’ve started rebuilding by now by trying to trade away guys like Simmons and maybe even Upton while not signing Rendon.
The problem with the angels is this isn’t a first time mistake. Hamilton, Albert, Upton.. even Ohtani, Rendon too. All offensive oriented, and Ohtani being an ace in MLB was always going to be a stunningly great result. Imo it’s not even the GM anymore, it’s Arte Moreno
Refer to my reply above. They’ve been rebuilding.
They’ve been rebuilding their farm system and they’ve already started bringing up their youth. One big difference between the Angels and Braves is that the Angels can afford to keep acquiring expensive players to at least make things interesting while rebuilding. That’s exactly what the Dodgers did before they started bringing up Bellinger, Seager, etc. Only, the Dodgers decided to skyrocket their payroll over $250 million to stay in contention while rebuilding. Everyone should know by now that the Angels have not been in a position to contend since 2016, and that Billy Eppler’s focus was on their farm system and extending Trout. Roller is the young guy you bring in to hit the restart button and develop a team’s core. Then, you bring in the hired gun. They’ll probably replace him with that GM who comes in, takes the new core, and supplements with everything he can off the open market to complete the process. That’s what the Angels did when they hired Bill Stoneman. Bill Bavasi came in, rebooted their farm system, and built a good young core, and then Stoneman came in with Mike Scioscia and topped that off with solid pieces that led to long term contention. That’s what I see them doing after Eppler’s contract is up.
Peripherals. That’s all Angel fans argued over Teheran. Sometimes stats can be thrown out. He hid in the NL East pitching at Turner Field with a bunch of pitcher-friendly ballparks with no DH. He’s been in a slow decline stuff-wise. None of this should shock anyone. Angel scouts are not doing their job.
His peripherals sucked balls so I don’t see how you can say, “stats can be thrown out”. Congratulations on making no sense at all. His “peripherals” told you he hasn’t been nearly as good as his results the last couple years.
You guys are also making concrete determinations over 3 starts.
Where are your facts? Please put me in my place. You pull the drive-by stunt with a bunch of people on here yet you never seem to bring any substance. I am going by what Angel fans kept telling me. Like Andrew Heaney being great and Ohtani being an ace. I guess you fell asleep during that part. It’s ok. Age does that.
I’m not even sure how you fix the Angels at this point. Obviously, the pitching needs a lot of attention.. but even the offense is just middle of the road. It is such a killer to have Pujols and Upton clogging up premium offensive positions with bad bats. If you are the Angels, you have to release Pujols at some point and consider doing the same for Upton.
Bauer might be a good target in the offseason. He loves 1 year deals… The Angels love 1 year deals…
They were leading the AL in runs and HR’s just a few days ago. Right now their their offense is in a bit of a slump, but I think that aspect will be fine. They’ve lost a lot of winnable games because of their bullpen so far, and I think that’s where they need the biggest fix.
Send him back to the Braves…. just eat most of whatever money y’all are paying him to be a bullpen pitcher. I’m sure he’ll recapture some of his Braves self … not the great Tehran… the decent enough one… which we need bad
I see a lot comments about Teheran’s peripherals. His FIP has been close to 5.00 the last few years, so he’s gotten away with ERA’s in the mid-to-high 3.00’s. The Angels just signed him to eat innings. They didn’t expect him to be an ace. Eventually that high FIP will catch up to a pitcher, and so far it has. One thing is for certain, the Angels moved Teheran to the bullpen a lot quicker than they would’ve before when Mike Scioscia let Joe Blanton and Tommy Hanson (RIP) stink it up and waited until August of 2013 to move them to the pen. Then, suddenly the Angels started winning games like a first place team down the stretch that season. Hindsight, I know, but quicker moves like this could open the door for better opportunities for their younger starters. Although I still think they’ll have to slug their way to a playoff spot with their bullpen.