It's Arte Moreno's prerogative, as owner of the Los Angeles Angels, to jump into his team's baseball operations decisions anytime he chooses. He amassed the fortune necessary to buy the franchise, and it's his money that funds the paychecks of Mike Trout, manager Joe Maddon and new general manager Perry Minasian. To say that baseball owners at least occasionally get involved in the business of roster-building is basically redundant.
But even by that loose industry standard, Moreno has a reputation for being a tough boss, for sometimes being the wrench in the decision-making, executing some deals himself (the signing of Albert Pujols, for example) and calling off others (like when he nixed the deal for the Dodgers' Joc Pederson last winter). It'll be up to Minasian to get his work done within Arte's universe.
The Angels are in a window of opportunity, because of the competitive context in the American League West. The perception of other teams is that the Rangers and Mariners won't be competitive for a while, because they are in the early stages of rebuilds. The Oakland Athletics won the division this year, but as always, their limited payroll forces them into difficult decisions constantly. The Astros will be a team in transition in 2021, without the injured Justin Verlander and without George Springer, the free-agent outfielder who is expected to land elsewhere.
The Angels, on the other hand, are constructed around Trout, one of the best players in baseball history, right in the prime of his career. They have Anthony Rendon, one of the game's best pure hitters. Their pitching rotation has been a debilitating problem, but the Angels now have Dylan Bundy to anchor the group. But help is needed around that core -- a lot of it.
Moreno is on the record having said the team's payroll is not going to be reduced. But the question will be, can it grow? And what choices will Minasian make to improve the club, within the challenges of working for Moreno? Minasian addressed the team's need for a shortstop the other day, adding Jose Iglesias in a trade with the Baltimore Orioles, after Iglesias posted his best offensive season.
I reached out to a bunch of people who have worked for Moreno in the past and asked what advice they would give to Minasian, and their feedback was definitive.
Tip No. 1: Minasian should focus entirely on winning in 2021 and forget about the future. The 2022 season and beyond? Don't worry about it. For now, anyway. Go all-in on the upcoming season.
The Angels have not won a playoff game since 2009, and have appeared in the postseason only once since then. Trout has 12 playoff at-bats. This is what grates on Moreno's nerves more than anything else. If Minasian decides he wants to simultaneously focus on infrastructure and winning in '21, he'll probably keep some ammunition in reserve for the future -- and that would be a mistake, others say. His best chance to win favor with Moreno is by winning immediately, and if Minasian can do that, he'll buy himself some time to focus on other aspects of the organization. The advice is: If he has an extra dollar to spend, spend it on the 2021 roster.
The Angels could have a spectacular year in the draft -- they own the ninth pick overall -- and in player development, but if the big league team fails to make the playoffs, none of the minor league work will matter to Moreno.
Tip No. 2: Minasian should communicate with Moreno frequently and never let him be caught by surprise by any development. Others say Moreno wants the ultimate responsibility to be in the hands of the general manager, and he wants to believe that the GM and the manager are on the same page.
Minasian is known to be really good at working with people, at reading people and their moods. In baseball in this era, front-office folks are often defined as being part of one of two camps. You've got your Analysts, and you've got your People Persons -- and Minasian is seen as fitting into the latter group, having really started his baseball life working in the Rangers' clubhouse when Buck Showalter managed. "The Energizer Bunny," Showalter recalled, saying that the way Minasian absorbed and processed information "was like Peter Gammons on steroids."
Tip No. 3: Don't obsess over Moreno's participation (invasion?), because if he really gets to a point where he is micromanaging decisions about the Angels' roster under Minasian, that probably means the team is struggling and Minasian might have effectively lost power anyway.
The challenge for Minasian is real, because the wide perception among evaluators is that the Angels are pretty far removed from being a title contender. They were 25th in ERA in the 60-game season, at 5.09, ranked 27th in defensive runs saved, at minus-26, and were 29th in defensive efficiency. Iglesias was Minasian's first big move to help shore up those numbers. There will be others, and Moreno -- an owner who can be found hovering over instructional league action at 10 a.m. -- will be watching.
DH or no DH?
The players' association and Major League Baseball agreed to a universal designated hitter for the first time in the truncated 2020 season, and the assumption among teams and agents is that eventually, this particular rule change will be made permanent. For now, however, the DH rule is not in place for National League teams, and won't be until the union and MLB negotiate. Meanwhile, there are tons of DH types in the free-agent market, from Nelson Cruz to Marcell Ozuna, who could really benefit from some certainty about the position moving forward, because no NL team is going to engage a player it regards predominantly as a DH until the issue is settled.
But the two sides aren't engaged on this. The perception of MLB seems to be that the union regards the DH as something that the teams would prefer -- and wonders why it needs to swap negotiation equity for an inevitable change MLB wants. The perception of the union might be that MLB wouldn't mind dragging its feet on the question, because without a settlement, the leverage of Cruz et al might be hurt.
Whatever the actual reasons, the bottom line is that there are a bunch of players seen as DH types who are being directly affected by the lack of resolution. It would help those individuals if the union opened this conversation sooner rather than later -- and given that union members have more to lose or gain immediately, the practical reality is that the players' association would have to kick-start the talks and be ready to horse-trade aggressively. But the union might advise the DH types to be patient and wait for the discussions about the 2021 parameters to take shape, perhaps late next month. And it'll be a difficult wait for some players and their families.
Pay more attention to these guys
In the summer of 2019, the Brewers were intrigued by what they saw in reliever Devin Williams, as GM David Stearns recalls. Williams' velocity had jumped, and the right-hander had continued to refine what looked to be a really devastating changeup. The Brewers talked about promoting him from Double-A to the big leagues last year but took a more conservative route and put him in Triple-A before he threw a handful of innings at the end of the year. In the summer camp, Stearns said, Williams' confidence in his changeup had grown to the point he felt he could throw it in any count -- and after striking out 53 of the 100 batters he faced in 2020, Williams won the NL Rookie of the Year Award, with one of the most remarkable performances of the season.
Here are other players whose strong 2020 showing probably didn't get as much attention as deserved:
Ke'Bryan Hayes, Pirates. The 23-year-old generated a slash line of .376/.442/.682 in his first 24 games in the big leagues and made just one error at third base. A refrain you hear all the time is that you can't really assess the 2020 statistics at face value, but the fact he had a swing-and-miss rate of just 7.1% for a player that new to the big leagues -- while doing a ton of damage -- is pretty eye-opening.
Brandon Belt, Giants. For years, Belt struggled to deal with inside fastballs, and last season, he found a way to seemingly meet the ball sooner -- out front, in the parlance of hitters. The resulting difference in his performance was enormous. Belt hit .346 against fastballs, and pulled the ball 42% of the time, a significant jump. Paul Hembekides sent along these rankings for Belt in 2020.
OPS+: 178 (3rd in MLB, min. 100 PA)
wRC+: 173 (5th)
DRC+: 147 (8th)
xwOBA: .402 (8th)
Dominic Smith, Mets. A common strategy in recent years has been for pitchers to live in the top and bottom of the strike zone, with fastballs up and curveballs low. Last season, no MLB hitter did more damage against curveballs than Smith, and he did pretty well against fastballs as well, for a wRC+ of 165.
Salvador Perez, Royals. He hunted fastballs last season and batted .333, remarkable for a slow right-handed hitter. His rate of line drives (27%) was by far his highest in the past eight seasons. Perez attacked pitches and rarely missed.
Mike Yastrzemski, Giants. San Francisco wasn't really a contender, but he was among the major league leaders in WAR all season and finished eighth in the NL MVP voting. He was a 14th-round pick of the Orioles, and Baltimore essentially gave him away in a 2019 trade for Tyler Herb, but his .400 on-base percentage suggests that with his command of the strike zone, Yastrzemski will have some staying power.
Jeimer Candelario, Tigers. He destroyed fastballs, and finished with a .297/.369/.503 slash line. Al Avila, Detroit's GM, recalled that after a strong winter ball season, Candelario arrived in spring training with a lot of confidence, having honed his ability to get a good pitch to hit, on taking the ball to the opposite field. "He was a lot more focused, and had better concentration," said Avila.
Zach Eflin, Phillies. In the last two months of the 2019 season, he ditched some of the changes he had tried and went back to what distinguished him -- his heavy sinker. His strikeout-to-walk ratio improved to a career-high 4.67 in 2020, and among the 81 pitchers with at least 50 innings, he ranked 14th in xFIP.
Scott Barlow, Royals. If you judge him solely by his ERA of 4.20, you would miss the underlying metrics that suggest he is poised for a breakout in 2021. He dramatically reduced his walk rate, from 4.73 per nine innings in 2019 to 2.70 last year, and his rate of missed swings climbed to 16.6%. "He's developed a higher level of confidence and poise, through experience," GM Dayton Moore said.
Nathan Eovaldi, Red Sox. He is 30 years old now, and with nine seasons of big league experience he's seemingly a known quantity -- a powerful arm, with occasional command issues partly because of the rigidity in his delivery when he lands on his front leg. But last season, Eovaldi evolved, with his control improving markedly. Incredibly, Eovaldi had only seven walks in 48⅓ innings, with 52 strikeouts. Let's put that strikeout-to-walk rate into context in his last five full seasons:
2015: 2.47
2016: 2.43
2017: Missed season following Tommy John surgery
2018: 5.05
2019: 2.00
2020: 7.43
The Red Sox staff thought Eovaldi attacked the strike zone more and mixed his pitches better, reducing his reliance on his fastball. "He was more of a pitcher than a thrower," said one evaluator.
News from around the major leagues
• At the time baseball was shut down in mid-March, the Diamondbacks thought Madison Bumgarner's velocity was on track, on par with what they expected after his 2019 performance, when his average fastball was at 91.4.
But then the baseball world went dark for more than three months, and when MLB resumed in July, Bumgarner's velocity was way down, by 3 mph. He got pounded in his first starts back, before being shut down because of a back strain. He regained some velocity by season's end and finished with back-to-back five-inning scoreless starts, and now moving forward, the Diamondbacks' assumption is that Bumgarner's overall performance was just an outlier that could be attributed to the strange nature of how the year played out.
It will be absolutely critical for Bumgarner to rehabilitate his cutter/slider, a pitch that sometimes distinguished him in his career. Opponents against that pitch in recent seasons:
Year Avg. SLG
2017 .224 .367
2018 .214 .364
2019 .264 .458
2020 .288 .667
As Hembo notes: Among 111 pitchers to throw at least 40 innings in 2020, his deserved run average (according to Baseball Prospectus) ranked dead last (8.91). Among 133 pitchers to face at least 150 batters in 2020, his expected ERA (according to Statcast data) ranked tied for last (7.51).
• A longtime executive speculated that Corey Kluber is a natural fit for the Red Sox, Yankees and Mets. "It seems inevitable he'll wind up with one of those teams, doesn't it?" the exec asked. It'll be awhile before that decision is made. Kluber is still making his way back to full strength after suffering a shoulder injury last summer, and down the road, he is expected to throw bullpen sessions for interested teams.
• The Yankees need better left-right balance in their lineup, which might explain why they expressed early interest in veteran free agent Michael Brantley, and why they'll at least look at Kyle Schwarber. But neither player fits easily into their roster, or their current financial constraints. The Yankees probably don't have a ton of money to spend, and beyond their desire to re-sign DJ LeMahieu, their most glaring need is in their rotation. Through Brian Cashman's career, his default response to roster holes has usually been to prioritize pitching.
• The catching market, filled with many veteran free agents, has been very slow-moving. As one evaluator noted, there are very few options who are viewed as players who can handle the rigors of catching every day; rather, there are many who might be better serving in a complementary role of No. 2 catcher. J.T. Realmuto is regarded as the best available catcher, far and away, and he could be behind the plate daily. James McCann is the most coveted alternative to Realmuto, because he'll be less expensive and can catch every day. But almost all of the other options are regarded as secondary. (The guess of some evaluators is that McCann will get a deal worth somewhere in the range of $9 million to $10 million annually, and will land with the Mets.)
• Hembo also sent this along: The Atlanta Braves' starting rotation is stacked with pitchers who are pretty good at home run avoidance. In the 2019-20 seasons, Max Fried, Mike Soroka and Charlie Morton faced 2,644 batters and allowed 56 homers, just 2.1%; all three ranked among the top dozen starters on the leaderboard for lowest home run percentage. Additionally, Ian Anderson has done well at this, too, in his short time as a professional.
• Hembo was on the podcast the other day, along with Jesse Rogers and Dan Shulman, for a discussion about the non-tenders, Gary Sanchez, the breakup of the Cubs' core, possible landing places for Schwarber and Kris Bryant, the AL East, NL Central and AL West races, and Robinson Cano's suspension and legacy.