Thor'sLinks: Halo offense Cotton picking bad

Mike Scioscia did that thing that Mike Scioscia does. Use the last game of a set to post a lineup that is stunningly weak. Putting any LAA lineup against a fresh-faced rookie pitcher tends to end badly. Putting up that kind of lineup could have resulted in a no-hitter. Instead, we got 2 hits. Swell.

We shouldn't really complain, though. This is when we want to be giving guys a chance to show what they got, so that hard decisions can be made before ST next year. That's why we need to see guys like Petit, Marte, Bandy, Cowart, Buss, Robisnon, Choi and Ortega. They are young and we need to give them playing time for a change. Um...for.......a...........change. Oh.

Dang.

Well, chalk this up as one more data point on the value of Mike Trout's impact. Let's fly home and spend the next week or so diggin' some home cooking.

Dine on these Buy-Me-a-Minor-League-Scouting-Department Links:

______________________________

Everywhere In Baseball

The Big E: Just a friendly notice. With the Minnesota Twins already being officially eliminated from any playoff consideration, it's time to look at the Angels. The Angels elimination number in the AL West is down to 3. They will be crossed off the AL West race in a matter of hours now. As for the Wild Card, well, that number is 10. Playoff elimination will have to wait until next week...........

Shoey: ICYMI, Matt Shoemaker sends out his thanks. Well done, Mr. Shoemaker................

MVP: FanGraphs continues their run of justifying the various AL MVP contenders, and yesterday was Mookie Betts. Pretty much the theme is "Mike Trout is the best baseball player alive, but let's pretend that his sucky teammates are dragging him off the stage so this is why should player X be the winner instead". By now you should all be seeing these debates for how cute they really are. It's not a meritocracy and it never has been. Mike is blowing this whole thing up and every year it just gets worse and more obvious. With Betts it's pretty easy to see this. Just look at how Betts has a huge lead over Trout in hits, but notice how that is predominantly a byproduct of how many more At Bats Betts has. And ABs are a function of how well Betts' teammates keep hitting and bringing the batting order around far more often and giving Betts far more chances. This is the Donaldson story from last year, and the Cabrera story from years past. If some people want to whine that Trout's teammates diminish his value because Trout is not playing for a contender, then we can rebut this by stating that teammates are propping up guys like Betts up and they are not worthy of any individual achievement recognition. The knife cuts both ways...........

Freak: You already paid attention to Johnny Giavotella having his AAA season over and going home to Florida, season over and not getting a call up to Anaheim. Well, you might not have noticed that the same thing happened to Tim Lincecum. His AAA season also ended. And he also was not called up. His career might even be over. As in, forever.............Weaver: Jered Weaver is having a season so bad that his results are actually breaking an advanced metric. Literally. The inventor of DRA has had to go back to the drawing board in order to get a grip on just how bad Weaver had been, and why. So that's another feather to park in his career cap. Something he can tell his grand kids........... Trout(2): Mike Trout is getting totally hosed by BBWAA voters, in a manner rather unprecedented. But don't blame BBWAA voters. Blame his fellow Halos. It's all their fault...........

______________________________

The Duffle Bag

Mother Nature is angry at baseball. Targeted rain in one game, and then targeting bugs in another. I blame BBWAA voters............Phil Niekro pitched into the age of 48, so why can't Bartolo Colon at age 44?............The Cubs have announced a playoff ticket lottery system. Makes sense. The Angels should do the same. Just laugh at themzelves, and to be a part of the party............In the case of Brian Dozier, fans sure know that individual achievement holds value, even the team around that player is a loser..............

______________________________

Draft Tracker

Ok, Ok. Nobody wants to root for their team to lose. Blah blah blah. I know. My own opinion of this is that wherever we end up in the 2016 season will not be meaningless. That is because it may impact how other teams finish up, AND because it WILL impact Billy Eppler and how he approaches his job during the offseason.

Below is my Tracker. You probably should click on it to enlarge. What it does is show (via the red boxes) where the Angels fit in the projected draft order for 2017. For those of you worrying about protected picks you can pay attention only to the first (top) 10 slots and ignore the rest. But "the rest" is for the rest of us. I have a column of my projected draft slot money. This assumes an 8% increase in MLB revenues, which would not be unusual for every other year. Recent increases have gone 8.2%, 1.7%, 8.8%, and 4.6% (last year's raise). So assuming the larger bounce this upcoming year is not beyond the realm of possibility. Anyway, the increase is the same for each slot so it's all relative. Slot money is important. Pool money is important, too, but I ran out of space.

But the big deal here are the columns to the right. I took published data from 2009, 2010, 2012 and 2014 that studied years worth of draft results and plotted general outcomes in terms of WAR (I am guessing fWAR). Basically, if you are lucky enough to draft in the First Five, you have a 30% chance of getting a player who will yield 15 WAR before they hit their Free Agency year, and you will have a 48% chance of getting a player who will yield 9 WAR in that time. And you should get a player that yields between the general ranges of 7.7 and 9.2 WAR, depending on which projection model remains the most accurate.

The point here is that you can foresee just how important it is for Eppler to draft as high as possible. You get a much better chance at drafting gold, but that will cost you more money out of your overall pool. And, yeah, drafting in the green zones allows Eppler the additional flexibility to take a run at some FA without worrying about losing his first round pick.

The 2016 slot and pool monies were found here.

The Michael Jimenez Study is found here.

The HBT 2014 Study is found here.

The HBT 2012 Study is found here.

The Sky Andrecheck 2009 Study is found here.

______________________________