The Danger of the Civic Approach - Reagins' Angels

I'm going to post a two-part comparison between the Mariners' payroll and talent structure situation and the Angels' situation to give you an idea why I think the Angels' time in the sun is about to be over with a loud thud, at least for a little while.

Let's take a look at the Angels' roster and payroll obligations for the 2010 and 2011 seasons to show you how Reagins has built his club.  All salary info courtesy of the wonderful blog Cot's Baseball Contracts.  On the left, the salary owed in 2010, on the right, the salary owed in 2011...arbitrartion estimates go by the MLB averages for pay increases from the base salary from the previous year given the arb-year status (biggest increases happen in arb 3, for example).

  • CF) Torii Hunter - 18.5 - 18.5 (STAR)
  • OF) Gary Matthews Jr. - 11.4 - 12.4 (CIVIC)
  • OF/DH) Bobby Abreu - 9.0 - 9.0 (CIVIC)
  • SP) Scott Kazmir - 8.0 - 12.0 (CIVIC)
  • SP) Ervin Santana - 6.0 - 8.0 (CIVIC)
  • DH) Juan Rivera - 3.25 - 3.25 (CIVIC)
  • CL) Brian Fuentes - 9.0 - FA (CIVIC)
  • RP) Scot Shields - 5.35 - FA (CIVIC)
  • RP) Justin Speier - 5.25 - FA (CIVIC)
  • C) Mike Napoli - 4.0 (Arb 2) - 7.5 (Arb 3) (CIVIC)
  • IF) Maicer Izturiz - 3.0 (Arb 3) - FA (CIVIC)
  • 1B) Kendry Morales - 1.2 - 2.5 (Arb 1) (SCRUB)
  • SP) Joe Saunders - 1.0 (Arb 1) - 3.0 (Arb 2) (SCRUB to CIVIC)
  • SP) Jered Weaver - 1.5 (Arb 1) - 4.0 (Arb 2) (Boras bonus! - SCRUB to CIVIC)
  • 2B) Howie Kendrick - 0.8 (Arb 1) - 1.5 (Arb 2) (SCRUB)
  • IF) Erick Aybar - 1.2 (Arb 1) - 2.5 (Arb 2) (SCRUB)
  • C) Jeff Mathis - 0.8 (Arb 1) - 2.0 (Arb 2) (SCRUB)
  • OF) Reggie Willits - 0.7 (Arb 1) - 1.0 (Arb 2) (SCRUB)
  • P) Dustin Moseley - 0.5 (CC) - 0.7 (Arb 1) (SCRUB)
  • 12 other guys with enough MLB PT to make the league mininum for at least some of the next two seaosns (~ 2.5 mil in 2010, and ~5 mil in 2011)

Some quick totals for you if the Angels do nothing to reduce the cost of the arbitration eligible players:

In 2010 they stand to owe about 93 million dollars to their current players

In 2011, despite a couple of guys coming off the books, they still stand to owe about 92 million dollars to their current players.

This is what happens when you run a Civic-Heavy roster.  You have no payroll flexibility.  The problem is bad enough this year, but they're losing THREE pieces of their bullpen next off-season and none of that money will be able to go to adding other pieces because it's all tied up in escallating contracts and arb-eligible players unless they do something now to defray that rising cost.

What can the Angels do?  They will be forced to make some tough decisions about who to keep amongst their (ready for this one?) TEN arbitration eligible players.  All three of their middle infielders are about to get expensive.  Their entire rotation is about to get EXTREMELY expensive, not even including John Lackey who is hitting free agency.  They can't afford to keep their best pitcher because they wasted too much money on Matthews Jr, Fuentes, Santana etc.  They're going to be forced to trade about half of their arb-eligible players and hope the pieces they get back cost less and can perform as well.  They're going to be forced to back away from the bigger free agents even IF they can trade their arby surplus.  And that's a big if given how hard it is to trade for cheap major league ready prospects these days.

From where I sit, Reagins' Angels are about to pull a Wile E. Coyote agaisnt the mountain side (SPLAT!) unless Reagins has some genius moves planned to improve his situation.  Thus far he's shown no skill at all for making cost-effective moves.  Fuentes is a nice closer, but not a dominant one.  He's got Shields and Speier contributing practically nothing and costing 10.6 million dollars.  He's got GMJ rotting on the bench for 23.8 million dollars the next two years.  He's got Hunter rapidly aging and having trouble getting to flyballs in his outfield now and costing more than the Mariners pay Ichiro.  He's got a bunch of MOR starters about to get paid and he's got absolutely NO minor league depth to replace them.  He's SCREWED.  All caps required.  Part II will compare this to Zduriencik's new-look Mariner roster.

Comments

1

Nice jumping off point, Matt. 
But, what I see is a NEARLY PERFECTLY run organization hitting the nearly inevitable reality of SUCCESSFULLY developing scrubs.  Heck, almost half the list of Civics are guys the club developed as Scrubs.  This isn't the result of a poorly run organization -- this is the reality for the BEST RUN organizations in the current MLB economic paradigm.  They didn't "build" a Civics lineup -- they actually built a Stars & Scrubs lineup -- but the Stars are aging out -- and the Scrubs have developed into Civics.  Age happens.
That said ... they have *ONE* truly hurtful salary - GMJ.  He's the one "Silva-esque" gaffe that this club has made in the past 5 years.  They snagged Vlad at the perfect career time, and now is the perfect time to cut ties.  Hunter's contract almost HAS to be seen in the same light as Ichiro's, though Hunter is a couple years younger. 
The myopic view of the Angels says they are in trouble.  A more measured assessment, (IMO), is that they are in TRANSITION.  They have already shown an ability to develop productive scrubs and turn them into Civics ... and done so repeatedly.  Their main empty slot on the offensive side for 2010 is DH, where Vlad posted a 106 OPS+ in 100 games.  They had 10 players who bested 100 OPS+.  Five are still under 30.  If they can produce a scrub OF who can post a 100 OPS+, they could repeat or even improve on their #2 run production ranking of 2009. 
The big danger of Hot Stove season is that the fans and pundits get monofocused on free agents, as if they are the only solution to every problem.  I don't know if Sean Rodriguez is going to be the next scrub to come out of the LA org to thwart the dreams of Mariner fans.  But, truthfully, the Angels having already shown the ability to develop hitters AND pitchers, are likely in a better position to improve w/o spending a dime than 90% of the teams out there. 
But, compare them to Seattle.
Anaheim had 10 guys post 100+ OPS+ values in 2009, with 5 still under age 30 for 2010.
Seattle had 5 players post 100+ OPS+ valued in 2009, and only 2 were under the age of 33. 
Before booking the Dixieland band for the wake, one needs to remember that many were predicting their imminent demise when they failed to retain Tex.  Who was their best hitter in 2009.  It wasn't Hunter, or Vlad, or Abreu.  It was Kendry Morales who posted a 137 OPS+. 
The sign of a great org?  It seems like every year or two they get another Chipper, or Andruw, or Javy or Furcal ... that just keep showing up, despite drafting waaaay later than the juicy top 5 (or 10) slots in the draft. 
I can appreciate the optimists view ... wanting to see chinks in the armor of the enemy.  But the Angels are NOT the 2003 Ms.  Not even close. 

2
Anonymous's picture

They also have those young civics to use as trade chits in order to bring in a star like Granderson. I'll believe their demise when I see it with my own two eyes.
 
 

3

1) I didn't say all of their scrubs developing to the civic level at the same time was a sign of stupid management.  It's not.  It's just happening at the same time as several of their dumbest contracts hitting peak painfulness and complicating their problems for the short term.  They've got 10 guys who used to be scrubs who are entering the arbitration (= expensive) window of their career and they're never going to be able to trade enough of them to keep their payroll open for acquiring new talent.  It's not myopic to recognize that they're going to be hurting financially for a while (a period of 2-3 years) and that it may knock them out of the catbird seat in the AL West until this transition ends and their next wave of scrubs arrives.  It's also not myopic to observe that because they've been elite for so long, their farm system now sucks and they don't have the next wave of prospects on the way for cheap to replace the guys that have gotten expensive.
2) I also think you're completely wrong that the only dead wood on the Angels' payroll is GMJ.  I think their worst mistake has been actually paying for a bullpen.  They didn't used to do that.  If you remember, the 2002 Angels that won the WS did it with an entire bullpen of "who's he???" pitchers who made nothing and had good years.  One of those guys was Scot Shields who was good enough for long enough that now he costs WAAAYYYY too much money for a set-up man and has gotten too old and ineffective to justify his contract.  THey're paying 20 million dollars for three relief pitchers.  That's CRAZY stupid.  Sorry...it just is.  The Hunter contract you could take in the same light as Ichiro...except that Hunter isn't anywhere near as good a player as Ichiro and is aging out of the skill position (CF) making it a TERRIBLE contract going forward.  And they spent entirely too much money on Scott Kazmir and Ervin Santana too...commiting beaucoup bucks to guys before they established that it would be a good idea to do so (in Kazmir's case they also traded three prospects and this happened because their starting pitching in 2009 sucked because they had no one in AAA who could replace their injured starters).
My point was not that the Angels were doomed to suffer a decade or more of futility...my point was that they are about to be forced to make some very hard choices and they're probably going to find themselves buried in the AL West until they develop more prospect internally again.  Which they've shown more ability to do than Seattle historically but it remains to be seen whether Reagins is as good at that as Stoneman was and whether Zduriencik has improved the Mariner minor league effort.  And they wouldn't have had to make some of these tough choices if they hadn't ridiculously overspent for center fielders two years in a row and paid 20 million dollars for their bullpen.

5

...let's say you're right that the Angels use three of their arb-eligible youngish civics and Brandon Wood to acquire Granderson.
That does several things.
1) It commits another 13 million dollars to their 2011 payroll for adding yet another center fielder to their cast of center fielders they overpaid for.
2) It costs them all of their infield flexibility with no replacements at hand (the rumors are generally something like Joe Saunders, Erick Aybar, Brandon Wood and Reggie Willits...which means they won't have someone to play third to replace Figgins and they'll have to acquire that either in trade or in free agency which would cost even more money).
3) It means they will have to move Hunter out of CF, which is liable to make him rather unhappy
4) It further thins their pitching and increases the urgency for them to sign free agent pitchers which will cost even more money!
It's a house of cards at this point...they've got TEN arb-eligible players that are about to cost too much money to keep them all and they're absolutely RELIANT on ALL TEN OF THEM to maintain the roster balance that makes them so effective.

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