The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim are on quite the run of offseason splashes lately.
Whether it's been the massive signings of Albert Pujols and Josh Hamilton or the recent trade of slugger Mark Trumbo, it's no secret the Angels are doing all they can to build a winner in L.A., err, Anaheim.
Sure, they've been effectively stealing headlines and filling pages in recent offseasons, but that's about where the good news has stopped.
And yes, Pujols may have hit 30 homers and driven in more than 100 runs for the 11th time in his 13-year career after joining the club in 2012, but he hasn't been the same since leaving St. Louis for warmer climes.
Hamilton, well, he was simply a disaster in 2013, his first year with the team. There's not much left to say about that ordeal.
In fact, aside from other-worldly homegrown talent Mike Trout, you can make an argument that Trumbo was their most productive player since becoming a regular in 2011.
During Trumbo's tenure in Anaheim, he averaged more than 90 RBI a year while emerging as one of the American League's premier power bats. He's led the club in home runs each of last three years, piling up more than 30 per season. The guy can flat out crush left-handed pitching. And he's cheap!
So why trade him? And for pitching?
It certainly wasn't very Angels-like. My buddy and I always joke that if we were big league GMs we'd always want to trade with the Angels. It just seems they're directionless and have a dearth of fun talent. Anyways....
The move Angels GM Jerry Dipoto made earlier this month to acquire LHPs Hector Santiago and Tyler Skaggs certainly inked its share of headlines, to be sure. But this time the similarities might stop there. This move might actually work out. At least in the short-term.
For starters, the Angels got another quietly great year from front-liner Jered Weaver, when healthy. They also got a bit of a breakout from lefty CJ Wilson, who has been able to remain remarkably durable in his career as a starter in the AL West.
Enter Santiago, the crafty lefty acquired from the White Sox in the three-team deal sending Trumbo to Arizona, and you've got a combined 515 and 2/3 innings with a 3.41 ERA. That's not a bad baseline.
Assuming Weaver endures some more of the regression we've seen in his heater but is able to stay on the mound for his usual 200 innings, 3.41 against his career 3.24 seems reasonable.
Wilson has been an erratic pitcher, with swings in ERA over his 4-year starting career between 2.94 and 3.83, but has also booked a pair of seasons in the mid 3.30s. We'll call it 3.60, right on his career mark.
Where Wilson has been consistent, however, has been in his workload. Wilson has averaged 211 innings since converting from the bullpen in 2010, racking up the ninth-most IP in the league over that stretch.
Factoring in Santiago and his career (you guessed it) 3.41 ERA over 224 and 2/3 innings, that gives Anaheim a potential 3.47 ERA over 635 innings between their newly haloed threesome. For reference, that stingy mark would have finished 7th in the league in 2013, just ahead of AL West foe Oakland.
It's an optimistic outlook, to be sure, assuming good health and that Santiago's 2013 on the South Side was any reflection of the guy the Angels traded for. But, really, it's not assuming all that much. Those numbers are average for Wilson and Weaver. They could always perform better. You know, like last year.
And we haven't even gotten to Skaggs, the once-highly touted prospect who could slot into the fifth starter spot as early as spring training. If handled correctly, he could add some serious punch to the bottom of that rotation.
As for the offense, the Angels are surely going to miss Trumbo's power production. But, if Pujols and Hamilton return to anything close to their baseball-destroying form, that impact might be minimal.
Moving Trumbo is going to allow manager Mike Scioscia to have some added wiggle room in his lineup. He should now be able to comfortably rotate his stars on and off the field while keeping their bats in the lineup via the DH spot. This is a benefit Trumbo and his limited defensive abilities wouldn't allow.
It appears that the move will also free up space for the intriguingly toolsy Kole Calhoun and his career .772 OPS. Calhoun figures be a considerable upgrade in the outfield, as well, teaming up with Trout and Hamilton to give the Halos a nice trio behind those aforementioned arms.
And let's not forget about Dipolo's pre-Thanksgiving trade for Cardinal folkhero David Freese, a move that gives Anaheim something they haven't had much luck finding in its uneven history: a cornerstone third baseman. And a good one, at that. After all, he's just a year removed from a 20-homer season. Oh, and he was also MVP of the World Series. So he's got that going for him.
Dipolo's not finished, either, adding ageless Raul Ibanez on Friday.
All of this is adding up to a very nice, if oddly understated, offseason for Dipolo and the Angels. They've been able to remain a big mover in a relatively quiet Hot Stove period thus far, and they seem to have cleverly, if uncharacteristically, added by subtracting this time around.
When they are adding, they're picking up useful pieces mostly via trade, protecting their draft picks while remaining true to their plans to spend (and win) now, while Pujols could still outplay his 2014 salary of $23 million in terms of value.
While it's taken a little longer than expected for all those headlines to turn into wins, the moves Dipolo has made this offseason to hedge the big bets of years past have set his club up for what looks to be a bounce back year in 2014.
But for the Angels to truly contend this year and beyond, they won't be able to sit on their laurels and admire their work for long.
After all, they've still got a bullpen to reconstruct.
Contact the writer at careeryearblog@gmail.com
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