Let’s jump back in time a year.
The Angels began the 2014/2015 offseason in a good place. The ALDS sweep was disappointing, but they had still just won an MLB-best 98 wins, owned the league’s best offense, and were losing no regulars to free agency. Some patchwork was needed here and there on account of Tyler Skaggs’ elbow injury and lingering skepticism about the future of C.J. Cron, but the overall stability of the roster afforded the front office the freedom to tinker at the edges and not worry so much about getting a big-name player if the right deal didn’t come along. Trades were inevitable, because Jerry Dipoto can never make enough trades, but the big-splash free-agent signings of previous winters were unnecessary.
The only chance of a big move seemed to involve Howie Kendrick. With Huston Street, Chris Iannetta, David Freese, and Kendrick all approaching free agency at the end of 2015, the team seemed to have some leeway in terms of dealing a player like Kendrick and still getting draft compensation the following winter. Street, Iannetta, and Freese might not all play well enough or stay healthy enough to earn a qualifying offer, but odds were at least one of them would. Losing Howie would be tough, but for the right player the league’s best offense could get away with a sub-par effort at one position. (You see where this is going.)
Eventually that right player came along in Andrew Heaney, who joined Carlos Perez, Nick Tropeano, Cesar Ramos, Daniel Robertson, and Drew Butera as trade spoils. Josh Rutledge and Johnny Giavotella were then brought in as keystone replacements, Matt Joyce was added to the mix as a potential QO replacement, and the winter was more or less wrapped up. The roster didn’t necessarily look stronger than 2014’s but it wasn’t noticeably weaker either, and there was still the possibility of those four 2015 qualifying offers on the horizon.
But then February happened. Then April happened. Then May happened. Then June happened. Then July 22 happened. Then August happened. And here we are.
The Angels opted not to bestow a qualifying offer on David Freese this morning—Chris Iannetta and Matt Joyce weren’t even in the conversation—meaning the organization is now four years into the new CBA with no draft compensation1 of any kind to show for it. Only six other teams share in their misfortune: the A’s and Marlins, who never let players get to free agency; the Phillies, who drowned all their potential QO players in long-term contracts; and the Brewers, D’Backs, and Twins, who have been sellers too consistently of late to keep anyone around for a qualifying offer. Not great company to keep.
The Angels’ lack of qualifying offers before this year was mostly due to a lack of opportunities. It seems absurd now that Torii Hunter wasn’t extended a qualifying offer after his strong 2012 season, but at the time teams had no idea every player would decline them out of hand—had he hit the open market a year later, he probably gets one. Dan Haren and Ervin Santana—who’s been offered two QO’s since leaving Anaheim—might have earned them with the Angels in 2013 had they been around for their pricey option years, but they were too erratic in 2012 for the front office to take that chance. Jason Grilli was the only guy who could’ve conceivably been offered one last year, but he was ineligible.
What we’ve presumed to be the plan this year, then, was a sound one. The Halos had never had more than two potential QO guys heading into a season before started 2015 with four. The odds were in their favor. Taking Huston Street out of the equation with a contract extension in early May hurt those odds considerably, but no one could’ve known Iannetta and Joyce would continue being that awful for the remainder of the season, nor that Freese would miss two months with a broken finger. They probably counted on a bad thing happening to one or two of them, but all three? Not a chance.
Welp.
Now, for the sixth year in a row, the Angels and their lowly ranked farm system will be left with either at most one first-round or sandwich pick in the June draft. In other words, they’ve had fewer first-round picks (3) in the six drafts since 2011 than they did in each of 2009 and 2010 drafts (5). Some of that is bad luck and some of that is bad decisions from ownership, but it’s also partly a failure to adapt to the new reality of the system. If the team decides it’s OK without high draft picks, then it probably shouldn’t also be one of the least active organizations on the international market. Trades for young, cost-controlled players like Heaney are nice, but there are only so many of those a team can make to rebuild the farm and remain a contender.
As of this moment Erick Aybar, Cesar Ramos, Fernando Salas, Joe Smith, Jered Weaver, and C.J. Wilson are all set to become free agents after next season. Two, maybe three of those guys are likely to be in the running for a qualifying offer, but there’s also a not-crazy scenario where none of them are. I’m not so melodramatic as to think the Angels will live or die based on whether they get some sort of draft-pick compensation in 2017, but if it’s something they’re striving for they might want to take extra care to make sure it happens.
What all that entails, I don’t know. But for a start, they can maybe not extend and/or trade away the guys most likely to get a qualifying offer. I like Aybar and Smith a lot, but I’m not sure keeping them around into their mid-30’s is worth having a bottom-10 farm system in perpetuity.
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