Upton Signs New 5-Year, $106m Deal with Angels

[jordan]

2 minutes ago, Blarg said:

More details from Fletcher.

Upton’s new deal will pay him $16 million in 2018, which is less than the $22.125 million he was scheduled to make, saving some money in actual payroll at the beginning of the deal. He will now make $18 million in 2019, $21 million in 2020, $23 million in 2021 and $19.5 million in 2022. The last season is after the expiration of Pujols’ $240-million deal. Upton will also receive an $8.5 million signing bonus.

 

I don't get signing bonuses.  "Here's your new $100 million deal, and since that isn't enough, here's $8.5 mil more."

[Blarg]

It was a way to restructure the payout over the five seasons to lower the individual season costs. Yes, they pay a bonus up front but later years cost less. Just a money shuffle.

[TobiasFunke]

1 hour ago, Chris said:

Now bring the Moose and Neil Walker to Anaheim!

Mike Mussina retired years ago

[Mark68]

1 hour ago, True Grich said:

Wait... I thought nobody would want to sign here....

Something something...taxes...something something...

[Tyler]

Sounds like they will be busy this offseason. Darvish next? Stanton? Both? Good times in So CAL!

[Ohtaniland]

3 minutes ago, Mark68 said:

Something something...taxes...something something...

Obviously Arte restructured his deal as requested. It arrived early this morning.

 

[Glen]

This is amazing.  Almost everyone on the board seems to like it, and at the same time Claude gets his sad boner.

[Ohtaniland]

Just now, Glen said:

This is amazing.  Almost everyone on the board seems to like it, and at the same time Claude gets his sad boner.

I actually like the deal. It certainly isn’t anything outrageous like 6/$150M

[Turd Ferguson]

Love it. Now lets get Gordon, Moose, and some pitching.

[Angel Oracle]

Solid deal, given his re-emergence at the plate, now he just needs to clean up the defense in 2018-2019 before hopefully replacing Pujols as DH after 2019.

[Mark68]

5 minutes ago, Calzone said:

Obviously Arte restructured his deal as requested. It arrived early this morning.

 

Upton is out of the country right now...

Big suitcase full of money...

Looks like a lot of sun is coming through the hotel window...

Upton is in the Caymans! That's it!

[AngelsLakersFan]

19 minutes ago, jordan111280 said:

 

I don't get signing bonuses.  "Here's your new $100 million deal, and since that isn't enough, here's $8.5 mil more."

Upton was taking a bath on this deal in terms of actual value (because of the backloading) without the signing bonus

[Angelsjunky]

Big thumbs up from me. 

 

[totdprods]

This is telling...definitely implies they're looking to need every dollar of wiggle room possible in the short-term.
 

Pedro Moura‏Verified account @pedromoura  35m35 minutes ago

MorThe new Upton deal saves the Angels >$6 million for 2018. "Reconfiguring the cash flow of the deal was important for us,” Billy Eppler said.

[Ace-Of-Diamonds]

26 minutes ago, Blarg said:

It was a way to restructure the payout over the five seasons to lower the individual season costs. Yes, they pay a bonus up front but later years cost less. Just a money shuffle.

Does the signing bonus still figure into the AAV? I'm guessing it does or else teams would do it all the time to avoid the penalties for going over.

[Ace-Of-Diamonds]

28 minutes ago, TobiasFunke said:

Mike Mussina retired years ago

Same with Bill "Mouse" Skowron (1967)

[Thomas]

I wonder when the deal was actually done. I assume it was announced today because of the World Series announcement moratorium.

[Inside Pitch]

1 minute ago, Ace-Of-Diamonds said:

Does the signing bonus still figure into the AAV? I'm guessing it does or else teams would do it all the time to avoid the penalties for going over.

I believe it goes into the books for this season but it's split over the course of the contract.    That's how it used to be anyway...

[Thomas]

24 minutes ago, Glen said:

This is amazing.  Almost everyone on the board seems to like it, and at the same time Claude gets his sad boner.

So how long until everyone says that they were against the deal from the start?

[Ace-Of-Diamonds]

29 minutes ago, Tyler said:

Sounds like they will be busy this offseason. Darvish next? Stanton? Both? Good times in So CAL!

Eppler pitching will come from in house. Again forget Darvish, Arieta, others...

[Ace-Of-Diamonds]

23 minutes ago, Angel Oracle said:

Solid deal, given his re-emergence at the plate, now he just needs to clean up the defense in 2018-2019 before hopefully replacing Pujols as DH after 2019.

Clean up his defense, haven't you heard he is a finalist for a gold glove? LOL

[jordan]

3 minutes ago, Ace-Of-Diamonds said:

Eppler pitching will come from in house. Again forget Darvish, Arieta, others...

I'm fine with that.  Neither pitcher looked very good in the playoffs.  After watching these playoffs, it was the bullpens and offenses that lead the way, both areas the Angels will focus on this offseason.

[Second Base]

Knocking down how much he's making in 2018 should free us up to make a couple splashes at 2B and 3B. Maybe not Stanton (unless Calhoun is dealt), but something solid.

[ettin]

1 hour ago, totdprods said:

@ettin
Buster Olney‏Verified account @Buster_ESPN  50s50 seconds ago

MoreJustin Upton’s annual payout: $16m in 2018, $18m 2019, $21m 2020, $23m 2021, $28m 2022

So this is how it could play out (I'm jumping the gun a little here on my series):

The Angels have a fair amount of AAV cap space but not quite as much actual payroll space (there is about a $16M delta between the two).

By doing this payment outlay they push more of the money owed to him to the back-end of his contract creating more actual payroll space over the next three years (the window of contention).

Also when they extend Mike Trout, almost certainly next year later in the off-season (mid-December probably during the end of the Winter Meetings), they will do similar loading for 2019 and 2020. Additionally other possible extension candidates like Richards, Maldonado and Simmons, if they extend them, will likely have similar light loading in the 2018-2020 time frame.

All of this is designed to take advantage of this 3-year window to seriously compete.

The money they save will either a ) be used towards other extensions or b ) to pick up a big name player or multiple mid-tier players to create a better supporting cast for Trout.

This is yet another indicator of Eppler's and Moreno's commitment to seriously compete over the next three years (and of course beyond) where they know, for sure, Mike Trout is under their control (and I have a strong feeling that if Mike is happy next year he's signing a big extension after).

Likely one or possibly two of our three big OF prospects will almost certainly be trade bait to acquire other pieces now. You don't need OF prospects when you have one guy under control for 5 years and I suspect the Angels believe that Trout will stay and sign an extension. That means you only need to replace Calhoun in the "long" run. One or more of these prospects will be used to get another quality MLB player.

This could be ONE of several big names around baseball. Very likely Eppler is targeting a player (or players) under contractual control with a set AAV that is relatively low compared to the quality of the player. Stanton at $17.3M is valuable. Archer at $4.25 is EXTREMELY valuable. Kipnis at $8.25M is also a bargain. There are a lot of these types scattered about the other 29 teams and Billy is probably closing in on one or more of them

This is good news!!!!

Thanks @totdprods for sharing that!

[Ace-Of-Diamonds]

2 minutes ago, jordan111280 said:

I'm fine with that.  Neither pitcher looked very good in the playoffs.  After watching these playoffs, it was the bullpens and offenses that lead the way, both areas the Angels will focus on this offseason.

Actually it was the offense of Houston's that won the World Series as their bull pen was atrocious. The Dodgers pen was quite good but not enough to overcome Darvish's awful pitching.