Question: What is Minasian doing?

[T.G.]

1 minute ago, Trendon said:

One good thing is that Maddon and Minasian appear to be on the same page. It's never good when you're GM and Manager aren't on the same page.

[T.G.]

 

[tdawg87]

14 minutes ago, T.G. said:

I'm sure a message board full of fans are better qualified to determine what the Angels should do more so than Minasian.  The tricky part is getting Arte to understand this. Quite the dilemma. I mean it's so obvious that Minasian is over his head and that anyone on this board could do a better job.

 

 

 

 

 

Mean while...

We aren't. But we are allowed to have opinions.

[T.G.]

Just now, tdawg87 said:

We aren't. But we are allowed to have opinions.

[tdawg87]

Just now, T.G. said:

 

That's 10 positions. If they only spend $9 million on every single one they'll be up to $190 million, which seems to be Arte's limit. They need at least 4-5 of those spots filled by the farm.

It looks good on the surface but it really isn't. 

[T.G.]

4 minutes ago, tdawg87 said:

We aren't. But we are allowed to have opinions.

[T.G.]

Guess who Minasian is going to sign next?

 

[T.G.]

Followed by...

 

[Billy_Ball]

Maddon guy.

[Dtwncbad]

The Angels were never pursuing an all-star RF.  It was gonna be somebody like this all along.

Fowler is nothing to be excited about but if you expected an exciting addition for RF then you were kidding yourself.

I think much of the negative reaction to Fowler is timing.  We are hearing about it on the day the Bauer dreams ended.

[totdprods]

I wasn’t expecting someone exciting, I was hoping for...Tyler Naquin? Brian Goodwin? Nomar Mazara was the pipe dream.

[jsnpritchett]

6 hours ago, tdawg87 said:

That's 10 positions. If they only spend $9 million on every single one they'll be up to $190 million, which seems to be Arte's limit. They need at least 4-5 of those spots filled by the farm.

It looks good on the surface but it really isn't. 

Yeah, I'm kind of baffled that a lot of people are seeing this as a good thing. Payroll flexibility is generally a good thing, but when you have to essentially reconstruct an entire pitching rotation plus a few other key positions all at the same time, it's pretty risky.  

[GoodTimesGoneBad]

Here’s what I think is going on. The Angels are going to punt this season. They are only signing people to one year deals with the hope of having a fire sale mid year. Minasian wants to rebuild from the ground up and wants to stock the farm. If they graduate Detmers, Rodriguez, and Adell this year the farm is going to look pretty barren. 
 

I’m not necessarily against this plan if it means competing in 2022 but I hope it doesn’t continue next offseason. 
 

 

[DMVol]

5 hours ago, Dtwncbad said:

The Angels were never pursuing an all-star RF.  It was gonna be somebody like this all along.

Fowler is nothing to be excited about but if you expected an exciting addition for RF then you were kidding yourself.

I think much of the negative reaction to Fowler is timing.  We are hearing about it on the day the Bauer dreams ended.

I get that...but I don’t see any upgrade from Ward....that would be the test for me....why bother?

[Stradling]

2 minutes ago, DMVol said:

I get that...but I don’t see any upgrade from Ward....that would be the test for me....why bother?

I think it’s a platoon type situation where it’s a veteran to mitigate things if Ward goes back to being Ward of 2018-2019.   If Adell has an amazing spring then he’s insurance for if Upton is more like the Upton of the first 20 games of 2020.  I don’t love it but nothing that happened with our RF/4th OF signing was going to make or break this season.  

[Blarg]

There are 73 outfielders looking for work as free agents. Minasian decided to trade for one that is a poor defender and has been on a career plunge. I'm not sure he is surrounded with that good of a group of advisors. 

[DMVol]

Just now, Stradling said:

I think it’s a platoon type situation where it’s a veteran to mitigate things if Ward goes back to being Ward of 2018-2019.   If Adell has an amazing spring then he’s insurance for if Upton is more like the Upton of the first 20 games of 2020.  I don’t love it but nothing that happened with our RF/4th OF signing was going to make or break this season.  

True...not any real downside...I just thought Ward had earned the first chance at it...if Ward stinks it up in spring training and Adell doesn’t change the thinking that he needs some AAA time, then easy enough to pick up a platoon part then,  like Eppler did with Goodwin in 2019...but, no harm no foul, I guess...

[Dtwncbad]

20 minutes ago, DMVol said:

I get that...but I don’t see any upgrade from Ward....that would be the test for me....why bother?

Everybody has their own opinion.  My opinion is Taylor Ward sucks.  I know he showed a little something, but I personally think this is a guy that could be out of baseball in a year.

[eligrba]

To me, it looks like Minasian is planning to do a rebuild next year with a mix of promising prospects and free agents. 

[Jason]

There are legitimate reasons why this club doesn’t seriously contend for the post season

[totdprods]

1 hour ago, GoodTimesGoneBad said:

They are only signing people to one year deals with the hope of having a fire sale mid year. Minasian wants to rebuild from the ground up and wants to stock the farm.

This is basically Billy Eppler.

[Jason]

23 minutes ago, Stradling said:

I think it’s a platoon type situation where it’s a veteran to mitigate things if Ward goes back to being Ward of 2018-2019.   If Adell has an amazing spring then he’s insurance for if Upton is more like the Upton of the first 20 games of 2020.  I don’t love it but nothing that happened with our RF/4th OF signing was going to make or break this season.  

That’s too many “what if’s” in the outfield to inspire any confidence 

[halomatt]

I'm thinking all these one-year deals might also have something to do with the expiring CBA.  Maybe they also have something to do with potential lockouts/strikes and a general hesitancy to hand out multi-year contracts, especially if the next CBA changes the financial structure of the league in a dramatic fashion. 

Having one-year deals allows for maximum financial flexibility for the team to pivot in the event of lockout/strikes, changing contracts, service-time changes to the CBA, mid-season trades, salary dumps, and/or restocking the farm by trading expiring assets.

[Stradling]

3 minutes ago, Jason said:

That’s too many “what if’s” in the outfield to inspire any confidence 

Then I would encourage you to have no confidence.  It is what it is, a mediocre depth move.  They were never signing a great right fielder this off season.  Even if they signed Pederson, Puig, or Goodwin. Does that inspire confidence?  

[totdprods]

After sleeping on it, I feel a little better. Fowler at $1.75m is fine and he at least looks like he could be a league average guy offensively if used right and sparingly.

I think what gnaws at me more is...is this the best he could do for RF and #5 SP? Same applies to Cobb. There seem to be multiple players available who are at least younger and have some more potential, and I’m not even aiming that high...looking at Tyler Naquin, Nomar Mazara, Adam Duvall, Jake Marisnick, Jorge Bonifacio, Mike Leake, Brett Anderson, Matt Shoemaker, Jordan Yamamoto when he was in DFA limbo, Matt Moore...I don’t think any of them would have been that much more expensive. 

If there’s something good about this, it is that he seems to be continuing what Eppler did, which is be very stingy when it came to dealing prospects, and bank on relatively cheap vets who should be at least league average and whose experience and skills should make them fairly likely to be flipped midseason, allowing some recharge to the farm system. I think this has been a solid strategy. Where Eppler failed was the vets he brought in often were well below league average, rarely had trade value, and he never had the farm built up enough to deal from. It could be that Minasian recognized this was a solid strategy and thinks he can 1) correct the evaluation process used on these vet acquisitions and 2) get the farm built up fast enough to allow some impact trades in the next year.