The Official Los Angeles Angels 2023-2024 Hot Stove Offseason Thread

[HBAngel13]

13 hours ago, Stradling said:

Wonder if the Padres would sell off Yu Darvish?  He had a poor year last year and he is owed 5 more years on his contract, but it is only $78 million over those 5 years. 

I like this thinking.  We need to use our one competitive advantage (money) to fill holes.  Darvish likely wouldn’t cost us any of our young core if we take all the money.  He is as likely as the discussed rentals to put up solid numbers  

This move would make it more palatable to trade Sandoval. I agree with @Inside Pitch that trading Sandoval for a rental is not a good use of his value. Send him to Baltimore instead for one of their young position players and buy the pitching on the open market.  Going back to our Blake Snell discussion, I would rather buy him then part with one of our few trade chips for a rental. I like Yamamoto, Bauer and Flaherty as FA targets  

I’m on record as a Perry fan, but if he moves Neto/o Hoppe/Schanuel/Silseth for any of the rentals, my opinion is going to change real quick. 

[Dtwncbad]

2 minutes ago, HBAngel13 said:

m on record as a Perry fan, but if he moves Neto/o Hoppe/Schanuel/Silseth for any of the rentals, my opinion is going to change real quick. 

Me too.  Except I am not that high on Silseth.  I would be willing to move him to improve now.

[tdawg87]

Some of y'all *coughtotprodscough* are really anxious to trade Sandoval. I don't get it.

[Blarg]

If you are trading for Burnes you are also trading for his arbitration settlement.  He is due a sizeable raise, probably fetching $20 million or more. So prospect value has to be in line with how much salary you take on.

You certainly can't eat Andersons salary in trade, that makes Burnes a $46 million dollar pitcher. He's not a $26 million dollar pitcher. 

If you trade Sandoval without an extension in place, you have to replace Burnes in 2025 with another pitcher without any spare pitching parts to trade or pay going rate to replace Burnes value. 

Burnes is the pitcher you trade for to fill that one last hole. The Angels really aren't in position to win the division and are iffy to make a wildcard. If you are looking at a one year shot at the wildcard,  a win now, then you are repeating the last 8 years. 

[Stradling]

5 minutes ago, tdawg87 said:

Some of y'all *coughtotprodscough* are really anxious to trade Sandoval. I don't get it.

I’m not anxious to trade him but if I can get Burnes for him I do it. 

[HBAngel13]

4 minutes ago, tdawg87 said:

Some of y'all *coughtotprodscough* are really anxious to trade Sandoval. I don't get it.

Sandoval has a ton of value due to his control despite his erratic performance.  If he could net you a solid 6-yr position player + maybe a arm that could slot into the bullpen down the road, that adds a lot of organizational value and you still have multiple options to buy Sandovals performance on the open market. 
 

I want to see this team get better for the long haul. They can do that without sacrificing the present if they cash in some of the Sandoval/Canning/Renigfo/Ward group and backfill with good FA signings. 

[tdawg87]

3 minutes ago, HBAngel13 said:

Sandoval has a ton of value due to his control despite his erratic performance.  If he could net you a solid 6-yr position player + maybe a arm that could slot into the bullpen down the road, that adds a lot of organizational value and you still have multiple options to buy Sandovals performance on the open market. 
 

I want to see this team get better for the long haul. They can do that without sacrificing the present if they cash in some of the Sandoval/Canning/Renigfo/Ward group and backfill with good FA signings. 

See that's a decent trade. I value control a lot and that's why I'm not interested in trading 3 years for 1. But a good bat with years of control? Absolutely.

[Dtwncbad]

If Sandoval was on Tampa Bay and there were rumors he was available, I bet Angel fans would go nuts wanting to get a guy in his prime with upside, with years of control.

I don’t get Sandoval’s name coming up at all in trade ideas when he fits what the Angels need now and going forward.

[Angels in 2030]

This team needs to keep their pitchers -- not trade them.  Hoarding pitching is a trait they need to have engrained in their organizational philosophy.  

[tdawg87]

6 minutes ago, Dtwncbad said:

If Sandoval was on Tampa Bay and there were rumors he was available, I bet Angel fans would go nuts wanting to get a guy in his prime with upside, with years of control.

I don’t get Sandoval’s name coming up at all in trade ideas when he fits what the Angels need now and going forward.

Pretty much my thinking. He was disappointing this year but he was ace level in 2022. 

[Dtwncbad]

Just now, tdawg87 said:

Pretty much my thinking. He was disappointing this year but he was ace level in 2022. 

Maybe I am too out optimistic on Sandoval specifically.  That can happen. As fans we make some sometimes subconscious decisions on individual players in terms of their upside.

I personally feel like Sandoval could instantly click and be a 180 inning, 16 game winner with a 3.25 era for a stretch of a few years.  Maybe I am wrong but I know for sure I don’t want to miss out on it if I am right.

100% conversely, I feel like Taylor Ward’s breakout isn’t sustainable, and is more likely to be less than what he has already shown. . . so I would want to cash in on another team’s enthusiasm for Ward.  My “fan” opinion of Ward is he will ultimately be a high end utility player (1B/3B/LF/RF/eC) but a below average everyday player.  I’d love to move him now to get the most in return.

[Angel Oracle]

1 hour ago, Erstad Grit said:

This is a good video on Yamamoto

 

 

Nasty splitter 

[totdprods]

50 minutes ago, tdawg87 said:

Some of y'all *coughtotprodscough* are really anxious to trade Sandoval. I don't get it.

Pretty much all along I've only ever wanted to trade Sandoval purely for a good, young cheap controllable bat. Jordan Westburg or a Baltimore prospect. Andy Pages+. A Cincy infielder. Milwaukee outfielders. Guys who are pretty much league minimum with pretty much a full slate of club control.

Dealing Sandoval for a rental in Burnes or Glasnow or Bieber would be pretty dumb on it's own. If a contract extension was part of it I still don't think it would be a good trade. If it was a straight 1:1 I could stomach it provided there were additional moves to immediately replace Sandoval...like Rengifo and Thaiss to Miami for Cabrera and Rogers or something goofy, and money spent on an infielder like Merrifield to somewhat replace Rengifo in the interim. But that's A LOT of moving pieces needed just for me to get to a point where I'd be okay with it. 

If the team is seriously planning on spending and making moves that actually make the 2024 team competitive, great, I'm all for keeping Sandoval. I just don't think it's realistic. I don't think they could or should spend in FA to make the '24 team competitive given what's out there, given what our needs our, given who is available next winter. And I don't think we have the farm to pull off the trades either. I have a hard time seeing 2024 as anything other than a year to focus on developing Neto, Detmers, O'Hoppe, Schanuel, and Moniak.

Maybe Enright fixes Sandoval and he becomes an ace - great! All for it. But at this point I'm hesitant to buy in on Sandoval reaching his potential here. He can't win games (WP% of like .300?!). He can't get deep into games. He's now starting to cost millions a year, essentially probably like 3/$25m remaining, and I'm not terribly optimistic on the Angels being competitive for at least one, perhaps the first two, of those remaining seasons. His health is a two-way street; he has been pretty healthy and durable throughout his career - that's a plus, but also how many pitchers actually make it through all six seasons of club control without TJ or some shoulder injury interrupting that? I'd wager not many. It would suck ass to have 1/2 of his next three years be lost to TJS when the Angels aren't competitive and he's making millions to be on the IL. IMO, if you can move him for a really good young hitter or two, jump on it, replace him with a similarly priced 3/$30m guy like Lugo or Wacha or Lorenzen (who has more wins - I know, Bavasi - in his last two years than Sandoval has in his career). 

Doesn't have to be now either - but I think it would be wise for the Angels to try and sell high on guys like Sandoval, Rengifo, Ward, Canning, and perhaps Thaiss between now and deadline '25 should any of them have good years and the Angels aren't seriously competitive. Would go a long way to resetting the team's trajectory, especially if Perry is around because one of his strengths in my opinion is his ability to find good players when selling guys off.

Bottom line - do you really think the Halos can compete in 2024, short of Arte signing Snell and Bellinger and probably more? I don't, on paper at least. I don't think the Angels need to, or will, or even should full rebuild, but somewhere along the lines it would be great if they recognized when to opportunistically sell an arb.-controlled player or two. If Ward hadn't been hit in the face, I'd be focusing on him and not Sandoval, or even Rengifo if our MIF depth looked a little better, but Sandoval to me feels like the strongest, expendable trade piece of that group, and that's in part because I have a lot of confidence in Detmers breaking out into a frontline guy, Canning maintaining, Anderson rebounding to a decent #4, one of Silseth or Daniel sticking as a solid arm, and Perry potentially drafting another quick-to-bigs MLB SP. That's not counting any FA SPs they may land.

Edited December 7, 2023 by totdprods

[HBAngel13]

3 minutes ago, Dtwncbad said:

Maybe I am too out optimistic on Sandoval specifically.  That can happen. As fans we make some sometimes subconscious decisions on individual players in terms of their upside.

I personally feel like Sandoval could instantly click and be a 180 inning, 16 game winner with a 3.25 era for a stretch of a few years.  Maybe I am wrong but I know for sure I don’t want to miss out on it if I am right.

100% conversely, I feel like Taylor Ward’s breakout isn’t sustainable, and is more likely to be less than what he has already shown. . . so I would want to cash in on another team’s enthusiasm for Ward.  My “fan” opinion of Ward is he will ultimately be a high end utility player (1B/3B/LF/RF/eC) but a below average everyday player.  I’d love to move him now to get the most in return.

I think we all see the potential in Sandoval as does the league. If he does stay with the club, I am hoping that the new coaching staff can get him to the next level. 

My fear is that he repeats 2023 or is only slightly better.   That doesn’t really move the needle for 2024 halos and his trade value will drop considerably. I would prefer to cash him in now.  

Angels have not been good at managing tradeable assets and selling high. Fletcher is a prime example. He could have netted us some pitching after his breakout but instead we give him an extension.  Now he has turned into a pumpkin. 

[Dtwncbad]

8 minutes ago, HBAngel13 said:

Fletcher is a prime example. He could have netted us some pitching after his breakout but instead we give him an extension.

I really doubt this is true.  He was never considered a high upside talent, but rather a blue collar grinder that found a way to be decent despite not having obvious “hot prospect” skills.  That made him a nice story, but I don’t think other GMs are pumped about stepping into owning the likelihood of the player somewhat predictably correcting to his actual skill set.  That profile doesn’t pull much back in a trade.

I don’t think he turned into pumpkin.  He turned into the player that his skill set delivers. . .and I think that’s how other GMs would have priced him in trade negotiations.

 

[Chitown27Fan]

I dont think Sandoval is a throw away pitcher but on that same token I dont see him ever getting to a point of going 6-7 innings consistantly to sulks and pouts around the mound when things dont go his way and walks way to many people and I see him as a 5 and done guy the rest of his carrer is it usfull yes but could we do better I would hope we could. But if we do nothing how can we sit back and expect change. Washington is going to help but he isnt going to reinvent the wheel or change what a guy is at his core. There is alot of 5 inning #3/4 types out there if we could use one to take a swing at something better maybe we should try. 

[totdprods]

1 minute ago, Dtwncbad said:

I really doubt this is true.  He was never considered a high upside talent, but rather a blue collar grinder that found a way to be decent despite not having obvious “hot prospect” skills.  That made him a nice story, but I don’t think other GMs are pumped about stepping into owning the likelihood of the player somewhat predictably correcting to his actual skill set.  That profile doesn’t pull much back in a trade.

I don’t think he turned into pumpkin.  He turned into the player that his skill set delivers. . .and I think that’s how other GMs would have priced him in trade negotiations.

Before his extension he would have had some value.

Hindsight is 2020, but I similarly remember saying the Angels should've dealt guys like Richards and Calhoun halfway through their careers while they had value, but we 'needed them for next year'. Obviously many things have prevented the Angels from being competitive on a year-to-year basis, but not being savvy when it comes to selling off non-star players at height of value has been a big component that isn't talked about here. Some of the better run teams in baseball know how to thread that needle.

[Dtwncbad]

By the way I am well aware that my assessment of Fletcher saying he wouldn’t have brought much back in a trade is a bit in conflict with my interest in cashing in on Ward while he has some value.

It seems to me that the consensus in Fletcher was he was getting by by being a grinder/gamer, and the consensus on Ward seems to be that he has finally arrived.

So to me it seems more realistic to get something of value for Ward than what I believe the Angels could have gotten from Fletcher.

[Dtwncbad]

2 minutes ago, totdprods said:

Before his extension he would have had some value.

Hindsight is 2020, but I similarly remember saying the Angels should've dealt guys like Richards and Calhoun halfway through their careers while they had value, but we 'needed them for next year'. Obviously many things have prevented the Angels from being competitive on a year-to-year basis, but not being savvy when it comes to selling off non-star players at height of value has been a big component that isn't talked about here. Some of the better run teams in baseball know how to thread that needle.

You very well could be right.  I am just biased on Fletcher because I always thought he was playing over his head.  And that was great for the Angels at the time, but I never expected it to be sustainable.  So I assume opposing GMs would view him the same way.

But you could be right.

[totdprods]

15 minutes ago, Dtwncbad said:

By the way I am well aware that my assessment of Fletcher saying he wouldn’t have brought much back in a trade is a bit in conflict with my interest in cashing in on Ward while he has some value.

It seems to me that the consensus in Fletcher was he was getting by by being a grinder/gamer, and the consensus on Ward seems to be that he has finally arrived.

So to me it seems more realistic to get something of value for Ward than what I believe the Angels could have gotten from Fletcher.

Ward also has first-rounder pedigree working in his favor too.

Another way to draw up what I'm sort of seeing these next 18 months or so...

• Turn Sandoval into a future Rengifo/Ward replacement, and sign a pitcher who should give you similar 3/$30-40m production
• Turn Estevez and Drury into overall farm depth, sign real similar players to replace them so you've got comparable vet production on the books beyond '24
• Capitalize on Ward and Rengifo hopefully producing in 2024 and turn one or both them into a Sandoval replacement, and hopefully a whole lot more
• Draft a quick-to-bigs arm or bat to replace what you've lost

The MLB team shouldn't lose a whole lot of MLB talent in that time span, the farm replenishes, you replace players hitting arbitration with new league minimum players.

[mmc]

6 minutes ago, totdprods said:

Ward also has first-rounder pedigree working in his favor too.

Another way to draw up what I'm sort of seeing these next 18 months or so...

• Turn Sandoval into a future Rengifo/Ward replacement, and sign a pitcher who should give you similar 3/$30-40m production
• Turn Estevez and Drury into overall farm depth, sign real similar players to replace them so you've got comparable vet production on the books beyond '24
• Capitalize on Ward and Rengifo hopefully producing in 2024 and turn one or both them into a Sandoval replacement, and hopefully a whole lot more
• Draft a quick-to-bigs arm or bat to replace what you've lost

The MLB team shouldn't lose a whole lot of MLB talent in that time span, the farm replenishes, you replace players hitting arbitration with new league minimum players.

He was drafted 8 years ago what meaning does this possibly have in 2024?

[HBAngel13]

14 minutes ago, Dtwncbad said:

You very well could be right.  I am just biased on Fletcher because I always thought he was playing over his head.  And that was great for the Angels at the time, but I never expected it to be sustainable.  So I assume opposing GMs would view him the same way.

But you could be right.

For some context, Fletcher had 3.1 fWAR in 2019 with 4+ years of control. He probably doesn’t bring back an ace given the type of player he is but I think he could have been a centerpiece in a larger package.

Fletcher aside, I think we are pulling in a similar direction. Ward is definitely a guy I would look to cash in, especially with Adell waiting in the wings with much higher upside. Naturally Wards injury puts a huge monkey wrench in that idea. 

For the ultimate in irony, how about Ward for Manoah?  Would be in Blue Jays favor per the simulator.  

[totdprods]

15 minutes ago, mmc said:

He was drafted 8 years ago what meaning does this possibly have in 2024?

Compared to one-time trade value of David Fletcher.

Ward producing even around a reasonable.800ish OPS, plus being perhaps a late bloomin' first rounder, gives him more trade value in that scenario versus what Fletcher had at his peak.

[Mark68]

I, for one, am looking forward to the development of the young talent on this team. I do not want to trade ANY of them unless we are getting great value in return. I want to see what Neto, O'Hoppe, Schanuel, Sandoval, Detmers, Silseth, etc. can do with more development and the right coaching. 

 

The Angels have put themselves in a position where they HAVE to go to the open market to try to improve. They have very few tradeable assets that won't hurt fans or the team badly if they are traded. 

There is no choice. They must sign as many of the free agents as possible to complement the young players.

Go get Yamamoto. Get Stroman. Get whomever you can realistically afford. This is where we are. A front office that insists that it wants to compete every year, but doesn't have the farm system to build a solid base around the players who have already graduated (and were rushed) to the big leagues. 

If you want to compete, you need to pay. 

[Mark68]

Shit, I thought E-Rod was a nice target, but the window closed on that.