The Official 2024 Los Angeles Angels Spring Training News & Notes thread

[TroutField]

Oh Arte… 

 

All the bad press over the last 10 years, mostly brought on by penny pinching and running this once great franchise into the ground. 
 

why not just shell out the cash to make nice facilities that entice players to want to play for this franchise? 
 

it’s a constant cycle of embarrassing media coverage. If you don’t want to invest in the infrastructure of the team, just sell it to someone that will. 

[tdawg87]

Just now, TroutField said:

Oh Arte… 

 

All the bad press over the last 10 years, mostly brought on by penny pinching and running this once great franchise into the ground. 
 

why not just shell out the cash to make nice facilities that entice players to want to play for this franchise? 
 

it’s a constant cycle of embarrassing media coverage. If you don’t want to invest in the infrastructure of the team, just sell it to someone that will. 

Unfinished business!

[mmc]

 

[BTH]

It’s kind of weird that Cole Fontenelle has continued to stick around, despite other guys like Paris, Leblanc, and Dozier getting reassigned.

He didn’t play above A-ball in his pro debut last year and he’s not a top prospect.

 

Unless they just forgot to tweet it out or accidentally omitted his name.

[James]

35 minutes ago, BTH said:

It’s kind of weird that Cole Fontenelle has continued to stick around, despite other guys like Paris, Leblanc, and Dozier getting reassigned.

He didn’t play above A-ball in his pro debut last year and he’s not a top prospect.

 

Unless they just forgot to tweet it out or accidentally omitted his name.

Probably reached their character limit. 

[Tank]

so if i'm reading it right, it sounds like the halos are going to be putting in a nuclear missile silo or two in these super secret renovation plans. 

[Second Base]

3 hours ago, TroutField said:

Oh Arte… 

 

All the bad press over the last 10 years, mostly brought on by penny pinching and running this once great franchise into the ground. 
 

why not just shell out the cash to make nice facilities that entice players to want to play for this franchise? 
 

it’s a constant cycle of embarrassing media coverage. If you don’t want to invest in the infrastructure of the team, just sell it to someone that will. 

Because owning an MLB franchise is a cash cow. Regardless of increased salaries and operating costs, the billionaires that own these franchises have largely seen the value of their investment increase at minimum 10 fold in the last 20 years. 

It doesn't matter if Arte fields a winner or loser. He was insanely rich before he bought the team and now he's even more insanely rich. 

This might just be my perception, but I think Arte legitimately enjoys baseball and wants to win. But he does not enjoy paying for things that aren't right in front of his face, like Spring complex tunnels and labs, minor league living situations, international scouts. He likes spending his money on hitters to stack his lineup. He doesn't trust pitchers. 

He's a very competitive, flawed owner. 

[TroutField]

5 minutes ago, Second Base said:

Because owning an MLB franchise is a cash cow. Regardless of increased salaries and operating costs, the billionaires that own these franchises have largely seen the value of their investment increase at minimum 10 fold in the last 20 years. 

It doesn't matter if Arte fields a winner or loser. He was insanely rich before he bought the team and now he's even more insanely rich. 

This might just be my perception, but I think Arte legitimately enjoys baseball and wants to win. But he does not enjoy paying for things that aren't right in front of his face, like Spring complex tunnels and labs, minor league living situations, international scouts. He likes spending his money on hitters to stack his lineup. He doesn't trust pitchers. 

He's a very competitive, flawed owner. 

I think he’s just over it at this point. He took over the team when it was at its peak and never continued to invest in it. It lasted another 7-8 years until the cracks really started to show. 
 

he tried to win by investing in players and realized it wasn’t working. It seems now like he just doesn’t care to win and is just holding onto it until he really needs to sell. It would be fine if he just hired some smart baseball people to handle all these types of decisions, but somewhere along the way he decided to stop spending. 
 

no reason there shouldn’t be a stadium deal lined up, even Anaheim has said they are open to negotiations. 

[Tank]

1 hour ago, TroutField said:

I think he’s just over it at this point. He took over the team when it was at its peak and never continued to invest in it. It lasted another 7-8 years until the cracks really started to show. 
 

he tried to win by investing in players and realized it wasn’t working. 

???

[TroutField]

4 minutes ago, Tank said:

???

I meant investing in the infrastructure of the franchise…. Minor leagues, facilities, etc 
 

he instead chose to throw money at aging, past their prime hitters. (Hamilton, Pujols)
 

sorry if you misunderstood that in my post 

[Tank]

10 minutes ago, TroutField said:

sorry if you misunderstood that in my post  for not making my point more clear when talking about investing in the team.

no sweat.

[TroutField]

10 minutes ago, Tank said:

no sweat.

lol typical response from you

[Tank]

1 minute ago, TroutField said:

lol typical response from you

well, investing in the team can have more than one meaning - be it players, management, minors, etc. 

seems like an easy enough thing to be specific about. 

[Stradling]

If he was “over it” he would have sold, he wouldn’t have spent $50 million on bullpen arms. 

[Second Base]

7 hours ago, TroutField said:

I think he’s just over it at this point. He took over the team when it was at its peak and never continued to invest in it. It lasted another 7-8 years until the cracks really started to show. 
 

he tried to win by investing in players and realized it wasn’t working. It seems now like he just doesn’t care to win and is just holding onto it until he really needs to sell. It would be fine if he just hired some smart baseball people to handle all these types of decisions, but somewhere along the way he decided to stop spending. 
 

no reason there shouldn’t be a stadium deal lined up, even Anaheim has said they are open to negotiations. 

I'll have to disagree there. Arte is sticking to his guns, however imperfect it is. He refuses to write checks for pitchers on a long term basis which by default, eliminates the Angels from exactly what they need, which is top tier pitching. It isn't that he doesn't care, he just has parameters. 

1. No long term pitching contracts.

2. Will not go over the luxury tax. They say it's not a hard line but it very clearly is. Otherwise you wouldn't lose a top 100 prospect for nothing. 

So Minasian has to operate within those boundaries. So what can he do? Sign a whole bunch of relievers to try and make his starting rotation "good enough". 

Also, the stadium deal very clearly is more nuanced than that. Arte has a sweetheart of a deal, and he doesn't invest in the stadium. That's why it's a shithole compared to other stadiums outside of Oakland. Anaheim can day it's ready to negotiate all they want but it's posturing. Maybe something works out, maybe it doesn't. 

[Chuck]

 

[Chuck]

 

[Chuck]

 

[tdawg87]

I legit love Ron Washington. 

[TroutField]

3 minutes ago, Chuck said:

 

Best shape of his life? 

[Chuck]

 

[Angelsfan1984]

1 minute ago, tdawg87 said:

I legit love Ron Washington. 

[TroutField]

6 minutes ago, tdawg87 said:

I legit love Ron Washington. 

I’m with you. At first I wasn’t so sure about the hire and I legit hated Ron from all those years in Texas with Kinsler and Napoli. I hated those Texas teams lol 

 

but now I’m pumped every time I hear a little clip of him talking. The man knows how to fire you up, I was pretty down on The Angels a few months ago but somehow Ron has me pretty pumped up for the season. 

[Chuck]

 

[Chuck]