vladdy#27

What does this mean about Ohtani?!

Under club control for the next FIVE years, two of those at the minimum. Entering his age 29 season, so we’d get ages 29-33. He plays good defense at second, steals bases, hits for decent power, and gets on base just enough. I wonder what the cost would be

Ha I was thinking that as well! But even if they give all of that money to Ohtani if they like any of the Braves guys enough they can always just use next years money. Then hopefully acquire more at some point to replenish that.

What the Angels have to offer: Mike Trout: The best player today. And shaping up to be one of the best all time. Under contract for at the very least the first three years that Ohtani is here. Defense: You have one of the best defensive players the game has ever seen at SS. You have the reigning AL gold glove winner behind the plate. A former gold glove winner in RF. And these guys will be backing him up in a pitcher friendly ballpark 81 games per year. Bullpen: The Angels bullpen was one of the best in baseball last year. 5th in WAR, 5th in FIP. Which shows that if he leaves the game with the lead they have a good chance of finishing the game off. Arte: You have an owner that is willing to spend. Whether that is signing free agents Pujols/Upton or extending his own players Trout/Calhoun BEFORE reaching free agency. Prime Core: The Angels core players are in the middle of their prime or just entering it Trout, Simmons, Upton, Calhoun, Richards, Heaney If the rumors are true Small Market: If small market is what he is truly after the Angels are right there. They have the best player in baseball that doesn’t get half of the media attention as players such as Judge and Harper. They are the perfect combination of small enough to stay out of the media attention while still having the monetary benefits of some of the bigger clubs. Japanese Star: If he truly doesn’t want to go to a team that has a Japanese star player he likely doesn’t want to join Iwakuma in the Mariners rotation or live in the Ichiro limelight. The argument about Seattle being a closer flight to Japan seems pretty irrelevant. The difference is 1-2 hours and it’s not like he’s going to be flying back and forth throughout the year. He’s going to fly to Arizona for Spring Training regardless. So we’re talking about 1 flight home at the end of the season that will be 1-2 hours longer.

Ramirez would be perfect to fill Petit’s role. He can go multiple innings and if needed give us a spot start every now and then. I wouldn’t want to rely on him in that role because of the health concerns, but if he’s our 5th or 6th bullpen option heading into Spring Training that wouldn’t be a bad thing.

Hisanori Takahashi

Actually now that you bring up Turner that might be a good comp for Moustakas. Turner was a free agent last year and had a hard time finding a deal and ended up signing for less than what was projected. While Turner is 3 years older he is a better player. Turner signed for 4 years 64M There doesn’t appear to be much of a market for Moustakas meaning his value is going to come down. I’d be surprised if he got more than Turner.

What scares me the most about Moustakas is that defense is supposed to be his best assist, but that has declined every year since he has been in the major leagues. And a year after having knee surgery it was at an all time career worst. 2012: UZR 15.8 DRS 14 2013: UZR 7.6 DRS -3 2014: UZR 2.6 DRS -2 2015: UZR 1.5 DRS 4 2016: Injured (only played 26 games) 2017: UZR -3.1 DRS -8 While I posted yesterday that a safe contract for the Angels that’s also relatively fair would be 4 years/60M, with an option 5th year, and with an opt out. A guy that is a question mark offensively and a question mark defensively is a player that the Angels should pass on. We can upgrade in other areas that are a bit safer.

Well I guess that shows us Cron’s value then, should we trade him after acquiring a first basemen/third basemen. Cron would likely bring back less though because Healy is 2 years younger and has 2 more years of club control.

I’m going to start this post off by saying that in no way am I advocating signing Moustakas. But if he really wants to come here what is a price that would be somewhat fair, while insuring that we get back the value that we’re paying? So Moustakas will be 29 next season. He will likely get a 4-5 year contract. So his contract will run through his age 32 or 33 season. Moustakas missed the majority of 2016 after colliding with Alex Gordon, other than that he has consistently played 140 games per season. So we will examine him using 2014, 2015, and 2017. 2014 was the worst year of his career offensively. He had a bWAR of 0.4 and an fWAR of 0.5, but he was just 25. 2015 was his most productive season offensively. He had a bWAR of 4.4 and an fWAR of 3.7. In 2017 he had a bWAR of 1.8 and an fWAR of 2.2. So let’s say 2018 will be an exact combination of those three seasons and he’ll produce a 2.2 WAR. We’ll assume that he declines at age 30 in his second season at 0.5 WAR per season every following season. The cost of WAR in 2017 was 10.5M per WAR. So 2018: 2.2 WAR (Age 29) ($23.1M) 2019: 1.7 WAR (Age 30) ($17.85M) 2020: 1.2 WAR (Age 31) ($12.6M) 2021: 0.7 WAR (Age 32) ($7.35M) 2022: 0.2 WAR (Age 33) ($2.1M) Total: 6 WAR with a value of 63M So a 5 year deal he would be worth 63M WAR and a 4 year deal he would be worth around 61M. He wouldn’t be my first choice but a 4 year 60M contract would not be the worst thing in the world. He would likely out perform the contract because he shouldn’t decline that rapidly during those years of his career. I could easily see him putting together a couple of 2.5-3 win seasons. So structuring his contract: Lets say We give him a 4 year contract, with a team option 5th year (or vesting option) and give him the ability to opt out after the second year. So we give him 4 years 60M, with a 15M team option, 1M buyout 2018: 12M 2019: 14M 2020: 16M (Ability to opt out) 2021: 18M 2022: 18M (Club Option/600 PA in 21) Positives of this contract for the Angels. They finally get a solution at 3B. The cost is rather fair and if he opts out they did not have to pay very much in the first two years of the deal. The opt out gives him incentive to perform well in hopes of better market. Positives for Moustakas. He gets a big money contract and gets to play at home. He doesn’t have much of a market in 2018, but if he is able to string together a couple of good seasons he has the potential to test the market again, at a still relatively young age 31, where he could still get a 4-5 year deal in the 75M-90M range. Part of the reason Moustakas doesn’t have much of a market, or at least it doesn’t seem that way, is that he is still relatively unproven. Players in their 3rd or 4th season typically have figured it out and turn into consistent players. Moustakas was not very good throughout his age 22-25 seasons offensively. He broke out offensively in his age 26 season. Was hurt in 2016. Then had another good season offensively in 2017. So basically in 6 full seasons he has been been good offensively in 2 of them, but missed 1 season. Missing that one season really hurts his stock. If he doesn’t miss 2016 and performs similar to 2015/2017 he establishes himself as a consistent player. With the injury it makes it a little cloudy.

This move just screams Eppler to me. He has a history of trading with the Tigers, Maybin and Upton. Kinsler is on a one year deal, Eppler likes acquiring guys on one year deals Maybin, Revere, and Espinosa. I could live with Kinsler for 1 year at 11M. He’d probably cost similar to what Maybin cost. Maybin not much of a track record coming off a good year. Kinsler with a good track record coming off a down year.

Signing Neil Walker and trading for Jose Abreu would be nearly as effective without having to give up nearly as much 1. 2B Walker .340 OBP 15 HR 2 WAR 2. CF Trout .430 OBP 35 HR 8 WAR 3. LF Upton .350 OBP 30 HR 5 WAR 4. 1B Abreu .350 OBP 30 HR 4 WAR 5. DH Pujols .300 OBP 25 HR 1 WAR 6. RF Calhoun .330 OBP 20 HR 3 WAR 7. SS Simmons .325 OBP 10 HR 5 WAR 8. 3B Valbuena .300 OBP 20 HR 1.5 WAR 9. C Maldonado .290 OBP 10 HR 1 WAR For Hernandez you’re looking at Skaggs plus a good prospect. For Donaldson you’re looking at Jones and at least 2 other good prospects. Walker is likely going to sign for somewhere between 2-3 years for 10M-12M per year. His OBP has increased in each of the last two years. He has good power 15-20 HR. He’s also good for 2+ WAR per year. Abreu is under contract for two more seasons. He’d likely cost Skaggs and a good prospect or 2 good prospects. He hits for a good average and has good power. Isn’t the most patient, but hits enough to have a good OBP (.350). He’s good for 3.5-4.0 WAR per year

Alberto Callaspo, during his Angels tenure, with 20 HR potential isn’t a bad thing

Sure it carries more weight, but what suggests that a player that has never struggled to hit homeruns on the road would suddenly struggle in that category in a year when he set a career high for homeruns? That screams fluke to me. In 15/16 he hit twice as many HR compared to 17, and did it in less AB those years. That doesn’t add up to him not being able to hit on the road. And even if you think he won’t have any power because of his splits. You have to give him credit for his increased walk rate and improved OBP, right? So you’re looking at a 3B that plays good defense, has an OBP of .350, hits 8-10 HR a year, probably good for 2.0-2.5 WAR, and is under club control for 3 years. Obviously not a star, but if we can surround Trout, Upton, and Simmons with 3-4 players like that (like Calhoun) that puts the Angels in pretty good shape.

Pretty big difference in 2017, but 2015 and 2016 were pretty similar, maybe even a little better on the road. 2015: Home 4 HR Road 9 HR (186 AB each) 2016: Home 10 HR Road 11 HR (271 AB/294 AB 2017 may be a fluke. The power would likely drop leaving Great American Ballpark, but probably not as bad as his 2017 splits. A third basemen that plays good defense, hits 10-20 HR, and has a line of .250/.330/.425 would be nice. He’s also under club control for 3 more years. He’s pretty similar to Kole Calhoun

2002 Molina and Erstad Other times it has happened 1995 J.T. Snow and Mark Langston 1988 Devon White and Bob Boone 1986 Gary Pettis and Bob Boone 1967 Bobby Knoop and Jim Fregosi

That difference will be made up in the length and cost of the contract. Hosmer will get 5-7 years at 100M-140M whereas Santana will get 2-4 years at 30-45M. So you’d be paying more for a just as likely, if not more likely, declining Hosmer at the back end up that deal

I think having him in front of Trout would be interesting. First off Trout would have someone on base at least 35% of the time. He'd also get a lot more pitches to hit 2-3-4 of Santana-Trout-Upton

Guessed Carlos Santana, checked to make sure and realized that he has quietly been an extremely consistent player since becoming a big leaguer. Averaging right around a 3 WAR every year since 2011, 150+ games each season, 20 plus HR, .350 OBP, .425-.450 slugging. A 2-3 year deal for 30-45M would be pretty enticing

80 is the very best and 20 is the very worst. He went from well above average to well below average

Bridwell looks like he has something on the bill of his hat

I do remember that earthquake, and it was "Teixeira landing in Anaheim" The Teixeira trade is what got my vote. I remember turning on the Angels pregame show and they said that Kotchman was scratched from the lineup. Then soon found out that we were getting Teixeira. We finally had another slugger to pair with Guerrero. Then Teixeira came here and performed super well to finish the season and in the 4 games versus Boston in the playoffs.

Vs RHP 2B Phillips CF Trout LF Upton DH Pujols RF Calhoun SS Simmons 1B Cron 3B Valbuena C Maldonado Vs LHP 2B Phillips CF Trout LF Upton DH Pujols SS Simmons RF Calhoun 1B Cron 3B Marte C Maldonado

Assuming the trade goes through I would not mind re-signing Phillips to a 1 year deal. He is older, but is still putting up solid numbers. But I agree that Cowart is too much to give up for a month of Phillips

Made a post about Thaiss a little over a week ago. He went 2-4 tonight with another XBH. He has really improved in his second month of Double-A AB 78 Avg .295 HR 0 2B 3 OBP .378 SLG .333 BB 10 K 20 (July) AB 77 Avg .338 HR 1 2B 11 OBP .455 SLG .519 BB 18 K 21 (August) He has improved everywhere. He is hitting for a higher average, more extra base power, and is walking nearly as much as he is striking out.