halomatt

If this is really a year to just see what the team has in terms of its younger players and prospects, it wouldn’t seem to make much sense to sign a vet who is a PR nightmare, and would take starts away from someone else’s development. Unless Bauer is part of a long-term plan, it would seem counterproductive to what Perry is trying to do this season. I don’t get the obsession.

I just realized that in years past I was only really interested in wins and losses. 
This year, I'm legitimately interested in watching a bunch of guys on the team play.  I also like Ron and haven't liked either of our last two managers.  
And I'm sorta over the whole Ohtani thing.  
I'm ready to see a team that's decent to good at pretty much all positions.  
Going back ten years, I would say that I enjoyed watching Trout and Ohtani of course, but outside of that there were very few.  Howie, Richards, Shoemaker, Simmons and that's about it.  
This year I will want to see Neto, O'Hoppe, Schanuel, Rengifo, Trout, Ward, Sandoval, Detmers, Soriano, Drury, Canning, and a few others.  
They might not win enough to make the playoffs, but I like this team.  

The team goes 68-94 - their worst season since 1994.

I never understood the whole -- "they aren't going to spend 50 mil on the pen and call it a day", mentality. Moreno said they were going to run with a smaller payroll and they actually traded off salaries that could have served as filler.  Those things happened in reverse order but they seem to correspond pretty well.
Seems pretty clear they are going to turn the reigns over to the younger guys and look at where they are organizationally next season.  I don't doubt they were hoping someone might fall to them, but can't say I'm surprised this may be it.
 

Feels like a masked rebuild.  Go with a bunch of young players, sign a bunch of RPs that can be traded off at the deadline for organizational filler at worst.  The reality they haven't made a single depth signing is telling IMO.

Tamin or Hezel, me thinks
Probably Tamin, since he’s not here anymore

By the way, all of the stuff that people are saying was wrong with the pitching strategy last year… I don’t think it was coming from Matt Wise. 

His only recourse is Seppuku.

"A Pete Rose by any other name would smell as sweet"

I think the story here is as follows:
 
Ohtani's name was leaked to reporters from the FBI investigation into the bookie. Reporters reach out to Ohtani through his spokesperson for comment. Ippei gives the interview yesterday to ESPN. The Dodgers get wind of this, realize Ohtani is implicated from Ippei's interview and is attempting to change the story from "Ohtani paid off illegal bookie for Ippei" to "Ippei stole the money from Ohtani to pay his gambling debt." Ippei must have some incentive to go along with it.  
I guess it's equally likely that Ohtani participated in some of it himself. But who knows.

this is an incredible event. ohtani is such a fun guy to watch. you want him to be as nice as he appears in public, but you just never know. but i won't be surprised at all to hear that ippei is taking the fall for him.
EDITED because i did a knuckleheaded thing.

Having to read his posts everyday for the last couple months have trained me for this moment 

You got that from that post?  Kudos

I'm not mad at Arte.  I just don't like the way he runs the franchise.  He's actually pretty predictable and nothing much has changed since he started.  A little bit of window dressing here and there but really, it's all been part of the same MO.  Feed the major league team.  Put a reasonably marketable team on the field with a blend of some star power and hint of decency.  
And to the comment earlier of him riding the coattails of the previous regime.  Sort of true.  What he really did was to ride the vision of Bill Stoneman.  Arte seemed a lot more passive in those days where he let Bill do his thing and Bill kept him under control.  I think that 2009 series loss to the Yanks really changed him.  And Reagins fumbling about sort of facilitated him getting more involved.  
Arte wants to win and has shown his support in the way he sees best by spending a certain amount.  His efforts have been misguided for a long time and while there is that passion for winning, it's never really been ahead of his passion for making money.  Except last year.  That was really quite the disaster.  Raise payroll.  Put a big dent in the farm.  Barely win 70 games and soon to follow you lose your golden goose to your biggest rival down the street.  
And the reason I just shake my head at the way he runs things is that he was willing to throw 9 figures at yet another player who is probably on the downside of his prime if not already past it.  
We joke about the definition of insanity.  But I guess it's not insane considering that he's probably pocketing millions on a yearly and could easily get a more than 10 fold return on his original investment.  
I always gotten the sense from him when he does interviews that he's got this sort of 'if you don't like it then oh well' sort of attitude.  
We talk a lot about what he should do differently.  Why should he?  As far as he's concerned, it ain't broken.  The only thing that broken was last year when he spent an extra 50 million dollars for no reason.  

I honestly feel like it's never really recovered.  Or hasn't been allowed to.  Is and always will be an afterthought by the current regime.  They blew up a decent chunk of it in one fell swoop last year.  

Dodgers farm system : Angels farm system :: Sydney Sweeney : Melissa McCarthy

Crazy you guys are still debating this.  Who gives a shit.  The guy is a scum bag that can throw the ball gud.  Probably no one is going to sign him.  But if he happened to get signed by the Angels he would make them a little better but probably not so much better that it’ll make any of you complain less.  And, if he ends up doing Trevor Bauer shit because he’s an asshole then maybe you’ll complain more.  Anyway.  Pick your poison and all that.  Go with god.  

The white knighting for a dude who can't even get a league minimum deal with a single MLB team ... it's a little embarrassing.

Scott Boras knows what he's doing, 90% of the time. Pitchers get hurt ALL THE TIME. That's why the pitchers he reps want long term contracts, so that when they do get injured, they'll still get paid and they'll still have the opportunity to rehab and get back in the game. 
Not only that, here we are in Spring Training and pitchers are dropping like flies. This means more suitors are being created for his clients. Why? Because pitchers get hurt ALL THE TIME. 
Add into the equation, the less Snell and Montgomery pitch, the less likely they'll get hurt, because pitchers get hurt ALL THE TIME. 
I know you may not want to hear this, but Scott Boras is smart. I think he may be playing it just right. 

I don’t get the animosity. I imagine everyone here is pretty consistently looking for better opportunities for themselves within their respective industries. You’d be foolish not to. Why should pro athletes be any different? They can be traded at any time, and have no real control over their career for the first six years of MLB service time. The Angels had six years to get it together, to prove that they are a top-notch organization, and they didn’t. That’s on the team. There is no one here that would have said no to that deal from an organization that is consistently in contention.

I thought I'd screenshot this for the archives: