eaterfan

I don't think it matters who is hired as long as Arte owns the team. He may have high payrolls, but doesn't spend on anything that isn't on an MLB field. This team gets injured every year and falls off because they don't have a farm system. They don't have the depth to replace injured players the way other orgs do. Arte also lacks the patience and long term vision to build anything sustainable on the farm or in the organization. Every team gets injured, maybe the Angels are more unlucky some years, but not always. Last year the Dodgers lost so many players (and a lot of good ones) and still rolled because of their depth. Every year has been "go for it" since they signed Pujols. They were trying to maximize their window with Pujols and borrowing against the future when they should have been trying to maximize Trout's window. It's not going to change until Arte is gone.

Shocked to learn the guy who worked for Woody Hayes doesn't think the athletes should be able to have control over the services they provide. Even the tiniest amount of power the athletes have is ruining the game and not the coaches who promise playing time and lie when recruiting, or the coaches who leave the school at the drop of a hat when a better opportunity comes up, or the schools who switch conferences to make more money in another conference across the country and throw out a hundred years of rivalries. NIL has made college sports so much better. Guys can actually stay in school and improve their game before going pro for the money. For a decade all we heard about was that one and dones are ruining college basketball, now guys like Jaime Jaquez and Tiger Campbell can stay through their senior year if they want. I loved watching their games this season because I got to know these guys and it's better basketball. Here's a quote from Zach Edey, presumptive "best" player in college basketball next year. It's from an 8/11 article in the Athletic “If this was before NIL, I probably would have left,” he says. “That’s fair to say. But now I’m allowed to be rewarded for the season I had last year, for the season my team had last year. This is how NIL was meant to be used, I think. Not the way some schools are using it.” If it allows key players to return instead of going pro, it's only making college sports better, not worse.

Wouldn't not going to the Big 10 have screwed the tax payers. UCLA had huge debt that the Regents would have had to take on had they not joined the Big 10. If both schools would have made $30-$40 a year in the Pac 11 and UCLA is making $80-$90 a year in the Big 10 then that's a net gain for the regents to have UCLA go.

New rivalries will form. In the end this is really about getting rid of the bottom teams who drag down the revenue for each conference. If USC, Texas, Michigan, tOSU bring in $70 million a year in value and OSU and WSU bring in $10 million it's pretty obvious why those revenue generating schools want to ditch the lower end schools. They just can't kick OSU and WSU out of the conference so they leave to another conference. I think once high revenue schools in the PAC, ACC, and Big 12 have been abandoned the low revenue schools for the B1G and SEC maybe we'll see schools actually kicked out of conferences. Purdue, Indiana, Vanderbuilt, Northwestern, etc. will need to be worried.

Sure, but once again, we've only seen a season (or less from a lot of these guys) and we're assuming they stay at their current levels or improve slightly. While at the same time we're discounting the guys who produced like that during the Eppler era who weren't able to maintain that level for extended periods of time. If 75% of the guys you mention pan out and become above average starters, this model works. If this is the best we see from these guys and only 25-50% make it then it's bad. My point is that it's still way too early to judge this era as being better than the Eppler era. So far IMO it's pretty similar without much of the upside but probably a little less downside.

This is an honest question... I don't follow the farm as closely, but is the farm really any more productive than it has been. I like what we've gotten out of Neto and O'Hoppe, but I could have said I liked what we got out of Bourjos and Fletcher their first few seasons. I liked what we saw from Canning initially, too. If Ohtani is gone and Trout isn't a 9 WAR player anymore is there anyone in the system at this point who has a realistic ceiling of consistent all-star? I get that our issue the last decade is that we didn't have enough guys like Walsh, Bourjos, Fletcher, Neto, OHoppe, who could produce 2-4 WAR a year. But if we aren't getting HOF production from Trout and Ohtani we are going to need some guys who are consistent all-star level players. How about top of the rotation starters? Do we have anyone who looks like that in the system?

Where we need to be and where we are seem like her different places... Making moves based on where you want to be compared to where you actually are is why the Angels have made the playoffs once in the past 15 years. I really understand that veterans are needed and the team should be trying to improve, but cap space is the team's biggest asset and they are just lighting it on fire. This is what Verbeek wants. These are his guys, and he has every right to do what he wants, but he's operating like Mayock was with the Raiders and has very different evals on players than the media and other teams. Maybe he's the Rays and not the Raiders, but these being wildly different than the rest of the league rarely pays off.

I'm not sure that's true with how many of their young guys are coming up for contacts soon. Again, I have no problem with adding guys like that, but I think especially with the Killorn deal, they could have brought in leadership for much cheaper and for shorter terms. This just reminds me of the early 00s where the Yankees and Red Sox were drafting guys who were thought to be unsignable out of high school and then offering them big signing bonuses. They weaponized their money to create an edge. And they signed some of those guys who became good players out trade assets for them. The Angels rarely if ever did that. The Ducks could have used their cap space to get more draft picks, prospects, or just good players on a discount (from a trading assets perspective) and didn't do it. Other teams have done this for a couple years and it's not groundbreaking stuff.

I don't live this signing. Obviously, this team is going to have to overpay for players because who would want to sign here, but this is a second long term deal for an old free agent with too much money on the contract. These guys will be in their late 30s by the time these contacts expire. Why not trade for guys who are younger and overpaid and pick up some extra draft picks from teams that are trying to dump salaries? They don't need to be guys who are totally done as players, but there are plenty of guys who are 20-30% overpaid who could be had. They also could be shorter terms remaining. If we are going to overpay in FA I'd rather see them do shorter terms and longer AAV for the players on the wing side of 30. Even if these (and especially this one) contacts work out as well as can be expected these guys will still most likely be dead weight by the time the Ducks are really competing for a high playoff seed. If the kids take a huge leap this year and push for the playoffs then this will be a good FA destination next summer and the team won't have to overpay for FA like this. Finally, why not wait until the dust settles and sign guys who are waiting for a contract for more reasonable terms? Last year it didn't work out, but neither have several recent bigger money FA contracts haven't worked out either. At least we're not stuck with those. I don't think the percentage chance this context works out are significantly higher than what the Ducks could sign in a week or month.

I would compare them this way, Fantilli is like Cam Newton. He was great in college and has all the tools. Big, fast, tough, plays with an edge and has all the physical tools. If he puts it together he'll be a generational type player. He doesn't have the processing of some other guys, but even if he doesn't figure it out, he'll still be really good. Carlson is more like Philip Rivers or Peyton Manning. They have the prototypical size. They see the game a little better than everyone else, but he won't ever bring the speed element but they'll carve you up. And if you surround then with premium playmakers, they are virtually unstoppable, but you may miss the speed element.

And Eichel just won some sort of trophy in the NHL. So he further proves the point.

I don't think that's true.

Loved the signing at the time. I still think it was worth a roll of the dice. Bummed it went about as badly as it could have. Maybe if he had gone to an organization that was better at developing players he could have been something, but I don't think superstar was ever in the cards.

13 current stadiums: Angels, Dodgers, Oakland, Seattle, Denver, Arizona, White Sox, Cubs, Milwaukee, Minnesota, Baltimore, Philly, and Boston 2 no longer in use: Yankee Stadium and RFK

I care a lot because I have YouTube TV so I can't get the games. I have T-mobile so if they go to MLBTV then I can watch the games. It makes a big difference for me. Unless "this" means where the pregame show is and not about Bally's potentially missing a payment. Then I do not care at all.

Agree with what you're saying. Beyond the stats, Mike Trout is giant and can hit the ball very far. Even just looking at stats, Mike Trout's age 17 season he put up a .905 OPS and his age 18 season he put up a .919 OPS. People forget that he wasn't just young, he was dominant. You can still be a great player and not be Mike Trout... Or even Mookie Betts.

No. I don't have Bally's.

I have MLB.TV, but it sounds like if this happens to the Angels I will have to pay $20.00 per month since I'm in the local market, right? Or is that the price for the App. I got it through T-Mobile so I don't know what it costs regularly.

Hopefully, it's not a decline, but this is the same conversation we were having on this very board in the early Pujols years. "If you ignore his April when he was adjusting to being on a new team then the rest of the season looks like a vintage Pujols year." "If you take out the part where he was playing a little hurt, it's not quite a Pujols year, but it's still really valuable." "Pujols is still good when he makes contact, he just needs to lower his K rate to his normal levels." The hot streaks got shorter and the cold streaks got longer. That's just what decline is. He won't forget how to play overnight, but the injuries start taking a toll. The recovery takes longer and isn't as complete. They are all reasons, but it gets harder and harder to think it's not just an aberration, but a trend. It goes from if we take out the cold streak he's the same to if we extend the hot streaks more then he's the same. And the baseline level of play has declined a little. I really hope we're just seeing a little bit of a cold streak.

Is there a list of teams Bally has skipped payments to and those they are still paying? I'm curious about how many they have left.

I just went with this number for SLC. It uses the OMB and US Census definition of what the metro area is. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salt_Lake_City_metropolitan_area I think you are right about Portland. I looked at a more inclusive number there, it included Salem for some reason. 2.5 million is the official number from the OMB and Census. Thanks for checking on those. The Portland number definitely surprised me.

As someone who doesn't know a lot about the coaching pool, I found this incredibly helpful. I don't follow hockey as closely as the other three big sports and don't follow leagues outside the NHL at all. It was nice to see a list of names and a little blurb about them so I could learn a little at least. I'm not even saying they pick someone off this list, but it was interesting to see what kinds of candidates were out there. I'm sure the candidate pool will become a lot more clear once we know the lottery results. Getting a Bedard or to a lesser extent, Fantilli, could really change which candidate pool the Ducks are fishing in. They could be a lot more of an attractive destination with some good fortune on Monday.

Nachx is cultural appropriation of TexMex culture no matter what's on them.

Honest question. What makes you think the economics of Salt Lake City are better than Portland? SLC has a much smaller metro area population (1.2 vs 3.3, practically 1/3 the size, Portland metro is about the same as all of Utah), and the metro population has a much lower median household income ($65k v. $78k). A large portion of the SLC fanbase won't use what are two of the three biggest sponsors (and probably all three) of alcohol, caffeinated soda, and gambling. They won't consume two of those three high profit items in the stadium. What data were you looking at that led you to the conclusion that SLC had stronger economics than Portland as far as how it could support a team? Do you really just mean that the owners will get big subsidies for the stadium and development projects so that's why you want to see a team there? I know you didn't bring up the baseball aspects. But that will be a lot more trouble than Portland, too.

I'm not sure any of these places are good for expansion. I don't even think Vegas is a good place. 1. Nashville - population of metro area is 1.9 million. It's pretty small. 81 home games is a lot. Fun city to visit. This is probably high on my list 2. Portland - population of metro area is 3.3 million. That's decent sized, roughly OC population. They do support the Blazers and Timbers well. Fun city to visit. This is high on my list, too. 3. Charlotte - population fo metro area is 2.6 million. Panthers get medium support, but are supported well when they are good. Never been. Probably first on my list 4. SLC - 1.2 million metro population. It's tiny. It's at high altitude. Last on my list. 5. Orlando - Who cares about metro. They have two teams that can't draw there already. It's hot AF so it has to be a dome. 6. Montreal - 4.1 million metro population. Too cold early and lat in year so would need dome. Another Canadian team increases any international issues that already exist, couldn't support the last team. Granted, Loria sucks so maybe a better owner could succeed. Would be best option if they did succeed. Of these, I think Portland and either Charlotte/Montreal make the most sense, due to market size and potential support. I don't know that I was longing for more teams, but whatever. I'd probably go with a third team in New York before many of these options.