nikkachez

Haha I'm 19 is what I was trying to say

Give me two more years and I'm down! Haha it would definitely be nice having a fellow Angels fan here though

Ahhh yeah so you're a lot older than me, I'm getting my basics out of the way at TCC and transferring into UT Austin which I feel like is better area for me cause it's such a college town

Hahaha I know it's been super cold all week. I guess it's alright, wouldn't want to live here on my own in the bible belt. All of our family friends are Rangers fans so we always get texts and what not, they're actually skeptical about the Fielder trade which took my by surprise, they didn't want an aging 1st baseman like us haha

I guess I can see the appeal, but I've lived in Chicago, Santa Monica, and Salt Lake City so I'm more of a midwest-west coast type of guy. This is football and nascar country though for sure, miss being back in Santa Monica watching my Halos and being around other Angel fans and like CDaniel said it's frustrating as hell being surrounded by these bandwagon hopping front-runners. Although it has been great the last two years seeing immense Ranger melt downs muahaha, would really love to see the Angels competitive though, I see them whenever they're in town. Was at the game last year when Kendrys hit the two home runs in the same inning, was at the game in 2011 when Weaver twirled an awesome shut out, was also at the game when Lackey came back from the DL, threw 2 pitches at Kinsler and got ejected...was not a fun day. Haha

DFW! I'm about 20-30 minutes outside of Dallas but my god the "fans" here are painful, the Rangers were completely unknown until a few years ago (2010.) More bandwagon fans than Yankee fans haha

Hahaha what a coincidence! I moved to Texas 5 years ago! This place is a hell hole! What part do you live in?

Not giving up a draft pick for a guy who will pitch 1 or two years here, period.

Mmm it doesn't make sense for Baltimore to trade Tillman seeing as they're looking to improve their rotation and he's their ace right now.

But overlooking all of it, the tax threshold doesn't look at the salary of each player per year, it takes the average annual value of a contract. So even if players get pay bumps, it doesn't go towards the luxury tax threshold. So no.

Joe Blanton

Woohoooooo! I've been on the Joe Smith bandwagon all off-season, really makes our bullpen look pretty solid. Frieri, Smith, De La Rosa, and Burnett could be a deadly quartet

He needs to increase his walk rate but he could be a huge factor if he replaces Trumbo

Good! Have the Yankees sign more bad contracts, hope they sign Cano to a 10 year deal too

Soooo let's say the Angels decline the options of Blanton and Burnett along with non-tendering Hanson, Gutierrez, Jepsen, and Nelson ($7 million estimated owed to all of them.) The payroll would sit around $140 million after the dust settled in this situation, Angels would have to replace the non-tender guys hopefully with league minimum guys on the 40-man roster. Throw out what Trout makes in arbitration because he signs an extension, let's say the deal starts at about $20-22 million a year because I'd assume the Angels would backload it, and you're looking at about a little over $160 million which still gives Arte a little wiggle room. Wells coming off the book should't be looked at as subtracting from payroll as a whole, it absorbs the Hamilton $8 million pay bump, CJ and Jered's $2 million pay bumps each, and Pujols' $1 million pay bump while still subtracting a decent amount of money, $5.6 million, which could be spent towards Trout. This isn't even taking into consideration the other moves the Angels will make this off-season, I don't see the Angels staying underneath the tax threshold this off-season if they're trying to compete and I'm sure it'll be the same next off-season. http://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/LAA/2013-payroll-salaries.shtml

Put it this way, Wells and Blanton will be off the books after this season. Hanson, Gutierrez, Jepsen, and Nelson should all be non-tendered. Sean Burnett if his option isn't picked up or vested but hopefully he's healthy and pitches well. Angels will get a decent amount of money of the books especially no that Wells contract will finally be off the books which is reason to celebrate! The worst trade in team history will be over! Then the Angels can focus on signing Trout long-term

Not giving up our first round pick for 1 or 2 years of Kuroda, that's absurd. Angels can't afford to give up anymore first round picks. As much as it pains me to say, I think Arroyo could be on his way to Anaheim. It wouldn't be smart to trade any of our remaining assets now, Howie gets traded, we put Green at second (yuck), and I think Bourjos got traded so Trumbo could stay. Angels need one guy with an ERA in the mid 3's and another guy with an ERA in the upper 3's who could both pitch 200 innings which I just don't see happening

Bourjos and Grichuk for Freese and...Salas. FML

Angels have already made a ton of coaching decisions, Duncan would've been nice, but let's focus on the actual team here

If he's posted I think they go after him regardless, the Angels shouldn't focus on what the Rangers or A's are doing, they need to figure out their own shit. They need two starters (I think Arroyo is on his way to Anaheim), another young pitcher in the minors who could come up and fill a hole in the rotation in case of an emergency, 2-3 bullpen arms, a third baseman, a bench player, non-tender Hanson/Jepsen/Nelson/Gutierrez/and maybe Williams, and to hire David Eckstein onto the coaching staff. If the Angels can sign Tanaka and Arroyo, trade Trumbo for a 2-3 prospects (one pitcher close to MLB ready, a young bullpen arm, and a low level/high upside prospect), sign 2 of: Wilson, Howell, Smith, or Logan, and sign Peralta and/or Chavez we could be a good team. No pressure right? But a rotation of Weaver, Wilson, Tanaka, Arroyo, and Richards is pretty solid.

Cano would actually be good for them but later turn into a crappy contract, can't decide if I'd want them to do it or not.

Both teams would be getting crap wrapped in a bow (albeit a very expensive piece of crap wrapped in a bow)

I don't want Vargas to be our third starter, but I'm more than okay with him being our fourth starter

I feel like people are slightly overreacting to Vargas, he'd be our 4th starter and possibly 5th if Garrett pitches to his potential, not a big deal. ERA's for pitchers who started the fourth amount of games for each AL club (not a perfect way to measure it but it's close enough) Baltimore: 4.07 (Chen) Boston: 4.32 (Doubront) Toronto: 6.20 (Johnson) New York: 3.10 (Nova) Tampa Bay: had a constant rotation within a rotation of Cobb, Hernandez, Hellickson, and Archer so I'll continue Chicago: 4.75 (Danks) Cleveland: 3.85 (Kluber) Kansas City: 5.32 (Davis) Minnesota: 3.83 (Deduno) Detroit: 3.67 (Fister) Texas: 3.11 (Ogando) Seattle: 5.76 (Harang) Houston: 5.59 (Lyles) Oakland: 4.14 (Milone) Vargas: 4.02 after coming back from a freak injury, which before the injury, he was our best pitcher. Sure it wouldn't have lasted throughout the whole season but he was still pitching well for us. The point is people need to stop overreacting to our fourth starter, Vargas is average to above average in the fourth spot of a rotation, it's the third spot in the rotation you should be worried about

If they sign one bullpen arm, I'm taking Joe Smith. If they have the wiggle room to sign two, I'd love Howell and Smith. They were interested in Howell last year so I wonder if they'll go harder after him this year