Jeff Fletcher

You’d have to be pretty certain he would win ROY for this be even remotely worth him missing out on the experience of playing a month of major league games.

Maddon picked him to be the third base coach, not to be the “replacement manager.” Nevin is not at all a “Maddon guy” in terms of managing the way Maddon did.

I just listened to the podcast and have some clarity on the “announcement.” 1. Arte himself was obviously the source quoted by Verducci in the SI story. 2. The Giolito-López trade was already happening before the Ohtani story. The “source” in Verducci’s story specifically said they were going to be buyers and get “a starter and a reliever.” 3. Once the Giolito trade happened, it would have been obvious the Angels weren’t trading Ohtani, announcement or not. 4. Regardless of any announcement, Perry was not giving other GMs the impression that there was a serious chance of trading Ohtani because his owner never wanted to trade him. Perry is not going to lose credibility with his peers by fully engaging and wasting people’s time (including his own) by soliciting a bunch of trade offers for a deal his boss wasn’t going to let him make. I believe Perry was willing to collect people’s offers but not willing to make counter offers or any kind of back and forth without Arte’s go ahead, which never came The point to all that is I don’t think the “announcement” really affected the dynamics of what was happening, because it was nothing that the people inside didn’t already know.

I don’t think he’s selling anytime soon. I think he’s keeping the team because he loves it.

A fun fact I learned about that last year: they are not the same hot dogs that they sell for normal price. So you’re getting an even worse product than the normal crappy ballpark hot dog.

No chance those were Arte’s idea. Grichuk was gone quickly so I certainly don’t think he rose to the level to become an Arte favorite, particularly since it was during the time when the Angels were abandoning the farm system. And Cron was certainly a useful player in his first tour with the Angels but not enough of a difference maker for him to be on Arte’s wish list. They got Grichuk to replace Ward (injured on 7/29) and they got Cron because that they realized on 7/22 that Rendon wasn’t coming back soon and Escobar wasn’t as good as they hoped. The Rockies trade was on 7/30.

Joe Maddon is the guy who picked Nevin to be on his staff. When Minasian picked Maddon’s replacement, he picked Nevin from among the candidates on staff. (Obviously Arte had to approve.) When Nevin got his extension, it was basically just because Arte was selling and it would be tough to get someone else to come into a situation in flux like that. Again, Arte would still have had to approve. The quote you highlighted was from the day Arte said he was selling the team so obviously the question was about Arte. The question wasn’t “who picked you as manager?”

Moustakas declined to talk and no one else who we deemed an appropriate spokesperson for that game was around.

I think the Mets are paying for all of Escobar, including the buyout.

I can’t imagine this situation would continue like this next year. He’s either going to at least try to play or he’s not going to get paid (either by retiring or going on the restricted list). As for the luxury tax, I think if they aren’t paying him (by either of those last two scenarios), it doesn’t count.

I never thought that 30% was contingent on them making the playoffs. I thought it was contingent on them playing well enough to show a promising future. They still could do that. But I’d probably knock it down to 28.34381% now.

I just remembered a conversation I had a couple days ago (with a source familiar with Ohtani’s thinking) that the latter part of this is true. If the Angels would have traded Ohtani, it would have been next to impossible to then convince him to re-sign after the season. He would not have believed the Angels were ever committed to winning if they gave up when they were 3 games out with more than 2 months to go.

Is this a serious suggestion? You’re gonna have him play OF for 7 innings so in the 8th inning he can run 40 feet to get to the bullpen instead of running 300 feet from the dugout? By the way if he has to bat in the bottom of the 8th then your whole plan was for nothing. Or if the Angels are losing.

The updates on Rendon have been regular enough. If nothing is changing they aren’t going to say that every day. As of Wednesday, he still isn’t doing any baseball activity, which means he’s not close to returning. As soon as he gets cleared to do that, you’ll know. Nothing has changed with Stassi. At this point there’s not enough season left for him to come back.

I agree with this, which I think I’ve said and written before. If Ohtani’s decision is based on “how good will the Angels be from 2024-2033, the needle on that one shouldn’t move that much based on the 2023 Angels winning 87 games and missing the playoffs or winning 90 and making it. Winning 75 would seem a lot more hopeless. Also, bear in mind that they have played basically zero meaningful games in august or September since he’s been here. If they even go on a run to where the games matter in September, that will leave a whole different taste in his mouth than 2 solid months of nothing.

The 2021 Cardinals were in almost the exact same spot as the Angels. Look it up. The 2021 Braves were in the same spot as the Angels at the break but they’d already gained a lot of ground by mid August.

This isn’t really accurate. They were 2 different categories. One guy was just an All Star who had a 2.50 ERA and the other was a converted reliever who had just pitched half a season around an injury. The Angels signed Anderson and then they still tried to sign Lorenzen. I tried to press Lorenzen to see whose decision it was not to sign with the Angels and he stuck to “mutual.” I believe it’s possible the Angels just didn’t pursue him as hard as the Tigers did. I also believe it’s possible that he decided it was better for his career to pitch for the Tigers (pitch in a great pitchers park in a bad division to set yourself up for a bigger payday in a year)

Statistically no. The best we’ve ever seen Ohtani pitch was in 2022. Better than 18, 21 or 23.

Except for 2022. That was his best year pitching, by a mile, and he threw a million sweepers.

He’s just spent a lot of time there working out at driveline. I wouldn’t say he “lives” there.

I actually also heard this from someone who knows him. He said thought Ohtani wants to be one carrying a team to success. This was an Angels person, so maybe a biased opinion or wishful thinking but it didn’t sound made up to me.

He was just heating up before he got hurt. He had an OPS over 1.000 in the two weeks before he got hurt.

You can give a player a fixed bonus when the team meets certain attendance thresholds, but not a percentage of revenue or anything like that. For example, player gets $1m if team hits 3M, etc. I don’t think that’s revenant to Ohtani because he’s going to get so much guaranteed that something like won’t move the needle.

Yes

1. I have no idea. I haven’t asked any people outside the organization about this. But I do know the Angels major league roster is a lot better now than it was a week ago. And they have a better chance of making the playoffs than they did a week ago. 2. I’ll say maybe 25 percent. I’m slightly upgrading what the math says because of the guys about come off the IL and the upgrades already made. 3. I don’t think Arte turned down $3B to do a rebuild. I think if Ohtani doesn’t come back they’ll spend all that money and someone else and try to be as good as possible in 2024.