Jeff Fletcher

Someone will show up for spring training in the best shape of his life.

Aybar is about the 13th best shortstop in the majors and he's signed for $8M a year. He's also coming off a not so good year. The Cardinals, who were desperate for a SS, would not give up any of their starters for him. As for Kendrick, the Angels no doubt would have preferred to trade him instead of Trumbo but no one wanted to give up a pitcher for him. They won't get anyone who makes them better in 2014 for trading either guy. It will be either a guy who is no better than one of the FAs (Capuano, etc) or a risky prospect who isn't ready now.

Yes, that too. Mulder's incentives are based on starts and days on the active roster.

The "douche" is absolutely right. http://www.ocregister.com/angels/trout-597480-free-agency.html

Performance bonuses can't be based on things like ERA, strikeouts, wins. Only playing time things like games, games finished, starts, plate appearances, innings. That's why for guys who may be the closer, the performance bonus is always "games finished" and not saves.

When teams assume a contract and get cash from another team, the amount for the CBT is not averaged, but specific to the year. The Yankees actually took more of Wells salary last year and less this year. I asked Dipoto why it works this way and he gave me a really long answer that, honestly, I didn't understand. But that's how it works. Also, you have to count the major league salaries of everyone for the whole year. Some guys have guaranteed contracts, which means that they will make major league salary even if they are in the minors.

FYI, here's a spreadsheet to show the Angels payroll against the luxury tax threshold.... It includes a lot of estimates, the big one of course is Trout's future salary. I'm putting him down for a $23M AAV with his extension, starting next year. If he doesn't take the money and gets a one-year deal next year, it'll be closer to $9-11M. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?key=0AqaE8E5tHZtndEZhbS0zbzMwWnVjRXo3T0VkMHNGd0E&single=true&gid=0&output=html

My guess is Dipoto talked to Tanaka's agent and said something like: "we love the guy but can't go over $x million. If he wants to play here and were in the neighborhood get back to us and we'll see what we can do." That was their "formal offer." At that point it's up to Tanaka. If he had bigger offers from other places he'd like to play, there's no reason for the Angels to go further. Just a guess at a very likely scenario.

Actually after the A's failed to sign him he went back and played another year in Japan and came back as a true free agent and signed with Mariners.

If you follow me on twitter you'll have all I have as soon as I have it. Nothing has changed as far as I know.

The projected arb salaries were already built in to that $15M. It goes up and down a little depending on how much the guys actually get, but nothing significant. There are still performance bonuses to be factored in so it's impossible to know exactly what the Angels have to spend.

Appreciate the formality I never said the Angels weren't one of the three teams he's considering. I said that I doubted he had really narrowed it down to three, because the Japanese media reports have been shaky all winter. Simple common sense tells you the Angels would be on the short list because it's a west coast major market team with a chance to win. The only questions are "how short is the list?" And "If he wants to play for the Angels, how much money is willing to leave on the table?"

Don't get caught up in this whole "in" and "out" business. There isn't some board in Jerry Dipoto's office with players names and signs under them that he flips from "in" to "out." The Angels position has not changed. They like Tanaka. They would love to have him. It's not likely to happen because they aren't going to be the highest bidder. Period.

It is calculated at the end and includes all money earned in contracts that cover 2014 (salary and performance bonuses). The opening day issue involves future contracts. That's why if Trout signs a 2015 contract anytime after the start of the 2014 season it doesn't count. I assume this is because you can't skip over years in contracts, otherwise you could sign a player to 10 separate one-year deals and skirt the whole AAV issue.

Because it's January 14? And he and 12 other major league starters are still free agents? Obviously the Nolasco deal was an outlier and has created a gap between what the players expect and what the pitchers want. That's why there are so many still unsigned.

Well I think 4 is more likely. And if it's 3 it's probably a higher AAV. Vargas got 4 years but the AAV is only $8M

FYI, if any team was going to give Garza 5/75 he'd have signed already. I now believe he's looking at more like 3-4 years and 14ish per year, so 3/42 to 4/56. If he gets 3 it's likely got an option.

Apparently Tanaka's agent said he didn't want anything leaked. Usually it's the agents that leak the offers, not the teams, so if the agent doesn't want it out, it's not getting out. My guess is at this point 90 percent of the work has been done in terms of Tanaka getting across what he wants and teams saying what they are willing to pay. So at this point it's just Tanaka deciding or going back for a last little sweetener to get him to one team or the other.

This report about the Angels being a finalist comes from the Japanese media that also reported 10 different times that Tanaka was not going to be posted/was going to be posted, when nothing had been decided. I'm not saying the Angels can't sign him, but I'm highly skeptical that he's really eliminated teams already. Also, the Yankees are about the same amount under the CBT as the Angels. The difference is their tax is 50 pct and the Angels would be 17.5.

That is not what they did with Hamilton. They were signing him no matter what. And I'm sure the reason he's still out there is that teams have done just that. I can't believe there's really negotiating and counter offering going on for the past month. I assume teams have put their offers out there and he's put what he wants out there and it's a big game of chicken.

My point was that I'm sure Garza is aware his value could go up after Tanaka is gone so he may not want to sign now unless you want to overpay now.

I actually I wouldn't have voted for Biggio under any circumstances. I didn't vote for him last year when I had 3 empty spots. I have nothing bad to say about the guy, but to me his case is based more on longevity than dominance, and I prefer the latter. Nothing wrong with being in the top 2 percent of players in major league history instead of the top 1 percent.

I hope Matt Garza doesn't read this board!

And one more point... The Hall of Fame decides who votes and what the criteria are. Not the BBWAA. We are doing this because they ask us to. If they wanted anyone else to vote, they could have invited them at any point in the last 75 years.

What bugs me is the constant focus on the few outliers. There were 571 voters and people are griping about 5 or 6 of them. My guesstimate... 70 percent do an awesome job and put a lot of thought into it 25 percent are old timers who go too much by the "eye" and "feel" tests for my tastes but still mostly produce thoughtful ballots 5 percent have no business voting There are plenty of ways you could tweak it and make it better but I don't think any of them will change the end result of who gets in the HOF because the biggest issue in that respect now is PEDs, and that will be divisive no matter who votes.