Jeff Fletcher

You guys should do a contest predicting the years, value and time of Trout's extension. I'm saying 9 years, $192 million, May 27, 2014

This is going to be my last post on this since it seems to be lost on some people.... The discount the Angels get on Trout is is for guaranteeing him money 7 or 8 or 9 years down the road, not for giving him $5m on Mar 1, 2014 instead of $600K. That's just money that you're essentially spending to avoid one day of bad publicity which you could probably avoid anyway if Trout tells his agent to shut up this time. If Dipoto says "Look mike were going to give you $600K this year because that's the way the system works. Sometime during the season were going to make you a deal that will pay you enough money for you and the next five generations of your family to be set for life, so be patient." I'm pretty sure he'll be OK with that

Where it hurts is when you have $4M less to spend on someone else. And that $4M could be the difference between having Tanaka/Garza or Capuano/Maholm

I'm all for the Angels bringing him to camp because it's a good story! I covered him with the A's. Quality guy.

It depends what he does in 2014. But my guess is 8-10M if they do a one year deal. If they negotiate it during the '14 season they can probably pay him at the lower end if it's part of a long term deal.

I understand Trout's value on the open market is more like 30M a year. His extension will be closer to 20 because he's not a free agent and it will include arb years. In any case, the point was that he's going to be underpaid no matter what you pay him so there's no reason to pay him extra just to be nice. There's no evidence that what you pay guys as 0-3s has any impact on what happens to them in arbitration or when they negotiate extensions. The Phillies I believe paid Ryan Howard about double what they had to in his 2+ season (after winning the MVP) and he still took them to a hearing and won a record award in his first arb year. Sometime in 2014 the Angels will offer Trout an 8-10 year deal at 18-22M per year and he'll take it. It's easy to say he should hold out for 30M a yr he'd get a free agent or just take a shorter deal to become a FA, but in reality it's a compromise. There's no guarantee he's going to stay awesome and healthy forever, so if someone offers you 200M you take it. Then if all goes as well as you hope, you get another contract when you're 31 or 32 and cash in again.

They are very interested in Garza, but basically waiting to see how he interested he is in them. My impression is he's stalling, waiting to see what happens with Tanaka.

If you wanna play it that way, you can't count defense in the WAR calculation. How valuable is Bourjos then?

I have discussed this several times with the Angels front office... The rules for the CBT are this: if a contract is signed after opening day, and doesn't pay him any salary in that year, it doesn't count. I assume the reason that you couldn't sign him today to a 2015 contract is you can't have contracts that skip years, otherwise you could sign him to 10 different one-year contracts and avoid the whole AAV question. But if his 2014 contract is already ticking, then he can get one for 2015. I'll also say this that I have said on other threads: there is no reason to pay him anything extravagant (more than 600k) in 2014 unless you believe that he's the kind of guy who will be upset and pouty that a system that's been in place for years doesn't apply to him because he's special. If you think that about him, you don't think much of him. In reality, it's Trout's agent, not Trout, that is a little whiny about the whole thing. His agent is the one who screwed him last year by making it an issue. Trout's fair market value is $20M. If you pay him $600K or $1M or $3M or $5M you are still screwing him. Those are the rules. Teams get to screw you for three years. Players get to screw the teams for most of the rest of their careers.

I wouldn't say Dipoto is necessarily throwing away the future to win now for personal reasons. Whoever is the GM of the Angels, even if he's got a 10-year contract must understand that Pujols and Hamilton give the team a very small window to win. In 2016 Pujols, Hamilton, Weaver, Wilson and Aybar are going to be making a combined -- off the top of my head -- $110 million or so, and all are likely to be worse than they are today. Mike Trout will still be a star but he'll also be making $15M or so. That's going to make it awfully hard to win. That's why they have to win now. Also, referring the earlier comment about Bourjos' WAR compared to Freese, as I said before that's a meaningless stat because of the "replacement" in question. Bourjos value is based almost entirely on him being a major defensive upgrade to whoever else is playing CF, which he's not with the Angels. Freese, on the other hand, even in his bad year was more productive than who the Angels had at 3B in 2013, let alone who they were going to run out there in 2014.

You wouldn't trade 250 ABs of Bourjos for 500 ABs of Freese?

That should have said "you don't sacrifice offense for defense in left."

Everyone talks about Peter Bourjos' WAR but it's a little misleading with the Angels. First of all, his value is almost entirely on defense as a CF. But with the Angels who is "replacement" if Bourjos isn't in center? Mike Trout! So when you put Bourjos in the lineup you're improving CF by a little and improving LF by a lot. So let's say Bourjos was great defensive LF. How valuable would it be to put his bat and glove in LF? You don't sacrifice defense for offense in left. Kole Calhoun probably has a better bat and he's cheaper, plus it allows Trout and Hamilton to play the positions they are most comfortable at. So if Bourjos is the Angels fourth OF, his value isn't going higher. Only lower. As for Grichuk, being the Angels best outfield prospect is different than being a good prospect. He's about 10th with the Cards.

I was told the cardinals didn't view Bourjos as an everyday player, which is why they wouldn't trade Freese for him straight up.

No way Howie gets a No 3 pitcher. At best he gets you another Hector Santiago, which is a young guy whose ceiling is a No 3 but who is possibly a no 5/reliever. Howie costs twice as much as Trumbo and is only under control for 2 years. Also, you can't trade Howie and have Grant Green as your everyday 2B. They'd have to go get some other veteran. So that's another hole. Also, Drew also costs a draft pick, so if the Angels are going to trade Aybar for pitching and sign Drew they may as well just sign Jimenez. (They aren't doing either.)

I wouldn't underestimate Scott Boras. How many times have we said "That Boras screwed up this time!" and he still gets his guy the money. It's only Dec. 19. Look at last year with Rafael Soriano. The Nats didn't need a closer until Boras convinced them they did. Don't be surprised if Morales signs with the Twins. Clearly they have some money to spend. They have a protected pick. They have no real DH (less so since trading Doumit yesterday).

They're actually about $15M under the CBT without including any performance bonuses, and they're certainly hoping some guys earn those. Not sure where your math is off but benefits count for about $10M.

Is it just me or do Angels fans seem way more down on Ernesto Frieri than they should be? Guy has converted about 89 percent of his saves over two years and aside from 3 horrible games in a two week span has been pretty much nails. And for no money. What do you want?

I understand. Some reputable people (except one) were reporting some false things. I don't blame you for believing. I meant it was amusing to watch the mood of the board rise and fall with each tweet.

To clarify, if Moran does not make the Angels opening day roster (or if at any point they don't want him on the 25 man roster) he goes through waivers. Any team can claim him but then that team has to keep him on 25 man. If he clears waivers, he's then offered back to the Mariners. They can pay the Angels 25K and take him back and send him to the minors, they can let the Angels have him, or they can trade him to the Angels. If the Angels get him back in either of the latter 2 scenarios, he can go to the minors. As for the slot money, the Blue Jays can now spend an extra 244K and the Angels 244k less. But it's from the current signing period so the Angels probably have already signed anyone they wanted. Toronto may have just uncovered some guy and they needed more slot money.

The Angels believe Skaggs has the higher upside but at the moment Santiago is ahead of him on the depth chart. If Matt Garza showed up today and opening day was tomorrow, with no spring training, Skaggs would start at AAA. Obviously, a lot will happen between now and the real opening day, not the least of which is 6 weeks of spring training. Because of that, where people line up on Dec 13 is not really relevant, although fun to discuss.

Have read through this whole thread but wanted make a point I made on twitter (apologies if it's already been posted).... Ibanez is the one confirmed name on the Angels list only because his name was leaked (presumably by his agent). My understanding is the Angels talked to him, but I don't believe he's the top of their list. Despite all the questions I get about who the Angels prefer and who they've talked to and what offers they've made, they don't tell us. (Not very good for negotiating.) It takes a lot to work to get anything. So don't obsess over Ibanez. He may be No 5 on their list.

Just skimmed through this whole thread. You guys are a riot. FYI, Angels never had a chance to get 2 Arizona pitchers for Trumbo. And Kendrick was never involved in this trade. And I believe the Kendrick trade the White Sox turned down was for Quintana not Santiago.

I covered this game. Still the best game I ever covered. Jerome and I must have talked about it 10 times last year.

One thing you guys need to remember is there's really no urgency to sign Trout anytime before he's actually arbitration eligible. Are you worried that his feelings will be hurt if he gets his $200 million contract in May 2014 instead of January 2014? It's the same reason I found it so interesting that fans got so upset that the Angels paid him $510K last year instead of giving him all this extra money that they didn't have to just to make him feel better about himself. It's a system that the players agreed to and everyone follows the same rules. If you think Trout is going to be pouty and have hurt feelings because they didn't change the whole system for him, then you don't think much of him. Also, there's a lot more room for Trout to go down (if he gets hurt or has a decline) than to go up in 2014, so it's not like the Angels are going to save a whole lot of money if they sign him today vs next year. Trout is going to get paid. And he's going to get paid huge. The Angels are aware of this and I'm sure they are budgeting for it. But there's no reason for them to be doing it now.