Jeff Fletcher

Yes that’s the number. Im still not willing to say 100 percent they will be under, but I can’t imagine they would have done this if it didn’t get them under or give them a fighting chance to get under. The descrepency is whether you recalculate the AAV based on the new total salary he’ll make, or just pro-rate the AAV. The latter is illogical to me because it doesn’t reflect what he’s actually getting paid or his actual AAV, but that is apparently how it works.

Also, Arte clearly agreed to go over the tax in the first place so he must be Ok with it. When he went over on July 26 it was clearly with the intent of keeping Ohtani, which likely also would have meant going over for the second straight year in 2024.

They understand that the moves happened because the Angels players played like crap. They are not stupid.

And my point is those are both moves that a lot of people would have endorsed without caring about the players feelings. So let’s not go too far caring about their feelings only when it suits the narrative we want. Also, every single player in the clubhouse knows that all of this waiver stuff happened for one reason: because they played like crap.

I think you’re over estimating the downside to this move. I think a lot more players would have looked negatively on the Angels if they’d been sellers when 3 games out or if they’d put Max Stassi on the restricted list (which literally takes money from him, as opposed to having guys keep their money and change teams)

That’s all true. It was all true on July 26 when they went over the luxury tax threshold. And it’s remained true every day since then.

That's true. But he did have a hip issue. It's a weird situation, but the further they got into I think it made it kind of tough for the Angels to do anything different.

You are allowed to do that. I think it depends what the "personal reasons" are, as far as how a team would handle it and how it would be perceived.

If the Angels had put Stassi on the restricted list, Arte would come off looking even worse.

Grichuk is staying with the Angels

Yes. But a player with a no-trade clause can’t be.

The teams that got the players will find out around 10 am PT. But those teams won’t necessarily all announce them at the same time. Some may need to do something else first to clear a spot. So it’ll be announced over a few hours.

Some things in here are definitely true.

I’m not saying this is or isn’t true, but I’m curious what the basis of this comment is.

This discussion about how the players feel is fascinating.

To be clear, these are outright waivers. If a guy is claimed, the other team gets him and his entire contract. Period. If a guy is not claimed, his original team can outright him, but it doesn’t have to. Players with more than 5 years service time can refuse the outright and keep their salaries. There is no pulling someone off waivers.

When he drew like 5 walks in the first few games I actually told Perry that he was my sleeper to be the Angels 3rd best hitter. I figured adding the discipline to what he’d done last year would really unlock something. However he was actually too passive at first. He was not identifying the pitches well enough so he was just taking too much of everything. Then he had a few weeks in late May/early June when he went too far the other way, so he stopped walking but starting hitting a few homers. Then in mid June he figured it out. he’s had a .900 OPS for 200 PAs. If he can get to .800 for the full season (he’s around .760 now) and maintain that year after year he’d be a valuable everyday player.

Not necessarily. The Angels can keep them if they want.

I’m sure there will be plenty of other threads about that. And yes the Angels would have to eat most of the money to trade Trout.

That’s a good question. It could go either way. On one hand they are doing these players a favor by allowing them to go play for contenders. On the other hand it’s kind of a pain logistically. Honestly I think you could have asked the same question if they had traded Ohtani when they were 3 games out.

It was probably Arte’s idea, so I doubt he’d mad at Minasian for doing it. Just like keeping Ohtani and going for it. All of it is Arte.

MLB "advises" teams not to have players undergoing concussion treatment talk to the media. It is partly because of the TV lights and partly because players may not be as good as evaluating their own condition with a concussion as they are with another injury.

At all times they said they would continue to evaluate him, just in case. And they also prevented him from talking to the media on Sunday and Monday, which indicates that this was something they were concerned about.

Probably because they forgot he exists

You're right. Generally no one gets blamed for a pitcher getting hurt. But there are two factors at play here. First: everyone loves Ohtani. Second: the entire baseball world (including Angels fans) is eager to find things to criticize Angels management for. (Certainly they've brought them on themselves by making a lot of mistakes, but it still doesn't mean that everything is their fault.) As for the thing with which pitches are more likely to cause injury, I think in general it's the velocity of fastballs that mosts leads to injuries. Guys who throw 100 will get hurt more than guys who throw 95. They used to say that splitters caused injuries, but I'm not sure if that's accepted as true any more.