AngelsFanSince86

Honestly though, that's how most of these things play out. When was the last time someone said, "hmm... Thought he would have signed for more" about a top tier pitcher. If you want one you need to overpay. I've been a little iffy on Scherzer because of his age, but if you were confident in him and he was your top target then you should absolutely overpay if it gets him to sign.

I have to say, I never refer to him as Thor in person. However, the temptation to call him Thor here over having to spell out his whole last name is pretty tempting.

I'm hoping that they are willing to go over this year. On a one year deal it means $50M is coming off the books between Syndergaard and Upton next year. They are going to need more than the $30M or so left to get another starter and still fill all their other needs.

My guess is he didn't want to sign a multi-year deal so he could prove himself and hopes to sign a large deal next offseason. Only way he would not accept QO was if someone was willing to pay more on a one year deal.

Not being willing to "write off the season" is exactly why the Angels have sucked (been mediocre at best) for the last 5+ years. Good teams know when their chances are slim and sell their valuable pieces to build for a better tomorrow. Poorly run teams like the Angels "never say die" and thus never think ahead. The result is they never take advantage of a chance to acquire real impact future talent for rentals like others do. You think it's a coincidence the red Sox were good, sucked for like 2 seasons, and now are back to being good? They sold when the opportunity presented itself. Iglesias isn't the difference between the Angels winning a WS or not. But the player(s) they could have gotten in a trade may be the difference in the next year or 2

Having a vastly negative run differential is a reason to doubt. Not being a true seller when your team has been terrible against over .500 teams is reason to doubt. Building the terrible bullpen he built is reason to doubt.

I don't hate what he did. I hate what he didn't do.

All out sellers? Lol Trading Cobb and/or Iglesias, who are free agents at the end of this season is not going all out. It's selling the pieces that will likely be gone anyways. They could have traded for really good pitching prospects instead of "roll-the-dice" type prospects that they got in the trades they made. That would be focusing on pitching. It isn't being healthy that's the issue. Every team deals with pitching injuries every year. It's about building your farm so you have cost controlled pitching depth. Part of that is done through the draft and good teams also increase that depth by trading rentals like Cobb and Iglesias when they have a long shot of making they playoffs like the Angels this season.

Unfortunately, that's the mentality that has kept the Angels from the postseason. It's short-sighted.

F. He may have done a nice job with the Heaney and Watson trades, but ultimately they don't move the needle. He had a chance to get a potential impact prospect for less than half a season of Iglesias and didn't do it. Instead they'll still miss the playoffs, but likely win a few more games than they would without Iglesias thereby lowering their draft position as well. Angels have perfected the art of mediocrity.

It may make them feel better in the present, but long term they will never come to terms with his death until they admit to themselves that Tyler was an adult and did this to himself. As his family they should have seen it as much as anyone and made a bigger deal out of it. I don't know what their motivation is, but if it's justice they won't find it. If they get everything they set out for they will still feel empty because deep down they'll know it was Tyler and that as his family they're as responsible as anyone for seeing the signs and getting him help. If the motivation is money, then screw them because they are terrible people. I have a feeling it's a bit of both. Skaggs families whole premise is based on the fact that the Angels "knew". Its a very shallow premise that in the end may make one more individual connected to this. And at the end of the day, as far as I'm concerned, it's still Tyler's fault. And his families for not making a bigger deal before he died. I've had plenty of people in my life suffer from addiction, eating disorders, etc. I've watched people turn the other cheek, enable, and confront. The reality is that you always see the signs of you are close enough to them. If you choose to ignore them and they end up dead, please don't try to blame someone else. Ultimately it's the individuals fault. However, next in line are the people who are supposed to know them best (spouse, family, lifelong friends, etc.) If you did nothing before it happened, you are more responsible than any other person other than the individual. There are some sad stories out there about teens being given prescription drugs laced with fentanyl and ODing. This is not one of those stories. Tyler was a grown ass man. I feel sorry for him and his family, but it should stop there.

Best shape of our lives

I had a mixed experience. I ordered drinks from the corner market and had to wait in line for 30-40 minutes after waiting 15 minutes to go check on it. They had printed all receipts and had to sift through 40+ receipts to find each person's order every single time. There was no social distancing and the lines were worse than what you would expect with 30,000+ fans. Later I ordered food from the main ballpark food concession and it was fairly quick, but at that point (7th inning) most of the lines had gone down. In our area you couldn't order from any of the concessions from about the bottom of the second until the bottom of the 6th.

At first glance I was thinking I was glad they didn't drop that kind of money on Bauer. He certainly isn't worth being the highest paid player in baseball the next 2 years. The more I think about it the more I wish the Angels could have gotten him though. It's only 2 years you are committing to paying him $40M and $45M. If he isn't performing it's done after 2 years and if he opts in the 3rd year it's only $18M. However, because of the short duration of the contract you know he's going to be working his ass off for the next contract. I would guess he doesn't fully realize the value per dollars of his contract, but I would bet that the surplus money they are paying him compared to the value he actually provides is much less than Gerrit Cole, Rendon, definitely Albert Pujols, and most long term contracts in general. For example, the cost per WAR is about $8M. Let's take Cole and assume he doesn't opt out and the Yankees don't add the extra year in 2029. I'm also hoping to throw out last year because it skews everything. That's 7 more years at $36M for a total cost of $252M. He would have to accumulate 31.5 WAR over that span to realize his value. This is where someone with more experience may need to edit this because I'm not sure how to project decline: let's say 5 WAR average the next 3 years and then a decline of 1 WAR per year after that. That would be a total WAR of 25. Let's say he accumulates 27 WAR. That's 4.5 WAR short of his needed total. That means the Yankees spent an extra $36M. And that is a fairly optimistic approach given the likelihood of injury over the next 7 years. Let's take Bauer now. He's not as good as Cole so I'm going to say he is worth 4 WAR a piece over the next 2 years. That's worth $64M in WAR value. So he's $21M short of what he gets paid in that time period. When you compare to long term position player contracts the gap is even larger. Pujols would be an extreme example of falling way short of his contract. Basically it's less of a chance of falling way short at the end of the day because it's only a 2 year commitment. The more I think about it the more I think it would be worth it. However, he probably would have chosen the dodgers anyways.

In 2014 because of Madison Bumgarner

Yep. I always want them to win while I'm watching, but am happy either way. Either they win and it shows promise for next season or they lose and increase their chances of a high draft pick. I'm also just hoping the best for the young guys, particularly Adell. He's getting his shot right now and given how young he is I just want to see him gradually improve and hopefully next season we'll see a true breakout.

Yeah not much else to do at this point. I'm not up in arms about it. I just don't like trading their 4th-ish best hitter away. And I just like the guy. We'll see though.

Not really what I was referring to. I didn't know La Stella was a former top prospect. The difference in trading for them was that they were already established major league players. Neither were lighting the world on fire, but they didn't give up much to get them and they had proven they could at least compete. I'm talking more the Alex Meyer type. Guys who were former top prospects that came up to the MLB and couldn't figure it out. I could be completely wrong obviously. Earlier in Eppler's tenure I would have backed this, but at this point it just seems like a dumb trade. Better to try to extend La Stella, an actual proven commodity, then to hope a guy that can't figure it out at the plate suddenly does.

It's going to be significantly harder to sign him now, particularly if the A's are interested. Definitely won't get a team friendly deal anymore.

Right. But what I was saying was that I would have preferred to extend La Stella. Maybe they already tried and were unsuccessful so I can't say definitely that Eppler screwed up. I just don't see how 4 years of control matters if the guy can't hit. Extend the proven commodity instead of trading for a younger non-prospect. This guy is literally the same type of player Eppler has traded for time and time again (former top 100) and they never pan out.

Didn't read more than the first 3 pages. I'm not so frustrated at the return for la Stella as much as I am in trading him period. If Eppler anything to impressive pitching in any meaningful way then he should have just held on to him. Obviously any chance to re sign him goes down and I would have preferred that to this move. He's one of the top bats in the lineup, he's a great guy to have on the team, and he is versatile. Seems like a Dipoto move. Trade for the sake of trading.

Problem is that they didn't get a spring training. I'm very upset at how the bullpen has blown so many games, but it's so hard to judge guys that are still really getting it going. Trying to be patient, but that's tough with the short season.

I haven't been paying extremely close attention to the constant updates of the season so correct me if I'm wrong. Top 2 teams in each division make the playoffs? So the fact we dropped 3 of 4 to the A's means a lot more than the actual record.

Yeah, I decided to look at it because I thought there might be some validity to the Fletcher argument given his extreme propensity to make contact (even though my initial thought is obviously Trout is the guy you want coming up in any situation). Looking up the stats made me even more in awe. It's unbelievable.

Actually .939 is Trout's SLG%. His OPS is 1.433. Crazy. His batting average is .466