aznhockeyguy

I like the Justin Upton comp but with less walks. Renfroe has a higher .ISO, so he makes up for a lower OBP. I'd like to see Renfroe hit behind Trout so that pitchers are pressured to pitch to Trout, to give him some lineup protection that Rendon was supposed to provide.

Wow another solid move by Perry. Renfroe has good power in his bat and lets Adell stay at AAA to work on his game for the season. Anyone got any info on the prospect given up? Seminaris?

Wow, did not expect this. Solid MLBer, great insurance for Rendon, platoon with Walsh and spell at corner OF. He's going to play everyday just unsure where. Great trade!

Interesting, I thought he left to pursue the GM side of baseball.

Angels biggest need is hitters. I'm not really sure why Perry signed Anderson when starting pitching was very solid all season. Angels need depth and quality players up and down this roster especially when Rendon and Trout will very likely miss a portion of the season.

I expect Ward to have a .800 OPS and worth about 3 WAR, hitting 20 HRs and walking around 10% of the time. He's due for some regression with the .325 BABIP from this past season, but Ward has a solid understanding of the strike zone and strikes out less than the average MLBer, and should be able to put up solid numbers next season.

Angels and awful free agent signing is becoming synonymous and the Angels are losing a 2nd round pick.

This is an interesting question. I'm surprised the WAR numbers are as close as they are for the two players. Molina is going to get in because he has the accolades, 10x All-Star, 9x GG, 2 top 5 MVP finishes and played his entire career with a crown jewel franchise and was around a long time and has the counting stats 2000+ hits, 1000+ RBI. Martin doesn't have any of these things that Molina has. He bounced around a lot and his career was significantly shorter than Molina's by ~ 600 games caught which is equivalent to about 5 seasons, which is pretty significant for counting stats. While Molina was considered the premier defensive catcher, Martin wasn't too far behind in terms of Dwar per 162 2.0 vs 1.6. Fair or not, where you play matters unfortunately for these borderline HOF cases. It is something that is voted on.

Angels do need a corner outfielder but I'll pass on Judge and the money he'll ask for.

Right that's what I mean about infrastructure but it goes deeper than that. Scouting, minor league coaches, baseball ops people, etc. etc. There's a small chance a new owner won't have deep pockets and cut payroll and prioritize profit, but will invest in infrastructure instead. I would rather have an owner like that than Arte. Ideally the Angels new owner will be like Cohen and Guggenheim group, but there's not too many people like that.

The Angels' history of this happening is pretty good right?

Not sure what the number of front office people has to do with player payroll but ok. You just never know with a new owner. The new owner might prioritize profits/making money like Jeter's ownership group did when they first took ownership of the Marlins. Again, just because a team has top 10 revenue, doesn't mean a new owner will spend. Arte said and did the right things when he first became owner. Once they become owner, they'll start doing what they want to the team. I certainly hope not, but just because the Angels are top 10 in revenue doesn't necessarily mean a new owner will spend that way. I don't want the Angels to decrease payroll, I'm just asking a HYPOTHETICAL of a new possible owner that might prioritize profit and smart spending instead of Arte who splashes money on shiny hitters and skimps out on everything else.

Unless the payroll is going to be significantly increased, I just don't see a way to see the team improve unless Rendon, Trout, and Shohei all have career years and stay healthy all season, Adell figures it out and the bullpen improves.

These are all assumptions. Arte is worth 4 billion and can afford an increase in payroll but doesn't and this season's payroll is 9/10th depending on where you look at around 210 million. If Arte won't do it, it's not outside the realm of possibility that a new owner will not increase payroll and actually decrease it to recoup some of the purchase price. Just because the team gets top 5 revenue doesn't mean an owner will spend it, just like Arte is doing.

Hopefully Arte will sell the team sooner rather than later. The ideal owner would be someone with deep pockets and hires really smart people and stay out of the way like Cohen of the Mets and the Guggenheim Group of the Dodgers. It's a real wild card of owners out there. The Angels can end up with another Arte type. However, would you accept an owner that'll really invest in the infrastructure but limit payroll to say $140 million or so? The Angels doesn't have the revenue streams like the Dodgers and New York teams and maybe the new owner will prioritize profits, thus limiting payroll. So in essence the new potential owner will try to emulate the Rays/Guardians, where they have a very smart front office and strong infrastructure but the payroll isn't as high and will trade away fan favorite players, if they don't sign team friendly extensions.

I binged watched Schitt's Creek last month. Very funny and the characters are ridiculous yet believable at the same time.

Fletch looks like his usual energy bunny self after that hip injury. He's a solid player, slightly below average with the bat with a very high contact tool and an above average glove. He's a type of player every winning team needs, doing all the little things well and sets the tone. If he gets to 2 WAR per season which is the definition of an average MLBer, then he's worth the contract extension he was given.

The Angels rotation is pretty solid, not elite but above average, maybe even playoff worthy if the rest of the team wasn't so poor. Definitely can always use more starters but it's not a priority right now for the Angels. There's so many other holes that the team needs to address as wopphil stated.

I agree, first 2 years you can pay them peanuts. 2 years is a better sample size and waiting a season doesn't move the needle too much in terms of comp and years for an extension of this size and magnitude. Also don't blame Rodriguez for taking the deal.

I wonder what Sandoval is thinking when seeing this lineup. Poor guy hasn't received run support all season.

Kroenke would be a great owner and would be definitely be willing to spend to win.

LOL, meanwhile in the gameday thread.

I agree with some sentiments on this however while I do think the Samueli's can buy the team and they'd make fantastic owners, I don't think it makes sense for them. 1) NHL is a salary cap league and for the most part, the Ducks have not spent to the cap unless they made deep playoff runs and even then the Samueli's have stated they were losing money on the Ducks. 2) The Angels have the revenue streams, but to be competitive in the next few years, the new owners have to spend a lot of money both on the roster and on the team's infrastructure. While the Samueli do have the pockets, I'm not sure if it's that deep that they can stomach having 2 money losing franchises in the short term. When the Dodgers got sold to their current ownership, they swung hard and spent tons of money improving both the roster and the infrastructure and hiring the best people, because they had a ton of money and wanted to field a winner in the short and long term in order to build up the fan base for the cable channel they were going to create. I speculate that if the Samueli's buy the team, there will be a budget much like Moreno had, but they'll stay out of the way and let the baseball people do their thing which is what Moreno should've been doing. I'll be very happy if the Samueli's buy the Angels, but I don't see it happening. They'll most likely be outbid by someone else.

It's not everyday a team goes on sale. Angels are in a prime place (SoCal) and good fandom. Since Moreno is a greedy fuck that doesn't give a shit, I don't think it'll be the Samueli family because it might be out of their price range as the price will approach 3 billion. It'll most likely be a hedge fund owner like Cohen or Guggenheim group.

While Ballmer would be ideal, I think he's fully invested with his energy and focus on the Clippers. I don't think he'll be interested, but I would be psyched if he was.