stanick88

Three pages on a 31 year old non-descript minor league signing made shortly before the start of Spring Training. 
Not bad, AW. Not bad at all. 

Congratulations on signing Juan Lagares which is a smart move.  I am very familiar with him and he has upside with little risk.  Originally a SS he converted to a plus elite defensive CF tracking down fly balls along with the best and gunning down baserunners with his strong accurate throws.  He has speed and strong hit tools which surfaced recently in Winter ball.  His problem that has derailed him is he has been injury prone on account of him playing with reckless abandon.  He needs to learn when not to go all out like in the late innings with a large lead not to run into the wall making highlight catches.  Plate discipline needs to improve but he has the potential to steal some bases with more guidance.
It's snowing again and this move warms up the stove a bit for me. 
Happy Super Bowl Sunday!

I never wanted Odorizzi but at this point I'd be thrilled to get him.
That said, I don't see them adding a FA guy unless they trade Heaney.

Let Marsh play. Let Walsh play there. Hell, Let Ward play there. Get Hermosillo back.  Call Orlando Palmeiro.

Also is he really that amazing of a pitching coach people say he is? Yeah he was maybe key to help Bundy turn it around but we have had 3 promising young starters who have shown the stuff to be at the very least middle-of-the-rotation starters in Canning, Sandoval and Suarez but not one has been able to take the step forward despite the opportunities. You can even argue that Canning might have taken a tiny step back this season compared to his rookie year under Callaway.

Fun fact: Cozart ended up being one of the highest paid players in MLB last year because he got released before the shutdown. 

IMO nothing yet.  The job is obviously incomplete.  but, to be fair hes made some smart/good/fiscally responsible moves to date, but if he fails to address the elephant in the room it will be hard to call it a success. 

I like that. Respect.

So a bunch of people were charged with crimes with various outcomes.
Cohen was not charged with any crime.
But this report carefully uses the word “implicates.”  The charges against others “implicates” Cohen.  That is code talk for “let’s use words carefully to suggest he was also criminal even though he was not charged with anything.”
With zero crimes to charge him with, the SEC brought a civil suit against him claiming his association with those that committed crimes suggest he should be held partially liable for THEIR crimes.  That case was settled.
I have no idea if this guy is dirty or not.  But my point is everyone needs to read this shot carefully to separate facts from a writer’s intention conjecture.
 

Angels about to run it back

20-3
2.19 ERA 271 K's 
190 Innings (150-ish game season)
Cy Young
World Series MVP
I mean, if we can't have an Ace for real, might as well have one for pretend. 

I get that point but if Bauer at $30 million along with Ward in RF adds more value than any pitcher you bring in along with any outfielder you bring in that combined make $30 million then you go with Bauer. 

Is waiting for Albert's contract to come off the books worth "wasting" another year of Trout's prime? The Astros lost Springer and Brantley while the A's have lost Hendriks and possibly Semien. The west is up for grabs and that time to go for it is now.

^^^^^^^^
Our lineup last year was roughly top ten in WAR. Switch to just batting and it was even a little better than that. (Defense and baserunning could both use work). That was with RF being manned by Goodwin, Adell, and Ward primarily. Angels ranked 28th in RF - really can't do much worse, and they were a top ten lineup.
We were the 6th best lineup in the AL by WAR. By wRC+, we trailed only the White Sox and Yankees. RF ranked 15th out of 15 in the AL. Is RF a black hole? Can we improve? Sure. Absolutely. But nearly every team has weak spots in their lineup.
We ranked 9th out of 15 in the AL in pitching and 16th out of 30 in MLB pitching WAR.
Our rotation was the problem: 21st out of 30 in SP WAR. The problem was not Bundy, Heaney, or Canning, who all rated fine. Barria, too, was very solid in his 23 IP. We had another 59 IP last year that were garbage. Basically another starter was needed. Was supposed to be Ohtani. At this point, we need to treat him as a potential bonus and not someone to rely on.
One ace could move us from 21st to top 10 in a moment. If we'd had Bauer instead of those other garbage innings last year, we would have had the best rotation per team WAR in the AL West.
We repaired SS, the pen, and catcher. Now, we need starting pitching.
Saying, "Oh, we can spend 30? Why not spend...40!" is not realistic. Arte might be willing to push it for pitching. He isn't gonna push his budget for RF - especially on a multi-year deal when Adell and Marsh are both on the cusp of the majors.

The Astros are in the NL West? Sweet!

At some point, he'll have to overpay. He's done that with position players he really wants. He holds back on pitchers. He'll offer a lot of money, but not necessarily as much as it will take. Until he's willing to spend more than he's comfortable with for a TOR pitcher, nothing will change.
And I'm putting it on Arte because he's the one who has to approve a deal that big. That we haven't gotten one yet either means he's not making it a priority and insisting on it to the FO, or he's meddling like with the Dodgers trade. 

Great first piece, @angelsnationtalk. Welcome to the AngelsWin.com staff of writers. 

By @angelsnationtalk, AngelsWin.com Contributor
Before we get started let's look at the 5 majors additions the Angels have made so far in 2020.
Traded for RP Raisel Iglesias (+$9.125M)
Traded for SS Jose Iglesias (+3.5M)
Signed RP Alex Claudio (+$1.125M)
Signed C Kurt Suzuki (+$1.5M)
Signed SP Jose Quintana (+8M)
Total adds an additional $23.25M to the 2021 payroll.
Here's what is interesting. All of these players become free agents after the 2021 season. 
Therefore....
The cost for 2021: $23.25M
The cost for 2022: $0. 
Opening Day payroll: $173,413,096
CB Tax Payroll: $185,933,334
Tax Space: $24,066,666
Arte Moreno said to reporters while introducing Perry Minasian as the Angels' new GM that the payroll will not go down. This has been justified as the Angels will have their highest Opening Day payroll in club history at roughly $173.4M.
The most important piece of this entire story is that none of these acquisitions for the Angels impact their future 2022 payroll obligations and beyond. 
Here is where things get very interesting. This is the first year since around 2015-2016 where the division is up for grabs. The Angels have the best chances to win the AL West. Arte Moreno has also said in the past that he wouldn't be concerned about going over the luxury tax if it was for the right player.
Well, with a new CBA likely needed to begin the 2022 we could see some drastic changes to payroll that might not even bother Arte Moreno. First thing is what will the tax threshold be? It's currently set at $210M for 2021. After that it's up for a negotiation. Will it be $215M? $220M? or even $250M? No one knows. But what we can guess is that if the threshold goes up (yes, Arte has said he cares about actual payroll and not AAV/threshold numbers), then the Angels have reached their opportunity to push the budget for 2021 and let it reset for 2022. 
Arte Moreno has publicly put himself on the hot seat by firing Billy Eppler and publicly announcing they were having serious internal talks (including with Trout) about what needs to be fixed. And yes, they acknowledged they need rotation help. The Angels have spent the last couple of seasons signing 1yr deals to starting pitchers with major question marks. Take Harvey, Cahill and Teheran for example. Anyone else get that Deja Vu feeling with a 1yr deal to Quintana?
The Angels aren't done. Pujols' contract is off the books in 2022 and the Angels will reset the payroll a bit with that. Trevor Bauer is next for the Angels. The front office knows the upset that will happen if we skip out on another year for a top rotation piece. 
I'll leave it with a quote from Angels President, Jon Carpino from a story by @Jeff Fletcher back in September talking about how they feel with Mike Trout.
“We feel tremendous responsibility to Mike,” Carpino said. “We believe he’s one of the greatest players… Being able to surround Mike, to be able to perform on the game’s greatest stage… Yeah, we feel it every day.”
See you soon, Trevor Bauer.
Photo credit to https://twitter.com/escobedo49 / https://enriqueescobedo.myportfolio.com/
View the full article

If this sets up a Bauer signing then awesome. However he looks like a 3/4 SP with some potential to rebound. This feels like Teheran all over again. Again coupled with Bauer that's great because he'd be a 4 in our rotation. Let's not pretend this guy alone even remotely pushes the needle. 

I always felt like Quintana became very underrated in this forum. He has been very very solid the last few years. I'm just hoping this isn't the main pitching signing and just the secondary one.

Also, the #9 pick in the upcoming draft will hopefully add to this further. I wonder what direction we go this year in the draft. 

A couple weeks but it was a collaborative effort between about 8 of us. #teamwork