DCAngelsFan

I dunno, he *is* pretty upright and doesn't really drive with his legs - I reckon the concern that made him drop is changing his delivery might mess with his strength, that ridiculous movement. As intriguing a 9th round pick as you're gonna find, I'd say.

The opposing teams had little trouble seeing his stuff, as evidenced by that 10.57 ERA But "wiffle ball" is a pretty good take - could be an interesting guy to watch.

I've heard that California is notoriously pro-tenant but don't really know one way or another. But I can't recommend this enough - if you do it, get a seasoned, hardassed property manager, to vet your tenants - an experienced one will run credit, get references, and sniff out the ones who aren't legit - it's absolutely amazing the number of women who'll (secretly) take a lease out for their deadbeat boyfriend who's "just had a little bad luck lately" (under the pretense that she's the renter, 'cause his credit doesn't exist and his mom won't even vouch for him, nor will his PO) Make that mistake, 3 months later, the rents not paid since day 1, the neighbors are complaining about the trash and the noise, and the downstairs neighbor calls to tell you there's water coming thru the ceiling. My property manager would be at the renter's door 2 days late with an eviction notice - he didn't play. And no one ever was late more than once. There are bad ones, but a good property manager can save your ass Most every bad tenancy story I've heard starts with a sob story "I'm a little short this month ... but as soon as my tax refund comes ..."

From 2018, " 72.5% of single-unit rental properties are owned by individuals, and 59% of those have debt. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/08/02/as-national-eviction-ban-expires-a-look-at-who-rents-and-who-owns-in-the-u-s/ https://www.nar.realtor/blogs/economists-outlook/landlord-statistics-from-the-2018-rental-housing-finance-survey I had a rental property some years ago, and when rented, yielded a cash flow of around -$100/month (tax advantages still made it a win.) It was mortgaged, as was my primary residence. A year of non-payment would've bankrupted me (at best, some predatory REIT would've bought it up at a discount.) I got out at a good profit - but probably half the people I know who owned rental property have been burned by bad tenants and lost money, some quite a lot. Bear in mind, a lot of these "landlords" around me are military or contractors, who've bought a house, and rent it out while on a overseas billet / assignment - they're not rich, they just want to keep their house.

This might be all you really need to read: In other words, settle, or we'll tie you up in court for years. The state plays with house money - they have zero problem spending money on the court filings because guess who's money that is?

I think that's the nuance missing from the "poll" - if Arte just pulled up stakes and moved the team somewhere for purely personal financial reasons - (and like Georgia & co, seemingly deliberately ran the team into the ground before they left so they could leave - for the young 'uns, the owner in the movie Major League was almost certainly based on Georgia Frontiere - them going on to win the SB in St Louis were the peanuts in that shit sandwich - but I digress) - existing fans would probably feel pretty pissed off. But I think if ppl thought Arte did everything he could, but that the gov drove him to move the team, people might be more forgiving. Then again, like Doc says, the way the franchise is being run has definitely hurt my interest in the team - this Groundhog Day effect where nothing ever changes, because of what looks like a greater commitment to real estate development than player/team development. But like St. Louis, and with Trout and Ohtani on the roster, he could move the team anywhere and pack a stadium with new fans, while Angels fans are kinda getting fatigued by the same old...

Ah, it all makes more sense, now - the state saw an opportunity to extort some money from Moreno by monkey-wrenching this - they'll suggest a settlement like "'Donate' $30m to affordable housing (just make the check payable to "cash") and we can make this all go away."

I remember a Popeye's in SE DC that had a bank-style sheet of ballistic glass, and a turntable for delivering food. Bars over the (closed) dining room. That's where store-front retail is headed. All this talk makes me want to move back to CA - booze is expensive, and we actually have to pay for it here ...

Hopefully, those reactive terrible, awful-at-the-time mistakes were: Arte driving the trade or signing 'cause reasons and, Arte has learned his lesson, and/or PM would threaten to quit rather than have "author of one of the worst trades/signings in baseball history" on his resume PM can't be thinking like a fan. Trade either of them - who'll play their position? Upton? I can't imagine a full-time role for him - his defense costs us games, while his offense costs us wins I think Marsh has some recognized value right now, Adell earned some skeptics, but I think we need "both" in 2022, short of a major acquisition. And Adams' last season doesn't bode well for seeing him playing a role any time soon, if ... . If we had to absolutely, positively trade one of Marsh/Adell, I guess I'd keep Marsh right now - we know his defense will play in CF, Trout will face a bit of the Erstad dilemma - he can stay on the field longer if he gives up CF. The sooner he's good with that, the better the team will be. But I wouldn't trade either of them - short of some GM losing their mind in some lopsided trade ("Paging Tony Reagins ...."), there are (or at least "were") less-costly ways to get what we need ..

Ouch - don't think I needed to read this - that write-up makes our talent "pipeline" sound like:

Eh, maybe misread that - I just read that he was in LA, and had to dash to LAX to catch the last flight to Chicago - but might've been just visiting - us? Not sure where he lives (other than an old article that said he bought a house in Florida)

Exactly - 1 year contracts limit your exposure to a long-term mistake, but also do nothing for us past next season. No matter how good Snydergaard is next season, that does nothing for the team in 2023 - and if he's spectacular, it's almost worse, because you either have a giant hole to fill and/or a worse contract. It only makes sense if it gives your young guys another year to develop. And there *is* that - we've got some young pitchers that have some potential coming along. And it gives us some money to extend Ohtani. Whatever - it is what it is - disappointed these pitchers signed contracts we should've been able to compete for - but going forward, I'd like to see us try to sign Rodon - the 6-man rotation should help mitigate any workload-related injury risk, and that rotation has the potential to be really, really good. I think the fact we couldn't sign Stroman - an LA resident who signed a below-market deal - tells me we weren't really serious about signing any more large deals, and certainly weren't going to breach the "salary cap" threshold, no matter how much we tried to convince ourselves that Arte would see that "this was the year." Deja vu all over again

And there goes Gray - this is turning out .... ... pretty much like I expected ...

Great, we invented cancer

An underrated pitcher, and by all indications, a really good clubhouse guy. I don't know where we wind up spending our dollars, so maybe there will prove to be a better place to spend $10m - but I'd have liked to have kept him.

Well-said. We often hear Arte is "cheap" - which seems to be sort of laughable on its face, b/c of his often very-high payrolls. But he's spending entirely on the major league team, at the expense of everything else (it seems.) I always wonder what happened with Friedman - I can't help but imagine he turned *us* down, because Arte wouldn't give him the authority he'd need to change the culture. I just google'd Carpino - a little description of his role as President kind of says it all: We measure our GM's on getting us to the playoffs, now - or you're fired. That's not the environment the club needs to succeed long-term. The President needs to be focused on baseball operations, top to bottom with a long-term vision - those things I highlighted above? That should be the job description of VP, Marketing, who reports to the President - not "President" Arte has had plenty of time to get better at this. His focus on real estate development around the park the last several years, and not on a winning culture says it all. IMO, he needs to sell.

Naw, I don't want to be stuck paying him for what he's already done, I'd rather save our money for Ohtani - (assuming he's still great) - a spectacular bullpen, and 1 more solid SP - however we get one. I'd have taken the Ray contract, though. At this point, when it comes to FA's, names I'm interested in are Stroman (though he might now be too expensive for what he'd bring) or Rodon (6-man rotation should keep him healthy - but I really want 2 years, and he's gonna get 4), Iglesias and/or Jansen, and Story Window's closing ...

I wouldn't be surprised if Eppler signs Iglesias just to punk the Angels. Since the Dodgers lost Scherzer, I gotta think they're gonna make a strong play for Stroman And when Dipoto signs Correa, I'm gonna just give up baseball and start watching the World Series of Cornhole ...

Stroman probably feeling pretty pleased with himself - he's the last chick at the bar, and it's last call ...

MLB says Scherzer is close to signing with the Mets, and Gausman has a deal with Toronto. Hope this isn't our big "SP" signing ...

I dunno about "drastic" - but maybe "necessary" Management has to see that if we want to keep two likely first-ballot hall-of-famers together for the next several years, we have to give them a path to the World Series. Ohtani, I think, will be loyal to a fault. But I'm certain he doesn't want to spend his entire MLB career watching the playoffs from Japan, no matter how much money we have for him. He can get money from any team - we need to give him a path to the championship. And you know what? Arte is 75 - his window is closing, too. It's hard to imagine he'll ever be in a better position than the next 2 or 3 years. He's been burned by big free agent signings (trades) before - but his footprints were all over the backs of his gm's in those - he needs to trust his GM, just tell him "By Any Means Necessary" and sign the checks.

Well, once he signed, his paycheck wasn't threatened. But the psychology isn't hard - you work and work to get "paid", to climb that mountain, to get that validation- and once you get paid, your effort has ended. Marathoners don't keep running past the finish line* and I've seen it in business, where a fat commission check or bonus or a big raise often has the opposite effect desired - people have often quit or gotten much less productive after these rewards. He dialed it back, and only periodically gave full effort. Once cut, of course, his ego was threatened, and he put effort in again. That's the danger with any of the large payout contracts - you need to evaluate the psyche of the guy you're signing - is he gonna get fat and lazy? Or will be still break his bones to win? * (an imperfect analogy, since I've heard of many marathoners who've gone for runs a few hours after finishing)

Maybe not worth it's own thread

Given our other needs, seems too expensive for both (or even one.) My druthers right now are Iglesias and Stroman - but I can't tell which in which order if I can only have "one." With Rodon, shoulder issues always scare me in a pitcher - after signing Thor, I'd prefer someone more reliable like Stroman, even if they lack the stuff of Rodon. Iglesias might be too expensive, but then, I don't want to give up real prospects for relievers who can have such a short shelf-life. Don't think Jansen will be any cheaper. So, need a way to find a high-leverage reliever - maybe we resign Cobb (as was proposed elsewhere) to free up enough cash to sign Iglesias. After that, Story would be a nice add, but not gonna happen. Probably pick up a reliever prospect or three off the junk pile, and maybe hope for a catcher to become available.

Well, apparently we have an offer on Matz, so maybe that's the direction. (I don't know why - but there's something about Matz that makes me think "Blanton, The Return" ...) Somehow, I feel a little more comfortable with Cobb. Kimbrel carries a $16m price tag, plus whatever we'd have to give up to acquire him for the year - the cost of both him and Iglesias would be pretty steep - but would give us a lot of leverage.