Dtwncbad

You are missing an important detail. No team claimed him. That means no team is willing to simply acquire his contract alone. If that is the case, how can you conclude any team will be willing to take the whole contract AND give up a mess of top prospects? The truth is the Marlins can get top talent back if the pay a good chunk of his contract. The more they pay, the more they get. The less they pay, the less they get. . .all the way down to offer Stanton for free if a team takes his whole salary. Putting him through waivers asked all teams if they were interested in that and nobody bit.

Funny. . .that's pretty much what I proposed. You can do this deal backwards too. Let the Marlins decide what talent package they want back and then simply negotiate the money part to make it make sense. In case anyone doesn't quite understand, for example, the Marlins can have basically the entire Angels farm system if the Angels get Stanton for the $2m a year (absurd but just explaining how the amount of salary that comes with Stanton would have a great effect on the return of players).

By the way remember the "steep" price paid for Miguel Cabrera: Cameron Maybin. What are the honest chances that Jones and Marsh end up better than Cameron Maybin. Flip a coin?

If the Angels had Trout Stanton and Calhoun, they will not need the two OF minor leaguers I mentioned. There is very little chance either of those two players will ever be more than simply major league regulars. Angels hold on to Adell who has more upside than the two traded. And I personally could not care less if the Angels lost Ward. So a deal like I mentioned seems defendable for the Marlins (they get three "top" Angel prospects!) but I think the Angels ultimately win that trade.

Ok I will take a crack at it. Marlins send Stanton and Gordon to the Angels. Angels to pay $22m per year for Stanton with Marlins picking up the rest. Angels send Ward, Jones, and Marsh to the Marlins.

A lineup with Trout, Stanton, Harper and Machado would be among the greatest of all time. The rest of baseball would be furious. . .and that would be fun for Angel fans. And Arte would leave the earth a very, very, very rich man instead of a very, very, very, very rich man.

You only live once Arte. Trout, Stanton and Harper. I wonder who else they could add to play third in that same 2018 free agent class? You only live once Arte. You only live once.

If it's a just a nasty salary dump then they might orchestrate it to be done by the outgoing owner. . .try to let the bad PR stick to the guy walking out the door. If the new owner believes they are not going to compete now and they simply want to spend the Stanton value on pieces to build with, then they will want to do that themselves.

If the Marlins think they need to get players back as part of a big plan to pivot to the future, I get it. But then what we see is money figures in a deal where roughly the Marlins will be buying prospects with how much of Stantons contract they absorb. As long as it is a fair swap of salary for talent. . . From the Angel perspective. . .if the Angels had Stanton they don't really need much OF help any time soon so they could move a couple of OF prospects. I would like to keep Adell though. And if the Marlins took some salary, then having Stanton definitely would not keep the Angels feom still having salary space for other needs this offseason. I think we are all fantasizing here about Stanton though. My gut tells me he stays there or goes to the Yankees.

I love Weaver just as much as the next guy but I will never ever be among the fans that fell for the mutual marketing storyline (benefits player and team) to us that he took some discount in his extension. He wasn't a free agent. He took a fair market extension. You don't compare what you can get in an extension to what you might get later as a free agent and conclude you are taking a discount. They are apples and oranges. His extension compares quite fairly with other extensions for pitchers at that time. I completely appreciate him wanting to simply stay here. That's cool. But the math says he got a fair market extension. I read lots of crazy numbers like he took a $30m discount or a $40m discount and that's just bullshit. It is OK to 100% fully appreciate Weaver and dig him wanting to just getterdone on an extension and stay an Angel rather than going free agent AND mathmatically acknowledge his contract was freely negotiated for him to get the best fair market extension he could get. Did fans think Weaver would get More than Felix or Verlander? Same as them exactly? Sorry. Blasphemy I know but Weaver isn't Felix or Verlander. Maybe close at the time but when teams commit big money they also try to project forward. Of course the Angels and Weaver were very smart to market the deal as they did. Felix and Verlander also got extensions with their teams. And differences between their extensions and Weaver's are not much. . .and rather than dissecting them to the dollar with an agenda to prove a discount we also have to remember that a team is hyperfocused on how the FEEL that players performance is projectable going forward. You don't simply line up stays and age and hit enter on the computer. I would hardly think it is reckless for anyone who actually writes the checks to think Weaver might not sustain dominance quite at the level of some other pitchers. Ultimately, he faded. It wasnt injury that caused the fade. That doesn't take away one ounce of my appreciation for him as a fan. But it does support the position that no, he was not underpaid from "taking a discount". He got what he could get in an EXTENSION and the Angels in the end (performance wise) were "stuck" overpaying at the end. I love Weaver. But even me as an Angel fan didnt really really think he would be as good, and sustain being productive for as long, as guys like Verlander and Felix. My personal brain even at that time said those guys would get a little more than Weaver. There was no discount. It was the fair market number for Weaver. For an extension. For a pitcher likely projected to be a notch below some other pitchers going forward in terms of dominance and sustainable stuff. And I still fully appreciate him. Saying it wasn't a discount doesnt take ANYTHING away from him as a player (he was still loyal wanting to be here) and takes nothing away from how much you appreciate him.

Except nobody claimed him willing to only take his salary. Are we supposed to think teams will now take the salary AND throw in players when nobody was willing to only take the salary? The only way to read this so far is the the other teams are telling the Marlins they would have to eat some salary or take some salary back if they want prospects going to the Marlins. I'm not saying this is my personal view of Stanton's value, I am saying the raw facts of what has happened so far say this is where the real market is on him today. Heck if he hits 6 homers in the next 2 days maybe things change. Who knows.

There are probably 3 future major league regulars on that list. They Angels will need those players. The difference is if the Angels had three times as many future regulars, they would have more room to not worry about trading some away.

I don't think anybody is under the illusion that the Angels have a treasure trove of All Stars now on the way. The point of the optimism is things are improving. You can't waive a magic wand and suddenly have 9 guys in the top 100. I am happy things are going in the right direction.

It is significantly different than Pujols. Stanton's deal captures age 27 through age 32 years, which are prime years and is over at age 37. The Pujols deal didn't even begin until he was out of those prime years. Look up what Pujols did age 27 to 32 and tell me you wouldn't want those numbers with his contract now about to expire, rather than what the Angels got from him from age 32 to now with 4 more years still hanging out there. There is a HUGE difference.

Note: Kendrick delivered a batting average roughly 87% of the average batting title over his Angel career. And he is mocked for that. Imagine if the Angels had a big power bat coming up through the minors with people saying in consensus he legitimately could win a home run title. . . and then the guy was mocked for averaging 40 homers a year for 8 or 9 years. 40 homers a year would be 87% of the average home run title from 2008 to 2016. Kendrick was basically as advertised just like a consistent 40 hr guy would be if people said he was potentially a future home run champ.

Cheap shot. Kendrick was nothing but a pure success as a homegrown prospect having a reliable and productive career as an Angel. Any team would love to have a guy consistently hit .295, play defense, hit some homers, steal some bases, and drive in some runs. Would you prefer he win a batting title one year or have the stable career he had?

The Marlins already are in the toilet in attendance even with Stanton hitting bombs.

I don't see the huge risk in Stanton. His value is in his power. As he goes from 27 yrs old to his mid 30s, his power is the one thing that is least likely to erode. You can talk about missing games to injury but even with missing games he is posting nice WARs. His best power years are probably in front of him. I would say the over/under on homers over the next 6 seasons is like 260ish or 44 a year. There are two players in the game that wouldn't surprise me hitting 65 homers in a season. Stanton and Harper. A 27 year old beast slugger is about the lowest risk profile player I can imagine.

Timely hits? I still can't put a whole lot of value in these contrived sutuational stats. Here is why. A guy gets a one out double bases empty. The next guy doubles him in. This guy gets all the credit for hitting with a runner in scoring position but the raw fact is he did exactly what the first guy did. They both doubled. There is literally no more value in the second double as the first. None. A grand slam in the 3rd inning to tie the game gets no credit for being "clutch" (It wasn't close or late) but a guy that struck out with the bases loaded three times in a game (choked 3 times im big at bats) that then gets an infield single in the eight to pull one run ahead is Mr. Clutch?

The Angels can easily easily "afford" Stanton and multiple other big contracts too. It would be almost impossible to really, really mess up the financial stability of the franchise. Yes you can find yourself paying a luxury tax or having a year over year negative cash flow. . .but the balance sheet is king. The team value is likely now 2 billion and they have no debt. And the kicker is any reasonable financial projection says the increase in the value of the franchise will outpace any year over year negative cash flow from high salaries. It's just a matter of if the owner: 1). Feels there is value in the player or players they take 2). Cares if he is ever over the luxury tax 3). Has solid finance resources to easily manage any potential negative cash flow for any particular year When the value of your franchise goes up like $1.9 Billion since you have owned the team, "overspending" maybe $30m per year in salary is arguably insignificant. . . That's a long answer but the point is the Angels could take on four Stantons and the owner's net worth on the balance sheet would still be increasing every year going forward. These teams are not public traded with quarterly pressure and most are not owned to specifically achieve annual cash profit. They are owned for pride in winning emotionally and financially as a way to increase their net worth.

Touche Lou. Believe me I am thrilled and having fun watching this team. But in reality the spirit of my posts were not off. 1). If you consider the nature of normal hyperbole in language on a message board, saying this team had "zero chance" of contending was certainly factually incorrect but I am pretty comfortable that 93 out of 100 baseball experts would have also categorized the Angels as among the teams to be the long, longshot. 2). On 5/8 I thought the best plan at the deadline was to move some expiring contract bodies. I still thought that at the deadline (so did many "experts"), and I still dont think that would have been a mistake. I want the team to win as much as anybody with my heart, but my brain still thinks this team doesn't have a roster good enough for success in a postseason. So have fun poking at me for hyperbole instead of perfectly accurate language but there isn't much valid point to it. All of baseball is surprised but I guess I am an idiot for being surprised? Something like that? What will prove me literally 100% wrong will be if the Angels all along have known they will aggressively address all of their 2018 needs in free agency/offseason trades so unloading extra bodies for any fringe prospects isnt necessary. I hope to be wrong more than you hope I am wrong. I want to win, but what I really want is to go into the playoffs with a team built to actually win it. . .not just check off a box that the team made the postseason. The team has made the postseason 10 times. Any honest analysis would say their overall postseason success as a franchise is marginal. It seems pretty healthy and honest to me to have sights set past just making the postseason in a random year where almost nobody thinks you have a chance. Fun? Sure. But I still am totally unsatisfied with the roster and will stick by my expression of my priorities on 5/8 choosing to fix that over hoping for the 6% chance they could wiggle into the last wildcard spot to most lijely perpetuate the meh postseason legacy. All that said, I hope they win it all, DUH!

Why would you lose Cowart? He can play 3B.

Why is it believed he wants to play in SoCal?

I know the Angels will have space under the lux tax to sign free agents this offseason, but does anyone have a fairly reliable number for how much they will have to spend?

I wonder if you have actually reads the posts in this thread?