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2 hours ago, Erstad Grit said:

Arte is an idiot for pushing the wrong FA upon our many GMs.
Arte is an idiot for advocating trading prospects and not trading Ohtani last year.
Arte is an idiot for declaring we're not rebuilding and then doing virtually nothing. 

Arte is an idiot for making the baseball decisions instead of the GM. 

There is absolutely no clear plan what-so-ever. 

Being a perennially so-so team is the worst reality for a team. We're not sucking enough to rebuild, and we're not even sniffing the playoffs. 

He is an idiot for lots of reasons.  I just prefer to wait and see what exactly happens with Snell before I conclude that there is something to blame Arte for on the subject.

Wouldn’t it be interesting if player had to pick the length of their next contract when they file for free agency?

They would have to pick the exact number of years and then stick to it.

It would reduce the free agency negotiations to just haggling over dollars, rather than the (sometimes) never-ending going back and forth over dollars AND years.

The mlbpa would never go for it but it is interesting to imagine.

So you might have someone like Snell designate that he is filing for a 5 year deal.  Or JD Martinez files for a one year deal.

Heck, they could even have a freaking auction live on TV.  “Next up, we have Blake Snell for five years.  Opening bid is obviously mlb minimum.  We have $70m, now $74m, we have $100m from the Mets, now $102 from the Yankees. . . .”    That would be fun to watch.

What is the point of talking about things that would never happen?  I don’t know, I’m bored.

1 hour ago, Blarg said:

He is not that quality of a pitcher. He has two Cy Young awards where the competition was crap, unable to beat out a guy that averages 5 innings per game. He was the tallest pygmy last season.

The previous 4 seasons he was a 104 ERA+ pitcher. Patrick Sandoval was a 109 ERA+ pitcher last season. Over the last 4 seasons Sandoval has been a 116 ERA+ pitcher. 

If you think your getting 203 Blake Snell this season you are ignoring who has been most like his career. And that is not a Cy Young pitcher. Not even a runner up. 

I didn’t say he was reliably an elite player.  I said he is a quality starting pitcher.  You are going to have a really hard time saying he isn’t a quality starting pitcher.  He would be the Angels #1.  If he isn’t a quality starting pitcher then you are saying the Angels have zero quality starting pitchers.  And I would disagree.

Snell would be the #1 or #2 on most teams.  Maybe a #3 on a truly elite rotation.

I fully understand the ways to pick him apart.  But you can find things to be concerned about on almost every starting pitcher.

The biggest knock on Snell is “he is a 5 inning pitcher.”

Well, so is almost everybody.

“Of the 117 starters who threw at least 100 innings last season, 13 averaged more than six innings per start (with a high of 6.6 from Marlins Sandy Alcántara, and 12 averaged fewer than five (with a low of 4.6 from Luke Weaver). Everyone else is clustered into the narrow five-to-six range.”

Baseball itself has evolved into strategic equations, where, like it or not, they expect 5-6 innings from the starter.

Snell averaged 5.625 innings per start last year.  Basically 5 2/3.

He is delivering what the equation asks for.

The Angels just built a bullpen set up to be a great fit for the “equation” of starters basically getting through the lineup twice and then going to the bullpen.

I would even be tempted to put money on Snell leading the Angel starters in innings.

He is definitely a quality starting pitcher, unless your definition of quality is “special” or “elite” or “true ace every year.”

3 minutes ago, Blarg said:

None of those teams seem all that interested. If there were any interest he would have been signed a month ago. Between contract demands, his lack of stringing quality seasons back to back, inability to get past the 5th inning, all of these reasons have teams saying, no thanks. He is not as good as the hype around him is and GMs no longer give a damn about one outlier season. 

More like most teams recognize he is a quality starting pitcher that absolutely can help them but the asking price right now is higher than they would like to pay.

Arte is an idiot for overpaying for free agents out of foolish desperation.  The guy has no discipline.

Arte is an idiot for not just signing Snell for his asking price.  The guy is a cheap bastard.

29 minutes ago, Erstad Grit said:

You're right. Arte is the best and Rendon loves baseball and is an incredible teammate/player. If we could only be super fans like you. 

Nobody said that, or anything remotely close to that.

Wait, hold on, I just realized somebody left my garage light on all night last night.  I wonder what happened?  Oh, obviously Arte Moreno broke into my garage and used my tools without asking, and drank beer out of my garage fridge, kicked my dog, and farted in my car and then left the lights on when he left.

37 minutes ago, TroutField said:

To break up all the Snell talk, check out this sick vintage Angels jacket I scored on eBay. 

Very cool.  Here is mine from 1980:

5 minutes ago, tdawg87 said:

I guess they didn't want to pay him 7 million or whatever. No other team did.

Exactly. Moreno sucks but not wanting to pay Davis almost 7 million isn’t evidence of that.  No team wanted to pay him that much.

8 minutes ago, Angels 1961 said:

Once Snell, Montgomery, Clevenger and Lorenzen sign with other teams how soon should the Corbin Burnes thread start.

Me?

30 minutes ago, jsnpritchett said:

 

 

 

If he threw 60 pitches, that was definitely a “simulated” four innings.  Reality would have been 80 pitches.

Boras is feeding any and all true things, and any and all untrue things, that will help posture his client to get the best contract.

3 minutes ago, T.G. said:

I must admit, I get a little tired of hearing anything about how the "Dodgers are run."  They've won one WS in a Covid shortened year despite all the money they spend and all the talent they develop. 

Yes, I'd take all of that for the Angels in a heart-beat, but the Dodgers aren't the end-all, be-all in baseball.  The Braves are just as successful.  The Astros (yes, I know) are more successful.  F the Dodgers.

Baseball is hard. 

If anything, I'd like to see a change in the organizational culture.  The Angels seem to be dysfunctional.  When Stoneman and Scioscia came to Anaheim they changed the culture.  The culture has gone down hill ever since they lost autonomy. That's on Arte. 

 

Nobody hates the Dodgers more than I do.  I was just comparing the Angels to an obvious local team than wins far more games and controls far more talent on their roster and in their minor league system.

I would agree the Braves are a well run team too.

Heck I like how the Padres are willing to make bold moves.  I would take that too.

But the bottom line is I really want the Angels to find a way to be among to top 20% of teams in terms of drafting and developing players.  Things seem better recently but I suspect the Angels need changes at the very top to really approach what I would ideally like to see.

10 minutes ago, T.G. said:

We sure don't.

I get that. 

Arte could surprise us all in the end, but I think most of us are skeptical of that possibility.  It's getting close to opening day.  The way the team is presently constructed just doesn't inspire much confidence from a fan's point of view.  It's still baseball and surprises happen all the time.  I think a lot of fans have baseball fatigue and the season hasn't even started.

Just for the record, I think Moreno isn’t the right owner for this team.  I would prefer that he sell the team to somebody else that would run it more like the Dodgers are run.

I am excited that baseball is starting again but this exact roster isn’t very exciting to me.  The optimist does see that there is some real upside that could materialize and make them much better than expected (and subsequently far more exciting).

But my enthusiasm is very guarded and reserved until I see something materializing on the field.

And all these opinions about this situation without any real idea what the player and his agent are currently demanding the contract be.  Are they still demanding a stupid contract?  Or are they willing to do a totally reasonable deal but Moreno is being a moron?  We don’t know.

Every team has a budget.  And every team might adjust the budget depending on how opportunities evolve.

If Moreno originally said “absolutely not” to a massive long term deal, and now Minasian has to stay engaged with Moreno on things as they evolve into maybe there being a different opportunity on Snell, it sure would be easy to report that as “Minasian frustrated with Moreno’s unwillingness to sign the player Minasian wants to sign.”

Moreno has definitely earned his reputation so he is going to get thrown under the bus now on everything.

Because he is going to get thrown under the bus on EVERYTHING, it isn’t really possible anymore to know when he is actually being a jerk.

Maybe he is being a jerk.  And maybe he is openly communicating with Minasian on adjusting the budget as things are developing.

We don’t know.

27 minutes ago, Angels 1961 said:

Like I said IF they do nothing else. I'm ok signing Snell with no opt out until after year 3. Contract has to be something Angels are comfortable with. Opt out after year 1 or 2 for me defeats the purpose of signing. Lorenzen would just be depth piece for this year and maybe tradeable at deadline. 

So just to be clear, Lorenzen is “depth” and Snell would prevent someone else from developing?

2,690,758

59 minutes ago, Angels 1961 said:

If Angels do nothing else this off season I'm ok with that. Let this be season to develop young players. See if Soriano or Wantz can become starters. Find out if Moniak or Adell will be part of future. Will Sandoval have bounce back year and Silseth become part of rotation. 

Tell me exactly what young player would not develop if the Angels signed Snell.  You do understand that signing Snell would just push one pitcher to the minors, where they would be in an environment whose sole purpose is to develop them.

And you are in another thread literally right now calling for the Angels to sign Lorenzen.  Can you make up your mind on whether or not signing a free agent starter prevents others from developing?

1 hour ago, ThisismineScios said:

Now this is just bad faith. But it’s cool. 

Bad faith or was I joking around to reiterate my previous point?

43 minutes ago, Angel Oracle said:

If Snell will only sign long term deal, move on then.

See what they have with the current 5 starters this season, then do whatever it takes to sign Burnes next off-season.  There’s absolutely nothing to not like there.   Durability, averaging 6 innings/start since 2021, low WHIP, high Ks/BBs ratio, grew up a Halos fan

Come on!  Don’t you realize that Arte has already botched the Burnes signing?

3 minutes ago, Stradling said:

You realize the structure of any deal that includes an opt out after a year or two WILL have the contract be completely front loaded as well, right?  So if it’s a 6 year $150 million, $65-70 of that would be before the opt out. 

I am not sure why you believe it WILL.  I understand why it could be set up that way, but it could also be perfectly equal from year-to-year or even backloaded, depending on what the two parties work out.

9 hours ago, ThisismineScios said:

With Snell posting eyes Sunday, Olney and other small timers saying he wants to go to the Angels or that they believed it would be, and the lack of suitors out there (Yanks seem to be a pretty firm no), it seems very odd that a deal hasn't gotten done. And I just have this sinking feeling that it's all going to come down to Arte, and that we will hear soon that Arte refused to give ___ or ____. And he won't ever have to answer for it, and Snell will wind up on the Mariners on a discount deal beating us 4 times a year. 

The guy loves Orange County and has been here all offseason for crying out loud. With a baby on the way. He has clearly leaked that he wants to play here. He fell right into their laps -- nobody else is in position to sign him. And they're still going to mess this up? Only an Arte-led team could manage to botch this so badly. 

As of now, no team in baseball has signed Snell.

And we are preemptively concluding that Arte Moreno has “botched” this situation.

OK.

5 minutes ago, Angels 1961 said:

Halos have 5 OF if you leave DH open Trout, Rendon, Drury among others could DH. Martinez is just a DH does not play in the field. Martinez will not be part of halo future in 2025, 2026 and beyond. Let's see if Moniak or Adell will be part of that future. Only way to find out is let them play this year. 

I very much doubt Adell and Moniak would be regularly used as DH.  One will be a starter and the other will be the 4th OF.  You also have Hicks, so something already has to give.

Martinez doesn’t really change that.

1 hour ago, Stradling said:

No way. You don’t give him an opt out after year one if it cost you a pick. 

You also don’t give massively declining individual year salaries that ENTICE the player to bail out.