case

2 hours ago, ettin said:

I am going to go out on a limb, here. @Lou will hold me to account.

The Angels would be idiots to trade Ohtani, unless he refuses to sign an extension. They have an opportunity to lock in an ace-level starting pitcher, who can also hit pretty damn well for essentially the remainder of his career. There have been no obvious red flags that Shohei does not like it here in Anaheim. The Angels will do everything in their power to lock him up this off-season and put this nonsense to rest.

Every big contract has risk built in and as long as Perry and his staff are doing their job and can reach an extension deal that pays Shohei and mitigates some of the risk, then this is a no-brainer of a move. Currently, Trout is running a 167 wRC+ in 2022, despite all of the bullshit of this season. Ohtani is running a pristine, ace-level ERA of 2.80 and a superb 131 wRC+ on the batting side. This is a pair of elite-level baseball stars and you already have one locked up, the Angels would be fools, in my humble opinion, to not lock the other one up, too, particularly because they NEED good pitchers.

I am a glass half-full kind of person and despite the train wreck this season has turned into, I am still a glass half-full person about the Angels 2023 season and beyond. They have a lot of interesting names, players, and prospects that could help fill out those squads. I've probably said this same thing a lot in the last handful of years, but I am doubling down again. This team is just not THAT bad talent-wise and if they extend Ohtani there is a bright future in front of them, I think. If Ohtani refuses to sign an extension, then so be it, trade him for the best package you can get, but I think he knows that Anaheim offers him a lot with teammates that want to win and my impression is that he would not mind staying.

All that being said the dysfunction of Arte Moreno in baseball business ("The Big Splash" guy) has been consistently troubling over his entire tenure and has resulted in cash outlays that have heavily burdened this franchise, despite whatever amount was offset by "putting butts in the seats", but I believe Ohtani is a positive exception to this approach. Keeping fan interest is certainly a key in his marketing strategy and let us not forget that Moreno has consistently funded a high payroll for this team since he took over, despite the positives and negatives of how that money was used and applied. His ability to churn through General Manager's has also not been a highlight for him as an owner and I can only hope that Perry Minasian can pull out some of that magic (our recent draft?) and start finding better diamonds in the rough out there that can add and supplement the core players of next year's squad. Our Minor League farm system investments feel like a joke overall, although I certainly have little insight into the expenditures there, but it feels like we have eliminated scouts in favor of technology (not necessarily a bad thing but you do lose insight into the "intangibles" of a player/prospect), we don't focus on creating the best "product" through programs that provide proper nutrition, diet, social acclimation skills (language, social skills), and all of the other "peripheral" skills that allow a prospect to focus primarily and best on baseball activities. This is an investment in a human being that you hope to have parading around your ballpark one day raising a championship banner and you can't make a modest investment in them to help pull out the best that they have to give on a baseball field? It has to be a fraction of the price you spend at the Major League level, so why is this such a difficulty?

I find myself digressing, but Ohtani needs to stay in an Angels uniform. From a marketing perspective, this is gold for Moreno, and finding an appropriate number for Shohei to sign should not be too big of an obstacle, unless something has soured him so bad that he doesn't want to stay or his demand is just so outrageously high that it busts all of the contract models.

Ohtani is great. Nobody is saying he's not. He's just not going to be cheap. We've wasted all his cheap years by being terrible and now we're going to pay him 40 million a year and somehow become great? It's not going to happen.

We trade him and we can get multiple top tier prospects, possibly out from under rendon's contract (not a deal breaker if it can't be done)

Ohtani isn't supplanting any pitching spots from the roster, we still need to roster 5 other starting pitchers so it's not like he can pitch on 4 days rest like other pitchers and we'd only have to field 4 other starters which would make a way bigger boost.

With that 40 million a year that Ohtani is going to command we can do a lot more with that than give it to one player that has shown that he isn't impervious to injury. He's not helping us win. We're about to maybe lose more games in a season than we ever have in our history.

If we get 3-4 guys that can help us for 6 years and we pay them the minimum until arbitration years and we have the rest of the money to go after free agents i feel like thats an avenue that you need to take.

This isn't Edmonds being traded for Bottenfield/Kennedy We can get real value from Ohtani. He's the most hyped player in the major leagues.

4 minutes ago, Ron Mexico said:

Lmfao Betts is not even on Ohtani level and plus they got out of  price contract 

Lets say we sign Ohtani then we have literally zero money for anyone and our team is trash even with him and Trout healthy so what are we going to do ? Trade him for useful pieces that are almost major league ready and we can have 6 years of control over or some guys who are already at mlb level with 4-5 years left of control.  Ohtani is going to cost a ton to retain. We are already paying Trout a kings ransom. If Ohtani gets hurt and walks or if we sign him and gets hurt and is only a .250 hitter and can't pitch anymore we are going to wish we traded him at his peak. 

I would at least listen to see what kinda offers come pouring in.  I bet some of them will be tempting. Maybe we can even get a team to take on Rendon's contract with an Ohtani trade.

1 hour ago, Angel Oracle said:

Miguel Cabrera trade from Marlins is exhibit A of what can happen if trading a star player away.

The only guys Miami got that ever did anything were Andrew Miller and Cameron Maybin, and neither did much for Miami before seeing better days elsewhere.

Sure it can happen but it's better than what Washington got for Harper.

On 7/23/2022 at 10:45 PM, wopphil said:

Sounds like I am in the minority here, but I’d listen on offers for Ohtani. I love the guy - he is the most exciting player in baseball and seems like a good guy - but I consider trading him for these reasons: 

• This team isn’t going to be competitive before he turns 30 and enters the downside of his career.
• His value is largely based on his pitching. He is an arm injury away from being just a solid DH. He is a very risky player. 
• He will cost a fortune to extend.
• The team has too much money already tied up in Trout and Rendon. Dedicating over half a team’s payroll to three guys is imprudent.
• He could potentially bring us back two or three impact players that will set up the team much better for 2025 and beyond (when they will potentially be competitive again).

So I would listen on offers. I wouldn’t move him just to move him, but if I was overwhelmed by an offer, I’d pull the trigger. 

You have a good head on your shoulders. We can't win even with Ohtani now and if he goes to another team and all we get is a sandwich round pick for him then we really screwed the pooch on this one. The Nationals did that with Bryce Harper and they aren't going to let it happen with Juan Soto so lets not have to learn from our own mistakes and we can learn from The Nationals.
 

He's going to cost 35million + per year and if he gets injured then it's going to be just terrible.  It will suck to see him succeed on another team that's true, but we could possibly get 3-4 players with really good value for Ohtani and will be making a ton less money than Ohtani will be making. We could really turn the franchise around if the pieces we can get for Ohtani turn out to be worth while.

We've seen that with The Red Sox that Mookie wanted out of Boston and they didn't get an amazing return for him but honestly they could have done worse by letting him walk away for just one draft pick as compensation.

45 minutes ago, Stradling said:

If we are fully healthy do we still let him hit?  So if Trout and Rendon are in the line up do we let Ohtani hit when you can assume he isn’t pitching more than 5 innings?  

Lets just move him to left field after he's done pitching.

11 minutes ago, rageous said:

Heaney dealing and he's not even getting the same calls that Zeuch was getting earlier.

They couldn't offer anything close to what he would have accepted because we wasted all our money on Baldoquin before and we weren't allowed to offer more than 300k to international signees for 2 years after that. You can read about it here

https://calltothepen.com/2020/04/04/los-angeles-angels-roberto-baldoquin-14m-mistake/

Just now, Blarg said:

Every time I see Vlad Jr I think of Dipoto's greatest failure as GM. 

Do you mean you didn't like the Baldoquin signing?

10 minutes ago, NrM said:

What the fuck they gave the Ohtani hit an error? We the home team. that better be changed to a triple or I boycott! 

That's crap.

He's going to be fired very soon.  Time to move on and find a new pitching coach.  I'm sure Maddon will have a few ideas on who to hire.

How about Daron Sutton? Always liked him on the radio.  He's got TV play by play exp as well.

20 minutes ago, floplag said:

A #14 prospect for a productive OF with 2 years of control...
I kinda got the argument about not getting much for a month of this guy or that one, but this seems ... underwhelming. 
If this week is Epplers best put me down for looking elsewhere after the season.

well we don't know the full trade yet so it's silly to grade it yet.  If this guy is the better of the two prospects then i would tend to agree with you though.

1 hour ago, Angel Oracle said:

Boy, things have changed.

Kinsler nabs Buttrey, yet a better player two years later nabs a poor hitter/average fielder?

Not sure what you're expecting to get for 28 games of La Stella.    Barreto had a .926 OPS last year in AAA at 23 years old.  He's never gotten a real shot in the majors.  Do i think he's the answer to replacing Simmons after this year? Of course not, but this is worth a try it didn't cost us anything.     

1 hour ago, ten ocho recon scout said:

In regards to Anderson being a dick.

FWIW, a bases clearing double... to go ahead in game 7 of the world series, is pretty huge. Like that swing won the first and only ring in franchise history.

And his reaction looks like me, when they tell us so and so that I cant stand is getting promoted at work, and all the bosses are in the room.

 

Yeah he really was an all business type guy emotionally on the field.  I would've thought GA was the better player for some reason but looking at the stats it's clearly Salmon but i love them both so it's okay. 

2 hours ago, tdawg87 said:

Where are you getting that it's the Dodgers that changed the terms? I haven't heard that.

Maybe that's true. But my point still stands that Eppler is the man to deal with it at that point. Maybe he did. But reports are saying it was Arte who pulled out. 

"The Dodgers could have given the Angels a chance to rethink their decision, but they viewed the previously agreed upon Angels deal as unnecessary after the trades with Boston and Minnesota changed, effectively killing the trade themselves. "

This is direct from The Athletic's story this morning about Arte pulling out of the trade.  It sounds like the Dodgers didn't like the pieces anymore after the other trades changed.

https://twitter.com/RahulSetty_/status/1224924166400266240

1 minute ago, Angel Oracle said:

Goodwin is a switch-hitter.

Wrong

23 hours ago, Second Base said:

You know the narrative every bit as well as I do, so I won't waste your time rehashing it. Just to sum it up, the Angels pitching in 2019 was either the worst, or the second worst in baseball, depending on what you're looking at. 

But looking over things, the situation may not be as dire as we, myself included, have made it out to be. Consider the following points...

1. The Angels starting pitchers were among the youngest in baseball. Griffin Canning was the elder statesman at 23 years old. Patrick Sandoval and Jaime Barria were just 22. Jose Suarez was 21. It would be an absolute shock if all for it these guys didn't get better. 

2. There's some projection in that group of starters. We'll start with Canning, here was a top 100 prospect no matter who you ask. One of the best SP in college baseball gets drafted and every single offering takes a giant leap forward in it's quality. Nobody believes he'll be anything less than a mid rotation starter. Patrick Sandoval is a tall lefty that's throwing in the mid-90's and posted an ERA of 3.00 in A Ball, 2.23 in Advanced A Ball, and 2.50 in AA. The ERA ballooned in AAA Salt Lake but was still firmly better than the league average in the PCL. Jose Suarez is another lefty that can reach the mid-90's and absolutely dominated Advanced A Ball and AA, at the tender age of 20. Jaime Barria posted a 3.41 ERA across 130 major league innings at age 21. This was a natural extension of the dominance he displayed at every stop in the minors. 

Barria, Suarez and Sandoval were seen at worst, as back of the rotation starters. 

3. Shohei is back. Even if you believe that he isn't better than what he showed in his 10 starts from 2018, that's still a strikeout heavy mid rotation starter you're getting. 

4. Andrew Heaney is better than we thought. Before last year, Heaney was never bad as much as he was injured. When he was healthy, he was a solid #3/4 starter. And that fit the bill. Heaney was a former first round pick and elite LHP prospect. Quality was never in question. Then last year happened. And when we look at the underlying numbers we aren't really sure the cause, outside of the ball simply left the yard a lot more. But it did for everybody. The quality and location of Heaney's offerings remained consistent. A bounce back here looks downright likely.

5. Dylan Bundy might be one of the better buy low acquisitions of the Winter. If nothing else, you know you're going to get innings from him. But the long ball plagued him last year. Moving out of Baltimore, out of the AL East, to Anaheim, with an elite defensive unit behind him could allow Bundy to suppress runs more than he's ever done in his career. The promise of being an ace has since passed with the velocity. But there is reason to believe he could be more than a serviceable 5th starter. 

6. Calloway. He's not magic, but he is good at what he does. Every starter will get better after having an actual pitching coach work with them. 

-----

If all this works out on the Angels favor, Ohtani would be an ace, Canning a mid rotation starter, with Heaney, Bundy, Sandoval, Barria and Suarez all being decent #4 starters.

It requires a lot to go the Angels way, and I'm not advocating they don't make any acquisitions. But I am saying, it's possible the Angels would still be a competitive team without the acquisitions that we all know are coming.

This honestly sounds like a battered wife sticking up for her husband.  "he's not so bad, he only beats me when he drinks" and "i think he wants to change"   It's going to be a long season if we have to count on all these guys turning it around in one off season.

17 minutes ago, Erstad Grit said:

You realize Ohtani was a FA right?

You also realize there was no negotiating a contract because he didn't have enough service time.  Different circumstances.

Now that Cole is going to the Yankees, I will say that this trade is horrible no matter who we end up getting.

I don't know, I like Simmons but we do have a lot of middle infielders right now, so it's not like we'd be hurting too bad if we traded Simmons and we could use his money where it'd help a bit more (catching/pitching).

I think Rengifo would be a better fit at short moving forward than Fletcher though if we do move on from Simmons.

The Angels with a loss will give them the 10th overall pick in next years draft just slipping past the White Sox who won today.

Bandy caught tonight's game. Soto is a Free Agent at the end of the year. Trade him for something decent if you can.

I was really hoping the Angels would have gone after Yoan Moncada at the time and now in hindsight looking at Baldoquin and Moncada its just sad. They were comparing Baldoquin to Moncada in all the reports when we signed him.

Angels have been trying to save money the last few years and it's not working out. I hope Baldoquin turns a corner this year but as of now it does not look good.

ANAHEIM—It doesn’t matter how high a player is drafted or how sizable his bonus. Baseball offers no guarantees, a fact the Angels were painfully reminded of when 20-year-old lefthander Hunter Green, once one of their top pitching prospects, abruptly retired in January.

The Angels signed Green for $942,000 after selecting him in the second round of the 2013 draft. The 6-foot-3, 175-pound southpaw hailed from high school in Bowling Green, Ky.

http://www.baseballamerica.com/minors/angels-cant-talk-green-out-of-retiring/

anyone able to get the rest of the article? thanks.

...in 49 AB. .379 OBP for the Red Sox.

 

Why did Stoneman trade him for Victorino ?

 

This organization lacks any depth at 2B/SS, so that was an incredibly stupid move. Rutledge is only 26, too, so why trade for an aging veteran with nothing to offer?

Probably had something to do with him hitting .270 in salt lake where everyone else hits .350. That said i wouldn't have traded for Victorino.