Game 6

The Angels used their #1 picks, two years in a row to draft a catcher. Quality scouting by the organization created this massive hole. I know, who could possibly know what prospect will develop into a major league player, blah, blah, blah.
The Dodgers, Tampa Bay, Oakland, just to name a few, don’t seem to have this problem. I don’t care if Eppler stays or goes, but the scouting and player development needs to improve for this team to have a chance. 

Does Ric Wilson still think Ward is the next Johnny Bench?
He sure acted like it, when they drafted him.

Lol seriously ?

What were they doing in February and half of March?

Moustakas handled the move fairly well too.

If Tommy La Stella can play 2B so can Matt Thaiss. 
I love Joe Maddon's creativity! 

Wait - if Trout/Rendon/Pujols/Upton eat up 118mil, and Bundy + Heaney = 136mil.. then subtracting out those arbitration cases doesn't reduce it to 126 - it keeps it at 136mil.  You subtracted 10mil for that, but you shouldn't have.
Also - Ohtani is due for arbitration.  He won't earn as much as we would have originally thought, but I imagine it'd be around 3-5mil or so.
So - 136mil + 4mil = 140mil, plus using the 10mil you mentioned, is around 150mil.  I think the projection of ~20mil to spend is probably a reasonable amount to assuming.  Which could land us a pretty good SP + veteran catcher, or Bauer by himself maybe, or backend SP + Simba, but .. probably not good SP + Simba + others.

Working with $170m being the approximate benchmark for the payroll...it could vary greatly...Arte's perceived penny-pinching and lack of fan revenue is something that could alter this greatly, and so could the big savings on the land deal he wound up getting, despite him stating the team and the land development are in two separate buckets. 
Trout, Rendon, Pujols, and Upton eat up $118m of that in '21.  I'm roughly guessing Bundy and Heaney rack up another $18m or so between them. Up to $136m. Of note - it will be interesting to see if they try to extend either. It could let them back-load to free up '21 payroll, and they have quite a bit of room with the luxury tax payroll.  Again, my arb. figure guesses are really approximate, but non-tendering/dealing Robles ($5m?), Bedrosian ($3.5m?), Andriese ($2m?) opens up $10m or so. Back down to $126m. Barnes, Noe could go either way. They're no more than $1m a piece so not much bearing. I could see them staying or going as likely as the other.  The rest of the guys are pre-arb, I'll just spitball the over, like $10m there, putting them right back up at $136m. So maybe around $35m in '21 payroll to spend, which has been pretty consistent with spending in recent offseasons.  Bauer's a real wildcard depending on how he closes the year and if he sticks to this one-year thing. Plus he's just a bit of a wildcard in general. If there was ever a free agent who decided to take the craziest amount of money thrown at him for a one-year deal, it would be him. If there was ever a free agent who took a surprisingly low deal to play somewhere he really wanted to be, it would be him. I don't think he's all about the money, per se, but he's certainly aware enough of his earning potential. I'll guess he gets around $25m AAV, but it's a real mystery here. Could just as easily be $35m on one-year.
Stroman I think could fall anywhere from a Lance Lynn/Kyle Gibson 3/$30m (he is an under-sized arm with mixed results turning 30 after missing an entire season) to the 5/$80m type deal, being he could be the second-best arm on the market. I'll just guess he gets around $15m-$18m AAV. 
I'm really only interested in re-signing Simmons if its around $10m-$12m AAV. Cozart's 3/$39m is a fair comp.

Vet catchers on one-year deals are going around $5m-8m. The 4th OF types mentioned could be $3m-$9m, looking at Pillar's recent deal up to Calhoun's recent deal. 
Stroman $15m, Simmons $12m, both back-loaded a bit, to get them closer to $12m and $10m in '21, Molina $8m, JBJ $7m puts you at $37m added for '21 payroll, around $172m.
 

Disclaimer: I know the Angels have a long shot to make it. But if we’ve learned anything about 2020 it’s that anything is possible. 
Also, we’ve taken ourselves out of the Kumar Rocker sweepstake so might as well go for it now…
Here’s a look at teams ahead of us in the WC race and how many games each team has left against an opponent with a record of .500 or better:
LAA: 5
BAL: 15
SEA: 16
DET: 11
TOR: 13
NYY: 9
MIN: 12
CLE: 10
The rest of the season favors the Angels and they are only 4.5GB of the second wildcard spot as well as 4.5GB of second place in the AL West. 
The chances are very slim, I get it, but pitching, to a point, is starting to settle in and with good streaks from Trout, Rendon, and a few other pieces, the Angels have a chance. 

Minor leaguers don’t have any control and their contracts are not negotiable. Where as Upton has negotiated his contract he’s also negotiated a no trade clause. To his benefit if he then doesn’t want to be traded then so be it. But no trade clauses aren’t all that uncommon and aren’t all that uncommon to be waived when said player is traded. It happens all the time. 
 
Players are just assets. The name calling seems a little weird. But hey if that’s where you need to go that’s fine it’s cute coming from the guy who is ok with minor leaguers getting paid below minimum wage because hey they’ll have a good story 😂.  Major leaguers once out of the ridiculous arbitration process are then free agents and can negotiate the terms of their contracts. I don’t know how you don’t see a difference between that and a minor leaguer who has zero control of their contracts and zero control of where they play. Which is why I argued that they be able to negotiate their contracts. Two entirely different things. If the minor leaguer or major leaguer are able to negotiate set terms to their liking then it is what it is after. Being for lack of a better term “forced” to sign as a minor leaguer with no negotiating power and no free market to an “under minimum wage” compared to a major leaguer who is finally a free agent. signing a contract that’s completely negotiable and agreed to in terms by them and said team. Upton even stipulated in the contract that he wanted a no trade clause and good on him. The Angels can’t trade him unless he waives it. I’m completely fine with that too. Maybe the Angels trade him. Maybe they don’t. But I think for the Angels long term it would be best if they could and he’d agree because it would help clear salary space for better players and would open the door to Marsh and he is the future not Upton. 

For this reason, I think we have a better path to the 8th seed than ALW2.
The Blue Jays have 20 games remaining.  10 are against the Yankees, 4 against the Phillies, 3 against the Mets, and 3 against the Orioles.
If they go 3-7 against the Yankees, 1-3 against the Phillies, and 3-3 against the Mets/Orioles, that puts them at 29-31.
We'd have to go 12-6 to tie them.  So in this regard - I think we can catch the Blue Jays, but we have to root for the Yankees (yes, yes, I know..) to crush them to help give us the best shot possible, and of course, we have win a lot of games.
Our schedule is fairly light until the last week - 2 against the Padres, 3 against the Dodgers.  The "bright side" is that by those last 3 games, the Dodgers will likely have clinched the #1 seed and will just be coasting and trying to stay healthy, so they will likely be more beatable in those 3 games than they otherwise would be.
The Yankees have too much talent for me to seriously consider that we will catch them.

Any big gains will likely need to be this week.   After 7 tough games for the Cheaters against the A’th and Dogs, all 13 remaining games are against the Rangers, D-Backs, and M’s.

The poll question is not Can they, but Will they.  Even going 12-6 down the stretch is likely not enough, at least not unless we get a LOT of help.  

Don't get me wrong, I'm glad to see the team showing life and energy, and signs of what they can do next year, but it just took too long to get it started this year I fear.
 

He’s not getting traded.  It just isn’t happening.  He has a no trade clause.  He said when he signed here the reason he wanted a no trade clause is he wants to be in the same place for awhile based on his experience in the league where he jumped around a lot because he was traded a couple of times.  He’s staying.

Yup.... His Babip was under .110 before this streak.   
He was also getting under everything and hitting a lot of pop ups.  Once he got that squared away he's been his usual self.    His hard hit% is now sitting at 43.1% well above his career figure of 36.4% and right in line with his statcast career figure of 42.8%
Pretty much everything that was happening was right there in the batted ball data, didn't stop people from saying he was done.   
As always...  haters gonna hate.

He's always been streaky as hell. It's his thing.
His overall numbers are a reason for concern but his BABIP is .219 which means he's been absurdly unlucky this year. 
He's in decline for sure, but he's not this bad.

This week is crucial.
The Cheaters 13 remaining games after that are vs the Rangers (7), D-Backs (3), and M’s (3). 
Might need them to go as bad as 1-6 this week and the Halos at least 5-1.

Yea I’m only really interested in the A’s rolling the Astros and for us to get back on the field tomorrow and take care of business.  Oakland is the class of the division and they play Seattle 6 more times.  We are done with both Seattle and Oakland. 

I thought we were 5 games back

No chance we'll catch the 7th seed - the top 3 teams in the AL Central have fantastic records and not within striking distance.
So it's either 2nd place in the ALW or whoever the 8th seed is.
Important point - the Blue Jays have 20 games remaining, with 10 of those against the Yankees.
The 8th seed is within reach, but we need either the Blue Jays or the Yankees to totally dominate the other team.  We need one of them to win, say, 8+ times against the other, with a 5-5 split being the worst outcome.
The Blue Jays have a very difficult finishing schedule.  We are 6 games behind them and likely need to go 14-4 or better to catch them (or the Astros).  Very unlikely, but not impossible.

Ok after doing some research, the first 6 playoff slots are the 1st and 2nd teams in each division, the last 2 are for the next best records. So the Astros, since they're 2nd, the Yanks and Jay, since there fighting for the 7 and 8th seat are all In play. 
 

They are this year. 

It would be nice if this were the beginning of May instead of the beginning of September. But we all knew the score going in: there was no room for a horrendous start in a 60-game season. 

Are needs to go over the cap for one year.  If he wants to compete he needs to do it.

Wow, what a turnaround. He's now leading the majors in SLG at .676 and HR with 15. 180 wRC+ is back to his norm from the last few years. His walk rate has also been rising quickly, and he should be over .400 OBP soon.