Game 6

Now they're only 1.97 games behind us.

I'm procrastinating a work project that I don't want to deal with, so thought I'd have a bit of fun. Here are my specific predictions for our top 10:
1. Adell - Has his ups and downs in AA before taking off and crushing it by around mid-season; is called up to AAA, loves the high air of Salt Lake, and earns a September call-up. It will become both very clear that he's a future star, but also that he needs more development.
2. Canning - Adjusts and is dominant in AAA, although with a Salt Lake-inflated ERA (mid 3.00s?). Depending upon the health of the major league club, he'll get somewhere between 5-15 starts in the majors. 5 if the rotation is healthy and the Angels just want to season him a bit for next year; 15 if the fit hits the shan. I could see him having a Weaver-esque major league half season.
3. Marsh - Big breakthrough. He'll dominant A+ and be called up to AA quickly, where he'll spend the rest of the year, getting better as he goes along. By year's end he'll have just about caught up to Adell in terms of development, although probably won't earn a cup o coffee until 2020.
4. Suarez - Similar to Canning, although might be up and down more. He's going to sneak up on a lot of people and be a good pitcher in the majors, perhaps as soon as this year. He'll be more than the sum of hhis parts, similar to Barria (although with higher upside, I believe).
5. Jones - A strong year, mostly in AA, but maybe slightly disappointing in that he won't dominate. Not as big of a breakout as Marsh. 
6. Rengifo - Stabilizes in AAA and starts earning time in the majors, perhaps taking over as the super UT by year's end. 
7. Adams - A year of transforming athleticism into skill. He'll show flashes of brilliance and star potential, but will be raw and won't be rushed.
8. Ward - I'd like to say otherwise, but my gut says quad-A. He'll be better than Wood/Cowart, but will struggle to be a league average hitter in the majors - at least right away. I see maybe 200-250 PA in the majors but mostly in AAA.
9. P Sandoval - Will have a strong year in AA/AAA and be in a similar role as Suarez and Canning next year.
10. Thaiss - I don't know what to think. There's one scenario where I see him taking a big step forward and being a candidate for the starting 1B job by year's end; there's another scenario, equally likely, where he never becomes anything more than a platoon player in the majors. I think 2019 will tell us which is the likely scenario and its about 50-50.
 

I’m old enough to remember Csonka and Syracuse going up against UCLA.
One of the best backfields of that era in college football:
Csonka and Floyd Little

Thanks for paying attention, y'all. 

Regarding Moose and the Angels last year....
Neither Boras nor the Angels want it out if the Angels made a 3/45 offer. For Boras it looks bad that they rejected it and for the Angels it basically tells Zack Cozart he was their second choice. 
Also, it’s very possible to make an offer without making a formal offer. They could have discussed a deal in that range and been told it wasn’t enough and never gotten to the point of making a formal offer. That way both sides can then deny an “offer” was made. 
I don’t know what exactly happened, but my suspicion is the Angels were interested in Moose at 3/45ish but were told that’s not enough so they moved on. 

Hindsight for sure, no way to know Cozart would get hurt, and he still has 2 seasons to produce, but with a do-over right now, Eppler passes....and you know Moose and Boras would jump on whatever the Angels may have been willing to do last year (even if it wasn’t the 3/45 deal)....

Boras misread the market for sure but ultimately the players screwed themselves.  They watched MLB teams evolving and going deeper and deeper into analytics while simultaneously believing it would be business as usual when it would come to FA.  Teams were tanking left and right, they sold out on the draft to try to get more money for themselves, then did the same thing with international players but hey -- they got chefs for the post game spread.  The arrogance and ignorance is amazing.
Also all those sportswriters that mocked teams for making expensive mistakes and all those sites that repeatedly called teams out for being old school or behind the times likewise helped create this situation where nobody wants to be stupid and everyone toes the line salary wise..   Not to mention the heaping of praise for those teams that tanked their way to the top.
 

Two years later he still hasn't earned as much as he would have by accepting a qualifying offer.

Don’t think it necessarily played out like that....I have no inside info, just speculating, but I think Eppler wanted Cozart and Moose, to fix 2b and 3b....when Cozart agreed to his deal, he thought he was going to play 2b....Eppler then reversed course, when the Kinsler deal was on the table, and asked Cozart if he’d play 3b....I wonder if Boras slow played Eppler on Moose and Eppler decided to go with Kinsler....I know the Angels have denied making an offer to Moose but I still wonder if it played out something like that...just a guess....

I still think Moose signs with the Padres. They have a need, haven't spent any money and would do well to delay Tatis' arrival time until he's truly ready. The Angels already stretched to sign Cody Allen. They have a set limit on payroll, and coming to Arte twice in one season to extend the payroll 15 million over where they expected it to be would only be feasible if it meant the playoffs. Eppler chose Cozart over Moose once, and I think he's sticking with that decision.
But the infield configurations would be fun. Moose at 3B, Cozart at 2B, Bour at 1B and Ohtani at DH would be the default. But later in the season if the prospects developed, I could see Ward at 3B, Rengifo at 2B and Moose at 1B. Or Moose back at 3B and Thaiss forcing his way to 1B.
 

My point is that a team option is only good for the team. If the player outperforms his salary, the team can keep him at a discount. If he doesn’t, he gets nothing. 

They have 3 guys in the mix for one spot (Ward, Rengifo and Fletcher). One of them should be able to do a reasonable job for $550K. 
If Moose drops to about $5M or so, I’d grab him. 

I actually wouldn’t be surprised if Moose came to the Angels about a deal, rather than the Angels checking in.
He’s gotta be sick of this after last offseason and might be at a point where he just wants to play here just to sign and get to camp and is ready to give up waiting on a bigger contract or Manny to sign to do so. And if Eppler and Arte have Moose coming to them willing to basically take a deal similar to last year, it’s pretty hard for them not to consider it. 

We get another year of arb control of Bour even though we signed him as a FA.  
I think the only reason we'd be in on Moustakas is for a 1yr deal.  

For 2b/3b right now, we have Fletcher, Cozart, Rengifo and Ward (not including LaStella since he was signed as a utility guy)...that's not exactly a ton and none are very established....Cozart is coming off of a major injury and has very little experience at either 2b or 3b....Rengifo has never been in the bigs and, a year ago, was a throw in for Cron....A year ago, Ward was a struggling C prospect....Not exactly a ton of pieces I have much confidence in, at least compared to an established guy like Moose...

Except for the fact that Albert himself said he was 2-3 years older than listed:
https://www.baseballprospectus.com/news/article/39462/rubbing-mud-aging-angel/
Add in his aging patterns and it seems very possible, even likely, that Albert is currently 41 or 42 years old, born in either 1977 or '78, not 1980.

the red sox are an interesting comp to what the halos are currently doing.  
In a 6 season span they made the playoffs once (2010-2015).  They stayed in the top 5 in payroll the whole time and still had 84, 91, and 93 loss seasons around their one playoff year (2013)
that one playoff year was this rag tag collection of a bunch of mediocre or solid players who had near career years.  https://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/BOS/2013.shtml
take a look.  It was impressive that they won a WS with that collection of players.  I think they were doing what we are trying to do which is to remain competitive while letting the farm system rebuild so they could start fitting guys in.  
Before they started winning again in 2016, they were 10ish and sometime higher for their farm rank.  And they graduated their main core, they've spent the next three years riding that wave by adding guys via trade and FA.  They got super aggressive on trades which worked out well for them but their farm is a disaster now and they're about to see a bunch of guys become free agents.  They're also the highest payroll team now.  
 
 

Fletcher looked better at 2B, than Ward did at 3B, so I would expect Cozart to play 3B at least at first...

I agree that this is the most likely outcome
70% - Cozart 3b, Fletcher 2b, Ward and Rengifo AAA
25% - Cozart 2b, Ward 3b, Fletcher and Rengifo in AAA
5% (or less) - Cozart 3b, Rengifo 2b, Ward and Fletcher in AAA
I think we're going to see more La Stella vs. righties than most are anticipating at this point.  I think he could get as many starts as fletcher early on due to his career .345 obp.  

Came in here to say literally this, word for word.
I think Cozart will be a decent surprise this year, if even only attaining that. 

And then if both Jones and Rengifo are ready for 2020, be able to trade Cozart and if necessary eat half of the remaining $13 million.   That's still $6.5 million that can be used.  

I couldn't stand that bitch. Great moment in the LHOTP series. 

In violent agreement over #5. I think out of all of our options, Rengifo as our 2B of the future makes a ton of sense. Jones can still improve, Fletcher is a passable option, but Luis feels like the right guy to me at this moment.

Of course I want the team to make the playoffs.  That's first and foremost.  I think that goes without saying.  
But there are a few individual performances I'd like to see that I consider very important for this team going forward.  
1.  The one year deals and/or expiring contracts - if they perform well, we'll either make the playoffs or have some valuable trade chips at the deadline.  
2. Tyler Skaggs - this is his year.  He made 19 starts with a 2.62 era last year in 110 ip through July 25th.  From that point he was injured and made 5 more starts with an era of 14.09.  in 15ip.  
3.. Taylor Ward - He had an inauspicious major league debut after destroying minor league pitching.  I cannot emphasize the importance of a 3 win 3bman coming out of our farm system at league min.  Maybe the odds aren't great but his success might be one of the most important things to happen.  
4.  The bullpen - in particular Buttrey and Anderson.  We need to see that Eppler's plan for the pen is gonna work. 
5.  Luis Rengifo - it's not only important for him to take over 2b, he needs to be our lead off hitter of the future 
6.  Jo Adell - he needs to show that he's worthy of taking over for Calhoun regardless of how well Kole does.  
7.  Griffin Canning - he doesn't need to be an ace, but he needs to show that he's got the potential to be a #2.  Maybe it takes a couple of years, but at least league avg production to start would be a big step.  
8.  Shohei Ohtani - that he can do what he did last year. 
9.  the farm system - takes another step forward.  With a couple guys making big steps.  Particularly a couple of pitchers.  
10.  Billy Eppler - much of what will determine his 2019 success is already pre-ordained.  But another good draft, a good intl haul, some timely/appropriate trades and some worthy extensions will keep us on the right path
11.  Brad Ausmus - this one goes to eleven.  don't do much.  In other words, do what you're supposed to and don't get on the radar for the wrong reasons.