Game 6

Two of the 9 guys expected to be mostly their everyday lineup are coming off surgery. That’s why I listed two.
Also, Pujols is one of the greatest players in the history of baseball and he’s at a career tipping point. I think that’s worth keeping an eye on. 
 

I think the Angels are in a good position to spend on pitching regardless. If we figure a Trout extension pays him roughly what he's already making on a yearly basis right now, and Cahill and Harvey's 20 million are coming off the books, and Albert retires after this year like I think he will, and Calhoun's contract is off the books as well, the Angels may have 60 million a year to spend.
Harvey and Cahill satisfy the needs for a back end starter in 2019, but Canning, Suarez, Barria, and Sandoval have our depth needs covered in 2020 and beyond. So if we invest 20-25 million of it on another ace, and Skaggs, Heaney and Canning are all as good as I think they're going to be, the Angels will be an absolutely incredible team.
Imagine facing them in a playoff series and being opposed by Ohtani, Cole and the ace version of Skaggs we saw from the first half last year. Don't even bother bringing your bats to the game, you won't be using them.

Which is another reason Trout will sign an extension. 

Personally I’d rather we spend any FA $$$ next year on pitching. 
I still think Trout will re-sign. Simmons likely as well. Upton will be here and will be solid. Ohtani will hit. I think Adell will hit. All we need from that is a little bit of luck with maybe two of the group from Ward, Thaiss, Rengifo, Fletcher, and Jones becoming at least average MLB hitters and we’d have a pretty solid offense. 
I’m not as confident in our SP core for the next 1-3 years. Skaggs hits FA in that time, and we should expect bumps for Barria, Suarez, Sandoval, and Canning - and injury risk will always be there. 
There’s a big SP crop next year. Signing an arm or two, especially someone with some frontline capability, would probably help us more.
I’d rather roll the dice on more of our hitting prospects right now - we have a lot more than imminent SP prospects.

I didn’t read through all this, but my 2 cents....
Instead of a 3-batter rule, only X mid-inning pitching changes per game. I am thinking 2. 
Now it’s more of a floating thing and it adds another layer of strategy, on when to use it. If you want to use them both in one inning, go ahead.
I’d also drop mound visits to about 3. 
Fine on the roster changes. Fine on the DH in the NL.
I also like getting rid of some commercial time and throwing more picture-in-picture commercials during the innings, at slow points between hitters. 
And let’s go back to enforcing the rule from a couple years ago about hitters staying in the box.

If healthy, I think the Angels win 90 games. But I don't think they'll be healthy AND perform.
I'm thinking Harvey starts off really well, but then it all goes haywire around July, and come the second half of August he'll move into a long relief and set up role, which he'll thrive in, which will set him up heading back into free agency. Cahill remains a starter all the way, but I put his over/under at 130 innings quality innings.  I think Barria is going to be pretty mediocre. Skaggs and Heaney will have career years. Canning will be better than Barria, Suarez will be on par. Compared to last year, I'd say that the rotation ends up performing around the same as 2018, maybe a little better.
Offensively, Trout-Upton-Ohtani-Simmons is going to be even better than last year. But Kole will show the same inconsistencies, Cozart will provide next to nothing, and teams won't play Fletcher honestly. Ward is going to need to adjust to quality off speed pitching and I don't think it'll happen that fast for him. I don't Pujols or Bour do much of anything, and both will be replaced by Thaiss around the all-star break. La Stella ends up being simply ok, but both him and Fletcher are going to get leap-frogged by Rengifo, who won't be great but he'll be good enough. The offense will be a better than 2018.
The bullpen will end up being a huge strength in my opinion. I personally love the power arsenal he's assembled, and I really think the second half of the year, we'll see Middleton, Ramirez, Meyer and Almonte make big steps forward in health and performance. 
The end result, I think is going to be an 86 win team. But the A's are going to end up winning 84 games. I just don't think they have the pitching. They have plenty of young arms that will help them make a late season push, and they'll be more dangerous in 2020. But 2019, I don't think they're a playoff team. The Twins will win 86 games and the Rays will end up being an 88 win team.
So the Angels will be right square in the middle of the race, but will come up a couple games short. But going into 2020, Cozart will be shipped out or cut, Fletcher will move into a utility role, Adell will take over for Calhoun. Pujols will be gone. Ohtani will be back in the rotation, Marsh and Jones will be knocking on the door, the bullpen will be a very strong, extended unit, and the Angels are going to win 95 games and take the division. 

the rest - 
https://metsmerizedonline.com/2018/12/my-baseball-life-part-2-the-grind.html/
 
https://metsmerizedonline.com/2018/12/my-baseball-life-part-3-the-call.html/
 
https://metsmerizedonline.com/2019/01/my-baseball-life-part-4-now-what.html/

I’ll get back to you on that.  

He won't be able to read that, the font is too small.

lol @ 1-YEAR DEAL ALERT 

That was the point. His total Med%+Hard% was better than both Trout and Upton. It is the results of those authoritative hits that differed from those of Trout and Upton. Calhoun hit the ball hard but the balls found defenders gloves more often. Here is an excerpt from the definition on FanGraphs:
"There’s no guarantee that a ball hit hard will go for a hit and a ball hit softly will be turned into an out, but it is more likely that a hard hit ball will fall for a hit than a soft hit ball, in general. If you hit every ball hard, you’ll almost definitely have a better year than if you hit every ball softly. There are other factors, but hitting it hard should lead to more bases per PA.
Additionally, quality of contact isn’t just a goal, it can be an indication of true performance. Because we know that baseball is influenced by a lot of randomness, a player who appears to be struggling might actually be struggling or they might be hitting the ball hard without much to show for it. You can look to a batter (or pitcher’s) batted ball quality of contact numbers to see what’s going on."
So my reasoning is that because BIS measured a lot of his contact as Hard and Medium and Kole had serious BABIP problems, particularly in the first half when he hit a lot of ground balls, he should, if he continues to hit the ball hard, have better results in 2019. If you look at his spray charts and Pull%/Cent%/Oppo% numbers he pulls the ball some but not enough that these defensive shifts should hurt him terribly (they did in 2018 because of the first half ground balls issue).
What I am saying in the article is that his quality of contact is a strong indicator that he should do well again, barring more BABIP issues.

The talk of adding two mlb franchises got me thinking about who to protect in an expansion draft.  
The rules in previous expansion drafts were that you could protect 15 players from the entire org including the minors for the first round adding 3 players to protect in each round.  Only one player from each team can be drafted per round.  14 players would be selected in rounds 1 and 2 and then 7 in round three (per team).  So 70 total players.  Those not eligible are those without mlb experience who had less than three years of service time if signed at 19 or older or 4 years of service time if signed at 18 or younger
The draft, of course, would have been held prior to the FA period so any FA we signed this year wouldn't have been eligible.  
My list would include:  Trout, Simmons, Ohtani, Heaney, Skaggs, Barria, Buttrey, Anderson, Rengifo, Middleton, Ward, Fletcher, Upton, Suarez, Tropeano.  
guys left unprotected would be Hermosillo, Felix Pena, JC Ramirez.  
It's a tough call now, but imagine 2-3 years from now?  damn.  

If Thaiss, Jones and Sandoval are eligible, my first 15 would be:
Trout, Ohtani, Simmons, Skaggs, Heaney, Barria, Ward, Fletcher, Thaiss, Rengifo, Suarez, Jones, Sandoval, Buttrey, Hermosillo.

The answer is no, but you’re changing the situation to fit your argument. Keuchel is a better pitcher than Cahill. No debate.
But I would rather have one year of Cahill at what we are paying him, rather than 4-5 years of Keuchel at significantly more than what Cahill is getting. 
Keuchel isn’t taking a one year deal worth what Cahill got so I don’t even get where you are getting at. 

It’s like you haven’t paid attention to free agency the last two years.It’s like you haven’t paid attention to free agency the last two years.

The Braves have made three FA signings -- all of them 1 year deals.  
The Red Sox have made five FA signings, 3 of them minor league deals, and a 1 year deal.   
The Yankees have made 8 signings, 3 of them one year deals -- 2 of them minor, league deals. 
The Indians have made three deals total, two minor league deals and a 1 year deal. 
The Astros have made three deals total, 2 of them are 1 year signings. 
The A's have made four deals -- half of them being 1 year deals.   
The Brewers have made three signings, 2 minor league deals and a 1 year deal. 
The Cubs have made three deals, two of them 1 year deals. 
The Dodgers have made 5 deals, two of them 1 year deals, one of them a minor league deal.   
The Rockies have signed one person this offseason.
Those were last years playoff teams -- the majority of their offseason signings have been 1 year deals or minor league signings..   Effing bottom feeders.

Would you have felt better if we had signed Cahil and Harvey to 2-3 year deals instead?

Kevin Maitan is 8 months younger than Jordyn Adams.  
Probably the best thing that could happen for him was to come off the radar a bit.   He's gonna be moving with other very talented guys closer to his age now.  Like Jackson, Adams etc. when those guys move to burlington at some point this year.  

And I get why scouts thought what they did before.  Take the two biggest things wrong with Maitan so far.  1. His weight.  2. His swing.
Back when he was 15 years old, he was thin, built like a shortstop and a rocket for an arm.  You could see him projecting into an A-Rod type body frame.  And the swing, built for power.  The perfect BP swing.  Against other 15 year olds, he was taller, stronger, more graceful.  He was dominant.  Made it look easy, and any shortcomings he had could easily be explained away by the fact that he was 15 and he could work those things.   The hype totally made sense. 
Fast forward and now the weight isn't as much of a problem as it was before, but it's clear that he won't be keeping an A-Rod body type.  He won't be staying on SS at all, largely because of the weight. And the fact that he destroyed fellow 15 years old when he was 15 says nothing about him facing 22 year olds when he's 18.  He's struggled.  So everyone being down on him also totally makes sense. 
But you have to figure he's going to normalize at some point.  Eventually, he won't be playing against guys 4 years older all the time.  Eventually after he moves off SS completely, we won't worry about the weight.  And the older he gets, and the longer he's been following a specific nutrition program, the better results he will see, hopefully.  And when you think about it, Maitan never should've been put in this circumstance in the first place.  LOUD TOOLS DO NOT EQUATE HIGH PERFORMANCE. 
Simply because Maitan has those loud tools, doesn't mean he was necessarily ready to be playing against more advanced competition.  If he was in the DSL in 2017 and absolutely destroyed the pitching there, would it prove anything?  What if the Angels kept him in Arizona, playing against all the recent high school grads and he hit them really hard too, just as he always did against age level competition growing up?  The inconsistent performance in Orem doesn't really tell us much other than the fact that an 18 year old kid was sometimes really good against 22 years olds, and sometimes not as good. 
Eventually, it will all even out.  My best guess is 2020.  He'll be 20 years old, heading to the Cal League where there are quite a few 20 year olds playing.  It won't be his first season playing full season ball which is usually quite the adjustment.  He'll be in California.  Nice warm weather, and hitter friendly ball parks, and he'll be reaching one of those critical physically progressive steps where he starts putting on a lot more muscle. I think Maitan will probably struggle with consistency at Burlington this next year, but will really start to put it together at the end of the year.  It won't be noticeable to most, and he won't be appearing on any top 100 prospect lists, and you'll still read all about how the star has faded.  But in 2020, I think Maitan is going to erupt and tear Advanced A Ball and AA to pieces. In 2021 he'l be a consensus top 100 prospect again and will make his major league debut at age 22.  THat's a pretty good outcome.  Not everyone makes their debut at 19/20.  Even the elite ones typically don't.  

For me, it all comes down to my trust in Eppler as an evaluator, and the actions he took.  I've never heard of a GM chasing a prospect like that.  Farm directors, at times....if they really think the payout is worth it.  Scouts?  Absolutely.  But General Managers boarding a flight in the middle of a busy offseason, having a face to face meeting....not even bothering with a phone call or text.  Writing out a program specifically designed for him.  Coming with the "ok" from the owner to spend 2 million plus on him.  No workout session.  No BP.  No negotiations (that I know of).  
I've never, ever seen that before. 
Could Eppler have been wrong?  Yeah.  Could everything about the Angels action been simply poor evaluation?  Definitely.
But this was after his poor showing in the Appy League, and after the wight gain.  There was no way to hide his strengths and his weaknesses, and even after those glaring shortcomings, Eppler's behavior was still aggressvie. 
I think that Eppler thinks this kid is a future star. And I can see why.  While he is inconsistent at the plate, there are flashes.  He has really easy, graceful opposite power.  You can't teach that.  And when he squares up a pitch, there is a different way it sounds, a different way it jumps off the bat.  If I had to guess, I'd say Eppler and co. see something related to that, and feel like he can eventually be that guy full time, rather than the occasional glimpses we've seen. 
Having said that, I don't care how aggressive you are on Maitan, defensively, that kid is as much of a shortstop as he is a catcher.  He'll be a decent third baseman long run I feel. 

meh.  he's still a solid pitcher and likely to be for at least a couple years.  
I'd expect CJ Wilson level production at best.  
Everyone needs to realize that getting Keuchel now likely negates any chance of getting someone like Cole, Bumgarner or Arrenado next year and that we'll be paying him 20+ mil for his age 33 and 34 seasons for what is likely to be mid to back end rotation production by that time.  
It wouldn't make a ton of sense to me though and would be out of character for Eppler to make a move like that.  
I know Gio Gonzalez is a couple years older, but over the past 3 years his era+ is 112.  Keuchel's is 106.  
You want to add some depth and stability to the rotation?  Grab Gio at 2/18.  Not Keuchel at 4/70.  plus you wouldn't lose a pick or intl money.  He also doesn't limit future plans in any real way.