Game 6

Nothing is going to move you off of your opinion, that is the only thing that is clear, here.
Calhoun has been a productive Major League player for five of the last seasons. He has one off year and people take a giant sh*t on him even when some of his peripherals showed it was his best season to-date.
Continue to ignore facts at your own peril.

and the thing you don't understand is that they're not going to change anything they're doing now as if that matters.  they're not going to trade prospects.  They're not going to commit long term dollars to players that are likely to be of marginal help during that time, and they're not going to spend more money on the current roster than they already have.  
they're setting the team up for that window.  Whether you like it or not, they have chosen that window as a better opportunity than the one right in front of us.  
they could be wrong and that would suck.  but doing it the way they've chose works out more often than doing it any other way.  
you need to stop acting as if adding 30 mil in payroll to the team was actually ever an option.  
the two options were to do what Eppler did or to use a combo of farm and monetary resources to make the team better than it is right now.  
Assuming a similar payroll, would you rather have realmuto and 3 less of our top 5 prospects?  Or Kluber and the same?  Or Machado and a rotation of Heaney, Skaggs, Barria, Pena and Canning/Suarez with no Allen, Lucroy and maybe no Bour?  The last one is slightly tempting but I still choose what we did because of what we can still do next year and the year after.  
There was a 3rd realistic option that Arte could have chose which would have been to keep his 30m and not have Eppler improve the team for this year.  

And the answer is the same.  If you blow it with the farm you still have money to spend.  If you blow it in free agency you have no choice but to either spend good money fixing bad money and you still need your farm to contribute.  Either way you can’t compete over any length of time without a good farm system.  I’ll give you some examples, Hamilton, Pujols, to lesser degrees CJ Wilson, Huston Street, Kole.  

We havent had a big prospect since Trout...    None of the people who were responsible for the draft failures since then are around anymore.  At some point people need to look at the situation now and not what it used to be.

My guess is the players union would never allow it to happen, but it would be great if teams could have an opt out with long contracts just like players do.  For example, take the Jason Heyward contract that was a seven year deal with the Cubs.  I believe he has a player opt out option which is fine, but how great would it be if a team could have an opt out as well?  Clearly Heyward has not lived up to his contract, imagine if the Cubs could opt out of his contract after four years or something like that?
If players want long contracts to still be offered, a team opt out option is a way that could help it happen.

100% yes, but man oh man the whole "lets suck for a decade to build a top farm" thing... had to be hard to be a fan down there. 

I lived in San Diego for many years and it was typically very easy to root for the underdog Padres.
Except you get worn out.  It was always the same cycle.  "If we can just (fill in the blank with the issue of the day), then we can compete with the Dodgers and Giants."
Well you get tired of the built in excuse, and you really get tired of a new excuse when they can't use the old excuse anymore.
It was like Lucy yanking the football away from Charlie Brown.
At some point Charlie Brown says screw this I am not going to try and kick this football AGAIN and AGAIN have her pull the ball away.
So here we are.  They are close and they have massive amounts of young talent and they did sign Hosmer (not that this was a smart signing in hindsight, but it matters in the analysis).
Will they really add the pieces they will need or will they become decent and then make excuses for adding the right pieces?
The only time I saw the team make the aggressive moves to really compete was 1998 when they had the pending vote on the ballot to get public financing for the ballpark.
And that was supposed to be the ticket to be able to compete with the Dodgers and Giants.  They got the votes and then pulled the football away and Charlie Brown found himself on his back again.
Yes I pull for them to be different and to be truly significant in the NL.
Let's see what they actually do.

It's probably Griffey, maybe A-Rod...Trout was a better prospect than Vlad Jr, I think. It's hard to guess because in retrospect, you end up gravitating toward guys who had huge careers.

dude, why do you play the victim card in every single thread? 
 

Eppler said he told Allen they wanted him to be the closer. 
He’s not about to go sign someone else now to be the closer. 
Not his style. 

You have to go all the way back to November of 2017 to find Arte giving out a $100 million contract.  14 months ago.  What a cheap mother fucker.  

Don’t know where else to put it but this is cool 
 
 

I think Eppler knew full well what he was doing, which is ensuring that LF would be solved once and for all, at least for the foreseeable future. And while it isn't as if any of us know Upton personally, he loves playing in So-Cal, and he would do whatever it takes to help the team win. If they approach him about spending more time at DH and 1B to save his legs and keep his bat in the lineup through the mid-30's, while also prodviding an opportunity for some kids to come up and learn from him and infuse some excitement into the team, you have to figure he would be on board with it.
The Angels and Upton know why he's here, and it isn't to be a defensive specialist in LF. He is here for his bat and the Angels would be making sure that bat stays in the lineup and is surrounding by more bats. 

Rengifo (and Suarez) are on the 40-man already.

It is truly incredible that someone could spend the entire off-season whining about the team not trying enough and their need to show Trout they want to win and then turn around and argue that they should sell off at the deadline even if they are in contention because -- well, the gap is too big and they can't possibly win a playoff series.
There is no part of me that understands the duplicity.   I'll just assume that's because I'm an idiot.
Since this will go unanswered -- here you go....  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Flag_Trade   A trade so reviled that it's become a historical footnote.   Check the trades it gets compared to -- Herschel, Lindros, Ricky Williams -- Brock...    
There is it.

This is a high quality post, holy shit

I looked up the stats part, but remembered reading about the 5 shutouts in 1966 as a kid.

Dogs had part of that happen to them in 1966.    Rookie Cards' pitcher Larry Jaster never no-hit them, but shut them out all 5 times facing them in 1966.
45 innings, 24 hits (all singles), 31/8 Ks/BBs, .157 opposing BA, sub .200 OBP, .157 SLG%   
Finished 4th in NL ROTY balloting in 1966.

Not too worried.  I think this time next year we'll have Adell, Jones, Marsh and maybe even Knowles, Rodriguez, Soriano, Jackson or Adams.  Canning will have graduated by then. And even then, regardless of how they're ranked, the system should only continue to get stronger assuming we don't make any trades. 

and frankly, I don't give a hoot if we don't match up well on paper to the powerhouses.  If we're that close that far into the season, you give it a shot.  
I have always agreed that anything can happen in the playoffs.  There's a huge difference between trading prospects or bloating payroll above 200mil when you only have a shot at the 2nd WC to start the season vs. being halfway through the season, playing well, and being within a few games.  
you can't take that kind of opportunity away from the players.  

We'll need to carry 13 position players.  Especially when Ohtani becomes available.  That being said, we have the 3 starting OF's, two catchers, and Cozart, Simmons, Pujols, and Bour who are guaranteed spots.  LaStella wouldn't have been acquired if they didn't want his versatility and left handed bat.  That leaves 3 spots open.  So the battle will be between Fletcher, Ward, Rengifo, Hermosillo, and Bourjos.  Fletcher makes the most sense for one spot, because of his versatility to play 3 infield positions and RF.  It's going to come down to who ends up winning the 2B and 3B job and the 4th OF spot. 
Marwin Gonzalez solves some of the issues if he gets signed.  He can platoon with Calhoun and start at 2B and 3B or even SS when needed.  Plus he' a switch hitter.  He would eliminate the need to have a 4th OF when Ohtani comes back.

That didn’t seem right to me so I looked it up. 
CBA, attachment 22 describes the debt-service rule. In part 2, #9 it says player compensation is considered debt, beyond the first $75M (if I’m reading it correctly.)
Again, I don’t know the Angels financials and whether this rule actually has an impact, but it is another unknown element that should prevent anyone here from claiming to have an informed opinion of what they “should” spend. 
In the end, it comes down to people simply wanting them to spend more because they want them to spend more. That’s no different than my son thinking I should buy him a car, someone thinking in-n-out should make its burgers bigger or .... Varuka Salt wanting an Oompa Loompa.
 

The logic is it’s all he wants to spend. 
Like I said before, if you go to a car dealership and say you want to spend X and the dealer says “oh I give you permission to spend more,” it doesn’t mean you can or should. It’s still up to whatever you think you can afford.
The luxury tax is unrelated to the Angels budget. 
Now if you want to argue the Angels budget should be something else based on your assumptions about what they make and spend, go ahead. Just don’t use the luxury tax as part of the discussion. 

For all we know, 85 wins may well be enough for the second WC spot.  
It was for the Twins in 2017, and it put the Halos only 1 game in back of it in 2015.   A'th will regress, Dipotos will regress, and TB isn't a sure bet to not regress either.

I encourage Kaleb and all major leaguers to follow this strategy when it’s going bad.  I think the Angels should post this in the club house.