Reveille1984

It's still odd to me the urgency in which Eppler salary dumped Cozart packaged with a first rounder when no moves were imminent. Especially with how hard he's worked to build back our farm to an acceptable level the last few years. It basically moved our payroll from $140M to $127M (CBT threshold being $208M). Especially if we don't get Rendon, it just seems like a shortsighted waste of a recent high pick.

I figured this offseason would be crazy in terms of contract values, but man these prices are nuts. Even with how badly the Angels need Cole, the fact that he'd only be filling one of several holes makes me super hesitant to give out the kind of contracts being discussed. $300M for any pitcher is insane, even with me being amongst the "not my money" crowd. Suddenly an Ohtani/Bumgarner/Ryu/Canning/Bundy/Heaney rotation isn't looking too bad.

Cole's thrown 200+ innings in four of the last five seasons. He's been pretty much the picture of reliability for a SP of his caliber.

Boras will be bringing way more than that to the table. Scherzer signed that deal before the 2015 season, this is five years later taking inflation into account and Cole will be a year younger than Scherzer as well. And Scherzer's AAV is $30M, not $37M. It's a backloaded contract. I can see Cole getting something like 7 years/ $250M when all is said and done. If I'm the Angels I'd still pay that in a second.

Their young guns didn't do f*** all, even outside of Kershaw choking again. Smith, Bellinger, and Seager were invisible. Pollock didn't help matters either.

Scioscia is basically the anti-Dodgers management style. Good luck getting him to buy into analytics and sabermetrics.

We haven't developed a really great position player outside of Trout in years. Basically the entire Houston lineup is homegrown (after tanking for years). Maybe Adell will be something special, but when you have to pay every time you need talent that isn't a recipe for long-term, sustainable success.

We have $135M commited to 2020 (without potentially trading Calhoun's $14M) and the luxury tax is $206M. How exactly is signing Cole putting us over the luxury tax?

Thaiss/Rengifo have been Dumb and Dumber in the infield the past few games.

Hopefully we can somehow snag Gerrit Cole this offseason along with having Ohtani pitch again in 2020. That along with maybe trading for a mid-rotation guy should put us in a way better spot next year.

Tropeano doing his usual mound dump. Thaiss has also been super underwhelming both offensively and defensively in his time up here.

I'm using a free trial of Hulu TV for now because of this. It's $5 more than Sling Blue+Orange, but has DVR included (if you care about that) and also local stations that Sling didn't have (CBS, etc.) and their own Hulu content. It's been pretty much the same quality as Sling so far, so If they don't work out the dispute I'll just cancel.

Trump supporters don't want a centrist, they just want someone that will make their hateful rhetoric from the middle ages okay as long as "their side is winning". They are mostly poorly educated, disenfranchised and have no idea that Trump could give as much of a shit about them as he does about immigrants and minorities. To see Trump as just "obnoxious and annoying" is putting on the biggest blinders possible as to the disgrace that has been his presidency. He's vile, openly and brazenly racist, has multiple sexual assault allegations, has created essentially internment camps at our borders, stokes hate and aggression at every opportunity, is a dictator apologist, has zero knowledge of or respect for the constitution, and is an international embarrassment who has put us backwards on the world stage tenfold. To think he stands for Christian values (or ANY values for that matter) is completely laughable. Anyone that can watch him speak or go through his Twitter feed for more than 10 minutes and still support him as a competent world leader of the United States is severely flawed in a fundamental way.

I don't get emotional much when it comes to sports, but when they started tossing their jerseys on the mound I couldn't help but tear up a bit. Just an insane night.

I think the only chance we have with Gerrit Cole is the fact that he's from Newport Beach, so if he wants to be back in OC we have a slight advantage I guess if the money's relative. I'm willing to throw whatever it takes at him considering how awful our pitching has been and for so long.

Hopefully it's not a fracture

The curse of the Angels continues

0.1 WAR is a "legit rebound campaign"? You could toss pretty much anybody at 1B and they'd do a better job. He sucks, and we're stuck with him for two more seasons. It is what it is.

We have the worst SP ERA in baseball, it isn't exactly a surprise. The Rangers also have the 2nd most runs scored in all of baseball... that isn't exactly a "mediocre" offense as you say.

Can't be any worse than what we're trolling out there on the daily right now. SP, 62 games in: 5.60 ERA Combined 1.0 WAR 270 IP (Lowest in MLB) 1.90 HR/9 (2nd worst in MLB)

I bet Ohtani's under one of those umbrellas

I say 2-1 if we can beat them down offensively. Trout's getting hot, so there's always a chance. They have one of the best offenses in baseball, and we have pretty much the worst SP staff so it should be exciting!

He's about to turn 28, kind of past the "potential" years at this point. If he puts up an ERA around 4.50 and lasts over 100 IP I'll be happy.

Skaggs + Calhoun

True, maybe he'll figure it out this year. He's still young. With how many great SS are around now though I wouldn't say he's lived up to "No.1 Overall" levels of greatness. This is the first year he's had an OPS over .699.