Fake Chow

Mike Trout and Luis Rengifo would look great in these sleeveless jersey's. Suns out, guns out! 
Schanuel and his PVC pipes, not so much.

There's a joke somewhere in here isn't there

Maybe.  But it’s defendable.  If the team wants to punt on being competitive for a year or two then you don’t do this.  But the consensus opinion is the team intends to be competitive now. So how do you do that best without killing or really hurting the developmental movement?
If you made a deal like this to get Burnes, trade Ward for more pitching and heck go ahead and sign Snell. . . You add about $66m to the payroll, stay under the luxury tax, and you suddenly have a stacked rotation and you try to win by being dominant and deep in the starting rotation with a functional offense.
And this really does not cost the Angels any prospects or controllable young players (except Ward, who is not all that young anymore, and you can assume they would be moving him for someone they could at least control for more than 2024.)
So what is the real downside other than spending some money BELOW the luxury tax to improve the team?

I would but blarg is going to scold you. 

The Angels absolutely do not want to trade away any good young players.
Would anyone be interested in improving the team for 2024 by trading for Burnes by taking in the Yelich contract?
Yelich has five years and $120m remaining ($23.9m per year), and was a 4.1 WAR player last year.
We could all speculate how the details would be worked out but it at least appears that marrying Burnes to Yelich would facilitate someone acquiring Burnes.
Burnes is projected to get about $15m in arbitration.  If he was a free agent, what would the Angels pay him on a one-year contract?  $25m?
If the Angels acquire a pitcher that has $10m in value for 2024, that effectively makes the cost for Yelich 5 years $110m, or $22m per year.  While that isn’t a steal by any stretch, it’s digestible.
The points of criticism for this kind of transaction are surely money related.  But the Angels don’t have many options to improve by other means.
Further, if you had Yelich, that frees up someone like Ward to move in a deal elsewhere to improve the team some other way.
Anyway, it is at least notable that taking the Yelich contract matches up with acquiring Burnes. . . and there isn’t much else to talk about.

Bauer is always a controversial topic, and rightfully so. After seeing his post about a team not wanting to sign him because of the "PR hit" they would take I started thinking about it. The Angels seem to be the perfect fit for him. As the guys have pointed out on the podcast, and all media for that matter, the Angels are already viewed as a joke. Why not go and sign him, it won't lower how people perceive the team that much. 

Also, I'm a big believer in 2nd chances, and what better manager to have the Wash to help him through the opportunity? He's a man who has had to rebuild his life in the past and has done a great job at it! He could be a fantastic mentor. Also, Mookie says he wasn't a bad teammate, and I don't see how he could be any worse for the team than Rendon has been in the last couple of years. Offer a short-term prove-it deal with an option for a 2nd year. 
This could set the Angels up with a nice top-of-the-rotation if they sign Snell or Montgomery, and give them the option to package Sandoval.
Snell/Montgomery-Bauer-Detmers-Sandoval-Canning-Silseth-Anderson
Just some thoughts
 

I'm pretty sure that variations of this have floated through the halls of the Angel's front office for the last decade or more.  It's also one of the big reasons why they have a shit farm system, very little depth, and they constantly play from year to year.  
I thought I had mapped it out but let's get in the DeLorean for a second and take payroll even to just a shade under the CBT every year.  But instead of adding one guy to a lengthy deal and leaving holes patched with the likes of Rafael Ortego or Johnny Giavotella, you use that money to get some good players on 1-2 year deal.  Hmmm.  I wonder if the odds would be better of those guys not only helping the team out but maybe also having more value at the deadline in trade.  
And instead of trading those players for a guy who's as close to the majors as possible you just get the most talent you can into your minor league system
Or how about you take on a couple of bloated contracts with only a couple years left in order to get a couple of prospects in return?  
Nah.  Let's just keep doing things the same way.  It's really working out.    

Do some of you remember the Shohei Ohtani that played damn near every game the last 2 years in the dog days of late August and all September when some of his teammates decided to shut it down and plan for next season?
The same Shohei who potentially risked his pitching career when he elected to pitch a meaningless game for which he had no reason to pitch in because of his pure competitive nature?
The same Shohei who gave countless Angels fans and their kids memories that they will never forget?
Root for him?  Probably not, because of the team he signed with, but no one in their right mind will be “booing” him in Angels Stadium.  No way, no how.

Typically, not "that guy" but I've seen enough of your posts to know you have many, many better adjectives than "retarded." Please use different terminology.

That one guy is the only guy who has said anything about him. And this one guy also happens to be pretty respected around the league, so his word should mean something to you.
anonymous reporting (which you still haven’t cited) takes precedence over public comments for you?

So they can’t find a guy named Wander?

Glad to see people have come to understand the postseason is a crapshoot. 
Back when the Angels were a well run franchise that always was in contention the fans base couldn't stop bitching about the GM that wouldn't make big trades or the owner that wouldn't spend with the big boys, because "that" was what was keeping them from returning to the WS.
Bitch less about the lack of flashy moves, bitch more about the lack of vision.  I truly believe Arte's desire to give the fans what they wanted has set the team back... Fans (like Arte), don't know shit.
Let the baseball ppl work already.

It's been awhile Tank.  

Look, the simple fact here (allegedly) is that Ohtani would have stayed an Angel if Moreno would have matched the offer.  He did not.  
After the debacles of Pujols, Hamilton and Rendon, you can understand that position (to an extent).
But the insanity of trading the farm away at the end of July (and not trading Ohtani) for an outside chance of getting to the playoffs can’t be understated.  It sets the club back years.
And was it all because an aging owner, faced with his own mortality, figured he’d give it one shot before he sells or dies?  That’s a selfish and terrible way to run a sports franchise. 
And it also makes it clear that had he sold to a competent group or individual last offseason, Ohtani would likely still be here as the crown jewel of their new franchise.  
So basically: Fuck you Moreno.

Owner has veto rights but a strong baseball operations staff, not a bunch of ASU frat boys, would have been able to beat some sense into him.
And the time to talk to Baleo about a contract was winter of 2021 to take the Dodgers and MLB out of the negotiations. If the Angels come in with a strong offer there is no $700 million dollar contract because there is only 1 MVP season on his resume.
10 years at $450+ million with an opt out would have been ink to paper but Moreno couldn't see there was no re-signing once Ohtani was a year out from free agency. The GM shuffle fucked the organization as much as anything. No continuity in the front office gave Ohtani no confidence this franchise would ever stabilize. 

I'm fine with not matching the deal -- the vetoing stuff your baseball people want to do .. it just sucks.

Now I can't stop thinking about Perry going to Arte with a trade proposal only to have Arte stand up and say "All right stop, collaborate and listen.. Arte's back with a brand new invention"

A deep pockets owners hellbent on turning this franchise around would be actively trying to make deals where they acquire prospects in exchange for taking on some bad contracts.
If the contracts you take on are at least decent players, then the team is respectable immediately, albeit at a significant salary cost.
Yeah your salary situation now might stink.  But if something has to stink I prefer it to be the salary situation instead of wins and losses and/or a light farm system.  Isn’t this what Friedman did immediately when he got to the Dodgers?
If cash flow is an issue, then do some contract restructuring to defer some payments.
Come on Angels, let’s make some things happen.
They don’t have to go this exact route, but I want to see them give us some transactions that indicate some competence, creativity and strategy.
 

I have gone back and forth from a hell no to a cautious maybe on Trevor Bauer for the past few months, but my opinion on the Angels signing him has moved into a hell yeah stage.
Since Ohtani has moved on to our hated cross town rivals, I would love nothing more than the Angels to sign Trevor Bauer and Cody Bellinger.
How awesome would it be to have two motivated players who were spurned and given up on by the Dodgers play on the red-headed step child’s team just down the I-5 fwy.

I still can't get over Artes 180 and deciding bot to sell. The only thing that made sense was that he had some sort of indication locking Ohtani up was going to happen. I assumed that would be his parting shot. Locked him up, appeased the fans, added value to the final sell, etc.
And lol.... instead we lose Ohtani and keep Arte.... sigh 

Yes. I've been saying they should for two years now. The Angels should be in year three of five of their rebuilding phase at this point. Instead they have no prospects and a team destined to win 70 games. 

MLB clearly set up Ohtani to the Dodgers by giving them a total refund on the Bauer deal, legalizing their use of the DH, then sneaking in an incredibly player friendly change to deferred money rules without asking the MLBPA for any concessions. All that happened roughly in the last year or so.
The Dodgers are also already opening up the ‘24 season in Korea. Shocking.

I live in Texas now as well.  Im glad I dont have to drive the freeways and see billboards with Ohtani in a Dodgers uni.  I do have to suffer through friends bringing up the Rangers winning the WS at least once a week.

I live in Texas now as well.  Im glad I dont have to drive the freeways and see billboards with Ohtani in a Dodgers uni.  I do have to suffer through friends bringing up the Rangers winning the WS at least once a week.

If true I'm just picturing Arte with his thumb up his ass and wondering why he just lost the biggest business asset he ever had to his rival.