UtahHalo

Man. If he sits out a year with injury, that's more than Pujols and Rendon contracts combined.

As someone who lives in Utah, I'd love to see a Major League team here. I just don't see it happening, though. I think the Rockies experiment kind of ruined any hope for another high altitude team. They'd have no shot at decent free agent pitching. Salt Lake would have plenty of fan support. As somebody else mentioned, though, MLB is a large-market game because of local TV contracts and no salary caps. The Utah Jazz can compete because of the salary cap. A Utah baseball team would look a lot like a Kansas City and other small-market teams.

On paper, freeing up resources seems great. It allows the Angels to go get some support on the free agent market. But I've been really underwhelmed by Perry's ability to evaluate free agent talent.

Maybe it's becoming clear Perry is in over his head. Going into this season he spent around $60 million on free agents. That's as much as some teams' entire payrolls. Of the signings, it's not clear to me that any of them were materially better than guys that could have been called up from the Bees. Of course, it's easy for me to hurl potshots with the benefit of hindsight. But it's the GM's job to evaluate talent and assemble a roster and so far the team he's put together is the same or worse than teams which are intentionally bad or in aggressive rebuilding mode.

This is the most Angels piece of news I've read in a long time.

Franconia should have intentionally walked Ward. Maddon is a genius.

What. Guy was born to be an Astro.

I really hate the field level suites behind home plate. They're always full of douches not paying any attention to the game.

It's like passing a car wreck on the freeway. Everyone has to at least take a look.

I think Joe has money on the Rangers.

My first game was a Mariners game I think in 1981. I was 10 years old. I don't remember who they were playing or anything about the game. I do remember riding with my friend unrestrained in the bed of his dad's Ford Courier pickup truck from Bellevue to the Kingdome. We thought it was great. That would get you arrested today.

If Greinke can be had for anywhere near the $9MM estimated market value on Spotrac, the Angels should be all over that.

Spotrac estimates Iglesias' value at $15MM but Kenley Jansen's at only $10MM. I don't understand that discrepancy. Is Iglesias really worth that much more or are the Spotrac estimates just up in the night?

Spotrac estimates Greinke's value at around $9MM per year. I know he's past his prime, but I think he'd be absolutely worth it if he could be landed for near that amount.

I know it's likely heresy to even suggest such a thing. If the Halos hold on to Ohtani past the next couple of years, it's likely going to be the most absurdly large contract in baseball. Combine that with the Trout and Rendon contracts and the Angels are in the same position they've been in lately where the majority of your payroll goes to three guys and there's no cash left to build out the rest of the team. If he got extended now, there's pretty much no money left to build out the rotation. I would think he'd fetch a front-line starter and a few crazy good prospects if they dealt him now. I know it's crazy talk.

I know the season is pretty much over for Angels fans, but how great would it be to sweep the Yankees with Mayers, Barria, and Packy Naughton as the starting pitchers in the series?

I wouldn't mind signing Iglesias for next year and using the savings toward pitching and an Ohtani extension. They showed Iglesias' defensive splits on a recent broadcast. Most of his defensive woes occurred at the beginning of the season and he's been solid thereafter. His bat is decent and he seems like a good clubhouse guy.

The Oakland A's entire starting rotation makes less than $13MM combined. It would be nice if the Angels one-year contracts and home-grown talent could get to that level of performance. Instead the Angels pay more and get less.

I predict Heaney looks like a Cy Young candidate tonight.

Just out of curiosity, I looked up MLB stats on inherited runners. The Angels are #1 in inherited runners after pulling the starter. Also #1 in the number of inherited runners scoring. Amazingly, there are 6 teams that allow a higher percentage of inherited runners to score. So if we're among the worst in allowing inherited runners to score, why pull the starter so frequently in those situations? https://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/majors/2021-reliever-pitching.shtml

Looks like we'll be sellers.

I'm a fan of this draft strategy. The Angels are pretty much set in both the infield and outfield (except for SS) for the foreseeable future. Detmers was apparently turning heads at the Futures game. If we can get a couple of these guys to crack the rotation within a couple of years, this will be a great team.

I really want to see a Jomboy breakdown of the sweating / puking incident.