Angelsjunky

807

It would take at least Conger, Cowart and Maronde.

They also have the Rangers at #3, which seems a bit high.

So in retrospect the Angels paid (or will pay) Vernon Wells a total of $71 million. The original four years remaining was abou $89 million, minus $5 million that Toronto paid = $84 million. The Yankees pay $13 million of his remaining contract which brings us to $71 million. This is what the Angels got for $71 million: 208 games, .222/.258/.409, 36 HR, 95 RBI, -0.3 rWAR Could that be the worst large sum ever spent in big league history?

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/brad-mills-claimed-rangers-angels-192251335--mlb.html

Maybe, maybe not. Wells' numbers will get better in NY. I could see him hitting .250/.320/.450 with 25 HR. Couple that with pretty good defense and all of a sudden he's a 2 WAR player.

Or another way to look at it...

This keeps getting better. Sounds like its virtually a done deal and they're just hammering out numbers. My guess is the Angels still pay $25-30MM of the $42MM remaining. I can't see even the Yankees wanting to spend more than $10-15MM on two years of Wells.

Jeff Passan tweets: "Hearing money going back to Yankees is not nearly as significant as one might think." Now this is really a tease.

It is unlikely the Angels get anything more than a grade C prospect for Wells alone. If they're throwing in someone else they might get a decent arm.

I wouldn't be surprised to see Conger and/or Callaspo involved. Hopefully Dipoto has somehow managed to pry Gary Sanchez or Austin Romine from the Yankees.

I predict that Bill Hall will not be on the 25-man roster.

Sure there is - at bats. Most ballplayers do actually prefer to play ball.

Edge: Dipoto.

Such a tease.

That's absurd, of course, but that is his asking price, not what he'll accept. That said, I could see Lohse getting 3/$40MM or even 4/$50MM. He's actually been pretty decent the last two years: 30-11, 3.11 ERA, 6.1 fWAR - good for 34th among all major league starters. I see him as a solid #3 pitcher. But he is 34 years old. He's better than Vargas, Blanton, and probably Hanson, although not better enough to warrant spending more money on him.

Because Weaver's rockpile-adjusted WAR is league average.

We can hope that a year from now Peter Bourjos is a candidate.

Ideally the team would score lots of runs and give up few. But if we can't have that, I'd rather they score lots of runs and give up lots then score few and give up few. The end results might be the same, but the former is more entertaining. Runs are sexy.

And now that he's truly fat he can slide even earlier so that his sheer mass will help him slide into second like an oil tanker easing into harbor.

The weird thing is that there was no gradual decline - he went from his best overall year in 2009 to just about his worst. Hard to know why, but it might have been a combination of factors: new team, a fractional loss in speed, resulting loss of confidence which he never gained back, which in turn led to inability to adjust and pull himself together. Too bad, really. I imagine that if he had stayed with the Angels his decline would have been more gradual.

Some fun Trout Porn from Fangraphs.

The plantar fasciitis and knee don't worry me as much as the general suckitude that accompanies aging. I don't want to be a debbie downer, but I can't shake the feeling that this contract is going to eventually make Vernon Wells' albatross look like a tweetie bird. I'm reasonably confident that for the next three or four years Albert will be able to at least equal his disappointing-but-decent 2012. But in 2017-2021? I'm not so confident. Now I don't think that Albert, even when he's 40, will ever be nearly as bad as Vernon's been for the last two years. But there's going to be a point where things start getting awkward.

I think that's part of it, Vegas, but it goes beyond that. The Iraq War(s) had everything to do with oil and $$$. If I were that veteran I'd be pissed that my life, and the life of thousands of other Americans and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis were ruined/taken away for the financial benefit of a few greedy men.

I'm fine if those who think dumb don't read the link.