10 hours ago, Inside Pitch said:

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"

You constantly inspire me, IP...

10 hours ago, Inside Pitch said:

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"

Ohtani, continuing the lyrics:

"Money grabs a hold of me tightly
Flow like $700 million daily and nightly
Will it ever stop?
Yo, I don't know
Advance 20 years and I'll know
To the extreme I rock deferred money like a vandal
Light up a Dodger stage and wax Arte like a candle"

Getting Shohei was incredible, but my close 2nd and 3rd were Vlad and Pujols (I even wrote my first AW.com article about the latter).

50 minutes ago, Blarg said:

I wonder if Ohtani is going to receive his AL MVP award at Angels stadium during the Freeway Series. 

If it happens, Arte Moreno will demand that the Angels be made out in the presentation and the resulting news articles as a "classy organization", lol.

21 hours ago, Tank said:

watching church online when my daughter came rushing out and gasping that ohtani signed. never heard the end of pastor jon's sermon.

I suppose missing the remainder of the sermon, was okay, since it was tangentially Angels-related news.

2 hours ago, jsnpritchett said:

I think the entire concept of "loyalty" in professional sports is kind of silly.

Perhaps the word should be "commitment" or something similar.

The whole concept of free agency is completely at odds with the concept of "loyalty", I agree, but I guess (and maybe True Grich would agree) maybe it is appreciation of commitment to one organization and not just pursuing the highest dollar total that fans like and love. Fans love to see "their guy" staying on the team and in the same uniform. It really builds loyalty from the fans, actually, not the other way around, I suppose, and maybe that is more of what TG was driving at possibly.

1 hour ago, Swordsman78 said:

Classic "walkoff" response. 

When the good Lord was creating humans he made the bodies first, and had them wait in line for their brains.   Well you know what?  A bunch of those bodies got up and walked off.

 

Sounds like you have first-hand "knowledge".

2 minutes ago, HeavenlyHalos said:

I'll complain about your use of the word 'irregardless.' Pet peeve of mine.

irregardless

adverb

ir·re·gard·less ˌir-i-ˈgärd-ləs 

 

nonstandard

: REGARDLESS

Ahh yes, I think I have been using that word wrong since a young age. The bad habits you develop growing up...

33 minutes ago, Swordsman78 said:

100% speculation.  

No, not speculation. If Ohtani had stayed, most of these folks would be signing his praises, Irregardless and completely independent of the price he signed for. 

27 minutes ago, fan_since79 said:

I'm actually happy he didn't stay here for a mountain of money. $700 million saved will buy a lot of pitching, etc.

It sure will and it will likely not make a lick of difference in our record at the end of the year. I could be wrong, but Ohtani staying would have more of an impact on the Angels winning, more so than losing. We were probably damned if we do, damned if we don't, anyway, but an Angels squad with Ohtani would likely be more likely to win than without in my opinion.

24 minutes ago, full circle said:

If the Angels had signed him for $700 million, I would not have been in favor.  He won’t even be worth half that. 

That statement is not about money, it is about the inconsistent statements people would have made, in complete opposition to all the negative remarks about Shohei in this thread, if he had stayed, i.e., people would not be bad mouthing him if he had stayed in Anaheim, Irregardless of the price (which they would still complain about right or wrong). 

I swear to God that if Shohei had signed here, no matter what the price, the people here saying things like, "He is dead to me", or he can, "Go f*** off", would be singing an entirely different tune about how much they love him for being so loyal, blah, blah, blah.

At least stay consistent, FFS.

God I hate being a fan of this team...

And to be clear we could have locked Ohtani up a couple of years ago and probably at about 50% less than what he just signed. Of course Ohtani would have to be agreeable to sign it, but this could have played out a lot differently, years ago, if Arte had the balls.

I don't give two shit's how Arte is feeling. This is just another nail in the proverbial coffin of the Angels franchise, because he didn't have the foresight to lock up Shohei Ohtani. To his credit he did lock up Mike Trout, but at what cost when he didn't have the balls to be a large market franchise and make large market moves to surround Trout (and Ohtani at the time) with the right supporting cast. He just contributed to some big fumbles over the last decade to make the "splash", rather than consistently smart baseball moves.

The day that he needs to sell the franchise hopefully comes sooner, not later. Like Scioscia, he has been at the helm too long, no matter what you think of him, good or bad.

9 hours ago, FromJapan said:

When applying for a passport in Japan, names must be written in Roman letters using Hepburn Romanization, the standard system for transcribing Japanese into Latin characters [1]. Among several Hepburn notations, the one that omits diacritics without distinguishing long and short vowels is the default for the passport. Under this format, his name would be written as "Otani". However, he may choose to insert an "h" after the "o" to indicate a long vowel, "Ohtani", as long as this spelling remains consistent for future application of the passport.  I cannot confirm whether his actual passport uses "Ohtani" or "Otani".

Starting in 2013, Ohtani's first season with the Nippon Ham Fighters, his uniform already displayed the "Ohtani" spelling. However, many English newspapers published in Japan used "Otani".

In November 2016, Jon Morosi informed the author of the reference [2] that MLB.com had switched to "Ohtani", and articles on the website written by him would reflect this change. At that time, the NPB's official English website still used "Otani" on its player roster page.

Currently, the notation of long vowels in NPB is arbitrary.

Sadaharu Oh [3], the lifetime home run record holder in Japan, was known as the player to add an "h" to a long "o" vowel in the English spelling of his name.

1, (Wikipedia) Hepburn romanization

2,  (Yahoo! Japan on November 17, 2016) "Ohtani" or "Otani"?

3,  (Wikipedia)  Sadaharu Oh

Dog's name is "BJ".

12 minutes ago, tdawg87 said:

Just happy little accidents.

A "not-so-surprise" poopy.

51 minutes ago, m0nkey said:

Officially mystery team time!

 

This is so clearly vague, it feels like more of a joke than anything else.

49 minutes ago, FromJapan said:

 

In response to comments criticizing Ohtani and his agent for not disclosing information regarding his own free agency, a Japanese sports news article introduced Erica Weston's post as follows.

”A reporter for the Angels' local broadcast station who knows Ohtani well, sarcastically defends him.”

 

Honestly, I feel like Ohtani is using this as a barometer test for how teams will treat him if he joins their organization. He likely wants confidence in how any club will treat him if he decides to pick them. He's testing them and they apparently don't even realize it.

5 hours ago, AngelsWin.com said:

“Adding quality, adding quantity, where (the returning pitchers) can get a blow here or there... "

NOICE!

21 hours ago, Buttercup said:

It’s not necessarily what was saved but the fact the penalties won’t escalate in year two to three of the deal making the tax hits much harder to swallow. If Ohtani were re-signed the team will surely be going over the limit of it tries to do enough to contend. And it would be hard to go under the tax while Rendon’s contract is still around. Even one year less really helps with the tax escalations. Now, if they stay under the tax this offseason it’s a moot point other than draft considerations. But, if minassian is looking at a three to five year plan this greatly affects that. 

Really thought that it was crystal clear that what I said was facetious and strictly humor. In fact I am quite certain it was... 

So this win now equates us to signing Ohtani now, right? Amirite?!?!? All the spare change in the pocket!!!

Double Craig'd himself... rare event.

Haven't read all of this thread, but the Angels could have been in competition for his services, which required them to offer a MLB contract. Additionally, $900K is basically something you can DFA and not feel bad about it with the Angels large payroll. It is essentially a flyer on a guy that is a specialist and will, in the scheme of things, not overtly impact our roster and payroll.

So it's fine. The signing has more upside than downside and allows Minasian to continue the attempted Ohtani re-signing discussions while continuing to fill in the roster holes, via shopping in the bargain bin.