KingJustinian

Title was supposed to be Howie's future, dumb autocorrect

After getting 3B locked up and taking on some extra salary, I see Howie as the most expendable trade piece. Trumbo can DH, be a 4th outfielder, and give Pujols time off at first, so he is valuable for the Angels. I think Howie will be traded for a pitcher and Green or another young guy gets a chance at 2B. Howie is also coming off of a solid year so he has good trade value. I really like Howie, but I don't see him staying.

Like the majority of people on this board with our players.

I know this thread is specifically regarding the luxury tax, but Tanaka sure sounds a look better without the expected outrageous posting fee.

It won't play when there's no DH and a 37 year old star hitter in the most important series of the year

He will be a lot more valuable for the Angels if they keep him rather than trade him given his current value is probably down, as long as he stays healthy.

Did we not learn our lesson with Greinke?

As an Angels fan who now lives in central Florida, the Angels are pissing me off this series.

Did the Red Sox even use the money they saved to sign anybody?

If we resign Vargas, trade for a righty to slide between Wilson and Vargas as a #3 and we're good. Williams as the backup, maybe sign another AAA guy for extra insurance

I think it's mostly mental too. He does rely a lot on natural ability which means he will eventually decline a lot as he ages, but it shouldn't be this drastic.

Need to wait 2-3 more years to tell for sure. I want to see at least another full year of a healthy Pujols before making an judgments.

They do give suggestions and such, but that's something that we as fans have no ability to evaluate. They could be giving all the "right" advice but it doesn't necessarily translate into on-field performance for the player, and we have no idea what the advice they are giving is.

Everyone is so quick to place blame when it was a lot of things. And I don't understand why everyone goes straight to management and coaches instead of looking at the players themselves, a lot who are veterans who don't need coaches to baby them to tell them how to hit the ball and throw the ball. Their defense was pretty bad this year and players were also awful with runners in scoring position. Veterans also didn't produce like they should (I'm not saying like they did 5 years ago, but like they should be a lot better than they have). Apart from Blanton/trading Segura for a rental, and a few things here and there that Scioscia does that seem bad before the outcome, I don't blame them a whole lot. The one area that has been consistently bad has been the bullpen, but signing players to fix that is practically just luck and the teams with consistently good bullpens do it because they didn't trade away all their good arms in the minors. So, while it may take a few years to have a "great" bullpen, this team is still good enough to compete next year if a few things go right (i.e. injuries and certain players performing even close to expectations). I just don't see the reason to always want to fire the coach/GM when a lot of things that went wrong were out of their control, even if they did make a few mistakes.

With the Angels having done pretty well against him for his last several starts that I can remember that is pretty likely.

He isn't a top 10 starter this year, but if we are looking at the past 5 years or so he is right up there.

Well there are 30 teams in baseball..

I am generally an optimist and I have to agree with this.

They picked CJ because they were dropping 240 mil on Pujols and Darvish was 50 million more than CJ

He hasn't gone real deep into games but his ERA translates to an above average #2 pitcher.

Jason Giambi is still playing?

The angels will probably be willing to pay him, but it will probably come down to whether he wants to go back to the east coast where he grew up

Ortiz looked as bad as Pujols, and about as bad as Hamilton, a few years ago. Why can't they rebound too? It's too early to judge the whole contract.