ATX Halo

Here are the reasons I want to sign him, IN ORDER. 
1. He's a Cy Young caliber pitcher that will pitch for the league minimum of you let him.
2. We just saw his velocity and spin rates all reach career highs in Japan. I am honestly curious if he's still THAT guy. Because if he is, he might be another Verlander or Scherzer, that can pitch into their 40's. So it's curiosity.
3. This goes hand in hand with #1 and 2, but he can help the Angels win.
4. He's actually VERY respected in the clubhouse. It's only outside those doors that he pisses people off. I think he can legitimately make our pitchers, particularly Griffin Canning, much, much better.
5. He seems genuinely repentant of the arrogance of his youth. He deserves another chance.
6. I'd like to stick it to the Dodgers if he does well, which I think he will. 
7. I'd like to see him stick it to everyone that jumped to conclusions about him. This "me too" and "believe all women" movement from the left is absolutely out of control. 
8. It's still innocent until proven guilty. He's been proven innocent. 
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You may notice, my reasons for wanting him here are firstly baseball related. Everything after that is just icing on the cake.

Holy crap:
 

1. Rebuild the farm.
2. Acquire short term rentals they can flip at the trade deadline.
3. Trade away assets with value to build prospect capital.
4. Tank, get a better draft picks.
5. Spend money on upside international prospects.

Depends on where they moved to. 
Long Beach? Yes. 
Ames, Iowa? No.

i'd love to be in a position where a job offer for 18 mil per year hurts my value.

Seattle Times this morning:
"stinging disappointment" of a "crushing loss to the Angels"
Love it!!
https://www.seattletimes.com/sports/mariners/mariners-cant-find-their-usual-late-inning-magic-as-playoff-hopes-take-a-big-hit/
 

Perry is absolutely pathetic if he sits this out. Our record against .500 and better does not justify holding. Sell you idiot. 

Why are some people so down on Canning? I've seen him mentioned as a trade candidate several times, usually to secure another pitcher. He is young, cost controlled for several more years, has a varied pitch arsenal, and has had moderate success as a starter over his first 200 innings in the majors. Sure he needs to work on sequencing and command/control just as most 25 year old pitchers with only 41 starts need to do. 
To me he looks like just the sort of player the Angels should be trying to trade for, not trade away: what am I missing here?

Rex hudler where you at!?

Go Padres!

Slippery slope to what? Soon we're going to allow people to marry turtles!

A perfectly written law designed to have the highest legal voter participation and no fraud would’ve called racist.
For God’s sake be honest.

It's racist to the core to assume that Black and Brown Americans don't have the wherewithal to obtain a free ID so that they can vote. Most everyone including Democrats were in favor of voter ID in elections. Conveniently now they're not and claiming it's voter suppression. I'm ashamed of MLB's decision to move the All Star Game out of Atlanta. In conclusion, they robbed Atlanta of millions in revenue over political pandering. 

The four or five prominent leftist talking points against the legislation are absolutely pure lies.
And the tip off is that it is “racist.”  Quite reliably this is the strategy the left now takes when they simply cannot honestly debate the facts.
Just grab the kryptonite.
And then lots of big business will cave because they simply cannot afford to be branded as racist.
It ends when honest people stand up to the lies and stop being afraid of the kryptonite.
 

MLB needs to stay the fuck out of politics.

None of us older guys can read that tiny print.  C'mon!

Not a big fan of giving a $3.2B team some salary relief. Screw them!

MLB has decided to no longer use that name because a special interest group lobbied them to stop using the word "disabled". . . Evidently because they feel it makes people confuse injuries with permanent disabilities, and they also don't like that it suggests that people with disabilities cannot participate in sports.
So now MLB will call it the "Injured List."
This is one of those double stupid things.
1). It wasn't a problem before as the disabled list.  Context.  Language has context.  If anything we should be promoting people developing the ability to understand context.
2). The solution to the non problem is AT LEAST as "inappropriate" from a simple definition of injured.  Not every olayer that went on the DL was injured.  Vertigo.  Migraines.  Staph infection.  Recovering from wisdom teeth surgury.  So this new "Injured" name really doesn't make sense.
Let me ask one simple question.
Have you or anyone you know ever "confused disabilities with injuries and further the thinking that a disability means someone cannot play a sport"?
What's next?
Change the name shortstop (an infielder not assigned to a specific base) because we don't want anyone being confused that short people cannot handle specific assignments in society?
Rename bullpen.  Animal rights people don't like the suggested acceptance of animals to contained areas?
Do not ever refer to any player ever being on the "mound."  Don't even go there. #metoo.
No more "relief" pitchers.  Those with chronic pain are simply tortured with being exposed to the word when it is something they cannot achieve in dealing with their condition.  Very insensitive.
Please rename home run.  The homeless?? Duh.
No more saves.  Some people are not saved from natural disasters or drowning, etc.  And then obviously no more blown saves since that is particularly painful for anyone who was almost saved.
Why have we lost the interest in keeping CONTEXT as an important part of our language and ability to communicate?
(Oh and I am deeply sorry and apologize for using the word "conTEXT" to anyone who has had their vocal chords removed and are now forced to communicate in writing only or "text")

There are some who are disappointed with Eppler's relatively modest off-season so far: he didn't sign any big name free agents, whether intentionally or because they simply wanted to play elsewhere. No Corbin, Ramos, Happ, Eovaldi, Morton, Donaldson, Familia, etc - all players that would have significantly improved the team. Instead we got a strange group of players in  Matt Harvey, Trevor Cahill, Justin Bour, Jonathan Lucroy, and Kevan Smith--not to mention his usual few clean peanuts.
Now the offseason isn't over. The two biggest fish--Bryce Harper and Manny Machado--remain on the board, as well as the top free agent catcher, Yasmani Grandal, and top reliever, Craig Kimbrel. There are alsoquite a few other interesting options such as David Robertson, Jed Lowrie, Dallas Keuchel, Mike Moustakas, Asdrubal Cabrera, Marwin Gonzalez, DJ Le Mahieu, Brian Dozier, etc. And of course there's Kikuchi.
But the Angels, presumably, only have another $10-15M to spend. That pretty much prices them out of Harper, Machado, and Keuchel. Kimbrel seems unlikely, and if Grandal still expects 4/$60M+, he won't be donning an Angels uniform. Maybe the Angels take a flier on a reliever as well as an infielder, although it is also possible they are basically set with what they have.
Eppler has been known to surprise us (e.g. the Andrelton Simmons trade). But the moves so far tell us quite a bit about what  his plan is. Consider that they are all one-year deals for players mostly coming off down years, who are solid bets to provide decent returns, but also with small chances of being huge bargains if they rediscover former glories. In other words, they aren't the type of players that you acquire if you are dead-set on competing in 2019; they are the type of players you acquire if your focus is on the future and are filling holes in the mean-time, yet also don't want to write off your chances of competing in 2019. In other words, they are the type of players that you can hope will surprise, but probably shoudn't expect to.
If Eppler was focusing on the so-called "Trout Window" of 2019-20, he'd have gone hard after a more reliable starter--if not Corbin, then certainly Keuchel or Happ. He'd have signed at least one elite reliever, and have upgraded the offense in some significant way - either offering more to Ramos or signing Grandal. He also could have traded some of their prospect capital for further upgrades. A few other tweaks and the team could have been a good bet for 90 wins. Yes, it would have pushed the budget up higher, but he could have done so while staying under the salary cap.
But the problem with that approach is that while it makes the team better over the next few years, it lessens the chances of long-term success through tying up funds in more good but non-premium players (Keuchel being a prime example). The Angels already have a near-term salary problem, with $80M owed to three players in 2019 (Trout, Pujols, Upton), $84M to the same three in 2020 (plus another $15M to Simmons, to make it $100M for four), and if we assume that Trout is extended for $40M/year and Simmons for $20M/yr starting in 2021, that's $113M for four players in 2021. That's also the year Tyler Skaggs hits free agency and Shohei Ohtani has his first arbitration year. Thankfully Cozart ($12.67M/yr) comes off the books, so that helps a bit.
In 2022, the Angels will (hopefully) be paying Trout, Simmons, and Upton something like $90M, but then Upton comes off the books, but then you have to factor in extensions for various players, rising arbitration, etc. 
Fielding a competitive baseball team is expensive. Unless you're willing to spend $200M+ a year, you need to be savvy and try to fill as much of your roster with low-cost talent. The best way to do that is through farm development. You focus on growing talent from within, then you extend the best of that talent, and augment the team through free agency and trades. But you protect that farm talent as best you can, because it is the source of your low-cost talent. 
The temptation for many a GM is to trade that talent for "Proven Veterans." Sometimes this is the right thing to do (e.g. Simmons), but sometimes it is devastating, both by leaving the farm barren of talent and requiring more money spent on free agency, and you end up with crippling albatrosses like Wells, Pujols, and Hamilton.
Back to 2019. What I see Eppler doing is focusing on the 2020s. He hopes to be competitive in 2019--that's why he did spend some money, rather than just "playing the kids." But he refuses to dip into the quickly improving--but still delicate--farm system. The Angels, by general consensus, have a farm system ranked somewhere around 10th in the majors. A big trade or two could quickly set them back to around 20th. Continued careful cultivation for another year or two puts them in the top 5. 
Now the farm rankings aren't important - they are rather subjective and conjectural, after all. But what they represent is the point: the quantity and quality of talent. The farm system is getting riper year by year, but isn't quite there yet. In another year or so, it will really start bearing fruit as players like Canning, Suarez, Thaiss, Rengifo, Adell, Marsh, Jones, and Sandoval start contributing on the major league level. Further waves include Soriano, C Rodriguez, Hernandez, Bradish, Jackson, Knowles, Adams, Deveaux, and Maitan.
Last year we saw rookies such as Ohtani, Barria, Anderson, Buttrey, Fletcher, Ward, and Hermosillo. Most of these guys will get better in 2019, when we'll see Canning, Suarez, Rengifo, and probably Thaiss and Adell. In 2020 we'll see Marsh, Jones, Sandoval, and probably others. In other words, each year will see the graduation of promising young talent, with a cumulative effect of both increasing the talent in Anaheim, and also decreasing the need for higher price free agents. 
Eppler knows this, and doesn't want to a) trade this talent away, and b) block the talent with older, more expensive and lower upside players.
Now obviously there's a balance. It is easy to overrate prospects, and probably only a few of the guys I mentioned will become stars, a few more impact players, some quality regulars, and a bunch will be either bench players or minor league flame-outs. But again, that talent pool represents the priceless commodity of "low-cost, high-upside talent" and it has to be protected.
The plan for 2019 is, again, to try to field a wildcard-capable team, but not at the expense of the future. My guess is that Eppler looks at the AL and thinks, "I can either spend big and trade away talent and improve my chances of making a wildcard but not win the division, or spend less, keep the talent, and still have a decent shot at a wildcard." In other words, the Angels almost certainly couldn't seriously compete for the division or be a lock for the playoffs in 2019, and the cost to simply improve wildcard chances in the short term is just too great, and too debilitating to the franchise in the long-term.
2020 will be a further step forward, with more of that young talent graduating and maturing. By 2021 that young talent should be really starting to flourish and be the core of the 25-man roster. In fact, I could see a 2021 team that is comprised mostly of players below age 28, except for a few notable exceptions: Trout, Simmons, possibly Upton, maybe one of Skaggs or Heaney, a few others. 
So the Eppler plan is to continue strengthening the farm, while retooling in the majors in ways that give the team a chance to compete over the next couple years, but with the eye of turning this franchise into a farm-driven powerhouse in the 2020s.
Its a good plan, but requires patience.

There is a growing misconception that many here wouldn't be ok with the Halos trading away some or any of their top prospects.  
Of course we would.  Just not right now.  
Jo Adell is a really promising prospect but he's still a prospect.  He's 19 and one year removed from high school.  He's not Mike Trout nor will he be.  Ever.  
Nor will Brandon Marsh or Jahmai Jones or Griffin Canning or the next guy or the next guy.  They aren't all going to be viable starters at the major league level even.  
So then what's the point of keeping them?  
There's a couple actually and they are somewhat interrelated:
1.  The MLB club isn't good enough.  There are too many holes to justify spending prospect currency on one main player to supplement to 30m in payroll we've got in order to make this team a contender.  Would it make them competitive?  Sure but hanging your hopes on a wild card spot is a very risky way to live.  
2.  The Farm system isn't good enough.  Don't get me wrong, we have a good farm system, but it isn't great.  It lacks pitching depth and to a lesser degree, overall depth.  That depth is developing and is appropriately on par with the better systems, but it's not there at the top of the system.  In other words, there's a lot of potential but it's at the lower level.  If not for some very aggressive promotions this year, almost all of it would still be at A+ or below.  Why is that important?  Because we don't know who many of these guys are as of yet.  Of course some guys will burn out and never reach their potential, but the one that do will be far more valuable and the overall value to the system will be much greater than it is now.  
3.  Cheap, controllable talent at a minimum cost of acquisition is a huge must for any contender.  Griffin Canning and David Fletcher (as examples) providing league avg production at a league minimum salary as opposed to spending $20 mil for the same production is paramount.  When you have an Adell level prospect you are hoping to get surplus value in the $20m range from one player.   As an example, the boston red sox got 13 WAR from 4 position players not named Betts (Benintendi, Bradley, Devers, and Bogaerts) for about 14mil.  Last year, we spent $60 mil on four players that gave us -0.8 WAR.   That  have to turn that around at some point and the only way to do that is let your prospects develop.  
4. Mike Trout - So either he's going to sign an extension or he's not.  Where's he's gonna want to be from 2021 to 2030 should have nothing to do with how the team finishes in 2019.  In fact, there's a better chance of having a sustainable winner over the course of his career contract if the team doesn't leverage it's prospect currency to win right now.  Let's say we do trade away a bunch of prospects and make it to the post season in 2019 where we get bounced in the ALDS.  Do you think he's gonna sign a long term deal because he had good feeling about that?  I think not.  He and his representation are going to evaluate where he's gonna have the best chance to win over the next ten year.  
5.  It works.  Since the advent of free agency, building from within is the one tried and true methods of winning in major league baseball.  Regardless of how the game has changed, it will transcend steroids and sabermetrics and all other things.  
6. We're getting close.  Eppler has done a very good job of bringing us back to where we need to be.  This franchise was decimated 3 years ago.  Don't lose patience now.   

and NHL training camps open!

Ken Rosenthal is the enemy of the people.

Views/clicks/retweets/likes outweigh everything else for them.

Let the rebuilding continue! Let Albert continue to pursue career milestones from the cleanup spot. Let Valbuena's bat flips continue to entertain us. Let Mike continue to strategize and chew out umpires from the top step of the dugout. Let the baserunning be aggressive, the relief pitchers atrocious, and the games blown in late innings. Let the medical staff stay busy putting arms and elbows back in their rightful positions. 
I'm in it for the long haul. I just hope they get back to the playoffs before they move me to assisted living.
 

You can say that Eppler made the Angels great again.