Pancake Bear

Arte doesn't hate reporters. He just hates Sam Blum.

Uh, have you seen how many lefty relievers we have who are already locks? Bullpen would be like 50% lefties on top of 4/5 of the guys who are locks for the rotation. If we're going to add someone else, it doesn't make sense to add another lefty.

Yes, because we definitely need another LHP.

They should've listened to economics guru, Manny Machado: "But at the end of the day, sometimes business is business. And I think it wouldn't be in my interest if I—you know, the market has changed in five years. In one year it's changed. You see it in life, you see it in the real world. Let's take away baseball. The price of eggs is how much? It's just life. Things change, a lot of things change. Ultimately, the markets change, right?" Price of eggs, man. Price of eggs hits us all.

Mike Trout was in the majors at 19. Neto is 22. Also, Neto played college ball. He's not inexperienced. And I'm not the one predicting it. People who know prospects a lot better than I do say he could be starting shortstop next season. You're the outlier saying he's several years away. You're also the one jumping on the bandwagon for a dude with a .500 BABIP, so I'm not sure your opinion has much value...

Let me know when Soto amounts to anything. As of now, he's got a long line ahead of him before he sees any serious playing time in the majors. Neto could be the starter as soon as next opening day.

Soto hit a .500 BABIP in his short stint last year. That can pretty much be ignored. He's also the same age as Neto, fwiw, who you think is several years away and has higher upside. Velazquez, despite a 50 wRC+ and 53 OPS+ in 349 PA still put up a 0.3 fWAR and 1.4 bWAR, largely due to his 11 DRS. His floor is still a slightly above replacement level player. Assuming everyone doesn't get injured again, his defense will be more valuable than whatever Soto brings to the table. Neto has been projected to be ready potentially as soon as next season (he's already 22, next year is his age 23 season, so he's not exactly being rushed). He might take a few years, but that's taking an extremely pessimistic point of view.

Really? Velazquez brings more value now. Neto is much more valuable going forward. Soto is just...there.

Arizona probably isn't ideal for his stuff either. I remember Shoe typically got rocked in Spring even while doing just fine in season. It's also early, and guys who have a guaranteed job tend to not worry as much about results.

All hail, the great Donfroe!

Like Randazzo so far. He's comparable to Vasgersian and I like him better than the other options we've had (other than Victor). Wish he'd just do the job full time.

Can lock this thread now, apparently.

Rendon, Urshela, Drury, Walsh infield.

There's another one on Tuesday that is only available on the A's broadcast. I grabbed a free trial of MLB.tv to watch those two games (although when Bally goes down, MLB.tv might become the new source for streaming Angels games.

Should we hold you to that?

Here's some various lineup options they could do, and it doesn't even remotely cover all the possibilities (like putting Walsh in corner OF in the B scenario): 3B SS 2B 1B A1 Rendon Fletcher Drury Walsh A2 Rendon Rengifo Drury Walsh A3 Rendon Fletcher Rengifo Walsh A4 Rendon Urshela Drury Walsh B1 Rendon Fletcher Drury Urshela B2 Rendon Rengifo Drury Urshela B3 Rendon Fletcher Rengifo Urshela C1 Urshela Fletcher Drury Walsh C2 Urshela Rengifo Drury Walsh C3 Urshela Fletcher Rengifo Drury D1 Drury Urshela Rengifo Walsh D2 Fletcher Urshela Drury Walsh D3 Rendon Urshela Rengifo Drury

Right. The Urshela thing wasn't a surprise, although I've heard some say he isn't a 1B. The Drury at SS is interesting, but it's unclear whether it's just a prep for emergency situation or if they plan to play him there more. My guess is that they want the flexibility. According to Maddon, Perry is really into platoons and positional flexibility. I don't expect Drury to start much there, but depending on who they want to get into the lineup, we might see it occasionally. I suspect they don't want to play Fletcher very much, but we'll see what happens.

So, apparently Drury will play some SS and Urshela at 1B. Wonder how much that's just adding positional flexibility and how much is a legitimate lineup option on a regular basis.

Would rather play Phillips. Better defense and I don't think he gives up anything in offense. Kole just isn't particularly good at this point.

Teams would love that kind of deal, but why would a player who will get a deal without that ever consider it? It's just not realistic. I think it was Friedman who said being rational will result in you finishing in second for any major free agent. As a rule, the only way to acquire top end talent is to develop it yourself or overpay for it.

Fascinating that that is what you got out of Thompson's thread.

I mean, if they think his asking price is unlikely to be met, they could try to get the winning bid after the season, but that's incredibly high risk and likely to fail. A lot of people seem to think Ohtani is waiting for the team to have a winning season before he's willing to re-up. That seems childishly ridiculous thinking to me. We're spending money, making an active push to compete. He either thinks we'll be competitive going forward or he doesn't - one season won't change that unless he's an idiot. And I don't think Ohtani is anywhere close to that foolish. I think it's going to come down to two factors: How much he enjoys being here vs. whether he would prefer to move on. And obviously money - that one matters the most, but how hard he'll squeeze the Angels will come down to how much he'd prefer to stay or go.