Pancake Bear

I wouldn’t. We couldn’t afford Cole or any other good pitcher if we did that. We need Adell, even though he almost certainly won’t be as good as Betts, because he’s cheap. Unless Arte commits to a massive payroll raise, the money just doesn’t work. Throwing in two more pitchers makes it worse. 
In a different roster position, yeah, I’d probably do that deal if we could re-sign him. As the team and payroll are currently situated? I don’t even think twice about passing on that. 

Just want to throw out there something I noticed on the mlbtr predictions article: 
"We haven’t seen a significant eight-year contract for a pitcher since Mike Hampton signed with the Rockies 19 years ago."
Given how cautious teams are these days compared to previous years, I'm highly skeptical that changes this offseason. Could it happen? Yeah. But it still feels like a stretch.

I wouldn’t. We couldn’t afford Cole or any other good pitcher if we did that. We need Adell, even though he almost certainly won’t be as good as Betts, because he’s cheap. Unless Arte commits to a massive payroll raise, the money just doesn’t work. Throwing in two more pitchers makes it worse. 
In a different roster position, yeah, I’d probably do that deal if we could re-sign him. As the team and payroll are currently situated? I don’t even think twice about passing on that. 

I wouldn’t. We couldn’t afford Cole or any other good pitcher if we did that. We need Adell, even though he almost certainly won’t be as good as Betts, because he’s cheap. Unless Arte commits to a massive payroll raise, the money just doesn’t work. Throwing in two more pitchers makes it worse. 
In a different roster position, yeah, I’d probably do that deal if we could re-sign him. As the team and payroll are currently situated? I don’t even think twice about passing on that. 

I believe he will, and it will be a huge boost to the offense.

Says about two dozen teams.
Free agents like Wheeler tend to get more than expected, which is why I've been predicting 5/100 or so. He's the consolation prize after Cole/Strasburg, or at least along with Bumgarner and Ryu - and he's younger, probably with more future value. I suppose the only thing that might limit his contract is the fact that there's so many free agent pitchers. A lot of teams might prefer to play Kyle Gibson 3/36 or Cole Hamels 2/25 than Wheeler 5/100. But I still think he gets at least 5/90.

Until proven otherwise, I'll take the liberal approach (f'n libs) to this off-season: I truly believe that Arte is going to go "all out". 
I'm aware that he is a businessman, and a smart one at that. He didn't gain his wealth by making dumb business decisions. That said, the Angels are just one of several business ventures Arte is involved with. While the ultimate goal for a smart businessman like Arte is to turn a profit on his investments, I also don't believe he bought the Angels solely to make money. I do think he is a competitor and I do think he is willing to do what it takes to field a winning organization. I don't think he signs Hamilton or gives Trout the biggest contract in history if he wasn't.
The Angels have their backs up against the wall right now. Getting Ohtani back on the mound is huge, but he's likely not going to top 140/150 innings next year. He's also going to lose at bats so while his value goes up, it's not as significant as it could be. Getting Upton back at full strength is also a big deal, but at most he's really only adding a handful of wins over last year.
We need 3 pitchers and a decent catcher. And when I say "3 pitchers" I clearly don't mean Hamels and two reclamation projects. We NEED Cole. Adding a pitcher who can throw 200 innings and give you a 3.00 ERA is such a huge deal for this team. He alone will add 7-8 wins, or perhaps more, over last year's team. But that doesn't quite move the needle far enough, does it?
Which is why we need a legitimate #3 starter behind him. Ryu or Wheeler probably push Ohtani to the #3 spot in the rotation, which is kind of ridiculous, but honestly given his likely innings limit isn't out if the question. Odorizzi is a nice option but I would be absolutely fine with Eppler not wanting to sacrifice a draft pick for him. Madbum is a nice piece but there are serious concerns moving forward. Ultimately, we really need a guy like Wheeler, who has his own concerns but has the talent of a Frontline starter. A 1-2-3 of Cole, Wheeler, and Ohtani is as good as any in baseball. Fight me. It also allows the back end to be questionable, with guys like Canning, Heaney, and Peters.
But the point remains here: Arte cannot blow his load on Cole and think that's good enough. It just isn't. We also need to not only replace Skaggs (RIP), we need someone better.
Mr. Moreno, you have Trout locked up for the rest of his career. Do you really want to be the owner who refused to surround him with enough talent to take him to the World Series? And yes, I use the word "refuse" because you have the money. You obviously want to win. Do what it takes. This is the time to do it. He's not getting any younger.

The Angels will not wait on Boras and Cole and I hope they tell them as much. 
I'll say this though, Strasburg, Wheeler and others won't sign until Cole sets the market for top FA pitchers first, so I hope we get some quick action if Cole doesn't have many suitors. 
Basically the Angels just tell Cole and Boras that they'll make him the highest paid pitcher, besting David Price's contract (or was it someone else who was the highest paid arm?). 
Either way, I think this will move quickly. The Angels should sign both Maldonado and Castro to platoon at the position as they are both excellent pitch framers and between the two could easily pop over 20 HR's with nearly 60 walks -- something we haven't seen from a catcher in a very long time. 
 
 

So here are some of my thoughts on what it means:
Since I only included WAR, the chart really only tells you what happened, and not why.  I may follow that up with some more info at some point but it was tedious enough already The top of the chart ie the best pitchers didn't perform terribly.  Obviously, Greinke and Scherzer have been great so far but there is still some contract left.  Price hasn't been terrible but the last three year aren't likely to be very good.  Cliff Lee was good.  Cueto was good before his injury.  There were a few obvious outliers like Colon who was 41 at the time of his contract and Wilson who just clearly wasn't that good as his contract indicated.   The next tier down had some obvious and not so obvious ones.  Buehrle was 33 and did well whereas James Shields contract was a disaster.  The Lester contract was good.  Zimmermann deal was a bit puzzling and sort of an outlier.  Corbin is off to a really good start.   Then in the light green tier it starts to get pretty dicey.  Greinke was an outlier there and clearly performed like an ace.  There's a ton of yellow and red in that crew otherwise.  That's the area where we see Bumgarner, Odorizzi, Hamels, Keuchel.  Roark is there as well and could be of good value.  But lots of money poorly spent in that group. The yellow tier will have a few value plays in it, but it's tough to know which of those it'll be.  Happ's previous contract, Santana, Minor, Fiers, Lynn (accidentally put that one in red).  Typically that group isn't getting huge contracts and the ones that did actually ended up not TFD.  not good though.  I don't see anyone in that group set for a big payday from that level like Teheran, Porcello, Miley, Gibson, Nova, Anderson.  I think this is where something specific about a player you see in that group where you are confident in your scouting could make a nice win.  That's actually why I kinda like Gibson as a lesser option.  Throws decently hard where as the rest are more pitchability guys.  Probably won't target him because he doesn't have the spin rates Billy likes.     The red tier is where to steer clear.  I have mentioned Wacha, but based on this he's a really bad bet.   The dark red was where the Astros plucked Charlie Morton.  Dicks.   As an aside, Cahill would have been in the red tier.   Harvey was in the dark red tier.   the non designated players were those that came over from Asia.  Kikuchi is pretty much the only bust from that group and he's got a couple years left to improve Overall, I think Cole is a good bet even at the price he's gonna require.  
Strasburg could be a solid bet at 5yrs.  Anything more than that is risky
There's probably more risk with Wheeler than we all want to admit.  Especially at 5yrs.  
I also handicap the risk on Ryu at 3 years.  
Hamels at 1yr
Odorizzi at 3yrs and I still don't love it.  
Keuchel at 2yrs
Bumgarner at 3yrs.  I think he's a big risk at more than that.  

 

At the risk of being disrespectful, I think you’re wrong on this whole post.
First, Hamilton was signed in 2013. Arte bought the team in 2003. He wasn’t making a statement signing. He signed Pujols the year before. Greinke was traded for during the season before that and after the season it became clear that Arte and/or Dipoto weren’t prepared to spend as much as Greinke would receive. So Arte pivoted to Hamilton. 
On Greinke, that isn’t how I recall his trade going. My recollection is that they were in the race until the very end of the season and came up short of the Wild Card late. I don’t recall a Greinke or Texeira having an anywhere-but-Anaheim attitude. Texeira was in negotiations to stay here and Arte thought they had a deal. Turned out, we were just being used as a negotiation tactic by Boras to raise the price in NY - where Tex’s wife wanted to be. Greinke, I believe we hoped to re-sign him until Dipoto realized how much he would cost, but I could be wrong on that. 
And on Cole, pay attention to how the Dodgers have been run since Friedman came over. They don’t actually care about the Angels. They certainly won’t bid just to raise the price for us. Why? Because we aren’t their rival even if some Angels fans think they are. You don’t understand the Dodgers at all. 

It will take more than just Cole for the Angels to be successful in 2020. They need to add another guy like Wheeler, Ryu or Odorizzi. 
Arte already knows Pujols and Cozart is dead money.. He won't extend Simmons because of his age, so we save money there. Plus we have some infield depth too. Upton will be above average for offensive minded LF's for us. He's so worth all of that contract because of that. 
Or like @VariousCrap said in another thread, use the money that would go to Cole to guys like Wheeler, Odorizzi/Ryu andHamels and say a guy like Tehreran/Miley/Pineda if they're cheap, + a Grandal at catcher.

I don't get the speculation about getting an infielder.  Do people forget Tommy La Stella is on the Angels?
Barring the trade of an infielder, the Angels aren't spending much on an infielder.

There are People who think it’s a gamble to pay what the market dictates for the best pitcher in the league.  Those same people aren’t going to allow themselves to enjoy what he brings to the team regardless because they’ll be waiting for his decline. He can have four amazing years, win a couple Cy Young awards and in year 5 or 6 if he has a high 3 ERA those people will shit on his contract. 

I'm leery about his September though, as it was pretty bad, to the point that they left him off of the post-season roster. 
If he was the third pitcher signed on a short 1-2 year deal for about $5 million/year, I could be okay with that.

Just want to throw out there something I noticed on the mlbtr predictions article: 
"We haven’t seen a significant eight-year contract for a pitcher since Mike Hampton signed with the Rockies 19 years ago."
Given how cautious teams are these days compared to previous years, I'm highly skeptical that changes this offseason. Could it happen? Yeah. But it still feels like a stretch.

Just want to throw out there something I noticed on the mlbtr predictions article: 
"We haven’t seen a significant eight-year contract for a pitcher since Mike Hampton signed with the Rockies 19 years ago."
Given how cautious teams are these days compared to previous years, I'm highly skeptical that changes this offseason. Could it happen? Yeah. But it still feels like a stretch.

Exactly. And this is why the Yankees, Dodgers, and Astros will not sign him. They don’t need to and they aren't desperate enough to make that risky of a move. Yes, there is a lot of risk involved. But we have no pitching. Going cheap won’t actually fix the problem. We have to take that shot and hope it works out, because there is no other option that gets us back to the postseason. 

i think we’ve seen plenty of pitchers playing at an elite level into their mid 30’s and a few even beyond that in the last 10-15 years.  The injury concern is absolutely real but it is what it is.  The Angels need a front line starter.  Do you guys want the team to win or not ? We’re looking at maybe a 5 year window here.  They can’t waste anymore time. 

Coming around now to Cole, Wheeler, and Gomes; and buying out Kole
Excellent pitching gets you to the post-season, AND wins post-season games.
Gomes can hit solidly enough (three straight .700+ OPS seasons), and is rock solid behind the plate.
Don't trade any key prospects, yet. 

Hi @Sean-Regan, 
@Dollar Bill is in fact Bill Shaikin from the LA Times. 
He like Jeff Fletcher are good guys and excellent writers.

No way he gets a four year deal.

Okay, I’m good with not paying anyone 430m. Next question?

@Inside Pitch and i knew a guy on the old grandstand sports boards (Mark478) who wondered aloud one time if eric thames was related to him. it seems our friend mark, who was white, came from a family (the thames family) that once owned slaves, and he was wondering if somehow eric thames was a decendant from one of his family's slaves.

so if we replaced Albert, you'd be worried about replacing his 23 hrs all of a sudden?
how about if we replace Kole's production regardless of the number of hrs he hit.  
and btw, Brian Goodwin had a 109 wRC+.  Kole's was 108.  Plus, Goodwin's defense is RF was solid.  Oh and Goodwin is super cheap and mostly a placeholder for Adell.