Pancake Bear

Kole seemed like a great guy and really good teammate but 14m for his services made this a bit of a no brainer.  

FWIW, Bowden wasn’t really too high on last years free agents. He was actually low on Corbin. 
But, like wopphil said, we don’t really know. His projections for Cole and Strasburg seem a bit high to me. I can’t see Cole getting the aav record if he insists on 8 years. If he wants to beat Greinke’s 34aav, he won’t get that with 8 years, IMO. 

I also have this idea:
The Angels don't trade any of their pitchers because I mean really.

One thing i didnt note earlier, why does he think Castellanos makes sense for us i wonder?  Hes a lateral move from Calhoun.  If we wanted to pay that much for a RF we already have that and only for one year with 2 good ones in the wings not counting Goodwin.  Sometimes i wonder what the logic is on these 
 

Just sign Wheeler and a strong behind the plate guy like Gomes first.  That makes it more attractive for Cole to come here. 

Does the Miguel Cabrera trade from the Marlins to the Tigers ring any bells?    The trade where only Andrew Miller truly worked out, and that was after the Marlins traded him away?
Trading Trout should not even be in anyone's mind, because of that.  

Follow-up question: How many pitchers on the Angels this season realistically could or should be expected to regress?
i genuinely can’t think of anyone. The only thing I can think of is Skaggs was okay in he first half of the season. Aside from that, I don’t see anyone who really overperformed what they might be reasonably expected to do in 2020. Maybe Buttrey and Robles?

Trout loses to Kiermaier.

He’s sulking because Eppler beat him to making a trade.

Regardless of posturing, I don’t believe Cole wants to play back East, nor do I believe the Yankees will go 7 years on a pitcher (maybe not even 6 - they refused to go 6 for Corbin). Unless they have a significant philosophy shift, the Yankees will pursue someone like Wheeler, not Cole. (Note. I’m not saying they won’t go through the motions, but I don’t think Cashman or Steinbrenner are cool with 7 years for a pitcher.)

I made a similar post in one of the earlier Cole threads. When you look at all the near 0 war innings we had last year it's not difficult to find a 20 war improvement if we add Cole and Wheeler or Strasberg and a third arm. Cole alone should be more valuable than Trout simply considering who he replaces in the rotation. 

Yeah, I think that's possible in that at least those two guys don't have a track record of being as good as they were. That said, I think there's a good possibility that the pen could be even better because, as Doc pointed out, it will be less stressed due to better starters.

I agree and that's kinda my point.  
If I were to speculate on where we might get a little less production it would be out of Goodwin, Robles and Bedrosian.  I would also say La Stella but I think playing a full season would easily offset a slight drop in per PA production.  I think Robles will be similar.  Cam could drop a bit but it wouldn't likely have a huge impact.  Goodwin started out on fire and settled in at about a .750 ops.  People complain about his defense but he's actually avg or better in RF and can back up CF solidly.  He was just terrible in LF where he's not gonna play much if at all.  I think he's about a 2 WAR player right now.  

Here is a list of all Angels pitchers in 2019 who had a negative fWAR, with their innings pitched. I'll put it in spoilers, because its pretty long.
That's 572.1 Innings of -5.7 fWAR pitching. 
Now obviously it is unavoidable for even a good team to have some pitchers who produce negative WAR. Even the great Astros had -2.4 from negative fWAR pitchers. But here's the huge difference: those pitchers accounted for 136 IP. 
Meaning, the Angels had about 440 more innings than the Astros from pitchers below replacement level.
That the Angels pitching sucked in 2019 is nothing revelatory to anyone reading this, but I think this is a very important and informative angle on what needs to be done, and also gives us reason for hope for 2020. More on that in a bit.
If you want a team other than the Astros to compare, here are all 10 playoff teams:
That Rays number is particularly striking: they had almost no really bad pitchers.
Anyhow, there's a range there - and the World Series champs are last among the ten, but the big takeaway is that no playoff team had more than 258 innings of negative fWAR pitchers. Thus the Angels had at least twice as many negative fWAR innings as any playoff team, and about twice the fWAR. That illustrates one part of the improvement that needs to happen - the other part being that they have to replace those innings with good pitching, not just mediocre pitching.
How to do this? Well, the obvious solution is free agency - and that will undoubtedly happen. But that's speculative at this point, so let's take a look at in-house solutions.
The two in-house pitchers who should make the biggest difference are Shohei Ohtani and Andrew Heaney. I'm going to add in Griffin Canning and Patrick Sandoval as two other in-house pitchers who could also have signficant impact. Consider their 2019 IP and fWAR:
1.3 Canning 90.1 IP
1.2 Heaney 95.1 IP
0.3 Sandoval 39.1 IP
0.0 Ohtani 0 IP
We don't really know what to expect from Ohtani in 2020, but let's say he's good for about 120 IP at a similar performance level to 2018 (1.0 fWAR in 51.2 IP); I think he's capable of being much better, but we should probably be cautious. Let's also be moderate with the other three, and assume similar performance levels to 2019--even though Canning and Sandoval should improve, as they gain experience--and we get something like this:
2.4 Ohtani 120 IP
2.2 Canning 150 IP
2.0 Heaney 160 IP
0.8 Sandoval 110 IP
So that's +4.6 WAR in 315 IP, just from four in-house pitchers just performing at a level they've already established.
In other words, those four pitchers alone could get the Angels pitching staff back in the realm of respectability. Meaning, not even counting possible free agent acquisitions like Gerrit Cole, Stephen Strasburg, Zack Wheeler, Jake Odorizzi, Cole Hamels, etc.
Now maybe those are optimistic projections, but they're all reasonable. And if, say, Sandoval doesn't pitch 110 innings of mediocre ball, maybe Barria or Suarez does. Regardless, the point is: through likely in-house improvements alone, the Angels pitching staff should at least approach a level of decency. Add in a couple good starters, and we have reason to be optimistic about the 2020 Angels pitching staff.

You're low. Try 60m - that's around how much he'd get on the open market. Given how much the Nats defer money in contracts, they can afford it, too.

Yeah man, let's go back to these old uniforms! My favorite by far.
I believe the San Diego Padres are going back to the old brown and yellow jerseys. 
 

hearing a few of you guys wanting us to get Bumgarner. I know the Playoff sucess but he not the same pitcher he was a few ago, definitely is a red flag. 
if we get Cole, i would not mind going after wheeler. Offer him a 4yr 70mil contract or a 5yrs 75 mil and see where it goes. 
People asking to trade Heaney, I would wait until mid season and than determine whether we should trade him or personally wouldn't mind keeping. Sign him to a team friendly deal with bonuses.

1. Sign at least one pitcher
2. Acquire a catcher
3. Win more than one game
That better?

I still can't believe that grown men call another grown man "Thor".

The Angels can and should spend money to get the pitchers they need.  They shouldn’t use prospects they have few of to get them.  Any good bet they trade for will cost a lot more then they can afford to trade away if there is any desire to continue the project of building a rich and consistent pipeline of major league talent.  They just can’t keep doing this stuff.

@Jeff Fletcher bringing the Trout pr0n to start off the off season right.
 

Wow. That’s the highest projection I’ve seen for Cole to date. I think if he gets 8 (possible, although I’m skeptical), he probably won’t get 35aav. The extensions to Kole and Simmons seem on the long side. And I doubt you get Maldonado for double that amount. 

This guy is not dumb.