Oz27

Neither, given we have better options to cover first (Kendrick) and left (Kendrick and reserve OF - I guess Shuck or Long). I get he'll probably need to play a few innings at one or both, given weird things happen, but "a handful of starts" would be scary.

I agree with most of that, except something has gone pretty bloody wrong if Ibanez is starting a handful of games at first. You could probably put any random player on the team there and they'd do just as well, if not better. The dude is a trainwreck.

Yeah, definitely. While I'm generally quite down on our chances this season, there's a fair bit to look forward to in terms of what some of the younger guys (Trout, Calhoun, Skaggs, Richards and Santiago) can all do. I don't see Calhoun as a star, but I think we'll see him become an above average 3-4 WAR OF.

I don't think a combination of something like Shuck and McDonald would net much in a trade. A fringe prospect, at best.

Well no, we'd have had a rotation of Weaver, Wilson, Garza, Richards and Santiago/Skaggs, with the leftover of Santiago/Skaggs as the 6th starter and Blanton as the 7th. Sixth starters usually get a lot of starts...seventh starters, not so much.

If I could go back in time and lock Garza into that deal, I'd do it without a second thought. It's hard to be much worse than being an injury away from having Joe Blanton in your rotation.

PTBNLs scare me after the Kazmir trade

Someone would think they had enough of a use to claim Romine off waivers, for sure. I know Shuck has major limitations, but he did some good things last year. It was just one of those classic examples where a bench player was asked to play too big a role and we all got sick of him. As a reserve OF he's fine and I narrowly take him over Cowgill and Long. Romine's upside, whilst limited, is better than McDonald's so I really think we should hang onto him. Grant Green should make it in part because this team's limitations mean we need someone who can start at 2B for a decent period if Pujols goes down and Howie has to cover 1B or if an OF goes down and we decide to go with Howie in LF (I'd rather Green at 2B and Howie in LF than Howie in 2B and Shuck in LF, if we're talking about a sizeable layoff for somebody). Plus I'm confident Green will hit well enough to be a DH option for us (none of us really want 162 games of Ibanez, do we?). So Conger, Shuck, Green and Romine is what I want to see.

Which pundits? Who? The OP seems to just be building up a strawman. The consensus is this trade was good for us and the Sox and pretty bad for the D'Backs and that's where I sit. Assuming the PTBNL is nothing special, we made a huge step towards addressing our pitching depth and added payroll flexibility in one. Of course the offense suffers, but it's a hell of a lot easier to find good hitting corner OF/DH types than it is to find two young pitchers under club control. Bag ourselves another experienced starter and I'm happier with the state of our rotation than I thought was possible a few weeks ago. Then all we need to do is find an OF or DH, relatively cheaply, to make sure Shuck isn't starting and we're set (probably still with a pretty average team, but a hell of a lot better than I thought we'd be).

And, you know, Brendan Harris, Grant Green and Andrew Romine are all sooo much better than Jean Segura. And, as said above, Segura is incredibly young and can already perform at an Aybar level or better for a fraction of the price. Anyone who doesn't miss him is crazy or high...or maybe both.

Ha, I thought so too. As for insults, with some of the vitriol directed at anyone who has dared to complain about this move today, I thought they were all good.

You're right, what use could anyone have for a 23-year-old shortstop earning minimum wage and under club control for years to come? Jeez, I'd murder to get him back. And Amarista would still be a handy player to have in our system.

As much as Frieri is really bad, this team has so many needs and so few resources to fill them that we can't really give up too much of it improving the bullpen. But if this team is going to be any better than bad, we are going to need to find a way to make it better.

Nailed it. Every GM makes questionable moves, every GM has moves that seem good at the time but turn to sh*t later on, but only so many can make ones that are universally laughed at right from the start. Reagins had it with Wells, Dipoto has now had it with Blanton and Freese (which I actually find so much more unforgiveable than Pujols and Hamilton, both of which are highly likely to have been heavily influenced by the owner and been justified for reasons aprtly commercial). Other teams and agents are taking advantage of his cluelessness at every turn.

Do Arte Moreno and Mike Scioscia have naked pictures of you or something? Constantly defending the stupidest decisions is one thing, using insane logic like "a few days ago he wasn't even on the 40 man roster" (nobody is unless they've been in baseball long enough or are put on the MLB roster) just shows you're intent on defending the Angels, whatever the situation.

As far as I'm concerned this sums it up perfectly. Before this, I was on board with giving Dipoto another crack to fix this sinking ship. Now I think every day he's in the job, the greater the pile of sh*t our next GM is going to have to deal with. I'd have been completely against this trade without throwing in Grichuk, throwing him in just stinks of stupidity. It means that over the past few months, we've given up Bourjos, Grichuk and Callaspo (the first two of whom were some of our most valuable trade chips, at a time of great need) for a decent reliever, a slight upgrade at 3B and a prospect with major flaws. How are people okay with that? How are people okay with giving up two of your best trade chips without fixing our primary need? It's idiotic and it shows why Dipoto isn't up to this job.

You mean they're not going to take JB Shuck and David Carpenter for him? Shit, time for Plan B.

lol

Would I be happy if the Angels traded a .290 OBP hitter for one of the better third basemen in the league? Yeah, naturally. But needless to say, it's not going to happen. As for the rest, it all depends on the terms. Last year I wanted Greinke, I didn't want him for $130 million. I think Garza is going to end up getting crazy money that'll make him completely not worth it, for example.

While the AAV for Vargas is quite reasonable, four years is not. We were right not to match it, even if it thins out our options quite considerably. You could look at it now and argue we should've extended a qualifying offer, but given how close we are to the luxury tax threshold it's probably smarter we didn't. Just as before, we've got to have something pretty damn special up our sleeves if we want to fix this mess of a club.

I hated the Blanton signing,. I hated the Wells trade (thought it was one of the worst trades ever made). And I think the Rangers have made a really dumb move. Am I not being level-headed in this?

I thought Monkey was answering that very question with his last post.

Out of curiosity, how come Pujols can't use off-field issues as an excuse? The stuff he went through this year was pretty damn dramatic (not to mention the fact he was also crippled by a bad injury). Personally I don't think either one is an excuse, but you're just using double standards.

What is the relevance to Pujols when evaluating whether Fielder is declining or not? It's like saying global warming can't be happening because I just had a nice slice of cheesecake. But since you're intent on doing it, Pujols has had a WAR below 5 once, Fielder has been above 5 once. So yeah, that evidence you're using is laughably selective. Pujols has declined at an alarming rate and the long-term outlook is pretty bleak. That has nothing to do with Prince Fielder's circumstances or future career path.

Hasn't a philospohy like 'trying to catch up' got us into a world of sh*t before? Reacting to what other teams do should never be a way to operate.