Arte Moreno has a history of meddling in his team’s baseball operations and we the fans have cheered him on in this way too often to rage at him when he pulls out of a trade that is taking too long to complete even when it is the stupidest possible thing he could do.
Leading up to the 2004 offseason Moreno signed free agents Bartolo Colon, Kelvim Escobar, Jose Guillen and Vladimir Guerrero. Under Disney management it took Bill Stoneman more than a week to acquire Ron Gant at the trade deadline in July of 2000, layers of bureaucracy stopping him in his tracks. The Moreno flair for billboard pizzazz unleashed hope for a dynasty in Anaheim for the first time since the saddlebag emptiage of Gene Autry embracing 1970s free agency and signing as many big names as wanted on board in Anaheim.
We loved his meddling then.
When he greenlighted signing Steve Finley and Gary Matthews Jr. was he meddling in going after the big name free agent that grabbed headlines, looked good on billboards and sold jerseys or was he just supportive of his GM in building the best team?
There are more examples of the Angels grabbing for the offseason’s big brass ring and finding that it was fool’s gold long before the All Star balloting had begun. How many of them have Arte’s fingerprints on them and how many he sat by while a general manager “showed ‘em what he got” we will never know.
My rule of thumb was if there is a press conference and jerseys available the next day it was Arte’s deal: Pujols, Nibbler Wilson, Hambone all vying here to be the lowest of the lowlights. When there were four pitchers signed as free agents after the 2012 season (Joe Blanton, Sean Burnett, Tommy Hanson and Ryan Madson) the awkwardly silent presser and lack of star wattage showed a deference to the new GM then, right? So that quadruple bust… we don’t blame him for letting his baseball people do the baseball work, do we?
And so reports that Arte meddled in a rumored-as-fact trade this weekend out of nothing but apparent ego at being made to wait for his table enrage the Halosphere, those of us who have been in this nightclub since he walked in the door aren’t surprised at all. He does so many good things that we just freeze up when he sabotages things.
We love the genius Arte Jekyll who brought the cure for an ailing middle-market franchise with him from Arizona. But we hate Meddling Hyde who could have not traded Napoli for Wells and not signed Josh Hambone and probably had his second decade of division titles with those two simple Non-Moves.
We the fanbase watch as every asslicker on Twitter vying for a press pass lets the madness of Meddling Hyde go ignored while they pop the champagne for Arte Jekyll buying the parking lot. This is what coverage of the team online has been reduced to.
Well not here, not now. Sorry Mister Moreno, but the Rev is back and the crew at this blog is crashing the Pearly Gates party. After a lost decade, we demand discipline from Arte Jekyll as we are sick of Meddling Hyde.
This is creatively written and on point! I just hope Arte isn’t the same as 2010-2013, still have faith in the Angels #noreligion
but I think CBS Sports is right about this, too, in their list of where Pederson might end up. 5 teams listed and we were 4th
“4. Los Angeles Angels
We’re including the Angels because cooler heads tend to prevail. The deal as it was publicly known — Pederson, Stripling, and a prospect for a package of players — favored the Angels on paper, and would have helped them move closer toward playoff contention. Perhaps Billy Eppler can convince Moreno to put aside his grievances for the betterment of his team. The Angels should hope so, because Pederson and Stripling would give them a much-needed boost.”
But were the “players to be named later” current MLB players on the Angels roster, or were they AAA prospects ? Someone mentioned Anderson earlier and I would not want to include him in the deal.
No one knows who else was going. There was talk of an MLB player and a prospect, two prospects, two prospects that were NOT Adell or Marsh…. it was never really clear. I used Anderson as a example yesterday of a piece that duh Doyers wouldn’t need anymore after getting Gratoral and thus changed their requirements for the deal…. in theory, there’s nothing that points to that actually happening.
Arte wants to win, he just gets in his own way. He’ll spend endlessly on bats, he’ll set deadlines as though another deal is hanging in the balance, and he’ll stay loyal to “baseball men” whose methods have gone the way of UHF televisions but were popular at the same time.
I’d rather have a guy willing to spend than not, but at some point lessons need to be learned. Money needs to be spent wisely, negotiations have to happen in due time, etc.
This is why you let baseball people do the baseball decision making. That’s the reason you hire a GM.
Arte made his money by spending $250 mil to get $3 bil (Pujols : FSW). Despite what Dipoto exposed, it hasn’t fazed Arte. Arte has Trout for life. He wants the feeling of a Steinbrenner, but at a far cheaper price. Spend, but not over the luxury tax b/c that comes out of his profits. Arte’s already won ($3 bil and Trout for life) and all he has to do is just break even from the Angels’ revenue on the year.
I seem to be in the minority, but I’m not super distraught over this one not going through. I didn’t hate the trade at the time it was announced, and it would have been fun to see Joc for a year, and add another pitcher with a name on the back of his jersey to the bunch, but in the grand scheme of things, this doesn’t move the needle for me.
I don’t believe we’re fixing to win it all in 2020, so although Stripling would have been nice to have, Joc was sort of a luxury item at a time we really need more meat and potatoes. If Rengifo gets a little better, we can get more value out of him later; his name has already been associated with Joc Pederson+Ross Stripling, all he has to do is but up some decent numbers this year and he’ll have trade value later.
Not to totally exonerate Arte, but observant folks have already noted that the deal got squirrelly outside of his control– and it appears that Joc losing his arbitration may have changed the calculus a little as well.
This is a very smart take.
There is a lot of faux outrage, as if the Angels had blown a deal to get one year of Betts, instead of one year of Pederson. In the realm of “nice to have”, this blown deal occupies a warm, snuggly spot, but it is hardly a “season down the drain” loss. If fans were *hoping* for possibly 120 IP from Stripling at the top end, and Pederson would be riding the bench against LHP, then this wasn’t nearly the blockbuster the Dodgers/Red Sox put together.
Also, pay close attention to what Eppler mentioned in his press release yesterday, that trade details were never close enough to be contacting the players; that seems to be a shot across the bow at the Dodgers, who texted a “nice knowing ya” message to Pederson while the trade talk was swirling. Maybe from the Angels point of view nothing was as close as the Dodgers leaks made it to be?
It’s true, Pederson was more frosting than cake. But we really could have used Stripling’s arm, and the line up against righties with him in it was daunting, so I can understand the frustration.
If we aren’t trying to win in 2020 then Eppler and crew need to stop lying to us because their narrative is we ARE trying to win this year and have been trying to win.
Of course they need to leave the perception with the average fan that they’re going to be as competitive as possible, ASAP, even if their plan is slightly longer-sighted. We all understand this point though I think
However. In any case, I’m of the belief that they can fairly say they ARE trying to win now, even if they/we all understand that realistically all of the pieces may not fall into place until potentially next year or later. They have put together a team that is better than last year, probably by a decent amount, even though it still likely falls short. We obviously need more (better) pitching.
Again, maybe I’m off, but ‘m not convinced there were many more prudent moves they could have made this offseason while still staying within reasonable parameters AND not giving up their couple top prospects. Although for sure we can put together a perfect scenario where in hindsight we win the offseason, I can understand that there are limited funds, a future, and 29 other teams who have a say. More top-tier pitching would have been nice– maybe there was/is a way they should have made that happen, although I don’t see it, and I’d be open to the argument.
@El_Duderino wrote, “Of course they need to leave the perception with the average fan that they’re going to be as competitive as possible, ASAP, even if their plan is slightly longer-sighted. We all understand this point though I think”
plan is slightly longer-sighted?
We haven’t seen a winning record in four consecutive seasons. And you think getting a simple bump is good enough?
When you cite there wasn’t any more prudent moves to be made, then why not be patient because there weren’t many other moves to be made when you could have secured a producing OF and a #3 starting pitcher this year?!
I stopped drinking the kool-aid halfway through season 3 as we were witnessing yet another sub-.500 season. Before Eppler took the GM role, we had three winning seasons out of four and it including winning the division. We’re beyond a “plan is slightly longer-sighted” by two seasons already. We already lost our 2019 first round SS in a salary dump, implying we don’t have any high level pitching help developing b/c we spent our first round pick on a SS… in a salary dump.
I didn’t like giving up having Rengifo under control for 3 years in exchange for one year of Pederson. I like Rengifo.
Agree, I like Rengifo. But it is fair to question as some have done here, just how much he plays in 2020. He’s a luxury as a backup IF.
Simmons is a free agent after this year. If they don’t extend him, Rengifo could be the SS next year. Plus, who knows what injuries might happen (and they will). I think Rengifo is a good piece to keep around.
Your point is taken, but Rengifo has 5 years of control remaining. Doesn’t become arb-eligible until 2023, not a FA until 2026. If he was nothing more than 2006-2011 Maicer Izturis, he would be a valuable roster piece for any team.
You have to give up value to get value. Joc really increased our chances to win this year. We have no 4th outfielder. If Upton’s knee aches we currently will play Fletcher out of position, slide La Stella to second and have Gramps at first. That’s a pretty bad right side of the infield and I’d bet the farm La Stella has serious offensive regression.
A defense of Joc/Trout/Goodwin late in games is a big boost, but mostly, the righty/lefty setup of a lineup like Fletcher, Trout, Ohtani, Rendon, Joc, Upton, La Stella, Simba, Castro against a right hander is just perfect.
Wasn’t one of the talking points for the 2019 pitching staff that only one pitcher (Cahill, no less) managed triple digits for innings pitched? Yet, the worst day of our lives has come because we missed on getting Stripling, who managed 90 IP in a combination of starts and bullpen work? I thought our goal was to move away from SP like that…?
Well, yes, George, but at this point I’d gladly take 90 innings of Stripling over triple digits of Cahill’s. It would be an improvement. I agree that the deal’s falling through is not a tragedy, and it is quite possible that if I knew the full details I would be glad it did fall through, but nonetheless I sure hope we do manage to get another decent starter somehow.
Agree. Our farm system is still ranked in the high 20’s currently. Unless Eppler trades Adell or Marsh, the pickens are very slim. Rengifo is one of the few viable trade chips the team has
But sometimes the only “value” that a team seeks to gain when they give you value that is proven MLB talent would be their own salary dump. And in such an instance, the sending team doesn’t want quality back, on purpose. Especially if they also have a roster squeeze. This does happen. It almost did happen. It should have happened.
I sense the trade was really for Stripling. Taking Joc and his expiring contract was a way of subbing out superior prospects since we were absorbing $9M of payroll and helping the Dodgers get under the tax threshold.
I liked Rengifo too, defensively. I thought his offense was not great, maybe he needs/needed more time. Maybe his offense was great and I was looking with my eyes closed again, which my mother, many eons ago, would accuse me of doing.
Acquiring Joc and Stripling aren’t moving the needle? This is a terrible way to mask losing out on improvements. Every little bit helps. While the team did improve at 3B, we did lose Calhoun’s production in OF. Acquiring Joc negates Calhoun’s production loss, which significantly improves the batting production of newly acquired 3B Rendon. And if Upton finds his touch again, then Goodwin will platoon with Joc.
Then adding Stripling to our pitching roster would have moved him from a 7th/8th depth starter from the Dodgers to a possible #3 starter for us. Then when you factor in Ohtani’s return, we will be forced into a six-man rotation and that would benefit Stripling greatly!
And we get a long ball prospect with Pages, who goes from the Dodgers’ mid-20s to the Angels’ #8-9 prospect ranking. Pages either develops or could be used in a trade this year or beyond, which would protect moving an Adell or Marsh.
Acquiring Joc, Stripling, and Pages is significant as they can help us this year! (Pages could be used in a trade if needed, but now we don’t possess that asset.) We haven’t seen .500 in four consecutive seasons. Rating this trade as a “nothing move” for us feels like someone trying to save face because of the obvious advantage we would have had with Joc and Stripling alone.
When Arte drinks from that Buttercup, things get weird. Dr. Billboard and Mr. Buttercup is how I see it. On one hand Arte is a business man, advertising, real estate, developing the stadium area, that’s a huge part of why he embarked on this Angels opportunity, a business empire in growth… and then there is Mr. Buttercup, the guy who doesn’t really know what he is doing, the competitor who can be played against his own impatience, to spectacular effect, and even now, after about 17 years, is still obsessed with his particular style of signing big name talent.
The two are inseparable, Arte’s competitive, so he’s here, he’s invested massive sums, he wants to WIN and the only reason he hasn’t gotten better results is because or him as well, he’s stubborn, he hires yes men at times, or unqualified people, and everyone keeps it all hush hush, no one can confront him when he’s barking up the wrong tree.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcfAqkPEBtI
nota bene: This is very long, so if you don’t have a few minutes, then keep walking, sailor.
I think we are all exhausted by the events of the past week. Anticipation, exhilaration, confusion, disbelief, anger.
None of us knows exactly what happened (though each of us knows much, much more than Bob Nightengale). The level of vitriol towards Moreno has been just stunning over the last few days. Part of the problem is the immediacy of social media, where an “expert” will weigh in, and all too often the other experts will form an echo chamber, repeating what the first one said without independent confirmation or investigation. Repetition of any statement will make it truth.
In thinking back over past Arte meltdowns, the common denominator seemed to be he felt there was an agreement to a deal, and the other party tried to change the terms at the 11th hour (Carl Crawford, Mark Teixeira). He is a hard, fast negotiator, and believes that a deal is a deal once agreed to in principle. The business world, or course, often operated differently.
This, then, is my guess about what transpired: The Dodgers, as we know, had to rework their deal for Betts, by taking Graterol from the Twins and substituting Downs. While it is still zero-sum, this means they drew two players from their minors instead of one (actually, three if you count Wong, but he seems more like a body as filler in a deal, whereas Downs was a high-level prospect with the Reds and Dodgers orgs).
Therefore, my belief is that the Dodgers came back to the Angels and increased their demand for the Pederson/Stripling/Cases return, or changed the players they were going to send over. At some level, they sought to rework the deal that Eppler had agreed to in principle days before, As we have seen in the past, that is anathema to Moreno. I don’t think he instructed Eppler to walk away on a whim or a fit of irrational pique, but because of general disgust at (A) the way the larger trade was mishandled by the Red Sox, and (B) any attempt by the Dodgers to rework the agreement previously made with the Angels front office.
I also believe the stories about this come straight from the Dodgers front office, since it spins the outcome to make them look better to the baseball community. I can’t pretend to have read every posting from Jeff Fletcher, Maria Torres, or Fabian Ardaya, but I haven’t seen this story specifically sourced from within the Angels front office. It is only a neutral “sources report”, and the Angels beat writers seem to be more about repeating the general knowledge rather than providing a special insight from the Angels side of the deal (aside from the press release from Eppler, filled with more than twice your daily requirement of impenetrable Epplerian prose). A hallmark of the Angels front office is that it typically doesn’t leak information.
If the Dodgers changed their demands of the Angels, and the Angels flipped out, then saying to the sport writers “the Angels pulled out of the deal”, while technically correct, is far from the whole story. However, it serves to make the Dodgers look better in the process, especially with the public scorn given the Red Sox when they changed the terms of their deal. Providing just half the story makes Moreno look capricious and unhinged, instead of Friedman appearing less than forthright with his end of the transaction.
My expectation is that Pederson and/or Stripling may be part of an offer to the Indians for Lindor, since there isn’t an OF on the Indians team currently who can hit the ball out of the infield, and the trading of Kluber and Bauer, as well as health concerns for Carrasco, may have left the Indians wanting some reassurance in the middle of their rotation. With the Twins and White Sox having bulked up in the offseason, perhaps the Indians will just wave the white flag and keep Lindor, but they may prefer to see what they can get now.
Having been shut down twice at the World Series—perhaps each time by a team involved at some level of cheating—it wouldn’t surprise me to see the Dodgers look to add Lindor to Betts and make a lineup that goes full Thanos on the rest of baseball all the way through the 2020 Series, just clubbing the other teams like baby seals, a lineup so powerful even Dave Roberts can’t overmanage it
@GeoKaplan8 you posted comment 2002! Awesome!
It was the result of painstaking planning and careful timing. I am just that good.
My instinct says you’re right, that the Dodgers wanted to change the deal. After all, the Red Sox did that when their fans yelled. So the Dodgers likely thought they could do that, too.
Consider any purchase you want to make. Let’s say you go to the appliance store and pick out a refrigerator for $900. Then before it’s delivered the store gets back to you and says “it’ll be $1100”. If it were me I’d “back out” the way Arte “backed out”. The problem here is that with purchases you can usually find another store. In MLB the supply is extremely limited. But getting back to the example, maybe this is weird but I’d rather pay $1150 for a refrigerator elsewhere if that’s the price on the tag than pay $1100 at the first place (after having them agree on $900).
This is what I suspect too. But since no evidence has come out to point this way (yet) I can’t really fault people who just want to be pissed.
I agree entirely.
Wow, that is a vicious image Kaplan; “clubbing the other teams like baby seals (.)” In any case, IF what you are suggesting is true, and that the key reports came from pundits presenting an essentially biased and Dodgers crafted view of the whole thing, then of course Arte would be more or less “off the hook.” But this is just speculation on your part, unless you have some inside info we don’t have. Most of us here have taken the word of reputable baseball reporters on this. If that turns out to be wrong, then I think we can be forgiven for our vocal criticism of Arte. It is not like we were basing our wrath at Arte on the tweet of some anonymous bozo. Both Ken Rosenthal and Jeff Fletcher reported the current version of the event/s.
I tried to be up front with perspective bias: “None of us knows exactly what happened”
This is true, because none of us (unless someone here is hiding a big secret) was in the rooms with Eppler and crew during this Seven Days in February crisis. In addition, the Angels front office is pretty tight with information, while the Dodgers front office is evidently a pretty loose crew (texting an hasta la vista to Pederson before the trade was close to being finalized is pretty bad). I would anticipate some bias in the information being leaked.
As I see it, the Dodgers have a motivation to shape the narrative in Southern California (by contrast, Bloom most likely couldn’t have cared less how he was viewed in LA and Minneapolis). If it serves their purposes to leak a story that Moreno was furious and pulled the deal, without any context, then sure, it makes Moreno look like an unstable asshole. At the same time, I am sure the Dodgers didn’t want to be seen as a team which tried to change the terms of the deal in mid-trade after the abuse the Red Sox received from MLBPA, the other teams in the trade, and the MLB fan base in general. It stands to reason the identity of the extra player going to the Dodgers would be determined by the outcome of Pederson’s arb hearing, so that alone shouldn’t have made a difference. I think Friedman decided he needed yet one more player coming back (or a different, higher-profile player) because he spent an extra player in his deal with the Red Sox, even if that was unrelated to any agreement with the Angels.
So, once again: None of us has first-hand information. Everything we express is based on hearsay, rumor, and our own processing of that information. Based upon past history and events, it makes sense that the tipping point would have been an attempt to redo the principles of the discussed trade.
Finally, the Dodgers are still 2 players over the 40-man, so some sort of deal is expected to get the roster into shape. My hunch is they’ll take a pass at Lindor, who would be much more valuable to the team immediately than Rengifo. As such, it would be in the team’s best interest to scuttle a deal with the Angels if it nets them a more desirable (for their needs) player.
Up-twinkled for “Seven Days in February”, and for the unimpeachable logic. If your entirely sound conjectures reflect the truth of the matter, I expect we will get some confirmation of that eventually.
I tend to agree with this assessment. The Dodgers ended up sweetening the Red Sox deal with a top 5 ( no. 3?) prospect from their own organization and replaced him with one of Minnesota’s prospects that will need to take up a spot on the 40 man roster. Based upon the changes in this deal structure an under the guise of Pederson arbitration loss, Friedman probably decided he needed different or even better prospects than what he originally discussed with Eppler. This probably precipitated what ultimately led to the Arte Meltdown,
Ironically even though Arte is an advertising man, I’ve never thought he really cared what the perception of of his image was with Angel nation and the general public. In my only short conversation of substance that I have ever had with him ( No I wasn’t stalking him he sat at our table at a charity function in late 2003) it was obvious he was perturbed with my questions. So his impatience with perceived retromingent trade negotiations seems likely. But I don’t think he would care to leak stories if the published narrative was untrue or unfairly reported. Eppler certainly wouldn’t say or leak anything more than what was published since he wants to keep his job with Arte and he ultimately has to get along with 29 other GM’s .
By the way The Dodgers roster is now at 40 . they DFA’d Tyler White & Kyle Garlick last night to reach the magic number. So unless they are desperate for payroll relief ( according to Cots they are now $12.15 million into the competitive balance tax and based upon recent years payrolls are considered non repeaters) They may very well keep Stripling & Pederson for the long run.
As has been reported on other less awesome Angels sites, I am Billy Eppler, and I am also you. So we were in fact there George because I was there because Billy is me who was there. Thus we both know as we are he. So go ahead and just state your theory as fact. The Dodgers are dicks.
Dammit, you were supposed to keep our collective secret identity a secret.
Very good points on Arte. He still like handshake deals, looking in the eyes, etc. He was likely told it was done, then that it was on hold, then ultimately that things needed to be reworked.
I don’t know what happened but the end result was tragic to our chances this year. Does Arte think we really have enough SP to compete this year. I have nothing else to add other than frustration. Great to have Rev back. His return is the best transaction of this disappointing off season.
We just arent the team that can afford to just give back quality depth like Joc and Strip offered . Arte had a deal that appeared to be tilted our way and we all saw it . bummer
Just curious. If the deal had been Rengifo, some pen arm, and Jordyn Adams and, in the waiting period, the deal changed to Marsh instead of Adams would you still have wanted it? Or Rengifo, Buttrey, Marsh? I’m just wondering. We can’t say that’s what happened because no one has said so. At the same time, I was stressing on this trade because Pederson/Strippling was a fair amount of talent, and Rengifo was almost certainly not the bulk of what was going back to the Doyers. So I wonder what those of us around here would have been OK with giving up.
@gitcho you know the blowback at how “stupid arte overpaid” would have been ringing out.
Personally, I would have been OK with Pederson, Stripling and Cases, in exchange for Rengifo, Ward, Hermosillo, Jones, and Kaleb Cowart’s private cell number.
Because no trade is “won” unless it is the guys I want, in exchange for the guys I have no use for.
That’s a fanciful conjecture of players involved that no evidence has surfaced at all. Seems odd to play “what if” when there hasn’t been a hint of such fancies being bandied about unlike the reported Arte being impatient that stopped the trade.
Joc and Stripling have been told by the Dodgers they were being shipped to the Angels already. We also were treated to reports that none of our top prospects were involved.
It’s a simpler route that Arte destroyed the deal than the Dodgers upping the asking price, considering they already told players they were being sent to the Angels already.
Well @hockey_duckie if you espouse your theory enough times I guess it must be true. One of the tenets buttressing your theory is based upon reports that some Dodger front office personnel texted Joc Pederson good luck with his new team during last weeks standoff. But if the deal was done why wasn’t Rengifo notified he was traded? And then , accordingly, why wasn’t the actual name of the Angels prospect ( or prospects) ever divulged? The reason why was ,simply, the trade was never consummated. The Cardinal rule at the completion of any trade is the very first thing you do as a GM or GM surrogate is to notify the player he has been traded by their organization BEFORE anyone else finds out. Billy has already made it quite clear that no Angel players were ever notified of a trade and I’m sure if they were asked neither Joc or Stripling or even Pages, for that matter got a call from Andrew Friedman or any of the other 8 General Managers they have over at Chavez Ravine.
I’m curious to see how Arte is going to respond when he does his annual media day at Tempe. Arte seems to be an owner who genuinely cares about fan approval. Right now based on what reports are saying and how Twitter is responding he is receiving a lot of negative feedback.
Moreno’s a cool dude. Just makes some boneheaded mistakes.
Arte desperately wants to hoist the World Series trophy before he goes to the great billboard graveyard in the sky. So much so that he’s poking his nose in places where he shouldn’t. Ask Redskin fans how they enjoy Dan Snyder running the show, or Cowboy fans with Jerry Jones. Stick to what you know, Arte. You hire people to do a job. Let them do it!
He is confusing but one thing that is 100% Bad is that this very public rep as a meddling owner goes back to the Scioscia days of puppeteering Reagins and over-ruling Dipoto.
If I remember correctly that reputation cost us when we wanted to hire Andrew Friedman (he passed) and especially when we hired Eppler in the wake of Dipoto quitting in messy fashion. There were multiple candidates that didn’t even interview like Thad Levine because of perception they couldn’t *really* be in charge (now with the Twins doing quite well).
Lesigh.
One would believe that Dipoto quitting on the organization during the season would have been a wake-up call for Arte. If that incident didn’t change him, then nothing will. Arte wants his Ursula-like tentacles in all Angels related factions so Arte can live up to his middle moniker name: Arte “micromanaging” Moreno.
Arte had only one thing he could control in the trade with the Dodgers, the ability to renege – an empowering act for someone lacking control universally.
What you see is what you get with Arte. He’s been like this since day one, and he’s not going to change. If we want the good, we also have to live with the bad. Arte was wrong in this situation, but I’m sure he already shrugged his shoulders and moved on.
Completely agree. We all know what we signed up for as Angel’s fans with Arte at the helm. I am probably in the minority but I follow the team to relieve stress and have some fun. Bummed the trade did not go through but if Arte is not losing sleep over it why should I?
if i say one thing to Jekyll/Hyde at Diablo this week, it would be to thank him profusely about Rendon.
if i had one piece of advice, it’d be to get more navy in the uniform.
Yes, I’m thinking something like a navy drop shadow on the team name on the jersey.
As long as we are going the drop shadow rout can we use some Comic Sans and bring back the mid-nineties dickwing A?
Okay, so drop shadows are corny. You got me. I admit that graphic design is not my milieu. Seriously, I’d love to see your ideas for a new uniform design.
I did a bunch of uni ideas for teams when I was in design school, it was an assignment. A lot of the ideas I had though are fairly staid. I’m just not that into wild crazy uniforms. I really like a lot of what old uniforms did, with the cursive city name on the road unis etc. They had us try a more conservative approach and then a more out there scheme…. I made a different set, with a cursive LA on the hat and jersey but I can’t find it now, it was dark blue/red etc like the last set of unis there…..
Love Page One, Uni #3
Yeah, most of them are OK, but they all had rules. The rules were to do one with a current color made primary, one with a new primary (the black series one you like the alternate for) and one that’s a modification of the teams current primary (the almost monochrome red line.). But even if I had had no rules to work by I probably wouldn’t have come up with anything too wild, most of the really crazy ideas I tried just looked to stupid to look at 80+ times a year.
I love something about every set, but I love nearly everything about the first set. GREAT alternates, I love the cream road unis, and I especially love the serifed number font. The gold banding is great too.
Ideally, I’d like the blue home jersey from set 3 to be another alternate jersey, and I’d replace the script “Angels” with the 1961 version.
Also, I can’t make out what logo you have on the caps.
All told, a great take on baseball uniforms. Your design-fu is strong.
Dammit, Rev, I am SO GLAD to have you back, undiluted, wielding the Herculean sword upon the Gordian knot.
You are the Mahdi, and the Panther.
Hear! Hear!
First time, long time…
It makes no sense that the Angels pulled out of the trade if all they were doing was waiting for the Betts trade to go down.
More likelier than not (at least in my head) was that the Dodgers retooled their ask for Pederson and Stripling and that is what made Arte pissy and ultimately walking. If the deal that was “agreed” to earlier in the week was still in play then why would the angels walk especially if it was just a few spare parts.
My guess is that the Dodgers countered back with an ask of Marsh or Adams when they had to put more into their deal for the Sox package of Betts/Price.
If the ask for Stripling and Pederson included Marsh and to a lesser extent Adams, I am not too sure I would make that deal either especially if I had already agreed to something else.
My thoughts exactly. It makes no sense for Moreno to pull out of the deal AFTER waiting five days if the only reason he pulled out was ire at being put on hold. If this is what caused the deal to fall apart it would have happened sooner. The Dodgers almost certainly came back with a very different asking price which we might all agree would be too much
What you are not acknowledging is that just as easily the Dodgers could have been offended by Arte’s behavior (I don’t want to say rude, but it was reported by a reputable source that Arte pulled the deal out of “anger”) and decided, hey, if this guy is going to cop an attitude with us then we don’t need to do anything with him. Even if the Dodgers were asking for more the second time around, Arte’s original complaint was the delay, NOT the parts of the trade itself.
That’s what TBW said on his podcast. He’s well connected within the business and said that most likely the Dodgers asked for more once the Mookie trade changed. Dodgers thought they could get more for Joc and he’s still on the trade block.
Rumors have it that the trade from the Angels side was Rengifo, an MLB player (Anderson?) and a mid-high level prospect.
Maybe when they got Graterol they no longer needed Anderson.
Still sucks the trade didn’t go through.
One more factor. Joc’s lost his arbitration hearing in the middle of all this. There was a nearly $2 million discrepancy between the Dodgers proposal and Joc’s. It’s possible that the Dodgers asked the Angels to come up with another lottery ticket type prospect.
@Tooblessedtobestressed Oh my … That screenname
Still one of my favorite quotes from an underperforming player
It has become one of my daily quotes. 😂 I am not blessed enough to own a winery with Chris Iannetta but blessed enough as it is.
Long time no see, Tooblessed!
Your take was my initial take, but as Stirrups points out above, the strong impression that Arte had a hissy fit and nixed the deal makes him look so bad that if this were not the case, the FO would manage to leak the real reason somehow.
So yeah, I’m annoyed, but I’m not going to let that ruin my favorite time of the year, Spring Training.
We were given information denoting that no top prospects were to be moved by the Angels.
When the BoSux changed their mind due to medical reasons, that put two other franchises into a frenzy for that particular trade, which were the Dodgers and Twins. Even though the Angels were a separate trade, they were also dependent on the Dodgers getting Betts.
It’s more plausible a reason that Arte got impatient as that piece of info did surface. What didn’t surface was the Dodgers wanted more in the deal. I don’t think they even had the Angels on their mind after what the BoSux did. Acquiring Betts vs getting rid of an extra OF, it seems which one the Dodgers should pay attention to first.
Another piece of evidence is that the Dodgers had notified Joc and Stripling that they were being sent to the Angels. In the revamped trade between the Twins, Dodgers, and Sox, the Dodgers lost an infielder. That Angels trade makes more sense for the Dodgers to get INF Rengifo.
All these points of evidence gravitate the one conclusion as to why the deal between the Angels and Dodgers stopped – The Angels reneged. But who on the Angels reneged? It’s easy to identify the root.
Why prove Arte did do something when the Angels could easily refute this claim? Simple, the Dodgers probably can throw up evidence that Arte (or the Angels club) reneged. But to save face, the trade is being reported that it didn’t fall through.
Ok, not to just be contrary (there are others better at that than I), but isn’t this ‘not meddling’? There was a deal, that maybe (no information) Arte was part of doing (going for the ‘name’ in Joc, with his dinger potential), but that got stalled. So, this isn’t Arte meddling, as opposed to Arte walking away.
Correct me if I am wrong, but isn’t that what we would have rather him have done after the debacle around not getting Greinke (no Hambone, amIright?). This time he didn’t get Cole, or a top starter. He got Rendon, and few are after him about that. He didn’t go after Betts (huge name) or even Price (name, but with flaws) – so we are faulting him for not sticking with a trade for a middle of the rotation starter and a platoon bat (for a year)? This seems such small potatoes compared to past actions, and so much more of the restraint that we have been wanting, that I see little evidence (again nothing coming out of the Angels Org on this) to know what is happening. So some media have said ‘Arte’ withdrew the offer. So what? With this many moving parts, with Joc’s salary arbitration, with unamed prospects, with the changed deal for the Red Sox and the extra deal with the Twins, we are this sure that ‘Arte’ is meddling, at all?
There is time. There are players. The media cycle is too short for us now, and we need to just chill. It has been a decent off season, and we are coming off a ton of injuries to boot. The return of Ohtani, Upton, Simba will help, and we have gotten better in the rotation, at 3B, and there are prospects in the wings. Really odd time to be so pessimistic. And for what? Joc and Russ?
I laugh every time someone around here holds Joc Peterson up as a “name” that Arte is chasing cause 3 millions and billboards. Otherwise, sure, nothing wrong with chilling and seeing what develops.
Friggin Arte.
Okay I get the premise and I’m even willing to accept the meddling Hyde reference re Pujols, Hambone et al (although to be honest I’m not sure you can compare Pujols to the rest of that group).
What I don’t get is the determination that the failed Dodger trade was a Hyde moment with no reliable information as to what actually happened. Better 100 guilty men go free than 1 man be wrongly found guilty for something he hasn’t done.
It’s the presumptions that I object to. We do not know the facts. So why draw the noose?
All that said, I again wish this organization was more transparent and we had actual answers to these questions rather than suppositions.
Rev’s logical equator is pretty right on. We love good Arte, we fume at bad Arte, and usually, you can guess Arte’s moves by the jersey ready presser. Makes sense. And he intimates that, in most cases, Arte is trying to win, which is good for us and his bottom line. Totally true.
This post fumes because it’s a fume laden moment. In many cases on other more defunct websites full of assholes there was often a lame “f*** you dad!”, safety-punk, truth to power that can’t hear you and won’t hurt you vibe to a lot of the Arte wanking. This usually went along with just making up a bunch of bullshit about Arte’s ego and what’s going on in his head because the person posting a comment is really talking about his dad, or boss, or the guy who stole his girl or what ever than Arte, who the poster doesn’t know, and who almost never says anything publicly.
But Rev’s take is pretty balanced. It includes the fact that Arte does good things. Without him we’d still be a low rent version of a low rent version of the Mets. And yet, he also Hambones and we hate that. Sure, he has to work in his take on “big media” being nutless to preserve access blah blah blah, that’s always been his hard on and it’s also based in facts…. he just really hates those facts. But in the case of this current trade SNAFU, I am all for the anger at Moreno. I like to wait for facts too. I hate just jumping on the outrage wagon. But thus far we only have facts that make Arte look like he boned this…. and some weak ass clone speak from Billy. If that’s all the Angels are going to give us then I can’t really say people being pissed is groundless.
I’m not going to make a bunch of stupid tropy dope statement about Arte throwing a tantrum. But even if I don’t know the truth about how he acted, he took the wrong action here, unless they tell us something that informs us otherwise.
Gitch I buy into this and that it’s a ‘fume laden moment’ (well said) and that Rev’s piece, under the circumstances, is the most balanced we have seen. I also accept and agree with the premise that Arte is flawed, as all human beings are, and that he sometimes brings those flaws to the running-of-the-team side of things. Without knowing the man, he comes across to me as hyper-principaled and emotional. He seems the kind of guy who would go to the end of the earth to help a friend but quickly feel spited if that same friend did something that he felt was potentially and even minorly against his interest. Finally, I also agree that without this flawed man at the helm, the Angels would be a low rent version of the Mets (again well said).
I do like and respect Arte. I think in the world of billionaires, he seems to care more about the masses than most. The fact that he was self-made under ridiculously low odds in a field other than technology also makes me like him. He does not seem to be an elitist at all. In fact he seems much more genuine and down to earth than his massive wallet would allow him to be.
And it is for that reason that I think chilling a bit on this is the right play before frustration turns this into something it’s not. Pederson is not the second coming of anyone – he’s an average defensive outfielder who can’t hit left handers and hit 38 bombs in a juiced ball year. Stripling is a serviceable pitcher but nothing incredible. This trade arguably would have slightly improved the team – but it was not like this was putting them in the playoffs or the WS. Anyone of that mindset is more emotional than Arte and those emotions are clouding judgment and fueling anger.
More importantly (and I hate repeating myself) we cannot evaluate this trade because we do not know what prospects were going to the Dodgers. Without this information we simply don’t know – heck if it included Marsh, I am happy this trade did not happen.
Most of the ranting I have read could have an asterisk revealing that’s its really frustration that the Angels did not get a top starting pitcher or increase the budget to $400 million and sign every top free agent and a million other things. Also, I think that most felt the Angels were getting one over on the Dodgers – which is highly unlikely with someone like Friedman watching over things. Does anyone really believe that Friedman would approve a trade that seemed to just give away Pederson and Stripling – much less to a cross-town rival? I believe that if this trade had gone down there might have been some surprise and disappointment regarding the prospects Friedman extracted (that would probably have been written as an anti-Eppler piece).
Accordingly, even though Rev’s piece was way more balanced than most takes, I still think it edges on speculation as to why we should be angry at Arte here where (1) anger is overblown on Not getting players like Pederson and Stripling and (2) we don’t know if we should be happy this trade didn’t go down. It’s possible this trade was actually bad for the team – depending on the prospects involved.
Sure. Nothing wrong with feeling that way. Everyone knows I am pro Arte. I can look at the big picture and it’s been a lot better with him than without. I’m also just not that angry about sports ever because it’s sports….. and or I just am not a “real Angels” fan or what ever. But in a lot of cases, when I defend Arte, it’s because the person bitching has to stretch the known facts as much as they can to fit their ire into it. But in this case, the only facts we have all look bad. Sure, I myself don’t feel enraged because it just seems silly to walk around pissed off all day about something that is supposed to entertain me. But on the other hand, there isn’t really anything to point to in this case that counterbalances the impression that Arte really screwed this up all on his own. So if somebody wants to be all irritated about this and give themselves ass cancer there really isn’t any sound way to tell them it’s groundless, or that there may be another way to look at it.
I don’t understand the appeal to the legal system when it comes to forming opinions about sports teams. We, as fans, should not require the same level of proof that courts require to convict someone. And it’s not like this is flimsy evidence where one unnamed source is being quoted by a random Twitter user. Arte’s meddling is being widely, publicly reported. Are you waiting for incriminating emails to leak?
Moreno reacted rashly. It was stupid. I am mad. The end.
No video, no proof
Good point Gorbachav. Sports and sports commentary are not equivalent to judicial proceedings wherein the guilt of the accused is subject to the highest deliberative standards of “beyond a reasonable doubt.” The reporting of established professionals (be they “big” media personalities or alternative critics) tend to justify fan outrage over the misguided, ego driven actions of GM’s and owners alike.
SOURCE!?!?
@fishfarm for us poor slouches on mobile … who you sourcing?
It’s a local meme.
@red floyd O REALLY? EVER HEAR OF IMGUR? 😂😂😂
You’re not Downing Rules?
@fishfarm … I got tired of ruling. Just a dude now.
The Dude doesn’t rule, he abides
@Rallymanatee Welcome aboard … Maybe you’ve been over here already but I haven’t said hello yet. Yes I try to abide.
Ah, didn’t realize at first you were DR.
Doubl D just hit the up button… nevermind.
Yup. That’s pretty much all we’ve got to work with on this one.
Obviously anyone can be mad. And sure we can accept Arte meddled And be mad about that. But we still don’t know the prospects That were involved so we can’t really know whether we really should be upset about the trade.
Your last line rebuts your whole argument.
When the information necessary to prove a man guilty or innocent is in the sole control of the accused, it is proper to infer the evidence would prove the person guilty. This is a civil/social issue, not a criminal trial, so Arte isn’t entitled to 5th Amendment protection.
Or just use the dummy test. If you are looking for a reason NOT to be pissed at Arte, take what ever reason you can come up with and end this statement with it; “Arte was mad and killed the trade. Maybe he……”.
Anything we can put in that space right now would be a total reach. I hate total reaching. I hate it when we reach to prove Arte only cares about 3 million sheeple. I’ll hate it if we try to stretch the facts we have now to somehow make this situation look better.
This is such a bad look for Arte, and the fan reaction has been so overwhelmingly against him, that if it were to be false there would have been (at a minimum) “leaks” from the FO in Anaheim via the OCR that would be giving the LAA side of the story.
Stirrups, this is the truthiest thing I’ve seen regarding the situation. Eppler seemed to be trying to plant the suggestion that the Dodgers were asking for too much, but if that were the case, he could have said that without violating any confidences or referencing any specific players.
Thus, it becomes more or less an adoptive admission by Eppler that Arte killed the deal out of a fit of pique.
The 2000s seem like just a dream. They do not feel like they actually happened. This franchise feels no different than it did in the ‘90s. My Dodger fan friends are back to their old condescending ways when it comes to the Angels. Complete dismissal. Except this time around I can’t really blame them.
Winning baseball will ruin his budget.
Can’t wait for the gitch rebuttal to this post.