Good Morning Angels fans! I hope you enjoy today. Have some links!
Angels News
Mike Trout was part of the GM hiring process to bring in Perry “the Platypus” Minasian. Which makes me feel a little better about it.
Good News! Arte Moreno has stated that the Budget won’t go down this season. Nothing about it going up though.
It is Darin Erstad week this week at CTPG, have a fanshot to write about him? Give it a go!
Around Baseball
Theo Epstein shocked everyone by stepping down from his Cubs FO duties starting on the 20th of November. It is not to leave for a new job, but to take the season off. He is looking to be an owner though.
With the Cubs open on trading basically anyone, and with the mastermind behind the Cubs taking time off, now would be a good time to trade with the Cubs.
Ken Griffey Jr has bought a piece of Seattle’s soccer team. Watch them make the playoffs before the Mariners.
Ohtani’s former teammate is likely to be posted by next week. I wonder how that will go…
Kim Ng finally getting a GM job has inspired hope in girls in baseball in general. A reminder that Japan has a Women’s Baseball League. Come on MLB, NBA supports a WNBA, why can’t you do the same?
Craig Edwards from Fangraphs did an AMA Tuesday on r/baseball. He brought some insight on how the site is doing, and that Scott Rolen should be in the HOF.
Kyler Murray who spurred the A’s to go to the NFL, has not ruled out a return to baseball. Wait I thought he was already playing Baseball in secret…
Cody Bellinger had surgery on his shoulder. This injury was caused by the way he celebrated in the World Series and he could miss 10 weeks.
Anything I missed? Post below for upvotes!
Ex Mariner caught using steroids, surprise, surprise. Texas, Seattle, and Boston and New York City the steroids just keep coming. Second offense the penalty in this case is 24 million and you ask yourself WHY? Stupidity is all you can think. New owner, in the same city as the Yankees, what a God send to the Mets.
Even though Cano isn’t getting paid, doesn’t his salary still count against the cap?
“Ken Griffey Jr has bought a piece of Seattle’s soccer team. Watch them make the playoffs before the Mariners.”
Guessing absolutely zero research was done on that team and its history prior to typing that line up.
Sounds more like an indictment of the Mariners than any real assessment of the soccer team.
https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2020/11/robinson-cano-suspended-2021-season-peds-mets.html
Christmas comes early for the Mets.
Hope it was worth 24 mil.
Wonder if they will try to void the rest of his contract? That is a lot more than 24 mil.
He’s a FA in ‘24, i’m sure they’d like his remaining 48 million back as well.
24M a year goes a long way to bringing Bauer in for them.
Do contracts of suspended players still count against the cap? So yeah, they’re not spending $24MM, but they don’t have an extra $24MM to spend?
Well, I was thinking along with steelgolf’s suggestion of the contract being voided. But I don’t know about the cap implications. Is that a concern for the Mets (I know nothing about their finances).
Hey there are a lot of guys like Rolen who could be in, but if guys like Dewey Evans and Dale Murphy and Steve Garvey are on the outside looking in because they, according to the writers, don’t belong then Rolen is joining them. It would seem the the Writers likes Rice but not Dwight Evans only because maybe Evans didn’t hit the magic numbers of 3000 hits or 1500 runs or 1500 rbi or 225 wins or 3000 Ks or 500 HRs.
Rolen will get in, he’s around about the 10th best 3B in history. Evans will likely get in too, he’s ahead of some recent HOFers like Vlad and that bodes well for him. Murphy and Garvey just weren’t that good. 3000 hits, 500 HR, 300 wins etc were never the bar, they would just about assure HOF before steroids, but there have always been plenty of players who got in without them. A guy like Evans just played when there was a huge crop of good OF. He’ll get in eventually though.
Why won’t the MLB do a “WNBA Baseball”? Well, first, the off season in the MLB isn’t a time where ladies can play ball outside. More importantly, have you been to a WNBA game? Do you watch the WNBA on TV? Or are you just really into spending someone else’s money on your virtue signal? The WNBA sucks. It is really lame. Feel free to prove me wrong by swearing to “enjoy” 20 WNBA games on TV this coming season. The WNBA also really sucks at making money, in fact it loses money, so it is actually good at losing money. Why would I want my favorite baseball team to piss money away on a women’s MLB team instead of pitching?
I like the idea of a ladies league. More baseball, more baseball fans, sounds good to me. I just don’t think the MLB should have to deal with it. Heck, maybe some of the places that lose their MiLB teams can start a ladies league. They have facilities ready to use, and honestly I bet a good ladies team will be more of a draw and get way more attention than the 70th middling A ball or indie league team. But I bet 90% of NBA owners silently wish they didn’t have to prop up a WNBA hardly anyone cares about and I don’t see why MLB owners should want to do he same.
Nice call on minor league parks being used to women’s baseball. Minor league parks serve as community centers as much as baseball factories. Kids like me would still go to the old Single A park a few nights each summer with the family, I’d bet.
If I had a local women’s baseball league to go watch, i’d be there all the time. Sounds like a fun community to be around.
They could even keep the teams limited and just rotate through AAA stadiums. A traveling league.
I grew up going to plenty of single A games. Can’t tell you who won or lost any of them. Can tell you it was awesome hanging out with my grandma and cousins.
Places like Burlington that will lose their team would probably support a women’s team. Fresh cut grass, cold beer, only game in town. Traveling league is a cool idea too.
There are few better atmospheres than a ballpark.
They could also do it regionally, travel through cities when an MiLB team in on the road, set up shop in voided out MiLB/International league stadiums so weeks, then have the top 2 teams from each region (for example) meet up in an MLB city with good weather and no team in the post season for a national championship tournament. Have twelve teams battle it out all October.
There’s lots of cool ways they could do it without the MLB getting sucked in and eventual crying over how little the “women’s MLB” gets paid compared to the men, etc. Let em do their own thing, make their own money, and pay themselves. They may even come up with a much better business model than the MLB/MiLB.
I don’t even enjoy the NBA so…yeah.
I think it kind of varies by sport though. For example, I will watch the USWNT in international competition all damn day and expect to be more entertained and satisfied in terms of performance than the USMNT. I don’t really watch much regular season soccer, but I could see supporting a good local women’s pro team about as equally as a men’s one. I’d assume the same for women’s baseball (not softball, which I know has been tried at the pro level…it’s just not the same game).
Nice addition to the mobile site
You can now make a comment by clicking on the comments button on the left. Takes you straight up to the comment box up too. Noice
Regarding the Theo news: I’m really interested in swapping Upton for Darvish now.
Or something along those lines.
NTC?
No Trade Contract.
NTC is a problem, coupled with the fact that this trade is kind of a pipe dream. Darvish was good last year, and the Cubs want to dump salary. Why would they trade a good pitcher for Upton?
They are getting ready to dump Schwarber to save money. It is unlikely they would want to pay Upton.
Late reply, but I was dreaming under the assumption we’d eat a bunch of the money involved. And to your other comment below, we could also include more pieces on either side. Just think Darvish (or a similar swap) is a good target for us given the increased demand for Bauer and our perceived financial limits.
Maybe we could get Darvish if we did a bigger trade…. say get Darvish and Kimbrel (who we’d have to pay) and Rowan Wick (good pen piece) in some sort of trade, maybe they take Upton in that trade if we pay a chunk of his contract while relieving them of a lot of salary.
What I’m thinking is to wait the year that Theo wants and offer him PoBO next year
Wouldn’t hate seeing something bold or dramatic from GM PM in the next few weeks. Shake things up.
Let’s hope GMPM brings too much good stuff.