Good Morning Angels fans! Hope you are staying safe. December means having people tell you how cold it is and seeing snow on tv for some reason. Anyway, have some links!
Angels News
It is Nolan Ryan week here at Crashing the Pearly Gates! Someone who should have gone into the HOF with an Angels cap, but didn’t because of a stingy GM. I am so glad Mike Trout has that giant contract.
The non tendered deadline is at 5PM today, and the Angels have 11 players that need to be given a contract or booted. Vote yay or nay on the following.
The Orem Owls are moving to Colorado. They are a part of an independent league now so are no longer affiliated with the Angels. So far, the Angels only know their low A and AAA teams (or at least, very certain of).
Around Baseball
The city of Fresno has had enough of Manfred’s ultimatums and has threatened to sue. This is because Rob Manfred wants to demote the Fresno Grizzlies to the California league.
Trevor May has joined the Mets. Well, there goes that option.
SP market is heating up, Gausman, Minor, Morton, Smily, and Ray are all gone. The Angels need to get a move on! Hey, where’s Perry?
The Atlanta Braves have teamed up with the Cherokee to promote the Cherokee language. See, that is going to help them with this whole issue of name and mascot. Take notes Cleveland…
Tony La Russa is has pleaded not guilty for his DUI. He is going to schedule a change of plea now. I am so glad he isn’t on the Angels staff anymore.
KBO star Kim Ha-Seong has not been posted yet due to paperwork issues. This posting has been known for such a long time, how do you mess that up?
Elvis Andrus is getting replaced by the Rangers next year. I would laugh but the Angels have too much going wrong right now.
With all the minor league baseball shuffling around, the Twins get the team in St. Paul, a team that Bill Murray is part owner of. No I am not kidding, the Twins have a MiLB team next door run by a Ghostbuster.
For those who said that the Nike Swoosh wasn’t going to escalate into ads everywhere on uniforms, well, MLB has requested proposals for sleeve and helmet ads. Rob Manfred really, honestly, truly hates baseball.
Anything I missed? Post below for upvotes!
DUMPSTERS ARE OPEEEEEENNNN! DIVE DIVE DIVE!!!
Robles, Anderson, Milner, Andriese, Middleton non-tendered.
Well JJ, Casali is available. https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2020/12/reds-non-tender-archie-bradley.html
With addition of Iglesias and these cuts our 40 man is now 34.
Per MLBTR non-tender tracker, Middleton not tendered. No update on the others yet.
https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2020/12/mlb-arbitration-and-non-tender-tracker.html
Keynan Middleton has been non tendered https://twitter.com/maria_torres3/status/1334293001020039175?s=20
He was hard to justify for a tender, good call Perry.
He never lived up to that fastball that he has, but his mouth may have cost him with this team.
I thought he might be cheap enough to keep around but makes sense to clear the roster spot. He’s not hard to replace
Say hi to your new SS.
https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2020/12/orioles-trade-jose-iglesias-to-angels.html
I can appreciate this. Nice 1-yr cheap, effective stop gap. More importantly, pushes Fletcher to 2nd an keeps Rengifo/Barretto off the field.
Full trade detail not available yet, we may have sent one of them to Baltimore. Solid defender (the ‘ol run prevention), ridiculous unsustainable OPS+ in 2020, not too old.
Someone here had this trade in their pseudo Perry plan, I think.
Maybe Rengifo in the deal to acquire him? O’s save some cash and get more years of service from a MI?
If it’s Rengifo or Barreto than I say it’s a good trade. I’m not high on either, especially Barreto.
It’s weird how fast so many people soured on Rengifo. I can remember when people were railing against Soth for not playing him all the time. He had a bad 2020 but he may not suck. Hell, the Dodgers wanted him.
I’ll take his 2019. In a good line up he’ll have an 85-95 OPS+. His defense is good too. For two meh pitching prospects that’s not a bad trade especially at a 3.5M cost to the payroll. If that means an extra bullpen arm then good move.
A thought on the Angels being so quiet: the Braves front office is notoriously quiet and previous front offices here have been quiet. Minasian likely runs a tight, quiet ship.
The lack of news is frustrating but deals often come out of nowhere for the Angels, unless it involves a Boras client and his mouthpiece Heyman leaks it.
Brian Goodwin non-tendered by the Reds. Hmmm. Decent amount of angst for the return on that trade, largely due to his club control.
I wouldn’t mind a reunion. At least it gives Perry another option for the Adell seat warmer/4th outfielder role.
I’d take Goodwin.
Goody and Schebler in the org would give us a really solid depth chart in the OF. Both can play all 3 positions, both are fairly fast, both are lefty, and both can hit that .800 OPS area. Plus T Ward and Walsh able to fill in too. I’d be happy to get Goody back for a cheap price and keep Naughten to boot.
Today’s the big day. The dumpsters will be filled and opened up for diving. Limber up those eyes for rolling, bookmark b-ref so you can look up names you’ve never heard and buy a bag of lozenges for those high pitched complaints about championess. This is actually a big area of opportunity for Perry though. Say he manages to get a back up catcher, an OF option and a solid relief arm off the scrap heap. That’s enough holes filled on the cheap to spend an extra 5 or 6M on a guy like Mike Fiers or a couple pen arms like Tony Watson and Steve Cisek, so here’s hoping Perry’s good at going cheap.
And please, wear your cup.
On Rosario, even though he cleared waivers, Schebler and Ward will be fine out in RF. Spend it on arms.
I keep looking at catching and relief. Two makes really intrigue me: Curt Casili, catcher for the Reds, and Alex Claudio, lefty for Milwaukee.
I think both stick with their current teams but both would be nice here.
I’d be pretty surprised if Caseli isn’t kept. They probably would have found a trade partner for him if they’d intended to waive him. Plenty of teams can use an upgrade at C2 and would have at least given up a relief prospect for him or something.
Well, I was wrong. They non-tendered Caseli…. so there’s the first guy I really hope Perry goes after.
so here’s hoping Perry’s good at going cheap.
I’m pretty sure this was a prerequisite
Jeff wrote:
“Think about this: The Winter Meetings are in a few days and we still don’t know if there will be a DH in each league or where minor league affiliates will be.”
Nor do we know whether there will be Spring Training nor what a 2021 season will look like. Covid is at record levels and Spring Training is supposed to start in 8 weeks. Uncertainty abounds.
I presume Winter Meetings will be via Zoom.
The meetings will be virtual this year. No big deal. In recent years they just hang around in their hotel rooms texting each other anyway.
I agree the virtual meetings are no big deal (other than flight, hotel and restaurant revenue lost). But I think there is a good chance we are looking at a sIgnificantly shortened 2021 season with Spring Training beginning in Summer based on the expectation of a vaccine by late Summer.
Our own Brent Maguire had a tweet embedded in a story on The Atlantic today regarding international players. Nice work, Brent.
On Maguire’s list, I would also non-tender Anderson, agree on the others. Pena and Ramirez are still useful, and maybe tradeable later.
Luke Maile, a catcher, falling off the board.
Are you sure the Angels don’t also know their AA affiliate? This link suggests the Trash Pandas are the AA affiliate through 2022.
https://www.milb.com/rocket-city/news/angels-trash-pandas-agree-to-player-development-contract-295075134#:~:text=We%20look%20forward-,MADISON%2C%20Alabama%20%2D%20BallCorps%2C%20LLC%20and%20the%20Los%20Angeles%20Angels,clubs%20through%20the%202022%20season.
That article is from 2018 and with minor league baseball being in so much flux right now, we don’t know if that agreement is still in place. Or if Mobile is even still AA.
So far we’ve seen Fresno booted from AAA to A ball and St. Paul go from independent to AAA. It is crazy out there.
The article is old, but the little Angels icon in the top left corner with the words Double-A Affiliate appears on their current home page.
With MiLB in flux something might happen in the future, but it looks like as of today, the Trash Pandas are representing themselves as the Angel’s AA affiliate.
Here’s a pretty good link: https://ballparkdigest.com/200905261902/minor-league-baseball/news/affiliate-dance-2012
It looks like the Trash Panda affiliation is expected to continue but not confirmed. As are Salt Lake and Inland Empire. Birmingham is a ?, and the Angels pick up Northern Colorado in the new Pioneer independent league (the Orem Owlz, as you mentioned).
Good for Mobile. I’ve seen the “expected” thing, too. Crazy what is happening to the minor leagues.
I haven’t seen any news specific to the Southern League. That could mean it is staying as is, but it could also mean Manfred is focused on the A-ball changes (including the demotion of Fresno to A ball) and just hasn’t gotten around to making/announcing changes for the AA leagues.
Dear MLB,
Your current commissioner is the worst thing to ever happen to baseball. Please fire his dumb ass.
Thank you,
The fans.
Think about this: The Winter Meetings are in a few days and we still don’t know if there will be a DH in each league or where minor league affiliates will be. That’s a complete failure of leadership. Teams literally don’t know how to construct their MLB rosters or where to set up development for their minor league players.
Wow, good point.
But… but… GAME LENGTH!!!!!!
Michael Hermosillo has signed a minor league deal with the Cubs.
Cheap Arte
Angels FO doesn’t have a clue!
Great! Now we can stop pretending like he ever has a shot to make it as a 4th outfielder. (now that I said that, I’m sure he’ll be awesome)
It was clear when we starting playing Ward in RF that Hermosillo had no position left in LA. Adell/Marsh are too highly touted for him to have any position left with the club. I wish him all the best.