Happy Veterans Day everybody. Have some links!
Angels pitching prospect Coleman Crow is a Fall Star. The complete list of the All Stars from the Arizona Fall League and their respective rankings on the top 100 prospects list can be found here.
The Angels have a minor league deal with outfielder Aaron Whitefield. He’s a depth piece capable of playing centerfield.
Mostly Non-Angels Links
Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Bryce Harper won the 2021 Hank Aaron awards for the American League and National League respectively.
The Crashing The Pearly Gates crew voted on the National League Rookie Of The Year candidates.
Oh great! The Rangers are talking about spending a lot of money this offseason. Meanwhile, Seattle wants to help drive up the prices on the free agent starting pitchers. They intend to keep J. P. Crawford as their starting shortstop but they might pay one of those free agent shortstops to change position. For his part, Perry Minasian says he wants an impact starter but admits acquiring frontline starters is “very difficult.”
In general, Major League Baseball’s General Managers are allegedly not concerned about the possibility of a work stoppage. Although an anonymous management source predicts “two and a half months of pain.” The CBA on the 60 day IL? It wouldn’t be surprising.
The Mets appear to have settled on calling the new guy “General Manager” instead of “President of Baseball Operations.” Is the new guy going to be Adam Cromie? The list, as always, continues to shrink.
The Red Sox have made a multi-year offer to Eduardo Rodriguez on top of their qualifying offer. It looks like they want to hang on to that guy.
A starter and a closer from Japan’s top league are getting some attention. These guys have had good seasons over there. As always with pitchers though, it’s caveat emptor.
Carlos Rodon wants a multi-year deal says his agent, Scott Boras.
Photo credit: Rex Fregosi
Holy crap. They are proposing WAR based payment instead of Arb… that’s MY plan you MLB assholes!
https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2021/11/mlb-proposes-replacing-arbitration-with-salaries-based-off-player-war-totals.html
Yeah but the Players hate the concept. So who did you piss off at MLBPA?
Yeah that’s a performance based model which I love and players hate
What happens if you have negative WAR? Do you have to pay the team? I didn’t want to write that. I was compelled as if it were a script.
Because, you see, I know you wouldn’t have to. Moving on…
I see problems with this, though, since established players make more money than their value. Consider a player with similar WAR to Justin Upton. One player might make $28 million a year and another comparable player might make the minimum.
This is another issue I can’t affect so I won’t worry about it.
Isn’t this bound to be the case – as replacement player is a relative turn and can be considered a high baseline if it is tied to compensation.
Huge labor issue though – is one paid only for results, or is one paid for one’s accumulated experience, time and effort? Perhaps league minimum’s mitigates this to an extent, but the amount of years players put into their game, under team control for little pay (in the minors) means that these arb years are really the place where they can make a living out of this. Hard for players to take that away and replace it with only rewarding the upper echelon of those players that do make the show.
The arb years are where all the players would be getting paid by WAR, so if the player’s any good he’ll make more money than just arb salary
And if they are replacement level, they continue to make league minimum?
I get the upside – it seems unfair to pay Soto relatively little in comparison to Tatis. But Arb salaries do go up quite quickly after monster seasons (Bellinger, Betts) and many teams buy out those years. Isn’t WAR already a factor anyway (or the underlying stats)?
Or is this just a way to easily quantify things, so there can be less negotiation – pawn off value on the statistician, even though we know WAR doesn’t adequately value defense, catching, baserunning …
The way I have it in my pea brain league minimum is higher. So a player who plays for league minimum for 3 years and washes out still makes like 7.5M. But if said player has a 5 WAR rookie season he gets 2.5M minimum plus 15M in WAR right away. Generally speaking more players will make more money while they are young and be overpaid by less when they are old and shitty.
My goofy out my butt idea was slightly different. I wanted a higher MLB minimum salary paid to all rostered players. Then all players get paid the same amount of money per .10 WAR, veterans and rookies alike. This pay scale is set and rises on a schedule agreed to by MLBPA and owners every 5 years, say. So if .10 WAR is worth 300K and you’re Juan Soto you made 21.3M last year. Shane Beiber made 14.1M in his second year. In his first full season Justin Upton would have made 12M. Last year he would have made the minimum (say 2.5M) and over his career he would have made 98.1M so far.
Everyone is a free agent after 7 seasons. FAs can sign with anyone, for what ever amount of time, the per WAR rate is the same. But FAs get signing bonuses. Those bonuses are up to the team (there is still a luxury tax, but it’s on bonuses, the WAR payments don’t count toward it.) But this way, a rookie who explodes gets paid right out of the gate, while Albert Pujols gets a big signing bonus, but he barely got paid anything his last years here. Young players who burn out after 5 years but produced 3 total WAR still wind up with 5 years minimum salary (12.5M) plus 9M in WAR payments before they wash out.
Sure, there’d be a lot of things that have to be ironed out as regards injured players, value of middle relievers and defensive stats, etc. Lot’s of other details good and bad. You could tie revenue sharing to WAR payments… poor teams with good players can get financial aid but the money can only go to player salary…. maybe small market teams can be given bonus/WAR assistance to keep “franchise players” who want to stay, so guys like McCutchen can finish out in Pittsburgh…. lots of cool stuff teams/owners could figure out.
Ohtani wins Silver Slugger at DH. Not too shabby.
https://twitter.com/JonHeyman/status/1458832508422803456?s=20
I hope it was a productive meeting.
A lot of folks are focused on the Halo’s getting starters are rightfully so but I think it should be a mix of the pitching budget 60/40 with the bullpen. Leave enough room to get another bat as Adell and Jesus will struggle in the outfield. Or, put the impact bat at SS and roll with the kids.
A huge “Thank You” to all of you who have served our nation.
https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2021/11/angels-rumors-robbie-ray-eduardo-rodriguez-justin-verlander.html
Angels interested in pitching. And water is wet, the sky is up, and grass is green. I don’t think we need to be a rocekt scientist to understand that if you can throw a ball really well, the Angels should be talking with you and your agent this offseason.
there are lots of pitching options. 30 teams are looking for pitching and the obvious names will have the most competition. It’s not simply a matter of “Perry should sign Stroman”. The whole thing’s gonna have to shake out. We won’t know until the season’s been underway for a month whether Perry found the right guys so we might as well relax. Any stress we feel is irrelevant to what the front office is gonna do.
WILLIAM EPPLER chose Matthew Thaiss instead at #16 in the 2016 MLB Draft……
😠 😠 😡 😫 😭 😭 💩 👎
I wunder wut GGOMP and CB think about this debacle? What the hell were Eppler and Swanson thinking? A college catcher who can’t actually catch? I think Perry should fire anybody ASSOCIATED to that absurd draft selection TODAY!!! GOOD GAWD!!
And this is the guy the Cardinals took with their first pick in that draft…
&w=350&h=254
Matt Swanson still has a job because the universe hates you. The universe hates you because of these posts. Whenever anything bad happens to you, and you are wondering why? where was God? etc…. remember these posts.
Arte should hire him because he has the kind of credentials Arte likes ( CEO of Apple before Steve Jobs came back! A old incompetent dud ) meet John Sculley lll.
Our new POBO?
……does he know anything about pitching?
Since when has that ever mattered in a post Bud Black world?
LOL!!!
😆 💪 💪
He sold Pepsi for years. That’s a type of pitching.
“WE SHOULD HA DRAFTID DYLAN CARLSON TO BE TAYLOR WARD! MATT SWANSON IS A LIZARD PERSON! BILLEH EPPLER INSERTED A PROB TO MAH ANUS! ARTE IS ILLUMINATED! THE BANANAS ARE MADE OF PEOPLE! POBO POBO POBO GO GO CACHO!”
Damn, Merle Haggard should not try to hit those high notes, it really contorts his face.
Anyone wonder why we aren’t comparing Thaiss to Zach Collins, Blake Rutherford, Will Craig, or Delvin Perez? Hmmm. (Seriously, even look at Mickey Moniak – the first pick that year).
Sure, jump to the compensatory prep pick, and the Cardinals second pick of the draft (after Delvin Perez), after an ok season.
Or maybe we should feel lucky he is only suggesting we missed on this 22 year old Cardinal, and not suggested we equally missed out on Bo Bichette, Shane Bieber, Pete Alonso, and Corbin Burnes.
(Also, you do realize you are basically pining for Taylor Ward numbers – a guy we already have on the roster).
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing
Say it again, y’all
The Angels MLB draft, huh (GOOD GAWD!!)
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing, listen to me, oh
If the Whitefield and Velasquez pick up are indications, we might be looking at less expensive ‘competition’ models for SS and 4th OF, rather than FA signings. If that means more pitching, I am ok with this.
Please, yes, just get moar pitching. That’s all I care about really. Replace bad innings with better innings. That is the key to happiness.
To all whom have served…thank you for your service.