Fanpost: If I were Perry Minasian: A Mundane Offseason

Forgive formatting errors. It’s the right thing to do.

In order to rosterbate responsibly, guidelines for this exercise are as follows.

• Angels end-of-year payroll (based on actual payroll, not the luxury tax) shall not exceed $200 million, giving the GM about $45 million to spend during the offseason. More info on how we came to that figure ($45,011,906) here.
• Factored into that projected payroll are arbitration projections from Cot’s. These are based on MLB Trade Rumor’s estimates, so there shouldn’t be any discrepancies here.
• When possible, use contract projections based on Fangraphs or MLBTR estimates, as experts from these outlets have a better pulse on the free agent landscape than most.
• Trades must be as realistic as possible. One popular tactic among baseball fans on the internet is offering a bunch of players you don’t like in exchange for some you do. In reality, that’s not how trades actually work, so that’s off limits. The Baseball Trade Values site can be a good resource for a sanity check often times, but each team values players differently and their wants/needs/tendencies should be taken into account, too.

The Baseball Trade Values MLB Trade Simulator is incredibly flawed and inaccurate (you are not worth 13 (units?) Jo Adell) but nonetheless I do believe it to provide some insight into trades for non-stars in particular.

Here goes

Non-tenders: Junior Guerra has already been non-tendered. Phil Gosselin follows closely behind despite a solid 2021 effort

Trades:

Trent Deveaux and Brennon Lund for Rowan Wick

Wick has good stuff and peripherals as well as a significant amount of team control remaining, on the other hand he has had health and control issues. He is 29 and the Cubs love Angels outfielder enough (Herm and Ortega) that they take the infusion of youth and upside Deveaux offers in spite of his faded prospect star. The trade simulator has this at about even.

Jaime Barria and Denny Brady for Nick Ahmed, Luke Weaver, JB Wendelken, and 5M of Ahmed’s Salary

I came up with this idea before the Dbacks hired Brent Strom and I now think that they may be more inclined to hang onto young guys like Weaver to see if he can work on them. They get a set of young pitchers in Barria and Brady and dump Ahmed’s (considerable) salary. We land a solid reliever to deepen the arm barn in Wendelken, a lot of upside in Weaver, and improved up-the-middle defense with Ahmed.

Signings:

Noah Syndergaard for 1/21M

Can you imagine?

Andrew Chafin signs for 2/15M

Chafin was one of the best relievers in baseball last year and his salary could go much higher than this. I’ve looked at several other articles and this is the highest AAV I have seen so… Whatever.

Stephen Vogt signs for 1/3M

Watching Kurt Suzuki behind the plate did things to my brain that I will never recover from. Chad Wallach is probably a fine man, and a good defender, but I just cannot leave my mental health up to chance. The reports on Thaiss don’t enthuse me either and he could definitely be traded for a reliever.

Jon Gray signs for 3/45M

I look at Jon Gray and can’t really decide if I see Lance Lynn leaving the Cardinals or more of an Andrew Cashner type. Regardless, I am willing to gamble on the change of scenery for this guy. I think a more likely path is that the Angels will go with Corey Kluber for something like 1/9M.

Final 26-man roster:

Primary Lineup:

1. Marsh CF
2. Trout LF
3. Ohtani DH
4. Rendon 3B
5. Walsh 1B
6. Stassi C
7. Adell RF
8. Fletcher 2B
9. Ahmed SS

Bench:

Vogt C

Rengifo UTIL

Ward OF/ 3B

Upton OF

Starting Rotation:

1. Ohtani
2. Syndergaard
3. Sandoval
4. Jon Gray
5. Weaver
6. Suarez

Bullpen:

CP: Chafin

SU: Mayers

Middle Relievers:

Warren

Wick

Wendelken

Wantz

Quijada

Oliver Ortega

Closing Thoughts and Clarification: So, it definitely crossed my mind that Ahmed, Rengifo, and Velazquez are all similar calibers of player. Rengifo has the highest upside of them all and his DRS/ UZR suggest he may not be a poor shortstop after all. Ahmed is a terrific defender, however, and taking his salary was integral in my quest to acquire as many W-name pitchers as possible. Where we really went wrong is forgetting that there should always be a Weaver in Anaheim, and we got our guy… A guy who was a big part of the Goldschmidt deal, with untapped upside. I really wanted to add an impact bat, particularly a lefty, but the money just wasn’t right. I also wanted to add a pitcher on a longer deal but for some reason that seems to be a ridiculous proposition for this club. While I felt unable to add star-power, I think that this is a deep and competitive team that will allow guys like Bachman and Detmers some time to develop. Canning would be the first guy up, and that will absolutely be necessary. Apparently it would be agonizing for Yankees fans to see Andrew Velazquez play for us this year so that is one thing to consider. Guys like Stefanic, Brendon Davis, Oliver Ortega, and Coleman Crow would have roles for this team in 2022.