None of the Angels prospects won awards in the AFL this year other than making it to the Fall Star Game. Three of the big league Angels are nominated for the All-MLB Team. Fans can vote once every 24 hours from now until 5 P.M. (probably Eastern Time) on November 22. The three nominees are not surprising. They are Mike Trout, Shohei Ohtani, and Taylor Ward. Mike Trout has already taken home his ninth Silver Slugger Award. Edgar Quero was named the MVP of the California League. Not bad for a 19 year old kid. A couple of Angels prospects made onto all star teams in the Arizona Complex League and the Dominican Summer League.
After much ado about nothing, Joe Espada will remain in Houston for 2023. So will their first base coach Omar Lopez. The Red Sox offered Nathan Eovaldi a multi-year contract which he has not accepted as of the time of this writing. The Phillies are apparently planning to spend a bunch more this winter. They show special interest in Xander Bogaerts.
Pete Rose wrote a letter to Commissioner Manfred asking for forgiveness and another chance at the Hall of Fame. Down in the Dominican Summer League, Red Sox minor league pitcher Starlin Santos received a 60 day suspension for Stanozolol. Free agent infielder Luis Curbelo received an 80 game PED suspension and Marlins outfielder Deivis Mosquera received a 60 game suspension, also for PEDs.
A Babe Ruth glove sold at auction for $1.53 Million on Saturday.
Re-Signed Pitchers
The Astros signed Rafael Montero to a three year deal worth a little over $34 Million. For their part, the Padres re-signed Robert Suarez to a five year deal he can opt out of after three. The Braves re-signed Jesse Chavez. That one’s a minor league deal. Clayton Kershaw will stay with the Dodgers for another year.
Photo credit: Rex Fregosi
I, personally, will never forgive Pete and don’t think he should be in the Hall. He was Mike Trout to me when I was a kid and was a huge fan of the Big Red Machine, but he broke the most important rule of baseball and should not be in the Hall. Go ahead, try to change my mind. Not gonna happen.
Pirates targeting Michael Lorenzen
Cuz no one else is?
They were also interested in him last year along with the Rangers, Cubs and Giants before the Angels snagged him up.
Which means we’ll overpay to retain the injured wunderkind…..
Angels will sign Trea Turner thinking they have the World Series stars of the past with Turner and Rendon. This is the Angels way. Signing big names that are on the decline.
Maybe we can coax Kurt Suzuki & Howie Kendrick out of retirement as well?
I miss Howie
I thought that about Tyler Anderson. He has one good year so the Angels sign him to a three year contract guaranteeing regression.
Remember how incensed so many of you were when Arte failed to show you his championishness and move your needle by signing Jayson Heyward?
I do.
Good news, he’s available now.
I was not yet introduced to Halo Heaven at that time but I do remember, Cespedes, Heyward and Justin Upton were all sought after FA OFs that offseason and the Angels had a big LF hole to fill. I bet the posts were electric with cheap Arte vitroil, saying things about his mom when he settled on Craig Gentry and Rafeal Ortega.
Seriously, what did these FA OFs have in common? They stunk. None of them came close to one year of AAV.
Every free agent needs to come with the warning: “past performance is not indicative of future results”
The reason why we INTENTIONALLY & DELIBERATELY had MLB bad drafts after the 2011 Fox Sports Cable TV Deal was was to save money like La Cosa Nostra did in Vegas during the 1970’s (called skimming). We always went for guys who were under talented yet could play several different positions like Matt above or Taylor or Fletch or Brandon or Duffy or “Squid” or Rengifo and therefore we don’t have to pay them that much in arbitration. Also did the same with middle reliever type guys like Austin Warren or Andrew Wantz and high risk injured guys like Griffin Canning. Many millions times cheaper to pay Joey Wendle than Austin Riley or Andrew Wantz than Shane Bieber. Meanwhile a person who purchased a MLB team after winning the World Series for well under $1B 20 yrs ago can sit on it even in the middle of a MLB worst 7 yr consecutive streak of losing seasons and take the money and run because a $200M team payroll is just across the horizon!!!………..BYE!!!!!!
💪 💪 💪 💪
Wow. You managed to get almost everything you said wrong. Amazing job there The Joker.
You can’t save money on the draft, even back then. Sure, you can draft a player overslot to save on signing him to then spend the savings on lower picks. But an owner can’t just spend 100 bucks on the draft and then buy himself a pet tiger with the savings.
Matt Thaiss was not multi-position. In fact he was positionless when drafted. He was supposed to be a “quick to the majors” bat like your beloved Schwarber to help our Escobar led offense get better fast at the expense of being a defensive wreck.
The only names you list there that have been utility guys weren’t drafted by us other than Fletcher (sort of).
Utility guys who do manage to hit get paid in arbitration.
We didn’t draft Austin Riley or Shane Beiber because we didn’t draft Austin Riley or Shane Beiber, not because we wanted to draft Andrew Wantz in the eighth round three years later because we could see that Austin Riley and Beiber were going to cost a lot later.
If a player is going to get paid in arbitration it generally means they will be very good players, utility or no. If the Angels could foresee a player in the draft being an expensive arbitration player they would be massive geniuses in danger of being crushed under the weight of all their championship trophies.
What do paint chips taste like?
Stay edging. BYE!!!
Emojis.
Gotta love Boras trying to spin the lead square that is Cody Bellinger’s 18M+ Arb number and impending FA. Talents like him apparently almost never come around. He can do everything accept hit a baseball. He’s so very talented that all he needs is for his injuries to stop allowing all those powers to align. Thus, someone should pay the shit out of him.
Apparently smoking huge piles of weed has nothing to do with sucking ass at things that require your brain and body to react quickly. As soon as the injuries go away, look out MLB.
Oh, and if you’re about to drop some “wisdom” on me about “actually cannabinoids blah blah blah and I actually drive better high….” don’t care weed apostle. You like to get high, cool, just don’t make me sit through anymore BS about how it’s so much more than that.
Who wouldn’t want Boras negotiating their next compensation review?
“He can do everything accept hit a baseball.”
LOL
Tomorrow is the deadline for setting 40 man rosters for next months Rule 5 draft. The list of our players that are eligible is pretty weak. IMHO The top eligible players from our system are Kevin Maitan, Jordyn Adams, Jeremiah Jackson & Robinson Pina that would have to be protected or subjected to drafting by another team. Even though our 40 man roster is currently full there are excellent candidates for DFAing. (Zach Weiss, Touki-Touki, The Plumber, Janson Junk, Jhonathon Diaz, Kenny Rosenberg, Rob Zastryzny, Ollie Ortega, Jose Marie, Nash Bridges & Elvis would all get my vote)
Other well run teams like Tampa Bay have roster number crunches of real talent (Although TBprospects can be fools gold once they leave) that might warrant trade opportunities for us in the next 24 hours so stay tuned. We might actually have a honest to goodness transaction to talk about here
Man, cannot expose Adams or Jackson. If this happens, pepper line drives from my Jimmy Reese fungo stick off of Perry’s abdomen.
Do you really think another team would keep either player on their major league roster for an entire season?
Probably not but a better chance of them than Weiss, Z. and Plumber.
But we have to assume that at some point Perry will want to fill our 40 man roster with either players from the system ( Torres, Murphy, Neto or Joyce) that are not on the 40 man yet or players picked up through non tenders, Rule 5 jettisons, dumpster dives or free agent signings.
The last thing you would want is to expose JJ or Jordyn to a waiver claim from another team latter in the year when all they would have to do is add them to their 40 man roster.
Didja hear the latest? Once he fixes Twitter, Elon Musk plans to buy the Angels! I read it on Twitter from someone with a blue check by their name, so it’s got to be true.
Gotta love it. Before Musk everything anybody with a blue checkmark said was apparently stone cold verified by time and testing fact…. but NOW we must beware because people saying stuff on social media may be full of shit.
I would estimate 80% of the shit on social media is either completely false or the opinion of idiots.
…or both
Everyone have a Great Day today.
Just when I think that the Major League Baseball Hall Of Fame can’t get much worse off than they have been in the last 10 years they came up with new ways to be “Dumb”.
Here’s what I mean. Adding players who many years ago fell off the ballot for eligibility to be enshrined in what should be exclusive company, the voters, you know the writers, the ones who should be in the know, have enshrined many “Roid” users, but believe that they know best. But in addition to their knowledge there are others who seem to know best too. I’m referring to the many types of committees that elect “Old Timers” and Negro Players and past executives and umpires. You know the same committees that gave us Harold Baines as an all-time great. Career DH who played for 24 years and that supposedly made for great numbers to get in the Hall. Now they have come up with new ways to full up the Hall of fame by making it easier for some very good players, some of my favorites included to get in the HOF. Here are some players being considered.
Rafael Palmeiro
Albert Belle
Sammy Sosa
Mark McGwire
Manny Ramirez
Dick Allen (Or if you prefer, Richie Allen)
Dwight Evans (One of my favorite players)
Steve Garvey (Literally leaving a Gal at the altar on his wedding day)
Maury Wills
Don Mattingly
Dale Murphy
Evans, Garvey, Murphy and Mattingly had some very good careers no doubt. Previously adding playing such as Jim Rice and the afford mentioned Baines just really makes the HOF seem just less than special.
The standards for the MLBHOF compared to other HOF’s have in past history seemed to be higher standards. Not so much anymore. PED users, those even suspected of PED use should not even be considered. Hey at least Mattingly, Garvey, Wills, Allen won an MVP Awards with Murphy pulling down two of them. But until Rice and lately Baines, career numbers had to be higher, especially in the modern ERA of 162 games seasons.
Ok I’ll get off this for a while anyway, but it sure irks me to see the MLBHOF lower what should be higher standards for even some that I favor such as Lou Whitaker and Dwight Evans and Dale Murphy.
And even then, they couldn’t be bothered to put Bobby Grich on the list.
Dick Allen deserves to be in, as does Grich
Behind the paywall, The Athletic’s local dumbass Jim Bowden predicts we’ll sign Trea Turner (8 years/$264m), complete the team sale, hire Theo Epstein as CEO/POBO, and keep Perry on as GM under Theo.
Hahaha. Okay.
Lmao I laughed too
Well you know Jim Bowden is right just about NEVER. I’m surprised he still has a job remotely related to baseball.
I want a hot boyfriend who will leave me alone
Do Goats hibernate in the summer? Because we haven’t been getting many of your relationship updates this last season
I was singing to myself most of this year. For better or worse
All of that would be fine with me. Jim Bowden just makes up fairy tale situations though, like most of CtPG actually. Someone’ll guess right at some point.
Just found an article about how the Angels “Most disappointing 2022 player” is Jared Walsh. Maybe, but my vote goes to Antony Rendon. But that maybe just me. One played hurt most of the season, the other, well the other did not show up much at all.
Another piece had us going all out on 35-year-old IL pitcher, Jacob de Grom. Why? First Thor then deGrom, who is next, Matz. Pitchers are a crap shoot any more.
Both these pieces came from national publications from guys who supposedly know what they are talking about. Horse Feathers!
I’m not sure the DeGrom rumor was from a national publication. The one I saw was just musings on a blog. The same author predicted the Angels would win the WS in 2023. So…..yeah. Folks will publish anything for a few clicks.
I think I read that one on SBNation or ML Rumors.
is Rendon actually disappointing when each year is entirely predictable?
Well I would think if you have constricted blood flow to and from your heart that would be pretty disappointing.
Heart working at 70% while you try to do athlete shit? I don’t accept excuses. I demand a champion! Take him away.
I’m sure there’s a good Chuck Norris meme here, but I’m too GA to find it.
Ten points for the use of “Horse Feathers”.
Can’t we vote for them all?
Walsh, hands down. Rendon being injured takes you off the playing field so it is a different type of regret. Besides, I still like Anthony jumping in with his cast trying to play pitter-patter with some Mariner foreheads.
Werner Blakely was the only Angel prospect that did not look completely over matched in the AFL and he had a rough finish even though he was our lone representative in the AFL all star game