The annual migration to foreign baseball teams is in full swing. Kirk McCarty, recently released by the Guardians, will go to the SSG Landers of the KBO as long as he passes his physical. J.B. Wendelken signed with the Yokohama BayStars on a one year deal for $3.05 Million (including incentives) with an option.
The Dodgers met with Justin Verlander on Monday. This Dodger-centric article argues that some teams may not wish to break the bank for Aaron Judge because they want to save money for Shohei Ohtani’s impending free agency. On the topic of Shohei Ohtani, he won the 2022 Edgar Martinez Outstanding Designated Hitter Award yesterday.
Jose Abreu has a deal with the Houston Astros for three years at approximately $60 Million. The Reds signed catcher Luke Maile to a one year deal.
Coaching Moves
The Red Sox will hire Ramon Vazquez as their bench coach. The Marlins, in turn, will hire Brant Brown as their hitting coach. The Athletics named Darren Bush as their bench coach replacing Brad Ausmus.
Photo credit: Rex Fregosi
The night is still young and have a feeling that Perry will announce that the Angels have signed a 30+ year old southpaw from the Bakersfield Train Robbers or a RH sinker-baller from Gastonia Honey Hunters.
So no Milwaukee Milkmen this year?
I’m just waiting impatiently for the announcement that Victor Rojas is back haha 😅
Go for the youth movement – sign Correa for SS
He’d be the youngest player in our starting line-up in the field.
he’s younger than Fletch, Walsh, Ward.
Either that or sign Rodon.
You can never have too much pitching.
I think these are great articles from Jeff Fletcher about some insights into the minor league system of the Angels – focusing on major failures in the international scene, drafts and coaches/tech in place in the minors. Part 3 to come up still:
https://www.ocregister.com/2022/11/28/farm-failures-how-the-angels-player-development-system-broke-and-the-plan-to-repair-it/
https://www.ocregister.com/2022/11/29/farm-failures-part-ii-how-the-angels-player-development-system-broke-and-the-plan-to-repair-it/
Us Arte critics are finally vindicated .
We won, but at what cost?
i dont fault Arte much at the MLB-level (division titles! spending on FA!)
he whiffed on big contracts but he tried.
what he did at the MiLB level though was criminal neglect.
Agreed. I mean, he made some really boneheaded plays at the MLB level but at least he tried.
Those whiffs could’ve been largely mitigated with more homegrown talent, though.
Just tough for a GM to fill all the team’s needs through free agency with a limited budget due to those whiffs.
Fletch puts his big boy journalism pants on when a sale is pending? What an absolute coward. At least Blum can muster some criticism at a team he’s covering.
Not sure how this article series makes Fletch a coward. if he was really a coward wouldn’t he wait until the sale is consummated so that Evil Arte can’t still take his soul and press box buffet privileges this season?
I wouldn’t champion Sam Blum for a high school newspaper but maybe the Athletic is paying him at similar scale. The next time Sam Blum wipes the crumbs off his shirt and gets off his couch to actually research a story about what he writes about will be the first time. When has Blum done anything more than regurgitate the general zoom interviews the team puts on> All we typically get from him is his opinion based upon his “vast years” of covering baseball games.
Hell the reporting that goes on here at this site by the entire dedicated staff (and even by the recent guest member IIWPM posters) is 10 times better than Blum has ever done. Jeff did a waaay better job thoroughly interviewing Blum for COTPG than Blum has ever done with any of his subjects in the short time he’s been covering this team. If that isn’t the ultimate irony I dont know what is.
Ahh yes. Nothing like giving another guys dick a good long stare and then dropping down on my knees with my pocket ruler to measure it to make me feel all manly on the inside. Fletcher. What a wuss. He probably never even speaks truth to power or demands transparency.
Speaking of Sam, his piece today was as interesting but was good nonetheless- an interview with Thames.
They spoke of Adell among other things and thinking ……
Dr. Thames really has ONE job – teach Jo Adell how to excel as a MLB hitter.
Well how the hell is Thames going to do that when Jo is gets relegated to the great Salt Mines of Utah?
Anything new here that we don’t already know? Arte is cheap, Angels cannot develop talent, interational scouts and pool money lacking?
What’s crazy to me is how looooonnnnngggg it dragged on. OK, sure, have a phase where you are gonna lose draft picks because SPLASHES. But after a couple years, knowing you did that, why not have a plan in place to do tons of scouting and try to make the most of some drafts in the next “phase”? Or at some point. sometime. Yes?
Though it does seem like he finally got sick of his ass being on fire once he got PTP. Seems more scouts and analytics guys got hired, etc. Just jeez, what was it? 13 years?
Why it went on so long? Per Fletch’s piece
1. Early success picking Vlad and Bart made Arte confident in the FA path so wouldn’t spend on minors.
2. Dipoto finally convinced Arte to go for it after several years of trying. They went for a big international FA – Baldo.
If my scouts gave me Baldo as their best idea, I wouldn’t give them any more $$ either.
No YT video this time?
😂 😜
Touche on the last part! Baldo is forever a huge stain in Dipoto’s legacy here. He tried, tried hard, but god, what a huge whiff that was!!
So was Mark Appel with the Astros, and Mickey Moniak with the Phillies. So one guy should stop your whole organization from being any good at scouting and player development? Meanwhile he has Julio Rodriguez, Logan Gilbert, Cal Raleigh, and Ty France on his resume.
💪 💪 💪 💪
Were Appel and Moniak $8MM mistakes? Did they prevent their teams from signing foreign players?
Anthony Rendon, Josh Hamilton, Albert PUjols, defunding your own scouting and player development, drafting guys with no talent in rounds 1-4. So we became a utility role player factory……..GOOD GAWD LTBU!!!! BYE 😂 😆 💪 👌
GPD was working with Arte’s handpicked successor after Ed Bane’s firing (Rick Wilson) who never got another job in MLB, after Dipo resigned. Meanwhile this year’s AL ROY winner was Julio Rodriguez so he must know at least a little about scouting as was Kyle Lewis before him. Also Logan Gilbert where’s CB26 at heeee!! Billy Eppler got a massive shopping gift card and signed Max Scherzer, Mark Canha, Starling Marte, Chris Bassitt…..no way our owner was gonna allow that !
JOHNATHAN HOLDER PEOPLE!!! YAYAYAAAAAH!
Come on feel the noise. Girls rock the boys.
So where are the fireworks?
This signing is not official unless there’s some flashes and sparkles
I was late to the party, ha ha.
Actually I was a bit bored last night and new the morning links had already been scheduled. That’s the primary reason for the fireworks.
Garbage in, garbage out. Minasian is just rounding out his AAA staff.
mEOreeeoore PITTCERINNNNN!!!!
Our AAA staff will need some stability. I think quite a few of the AA relievers make stops there this year but the starters are not ready for that level.
By signing a guy like Holder, Perry is admitting we have no AAA level guys but not blocking anybody either.
Agree, Jeff When I see their age, yep…pegged for AAA. Nobody is expecting a rise to the majors.
Wow!!!
Hey, I finally recognize one of your pictures! Josh Hamilton!
Maile is a guy I kind of wanted. We definitely need another catcher.
I like O’Hoppe but hoping Stassi rebounds and O’Hoppe is ready and both stay perfectly healthy for the entire season is foolish. Exactly the type of foolish the Angels always use when building a team.
Jorge Alfaro was DFA’d by the Padres. I’d like to add him.
Fact of the matter is there’s a decent shot Stassi rebounds. He has before. There’s a decent shot he’s toast and we eat his 2024 salary.
But it is an almost certainty that we will need 3 or more catchers to get through 2023.
Yah. I am part of the Alfaro Interest Bureau. I remember when he was a big deal prospect in Philly’s big deal farm. He fizzled but could still be OK depth.
Stassi enticed the FO with a surprising season and Perry bit. He’s back to using the LA Times as a bat.
Yes, get Alfaro.
we’ll need more than two. Wallach can work as plan C but yes upgrade a bit more but to me, its not a priority for now.
one thing i would NOT do is trade Quero for anyone but a #1/#2-type starter. Keep that kid.
Thaiss is the wild card here. They can’t pass him through waivers as he’s sure to get picked up, but who’s spot does he take on the ML roster?
Perry has to be trying to trade Thaiss. He doesn’t have a spot here but maybe another team can give him some playing time and undo what our coaching did to that sweet swing that got him drafted so high.
Agreed. Quero is one of the few potential stars we have in the farm. Keep him.
At least let him mash at High-A/AA to drive up his value before jettisonning him.
Secret conspiracy theory.
Has anyone noticed that PTP seems to really like collecting players with hard to say Eastern European names? Is this EvilArte’s doing? Is he in league with Putin? How does Perry’s plan to sign as many players with the letter i at the end of their names as he can tie into DarkArt’s plan to make millions of dollars by not caring about winning AND foreign schemes to steal our precious precious previously the most untampered with elections in the near future?
Think this sounds ridiculous and crazy? Just use your eyes and open your mind to the truth. Petrika, Cishek, Wantz, Detmers, Wiess, Rosenburg, Junk, Stassi, Moniak, Zastryzny, Devenski…. looking pretty Warsaw Pacty…. plus we signed a guy named after the capital of Iran once…. plus a few Venezuelan players? We all know that Venezuela is basically Belorussia with sunshine, hand drums and snakes.
So what nepharious authoritarianism is DarkArt up too? Does it have to do with weird woodland sex acts and the Grays? Probably. I’m sure someone here knows.
Junk isn’t hard to say its just hard to get rid of ( Thanks again Brew Crew)
I think Abreu will be a bad contract the third year, but is an upgrade for now.
I’d like us to reach out to Milwaukee to see if they’ll take more junk we have for Willy Adames. Jo Adell anybody?
Sure maybe we can throw in Max Stassi & Anthony Rendon too.
Why wouldn’t the Brew Crew take that deal?
I’m not the GM. Let him figure it out. I’m saying he’s a good trade target and Milwaukee is dealing.
I like Adames (and Burnes of course) to the point that I even went and looked at what some Brewers internet geniuses and commenters have said about the near future of the team. Maybe he’s on the market?
But nope. Not really. The sense I got is that Woodruff and Burnes, along with Adames have two years of team control left and that this next season will be the last “good” year for the Brewers before the next period of famine begins.
In fact, the “smart” plan I saw a couple times was packaging Yelich with one of those three. At 26M a year for the next six years he’s an overpriced 2-3WAR player, but doable for a lot of wealthier teams, especially if they get someone like Adames or Burnes next off season.
The other 2 of that three will be traded for AA/AAA/MLB youngsters to go with all their good young outfielders. Looked like their thinking is to draft college pitching and IF and trade to fill those prospect gaps even more, kinda suck in 2024-25 as these players gel. Then be good again.
I’m not a Brewers fan, so i don’t know, but it sounded like the FO’s attitude was to make one more run at the play offs this year with all this young pitching they have, then trade some guys and reset. So probably no Adames for us.
Same. I like the Brewers but only follow them casually.
They’ve built a really competitive team and so far they’ve only traded guys with obvious replacements, like Renfroe. So they expect to be good again this year in a division that is winnable.
To move Adames they would need to be bowled over. However, if they are well out of it in July, they are smart enough to trade him for maximum value.
I think they’d look for some near MLB ready pieces, though, because they still have the young outfield and pitching.
I saw some guy online (was it the SBnotso site?) that had used the sim that is not to be believed and was basically trading a Woodruff and Yelich to a contender, then Burnes to another team for what looked like their top 2 pitching prospects and two pretty good IF prospects. Basically the same trade to another team for Adames….. there was some other trade in there too. But he basically traded a bunch of talent at 1-1.5 years of control for for 9 of some teams’ top 10 prospects (one of those pitchers was high up on the MLB list) and escaping Yelich. The plan was to build around 5 good OF/1B prospects, Peralta, and solid pen arms that they have already. The prospects were all AA/AAA.
It made pratty good sense. I’d buy it more if their Farm wasn’t pretty thin…. Jansen Junk just landed there at #14.
problem is 3 of their top 5 prospects are outfielders, one or two of which will be on the team for a majority of the year
David Courtney passed away a decade ago today.
https://youtu.be/mHgiE0DVYKc
Who in the actual F was wearing the 27 jersey????
Wow. I’d forgotten all about Michael Ryan. He played for the Twins before he played for us.
Really he didn’t do anything memorable as an Angel. However, he did provide one of my favorite Spring Training memories.
I was watching the Angels at Giants that Spring. The Freak on the hill. Anyway, these drunk guys were riding Ryan all game. Just talking tons of smack about how he was heading back to the minor leagues.
Ryan made a great sliding, twisting play right in front of them. He popped up and without saying a work under handed one of the guys the ball.
They finally shut up.
And now he lives in infamy as the answer to the trivia question: Who is the only player in MLB history to wear jersey no. 27 between two Baseball Hall of Famers?
Was this between 2010 and 2012?
2010.
but thats not between 2010 and 2012.
2011 i see MNT
Erick Aybar leading off! Miss that guy. He was Big Daddy Vladdy’s compadre.
JERED WEAVER!! Thank you for plunking Seager.
Jered, hit me up for some brews, my credit card will be affixed to the bar. Let’s go Halo’s.
Nice boom or bust article. Thankfully I don’t see the Angels being in on any of those guys with the exception of the Japanese transplant. Hopefully he won’t get the type of money bantered about there if he pitches for the Angels. His stuff could be reminiscent of Nomo but we will see.