So far the only major free agent that signed was Aaron Nola who re-signed with the Phillies for seven years at $172 Million. The Atlanta Braves and Los Angeles Dodgers both made a serious run at him and came up short. I wanted him for my IIWPM article. You snooze, you lose. Maybe Reynaldo Lopez is a major dude. He signed with the Braves for three years.
Lance Lynn signed for a year with the Cardinals while the Mariners traded away Isaiah Campbell to the Red Sox for Luis Urias. Paul DeJong got his one year deal with the White Sox.
The Dodgers are supposedly interested in trading for Mike Trout. Of course, that doesn’t necessarily mean that Mike Trout wants to be a Dodger.
There is actually a plan for the signing window of Yoshinobu Yamamoto. He will probably be the star of the speculation articles this week.
The Angels were not represented at the private workout hosted by free agent reliever Yariel Rodriguez on Saturday. Maybe they weren’t invited. Rodriguez was released by the Chunichi Dragons in October. He pitched pretty well as a starter for Cuba in the World Baseball Classic.
Pirates right-hander Johan Oviedo is the latest pitcher to have Tommy John surgery.
Noah Syndergaard still generates a lot of interest on the free agent market.
Former Met Ron Hodges passed away. He was 74.
Photo credit: Rex Fregosi
And we got ourselves a French Canadian via Miami who I think will be a great depth piece in the minors.
https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2023/11/angels-sign-charles-leblanc-to-minor-league-deal.html
I’m bummed we missed out on Gray. I think he was exactly one of the pitchers that we could have realistically signed, and the commitment was pretty fair and not dangerously long-term.
3 years/$75 million for a 34 year old that would require us to lose our 2nd highest draft pick and $500,000 of our international signing bonus pool?
I’ll pass.
Sort of agree. I’d rather splurge on a young guy who has true ace potential. That would be Yamamoto. So, Jeff’s Perry piece has the right idea. You need a true ace.
Are we bringing up Baldoquin and Maitan this year?
😂
Well, we missed out on Heyward again.
per sources,
Shohei Ohtani has signed a 9 year $500 million contract with the Angels ..
and then I woke up
My heart rate went up when I read the first four words: “Shohei Ohtani has signed“
Apologies 😔😔😔
Yeah, that was a dirty trick.
I’ve been at the point for a few years that I thought if Mike Trout wanted to go that I thought the Angels should trade him. I’m now at the point that I think it should happen for the good of Trout and the Angels. I don’t expect them to compete soon, and I’d love to root for Trout as long as he doesn’t go to the Yankees. I think he deserves to be in the playoffs and the Angels need to rebuild.
Why the Yankees ?
I mean, to me going to the Astros, Dodgers, Mariners or Red Sox would be alot worse.
I hate the Yankees slightly more than I like Trout or the Angels.
I usually root for three teams, The Angels, Tom Brady and whoever is playing the Yankees.
Not Necessarily in that order.
Really?
Brady?
Do you have New England or Boston sports sympathies??
I Mean, I HATE Brady.
I’m not really a Boston fan, I just think he’s the GOAT of football. Seven championships! That’s something to respect, and he doesn’t appear to be anything but a fairly decent guy so… yeah I root for him. Why the hate?
To me Brady is (like Jordan, although MJ never lost in Finals and Brady did SEVERAL times) a media and especially ESPN created legend.
I mean, who was it (other than the East coast SPorts Network) that decided that the GOAT has to be a QB ?
For me personally it is Walter Payton.
Or if we include defensive players (and why not?) BOTH Lawrence Taylor and Deion Sanders were FAR superior athletes and football players to Brady.
Media created legend? That is laughable.
If you don’t think big media has that kind of power to not only influence but to manufacture ideas then you are incredibly short-sighted and naive.
…and the Media fixed all the championships, scoring titles and MVPs?
You’re watching too much Steven A
Lol.
Don’t compare me to Steven A. Smith ! I hate that pompous blowhard. Besides, he is part of the lamentable manufacturing of sports narratives that I referenced at ESPN.
Can we just get back to hating the Yankees?
So Frosty, How do you feel about Tommy Lasorda?
https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/d7fad4f6-c485-468d-8383-f363172d1601
BevIntro.mp3 – Lasorda being questioned right before the Frosty incident.
Does everyone else get the feeling the Angels are hoping Shohei comes back and will do nothing with money until they know the answer? Meanwhile, they will lose out on other guys they can really use. Doesn’t it just feel like this?
Someone had mentioned they hoped Ohtani would sign early so we could build around him or build without him and not have to wait around for him to decide
😊
100%. I mentioned this over the weekend. The Angels are unlikely to do anything until Shohei makes a decision.
This is how we lost Torii. We had to wait around for Greinke, and Torii got impatient.
No, we lost him because Arte jerked him around. He low-balled him after saying he didn’t have the money and then going out and signing Greinke.
Actually, they whiffed on Greinke that year, but mysteriously found some money in the sofa cushions for Coke head Hamilton.
Yes, you are correct steelgolf.
Hamilton is who I meant.
They were waiting for Greinke to see if he would choose The Angels, but money won out. Meanwhile, Torri lost patience and signed elsewhere.
Arte should have upgraded Torii’s drink at Taco Bell and maybe he would have stayed.
I think it was Del Taco, but Taco Bell has been known to throw some welcoming parties. especially around the Holidays.
https://www.siouxlandproud.com/news/national-news/taco-bell-sued-after-alcohol-fueled-party-led-to-sex-in-la-area-restaurant/
Yikes, maybe that is why we missed out on Torii, because he went back to Del Taco but Arte went to Taco Bell…
Thanks, steelgolf. That’s what I remembered, but Arte did also make a lame lowball to Torii.
Oh yeah he did. Trying to save money for Greinke.
Again, it wasn’t that he lost patience.
Arte only offered him 5 million dollars, which frankly was an insult to a player of his caliber.
It was a combination of factors, I think.
Arte always likes hitters more than pitchers.
Thanks. My memory must be going. I forgot about the lowball.
…and that’s why this team hasn’t sniffed the playoffs in a decade
Yes.
However, I think a lot of teams are in the same boat. Yamomoto is free agent prize #2. Once those two guys sign I think a lot of dominoes will fall.
I’d have liked Sonny Gray. 3 years isn’t bad and we need somebody dependable. But I don’t like Sonny Gray enough to pass up on the opportunity for better arms.
Sonny Gray is exactly the type of pitcher the Angels need but never get. Sigh.
Gray would have been fine to me on a 3-yr commitment. A veteran to anchor the staff. Who is better than Gray? Stroman…no. Montgomery…no. Snell…yes but number of years required would cause me to pass. Rodriguez? Signing Gray probably would have meant that we avoid the likes of Montas, Servino and Giolitto.
Yamamoto.
But if not Yamamoto Gray would have been a decent alternative.
I just saw the money Gray is supposedly getting. 3 years and $75 million for a 34 year old. Ugh. I like the player. I doubt I would do that deal to get him though. Values are going to be really inflated this year. Forget Snell or Montgomery. They will want the moon.
It is a short commitment which makes it more palatable to me. 2-years at a higher AAV would be nicer. None of these arms are worth long term deals.
Had the Angels
committed 75 million to Gray, my guess is that the vast majority around here would be apoplectic.
If you wanted to prove to the world that you were committed to winning, you wouldn’t wait for Ohtani. You’d sign the players necessary to strengthen the team while still pursuing Ohtani.
The “wait for Ohtani” approach is all “smoke and mirrors”. We’ve already proven a team doesn’t win with just Ohtani, or just Trout, or even with Ohtani and Trout.
As much as I love Shohei, I’d much rather pay Yamamoto half as much and get a 25 year old rather than a 30 year old coming off his second Tommy John. We’ve already got plenty of highly paid DH candidates on the roster already. A half a billion to Shohei feels like we’d be making the same old mistake we always make.
You are using logic I see. Nice. I think sometimes Arte runs the team like he is PT Barnum. It’s all about creating the marketing and the buzz that comes from certain names. Of course, it may also be that we have no chance at Yamamoto and some chance at Shohei and the Angels definitely want the Asian market. We will see.
Let’s at least make a strong preemptive offer, since a lot of other teams are waiting on Ohtani as well. Nola already set the market to an extent. We know Yamamoto gets more years. I’m great with that.
While he does look intriguing, have to do a reality check. Yamamoto is not coming to Anaheim on the heels of the Ohtani post-mortem. The Angels are the Nippon Ham Fighters of MLB.
Hard to tell with this lame-ass organization but I do know that Maeda and Gray are off the table today. Two lower AAV viable, seasoned, starting pitchers who did not cost a leg and a half an arm. I really liked Maeda as a cheap upside play but knew the Angels would not sign him to keep their roster free of Japanese nationals until the Ohtani decision.
Someone did a thing!
https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2023/11/cardinals-expected-to-finalize-deal-with-sonny-gray.html
Pitching, Pitching, Pitching, and more pitching.
We did something!!
https://www.yardbarker.com/mlb/articles/angels_sign_former_dodgers_reliever_adam_kolarek_to_one_year_deal/s1_17108_39589608
https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/k/kolarad01.shtml
Can’t believe we missed this guy in our If I Were Perry pieces so far!
The Sleeper signing of the offseason!
His ERA is 5.67 and already leading the league in letting inherited runners score and for some reason, leads in team in appearances ……..and it’s only November.
So you’re saying he’s the missing piece to making the playoffs?
But he kicked our ass last year https://x.com/BeyondTheHalo/status/1728998628617019392?s=20
This is a similar move to a trade I proposed in my upcoming Perry piece.
The guy I shot for would be league minimum, but costed a prospect. On the plus side, he is pre-arb.
He was last an effective reliever in 2019. Sounds about right.
I have no problem with some team taking a flyer on Thor – I just pray it isn’t us.
The article does make a good point that some SP that would never get a contract will in the weak market , so we do have to think carefully about who we target, and consider the value of those SP we do have.
Maybe we can flip Andersen, if we can sign Yamamoto, Lugo, Stroman, or other SP targets.
Maybe there is even a market for Suarez, whose 8.55 ERA in 7 starts isn’t that far off of Thor’s 7.16 with the Dodgers.
Yeah, agree.
He’s done. Nothing left on the fastball.
I wouldn’t touch him with a 10 foot pole.
This notion that anyone else would take on Tyler Anderson is puzzling to me because the number of actual takers is likely somewhere between zero & zero.
Granted, I suppose we could eat the majority of his salary, but if that’s the case, we might as well hold him and hope for a bounce back season?