Here is an explanatory article about the draft lottery today. As reported yesterday, the Angels managed to slide in under the luxury tax boundary. Tomorrow, look for the Rule 5 Draft. Do you think we might lose Adrian Placencia?
It looks like the Angels are going to roll with the catchers they have.
Jung Hoo Lee is now posted. He is an outfielder so he might not have that much effect on the pitching frenzy. Woo Suk Go is also posted. He is a relief pitcher.
It looks like the Braves are going to flip Marco Gonzales pretty quickly. Wade miley has a one year deal with the Brewers.
Dave Roberts says Mookie Betts is going to be the Dodgers every day second baseman next season. Hey! The Diamondbacks say they are aggressive too. They are interested in a full time designated hitter.
The Phillies extended their manager, Rob Thomson.
Photo credit: Rex Fregosi
Come on down Luis Garcia.
https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2023/12/angels-to-sign-luis-garcia.html
Big splashHardly a ripple. Low-leverage guy with middling peripherals.Sounds about right.
He was a disappointment last time he was here. I don’t know what else to say. Isn’t he just another mediocre re-tread?
………trAdition?
No?
He doesn’t even reach the lofty heights of mediocrity!
How aboutLuis left here and pretty much kicked ass every where else he went afterwards. So maybe our new found Pitching coaches can keep him way from those old bad Angel habits.
Career wise he’s done pretty good against most all of our division opponents . Except the Rangers. Whatever they do Don’t bring him in against Texas. they own him.
Well, hello again, Suck!
Hey, they are only over paying him by 3.35 million!
Well looky here Cashman can make trades and pursue Ohtani….
I wonder if Perry is broken?
Yankees To Acquire Alex Verdugo
https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2023/12/yankees-to-acquire-alex-verdugo.html
Or he’s given up on acquiring the Unicorn or Juan Soto so hes now officially commencing Plan B.
Was this a salary dump for the Red Sox? Cuz Now looking back at that Mookie Betts trade, that sure worked out really well for the Chowds.
I’m still celebrating Perry doing nothing.
Keep up the good work of no work my portly platypus. And if you do trade anyone, trade em for prospects baby. Bring on the kids.
I really hope the Padres stiff Cashman on Soto.
Here’s Buster:
https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/39049998/shohei-ohtani-secret-free-agency-mlb-dodgers-blue-jays
Self-interest much?
Media………..you must comply!
wow, that’s funny, by which I mean ridiculous.
I see 3 in this picture that wore an Angels uniform…….
https://x.com/Super70sSports/status/1731394992243982390?s=20
And another that sometimes fell asleep during the telecasts.
That Sparked my memory
sparky_anderson.mp3 – Spark Anderson: “I’ve always been fair when it comes to f***ing writers.”
This is out on BleacherNation. If we got Wetherholt at #8- I’d be so pumped. I don’t he’d stay at SS with Neto, but we’ll find a place. I was watching him in Arlington last year at the Big 12 Championship. I texted a scout friend of mine and said, “Write down this name.This dude can flat-out hit.”
https://www.bleachernation.com/mlb/2023/11/02/2024-mlb-mock-draft/
Yar buhno devrlap heem hurr durr dee draft no one.
honestly I’m more comfortable with you making the pick than Perry
Well, they’ve been doing pretty good lately. Neto and Schanuel look to have been great picks. And them seeing the value in O’hoppe and Moniak looks great too.
Any opinion on the depth of the talent pool for 2024 draft?
Looking through previous drafts, 2019 is shaping up to be a good one. Obviously not for the Angels.
Most of the top 10 have made MLB debuts or are close. Corbin Carroll getting picked immediately after we picked Wil Wilson is just a perfect encapsulation of the Angels.
Aw Corbin would’ve looked good in San Francisco after we traded him
If we drafted him, Corbin just would have been part of all the trades this past summer… he’d still have been in our system after a position change, battling injuries and his swing F’d up playing SL……..ALWAYS REMEMBER THE trAdition.
We’ve got guys coming out hitting. We’re just not developing all these pitchers and it’s killing us after those two pitcher drafts.
It hasn’t been long enough for most of those pitchers to develop yet. 2 years….
That was the second time, and I agree it’s early there. The previous time was 2019 and 95% pitchers and that has been abysmal. Only one guy up – and that was Davis Daniel who has pitched 12 innings.
The way our 2019 draft class (or lack there of) is going. Davis Daniel may be our best hope to actually generate any positive WAR .
Then again Maybe Ron Washington can turn Kyren Paris into a real major leaguer .
FWIW – Tankathon had our highest probability at the 8 slot.
It’s clearly a conspiracy
But we also had over a 60% chance of drafting 7th or better.
Damn
Stupid Perry
I have to admit though, that Oakland got hosed big time.
And the Royals.
*Lost Wages
So the Teams were in LV but the selection was in Nashville?
Thats dumb.
I think he means that Oakland is not Oakland any more.
We are not in Oakland, or Nashville.
We are in Kansas…follow the yellow brick road to the MGM Grand in LV.
Right across the street from the eventual new A’ss stadium.
What’s Louis Vuitton got to do with it?
I thought it was Leftover Veggies.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibXtb5GWD4g
Oakland’s owner got his gift with MLB approving the move to Vegas. They were not going to get pick #1 as well.
Was the lottery held in Ohio?
 🤔 
No, it was held in Sam Bankman-Fried’s office at FTX Headquarters in the Federal Prison facility in Brooklyn NY.
Bummer – #8 – I really wanted one of the top 3 to be able to pick up Kurtz, Wetherholt or Bazanna. Leaning towards Bazanna as #1 – but I saw Wetherholt and loved him. Best college hitter I’ve seen in a while. If one of those dudes can slip to us, I’ll be so pumped.
Since I have little faith in the front office I consider the 8th pick good enough. It prevents us from making a bad pick and being laughed at for years.
I’m a Trailblazers fan and will always remember we picked Greg Oden instead of Kevin Durant.
Without proper scouting the Angels are better off being hidden a bit at #8
Mike Jordan said hello Samuel Bowie.
Kevin Durant said hi to Greg Oden
Mike Trout said Hello to Randal Grichuk!
The Guardians know how to draft – they will make a good selection at 1
I vote to change the team name to the Buttercups
I thought we already did. Didnt you get the memo?
8th pick next year. We tanked for nothing.
We did not tank correctly
Tanks fer nuthin
We’ll get it right next year😀
We basically started in July ha ha.
And you guys want to do a tear down?
We couldn’t even get that right.
Dont worry the last time we drafted 8th we took Perennial all star Pete Janicki so theres that piece of goodness.
😂
This got me to look at the last few drafts. Mostly high school outfielders but also Josh Jung.
Kind of makes sense for a high school kid as the top college guys are going in the top few picks.
18= Rays
17= Brewers
16= Marlins
15 Mariners
14 Cubs
Angels got #8
And we get Buttercupped AGAIN.
F it Arte. Its not my Money lets spend a billion dollars on broken down Free agents
Baseball Gods hate us
The baseball gods don’t even know we exist
Dammit
Cross your fingers. Here comes the lottery.
Stoneman looks lost.
He’s clearly ready to declare himself a candidate for the presidency
Not sure hes old enough.
I think Ohtani signs where he signs. It’s rather like voting Republican anywhere on the west coast as your needs, thoughts and opinions are all zero sum.
I get the sentiment and understand why you used this analogy, but I’ll throw out a pre-emptive no politics warning here.
Understood, I should have included voting Democrat in Utah or Montana as an “OR” as it wasn’t intended to be political.
Since I went out to lunch, 3 former Angels signed… Devenski, Iglesias and Yates.
And Yates had the best Angel Career of the 3.
The last teams make perfect sense and it’s true Shohei never lied.
Blue Jays: he might be tired of America’s insults. Toronto does have some young talent. Whenever Shohei pitched over there it was a great environment. His reps might be pushing him to join another media market.
Cubs: one of the heritage teams that has old timey tradition and one of those rabid midwestern fab bases. They have one his friends and they’ve won recently. Plus there’s some young talent and a winnable division
Dodgers: the team he’s supposed to go to. His doctor is their doctor. Same region. Also a big fan base and a bigger market. All the competitive bells and whistles. Shoe in for the playoffs. They can support his career and health. Young talent and other stars. Probably who his reps want him to go to.
Angels: the team in his heart he’d like to stay with. He wants to win here. He has friends who like his quirks plus as a competitive player he wants to carry the underdogs. It’s unfinished business. But everyone is probably telling him no, so he would have to disappoint everyone .
I’m guessing he will seek advice from his parents, old coaches and if he has a significant other we don’t know about.
Also remember that the Blue Jays has Yusei Kikuchi, his high school Senpai. Some people think that Sho does not want to play with another NPB player on the same MLB team. I beg to differ. Remember how much he enjoyed playing for Team Japan in WBC.
One of the reasons why he hates media in general is they follow him constantly especially in the area of his love life. He used to be quite available in Japanese media/television, but ever since some TMZ type media started to hound him and falsely reported that he was going out with a TV personality, who is now a wife of Yuta Watanabe of Phoenix Suns, he stopped any appearance on Japanese TV. He did say long time ago that he anticipated to be married by age 30, but I think he is now ‘married’ to baseball.
The one thing that keeps bugging me on Ohtani:
His reps were huge on finding out how teams would accommodate him. Granted, start players have always had special rules but even by those standards Ohtani was granted pretty much free reign here.
It won’t be an issue this year, but will the Dodgers structure an entire team around Ohtani next year? How will the front office and fans react when he suddenly needs to skip his turn in the rotation or take a day off DH’ing because he threw a lot of pitches? Will they go to a 6 man or flex rotation for him?
I love Ohtani but there are some logistical challenges he presents. And I’m not so sure a perennial contender is going to be as flexible as the Angels.
With all due respect, there are so many teams already employing 6 man rotation (I counted 12 teams last year including Rangers and Asstros) at least part of the season, Doyers would be happy to oblige. It makes sense that all teams should consider 6 man rotation. Human shoulders and elbows are not constructed to throw 90 mile per hour fast balls more than 100 times in a short of period of time. Yes, 6 man rotation will not cure that, but it will lessen the load. Please look at how many NPB pitchers underwent TMJ surgeries after coming over to the US. I would say at least 75% of them have gone to the surgery.
Whoever signs Ohtani will also have to agree to allow him to opt out every 2 years (or even every year) AND no trade clause since he literally witnessed what happened to his teammate Trout with long term contract. If Doyers do not permit him the privacy he is accustomed to, he will be right back to Anaheim.
To me, this should not be very difficult. What’s important to you? money, winning, culture and environment, geography? We often can’t have everything. He’s going to get silly money wherever he goes and if it’s 100s of Millions, a few 10s of millions either way will not be noticed in his lifetime.
So, it’s winning or environment, or some combination. Geography could also be a factor. Basically, if winning is more important you pick the Dodgers and if environment is more important you pick the halos. Why would you go to any other team unless it’s only about the most money. The only other team that would be a possibility, might be the Giants. Environment is sort of all inclusive for accommodations, privacy, city and fanbase, manager, coaching staff, teammates, and maybe ownership and the GM.
If not wanting to be a celebrity and a rock star are important, there is no better place to play than Anaheim. You’ll get plenty of money, your teammates are good, and you know how you’ll be treated and accommodated. Unless winning trumps everything else, you play with Trout and the Angels and hope they’ll commit to getting better. I believe there is a reasonable chance that Artie commits to going over the cap if Ohtani returns.
I could be wrong but I believe Ohtani is doing his due diligence, which he should, and maybe realizing that there’s no place like home even if you’re not guaranteed to win.
I’ve certainly been wrong before though. otherwise, it’s the Dodgers.
Weren’t the Dodgers the one that gave the crazy contract to Kevin Brown with private flights and avoiding having to be at all games?
I have a serious question for all.
Ohtani is the GOAT according to some here, and I would ask how you came to that conclusion? Certainly, the last 3 seasons have been incredible for him, and he is heads above any player currently in baseball. But do 3 seasons of excellence the likes of which no one has seen, make the Greatest player in the history of baseball? ALL baseball? ALL time?
Wasn’t Mike the GOAT just a few years ago? And it the title of Greatest of All-Time is so transitory, does it really mean anything?
I’d say he’s had the three greatest seasons that I’ve ever seen. GOAT is so arguable… let’s see him do more of it.
I would argue that he has had the three most unique great seasons. You could say that the uniqueness of the three seasons makes them the greatest.
However, by pure on-field value these are not the three greatest seasons.
2021 = 10.0 BWAR
2022 = 9.6 BWAR
2023 = 10.0 BWAR
By comparison, Mike Trout has four comparable seasons.
2012 = 10.5 BWAR
2015 = 9.6 BWAR
2016 = 10.5 BWAR
2018 = 9.9 BWAR
I might not be that old but I sure remember Mike’s greatness.
Did Trout also pitch those 4 years because those are some bad ass WAR numbers for someone who only hits.
I think we have collectively forgotten how great Mike is/was.
There are also 6! Barry Bonds seasons over or close to 10 BWAR (11.9, 11.7, 10.6, 9.9, 9.7, 9.7
Willie Mays also has 6 seasons over 10 BWAR (11.2, 11.0, 10.6, 10.5, 10.4, 10.2)
And forget about Babe Ruth, who had 9 seasons over 10 BWAR.
There’s no argument he’s put up the 3 greatest all around seasons in baseball history. And against a level of competition that smokes the Ruth era.
I don’t know if the best 3 seasons ever = GOAT or not but they were incredible to witness.
Honest question. By what metric are they the three greatest seasons?