While everyone was watching the new of the Ohtani jet to Toronto (that turned out to be carrying Robert Herjavek from Shark Tank) the Angels traded David Fletcher and Max Stassi to the Atlanta Braves for Evan White and Tyler Thomas.
Evan White was a touted prospect but is an oft-injured minor league 1B who will be 28 years old by the time opening day rolls around. Nothing to see here but a salary exchange for the 32-year-old Stassi. The Braves are spending $14.5 Million with this deal but dumping $8.5 Million. A bargain basement score for Perry Minasian can be added to John Carpino’s Thrift Village for the holidays!
Tyler Thomas is a relief pitcher with some upside. He turns 28 three days before Christmas and was just selected in the Rule 5 draft by Team Tomahawk from the New York Mets. He’s a lefty out of the pen.
This is a gutting of two recent mainstays on the club for some peripheral depth and extra cash for Angels team president Carpino. Weird day to pull the trigger but proof that smooth narratives only happen in hindsight and on Netflix.
Remember that time or a hundred when Kayo implied that Ohtani would reluctant to take 500 million for cultural reasons? Lulz
We all belong to the Verde Culture in the end. I don’t begrudge Shohei, either.
Kiyo, I’m just “breakin’ balls” here. You’re cool and I hope you continue to drop in and chat.
Best of luck to Ohtani. Dude is the man. Hopefully Angels fans don’t boo him.
I won’t root against Ohtani which de facto means I won’t root against the doyers per se.
Frankly, I want to see the best baseball player EVER on the biggest stage. He’s that special.
I will why would I change past practices.
We are F-ing stuck forever with Renny. This team never for some reason understood what they had in Fletcher. Burn it all down and rebuild it. Sell the team you ass Arte. Holding on to Shohei was the dumbest move ever to be made by the Angels.
Wishing Ohtani the best. Good luck and thanks for the mammaries
Now Perry can get to work. Thank you, Shohei, for choosing the Angels and for giving us those many thrills.
FUCK!!!
I guess I knew it was going to happen but I still hate that he’s a dodger. Mofos. Hope they are hamstrung by that somehow.
The saga is finally over.
The amount is even larger (worse) than I ever anticipated.
Good luck to Shohei. Now we can all finally move on.
lol
“Shohei Ohtani’s deal with the Dodgers is for 10 years and $700 million.”
https://twitter.com/JeffPassan/status/1733579104916492574?t=oFfL6_AAe1VMDD93SWzeCw&s=19
That is an insane and inane amount of money. I love Ohtani like nobody’s business but that can’t be good.
I wouldn’t actually have been happy if we gave him that deal. He will be 31 next year and he won’t pitch again for at least a year – if ever. That is ridiculous money for a 31 year old DH who won’t even be playing a position.
But I HATE that he is a Dodger
As much as I love Ohtani I have to agree with that statement.
The main point is that he is not pitching now and we really don’t know if he’ll ever pitch again. IF he was a healthy pitcher you might be able to justify that… but still….
Now official :
OHTANI TO DODGERS.
MLB.com | The Official Site of Major League Baseball
Ohtnai changed his profile on Twitter to dodgers????
I know this is a business and there’s not much room for sentiment, but I feel bad for Stassi having to be so far away from his wife and tiny little baby. I’m not sure in their case, but it is likely that a baby born at 1.5 pounds has ongoing medical complications. It will be tough on their family having Max gone so often.
So now that it’s official that Fletch is gone, time to seriously upgrade!!
💪 💪 💪
Still tootin’ just one tune, huh Toots?
Still waiting……
Speaking of waiting, I’ve been too GA to finish mine but if I never get it done I should mention the key adds would be Stroman and Wacha
It will be impossible to replace that diminished speed and .300 Slugging %….
I keep pondering this and I can’t help but think this means we’re out on Ohtani and we’re going to simply see moves like this plus a few token short-term pitching deals to signal to fans “we want to win.”
What about Granderson ?
I’m guessing Syndegaard, Bumgardner and Greinke. Maybe another Jamie Moyer year? (No more than 4 year deals of course.)
Is Noah totally washed or is a decent bounce back candidate in 2024?
I’m guessing totally cooked.
Is he available? Would it put us out on Wilson?
Can he pitch?
Is he available?
Yes, 10 years for 300 million. Mostly differed.
Not sure how dumping 2 below average players signals anything regarding the Ohtani sweepstakes.
No signal to me other than to wonder how the Angels were duped into giving extensions to Fletcher and Stassi in the first place. Angels need to change the mix-up on this roster
Just two of his best friends might affect his decision.
Unless they sign Machete.
The 40man crunch is a real thing and we’ve picked up a high ceiling player in White while also picking up some cash for the 2025 class. The depth chart behind Schanuel is pretty small and White’s glove helps a lot. I think Wash really does value defense. With Fletch gone, it looks like Rengifo will stay, and trading out Drury at the deadline will bring more back for the future.
This really is a 2025 move for salary purposes. I just don’t see us paying for the FA in this years class.
It is absolutely a high-ceiling move. I can’t see Wash caring much about a defensive first baseman unless they still see big potential in the bat. But, why does this feel like a precursor for another move that’s much bigger? They say they are not thinking catchers, I don’t buy it.
O’Hoppe and Thaiss at the league min with control. With good coaching on both, I don’t see the need at that position.
It’s all about pitching now
You’re probably right. This might be a “let’s get these guys reps” and see where the dust settles. I’d imagine a lot of pitches getting called from the dugout. It’s likely we won’t look much different come spring (other than not having the best player in baseball and picking up a few short-term pitching deals), and we will dump at the deadline. Sorry, Mike, we’re a minimum of 3 years away, but likely more as our minor league is not bustling with game changers.
But we have Jack Shit in the minors for depth ( not sure about his framing abilities) and our only real catching prospect we gave away During the disastrous deadline deals . Perry needs catching in the minors that can be added to the 40 man to give us options . I doubt we’ll carry 3 catchers ( even if Ohtanis gone) so Relying upon O’Hoppe coming off of last years subluxation surgery and Strauss who’s still learning to catch but ran out of gas early is foolhardy
It would sure be nice to still have Quero.
Yo También quiero mas receptores
ChatGTP confirms this statement.
This is “absolutely a high ceiling move” just like bringing on Touki was a high ceiling move.
The transactions over the past week are typical of Perry’s tenure as GM. Over his entire career as Angels GM, Perry Minasian has spent $124,150,000 on major league Free Agents (not including future contract years) and received 3.8 WAR back. 32 million dollars per WAR, compared to league average of 5-8 million.
It no surprise his record as the Angels GM is 223-263….and that’s WITH Trout and Ohtani.
If this was a typical Perry Move week he’d be paying Garcia and Cimber $30 million right now .
This one feels different of course that will change when they give Mike Clevinger a one year $27 million contract
I think it goes beyond 2025. At least I hope so. I like Gitcho’s idea on if IIWP. Trade the movable prices we have; Canning, Sandoval, Moniak and Ward (likely worth dookie) and help reconstruct the farm. Go sign the likes of Duvall, Lauer and other low tier FAs to fill the void until the young players take hold. Likely ‘26 to ‘27.
The longer this team fights the inevitable, the longer the trough is.
You are correct regarding the 40 man roster. They have no room to add any players. One available open roster spot if I am correct. They needed to move Fletcher and Stassi just to have a place to put 2 of the relievers they just signed. They have Cabbage, Paris, Soto, Stefanic, Adell and Adams, taking up 6 slots, along with a bunch of pitchers. Some of those guys are going to have to be traded or DFAd. Their position player roster at the major league level is really thin or almost non-existent.
Correct. I still think we need 2-3 more spots so additional trades/DFA are coming.
Possible DFA candidates:
Herget
Suarez
Cabbage
Stefanic
Soto
Rosenberg
Ingram
Possible Trade Candidates (IMO):
Everyone (including those above) except Trout (Perry said so) , Rendon (no market & NTC) ,Neto, Schaunel, O’Hoppe & Detmers.
Meant to say position player roster “depth” at the major league level.
We will definitely need more open spots on the 40 man unless Perry contemplates more trades. But Im sure there are a couple of DFA candidates.
In addition, Both Quesadilla & Warren are starting the year on the 60 day IL. That will open up 2 spots unfortunately they cant be placed there until the season starts which means there maybe a couple of late spring training trades or some more FA signings on minor league contracts with Spring Training invites.
This makes any FA still available when ST starts instersting for the Halos. They will have two open spots and leverage with the FA. Might get some good pick ups late
I’m all for some Spring Cleaning, especially if Ohtani *actually* jets away this weekend.
Turnover the roster as much as possible, get some new voices in there and create a new personality for the locker room.
Evan White experiencing a Mickey Moniak-type resurgence as an Angel would be fun. Not likely, but I appreciate Perry trying to unearth diamonds in the rough in the form of failed top prospects.
Former 1st round pick, Gold Glove winner in 2020, health issues last few seasons, and a shaky bat. White may amount to nothing or maybe our revamped coaching staff can fix him. Again, that would be fun. Imagine he plays in AAA for the majority of 2024.
I’m hoping they know more about White than his stats. This is a puzzling trade just looking at statistics, but Washington and Perry might know something we don’t. My guard is up on guys that throw right and bat left. LOL
Not According to Fangraphs. They claim he has all 3 options left . But that’s not relevant until he’s put back on the 40 man
I agree, it never hurts to take a few long shots. But is that who we are now, putting together a roster of players given up on by other teams.
I feel like the Angels lost depth not gained it.
We gained flexibility – and shed players that we weren’t sure we could rely on.
We could pick up Maldy (for leadership, mentoring O’Hoppe) or other back up candidates (Grandal, Sanchez, Alfaro, Barnhart, or Hedges if it is all about defense) for not too much money – if we either need a vet presence or don’t want to go with Thaiss.
Thaiss for 40 games behind the plate isn’t the worst thing. He wore down last season and it affected his hitting, which shouldn’t be a problem with reduced playing time.
Fletch and Stassi weren’t good depth. Their contracts are pricey for the lack of production provided. In addition, Fletch’s attitude was rumored to be a problem last season.
Neither player was in our 2024 plans and we gained a bit of payroll flexibility.
Perry has been unusually down on Fletcher for two years. He apparently was down on Stassi given Stassi being out all last season. So the GM doesn’t think he is giving up anything except losing salary. Whatever we got back are two minor leaguers that may become something or not.
Down on Stassi and Fletcher ? Perry’s the dipshit that gave them those bad contracts .
This is about fixing his previous F ups . It’s not a good look but at least he didn’t triple down on bad . Now if we can find a taker for Rendon . What’s the worst contract outside of this organization?
The way I see it, is that Perry must have decided that he wasn’t going to fit Fletch and Stassi on the roster, and since they were out of options, he had 2 choices:
It seems Perry accomplished that, because he is now paying less money, and instead of no players, he has 2 players. And those 2 don’t tie him up in any way because they have options.
Perhaps the part that feels hard to people is that we have an image in our minds of the past where Fletch and Stassi would have had some good trade value, and in that light, the return we got seems low.
Well said. Fletcher’s hitting degraded tremendously over his Angel career. And they weren’t small sample sizes
2018-2020 First 1200 PAs .292/.346/.386
2021-2023 Last 1000 PAs .259/.296/.327
Adios. I liked Stassi. Feel bad for him and his family what happened this year, wish him well. Fletch had a tough year losing his dad as well, but was never really a big fan.
Fwiw I heard fletch was pissed at the angels for not allowing him to have his own program a la Ohtani and started causing some problems.
‘… not allowing him to have his own program a la Ohtani…’
I don’t understand. What program?