LA Angels Monday News Crash:

The Angels outrighted Adam Kolarek to make room on the 40 man roster for Zach Plesac, who the Angels signed for barely more than Kolarek.

At this point, it looks like the Dodgers purposefully set out to make the Angels look stupid.

OK guys! I’m just kidding. Just kidding. Everybody has their reasons and their limits. If we want a bat, then maybe an infield batter might be cooler at the corners. If we don’t want a bat, then can he pitch?

Wander Franco is back out of jail for the time being. He can even leave the country as long as he comes to meet with authorities once a month for the next six months. His bail is 2 Million Dominican Pesos (which is about $34,000).

The Mets have a two year agreement with Sean Manaea worth $28 Million.

The Oakland Athletics rejected a request by the Oakland Ballers of the Pioneer League to play a game at Oakland Coliseum.

Yesterday was National Bobblehead Day. Here is an article about the ten best minor league bobbleheads last season.

Photo credit: Rex Fregosi

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M.C.Homer
Member
3 months ago

Imanaga = Kikuchi?
Yes/no?

Cowboy26
Legend
3 months ago
Reply to  M.C.Homer

Well he sure as hell aint Shigetoshi Hasegawa. Good luck signing Imanaga away from the Giants if they are really interested.

M.C.Homer
Member
3 months ago
Reply to  Cowboy26

We could use Shiggy right now…
But seriously, one hundred million for Shota and never pitched a day in the MLB…risky

2GA2Join
Super Member
3 months ago

“Rumor” is that Giants are the favorites for Imanaga.

I’m not all that riled up about signing him… if we do that will be cool, but if his price gets too high, I’m fine with passing.

Eric_in_Portland
Legend
3 months ago

meanwhile….I didn’t know this about Plesac and it makes me concerned.

“He called breaking his thumb while “aggressively” taking off his jersey in May 2021 a freak injury, while his emotions got the best of him when he punched the ground and fractured his hand during a start in late August 2022.”

Cowboy26
Legend
3 months ago

For only $1,000,000 a year who gives a shit?

Hell Rendone gets an IL ouchie just by aggressively talking to his financial advisor.

Eric_in_Portland
Legend
3 months ago
Reply to  Cowboy26

😂

Jim Atkins
Super Member
3 months ago
Reply to  Cowboy26

I think we got a Head Case discount.

FungoAle
Super Member
3 months ago
Reply to  Cowboy26

Probably my favorite Perry move thus far

clover_black
Super Member
3 months ago

This makes me like him.

Senator_John_Blutarsky
Legend
3 months ago

Maybe he’ll beat some sense into Rendon…

Twebur
Legend
3 months ago

…..another emotionally volatile player to stalk on next years roster?

That must make Sam The Hat more excited than the idea of planning his next birthday party at Charles-E-Cheese.

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Cowboy26
Legend
3 months ago
Reply to  Twebur

So for the StH entertainment value alone we should sign Trevor Bauer?

Eric_in_Portland
Legend
3 months ago

Re: the Dodgers getting a free $100 million in salaries for 2024 (so far)

I used to be in a baseball simulation league. We had a draft of new players and we looked forward to that event. One owner traded his upcoming first rounder for a top player. Fine. Then he traded his first rounder from the draft after that. He eventually traded away 6 future seasons of picks, won the league title, and quit the league, leaving a team that had to get a new owner who would be without picks for years. We closed that loophole.

These deferred contracts are just like that. It is clearly unfair to count these salaries as $2 mil, $5 mil, whatever. MLB *must* stop it and count Ohtani’s salary as $70 mil, Yamamoto’s as $32 mil, Teoscar’s as $23 mil for luxury tax purposes.

2GA2Join
Super Member
3 months ago

But it isn’t the same, right?

Your sim league person quit and walked away happy.

The Dodger owners are not going to win a WS or three and then quit and walk away. They paid big money for the team, and they will want to sell it if they are walking away.

If they try to sell the team, the massive amount of deferred debt will be taken into consideration by anyone buying the team, and presumably that will substantially affect any sale price. So the current owners won’t just “get away with it” like your sim league person did.

Last edited 3 months ago by 2GA2Join
Eric_in_Portland
Legend
3 months ago
Reply to  2GA2Join

true. Good point. Still, it will affect the competitiveness of the 2024 season (and beyond)

steelgolf
Super Member
3 months ago
Reply to  2GA2Join

If anything is going to change, it will be driven by the politicians worried about their tax money, and baseball’s unique position as a business.

AnAngelsFan
Super Member
3 months ago
Reply to  steelgolf

After a looking into it a (tiny) amount more, I think the tax angle is probably not going to matter.

The U.S. and Japan have a tax treaty. Under that treaty, Ohtani (assuming he is a permanent resident of Japan) will pay U.S. taxes on the salary and receive a tax credit so he doesn’t get double taxed in Japan. So the Feds are going to get their share.

California might get screwed if Ohtani leaves California, but that’s because of a federal law that prohibits states from taxing retirement income of non-residents. I doubt California is going to be able to get a federal law repealed because of this deal. At most, California might sue Ohtani and try to argue his income isn’t retirement pay. Ohtani will be able to afford the attorney for that dispute.

Jeff Joiner
Editor
Legend
3 months ago
Reply to  AnAngelsFan

CA will close that loophole. And all these contracts are taking place in CA.

Big tech guys have probably been doing similar things for years. But they bribe, err, contribute to the right PAC’s. Baseball players are bringing it to light.

Jeff Joiner
Editor
Legend
3 months ago

What they are getting is about $50 million in luxury tax breaks which allows them to sign $50 million more worth of players.

That’s what they are getting away with.

2GA2Join
Super Member
3 months ago
Reply to  Jeff Joiner

I guess it depends on how you look at it maybe? I’m not a tax accountant at all. But it all revolves around the idea of “I pay you $2MM today, and $100MM 20 years from now, so that is ‘worth’ $50MM in today’s money”.
I guess economics shows that $100MM 20 years from now really isn’t $100MM today. So the player isn’t receiving $100MM. So maybe it is fair for the luxury tax to not be $100MM. And the team isn’t “ripping off” the player, because the players are knowingly signing up for this salary.

So if a player signs and agrees to a contract that for $100MM 20 years from now and it is only worth $50MM in today’s money, and the luxury tax is $50MM, should we really be outraged? Especially if the $50MM hit is approximately what a player of that caliber might have received.

Now if somehow the deferral thing got abused so that a team was paying a super-low luxury tax for great players, then that would be a big problem. (Didn’t that come up last year when some of the big SS players signed?)
Like if a team was able to sign Ohtani, Soto, Judge, Seager, Snell, Acuna with each of them at a luxury value of $15MM, then that would be completely unfair and be a gross imbalance in the sport.

Jeff Joiner
Editor
Legend
3 months ago

Tampa Bay is willing to trade Harold Ramirez, who is a good fit here.

Could DH on plenty of days and play first against lefties and occasionally take a day in the corner outfield.

Of course, trading would mean opening another hole on the roster.

MarineLayer
Super Member
3 months ago
Reply to  Jeff Joiner

We’ve got this catcher named Quero. Oops, Minasian already traded him for a five week rental of Giolito. Never mind.

Cowboy26
Legend
3 months ago
Reply to  Jeff Joiner

So who would you trade then ?

Give them Rengiblow back?

Jeff Joiner
Editor
Legend
3 months ago
Reply to  Cowboy26

The sim has his value at 1.5 so down in the Stefanic, Jo Adell, territory.

If that’s the case, I’d do it.

Cowboy26
Legend
3 months ago
Reply to  Jeff Joiner

Hells Yea!

Id try and keep Adell yet as I’m still holding out hope. Stefanic, on the other hand, has effectively been replaced by LeBlanc on the current depth chart. according to The Fielding Bible, LeBlanc is as good or better defender as the Plumber so maybe its time for a good flush.

Last edited 3 months ago by Cowboy26
matthiasstephan
Super Member
3 months ago
Reply to  Jeff Joiner

I might prefer Justin Turner (we need a 3B backup for Rendon, imo), but Ramirez is likely cheaper. If we could get him for a song (Stefanic).

Or maybe we could trade Herget for Ramirez and Austin Shenton – trade simulator says that works.

CAoldskoll
Trusted Member
3 months ago

Always a dedicated MLB fan I will still enjoy going to many Angels games as I can, maybe couple Padres. Other than that, televised games, monitoring standings, are now totally irrelevant. Mainly because Dodgers and their current quest to make the MLB all about themselves. Believe it or not, the next several years are going to be the same narrative every post season about who has a chance to upset Dodgers from winning yet another championship. Sure, many Angels fans dislike them especially after Ohtani thing, but there ridiculous $$ acquisitions have drawn ire from just about every team in the league. Fans everywhere will get burned out watching Dodger WS quest each year. And it won’t stop after the next decade, they bought their current team and now have luxury of keeping the best prospects and stacking the farm during these years. A professional game with no hard salary cap will always cater to rich teams, a broken system.

matthiasstephan
Super Member
3 months ago
Reply to  CAoldskoll

Time will tell. The Padres were meant to take everything with their star-studded roster, and that worked out swimmingly.

M.C.Homer
Member
3 months ago
Reply to  CAoldskoll

He might have a good year or two left, but I’m starting to see the light that Ohtani had his prime time with the Angels.
I think we just saw his best years.

Angelz4ever
Super Member
3 months ago

We signed a Sleestak?

steestak.jpg
Angelz4ever
Super Member
3 months ago
Reply to  Angelz4ever

…..oh Plesac…..okay

Senator_John_Blutarsky
Legend
3 months ago
Reply to  Angelz4ever

It is logical since the franchise is the “Land of the Lost”…..

Angelz4ever
Super Member
3 months ago

Teoscar one-year $23.5M to the Dodgers-Good and no thank you very much.

tanana40
Super Member
3 months ago
Reply to  Angelz4ever

Agreed but I thought it was interesting that he took a one year deal. Will other big name free agents still left be willing to sign one year deals now?

Jessica DeLine
Admin
Super Member
3 months ago

Can’t believe Franco’s bail was basically the amount he’d earn over a week of playing baseball. You’d think they’d cater the bail amount to the means of the person.

Angelz4ever
Super Member
3 months ago
Reply to  Jessica DeLine

Yeah, even OJ couldn’t get bail after trying to flee. It must be nice to be powerful on an island. Next up victim goes unlocatable.

Jessica DeLine
Admin
Super Member
3 months ago

Still waiting for this part of the off-season “”We’re going to be aggressive this offseason,” Minasian said, “and we’re going to make this team better.”Nov 19, 2023”

Angelz4ever
Super Member
3 months ago
Reply to  Jessica DeLine

Jessica, we’ve been so aggressively linked to so many FAs, I am aflutter with excitement.

Cowboy26
Legend
3 months ago

What the hell is Long Duk Dong doing on a game show?

BannedInLA
Super Member
3 months ago
Reply to  Cowboy26

Searching for his “new style American girl friend”.

GrandpaBaseball
Legend
3 months ago

Have a great day Angels faithful, remember that no signings means that bad signings won’t be happening. 🙂 

Cowboy26
Legend
3 months ago

But then more Jimmy Herget and Kolton Ingram will.

GrandpaBaseball
Legend
3 months ago

The 3 games last season that were purchased by Apple Streaming make any money. Streaming services seems to not be a real big deal, but taking a Football playoff game off normal television seems over the top stupid and selfish and in the long run harmful to a league’s future. The folks that make these decisions at the NFL HQs in NYC are knuckleheads, but they sold the idea to their bosses and NBC-maybe used car sales or office space leases should be where they could make some real $.

Shenanigans such as depriving fans of games to make them purchase packages that they previously did not buy into is in the long run bite the leagues in the ass in the long run I believe. Recently my cable provider took my MLB-TV channel away from my package and want 7 dollars a month more to have it and some soccer and NFL added. Others are adding commercials or raising prices. I don’t think the marketplace will accommodate all the price hikes, but we’ll see. We make a choice to stick with cable and Netflix and Prime and cut Disney/Hulu along with HBO/Showtime.

I’m done whining or complaining as no one listens anyway. 😀 

Cowboy26
Legend
3 months ago

But The NFL took Thursday night football off of the Boob Tube but it hasn’t seemed to hurt them at all.

Angels2020Champs
Legend
3 months ago

comment image

Yo ho yo ho 🏴‍☠️🎵

Jeff Joiner
Editor
Legend
3 months ago

For real, cable or DirecTV is back to being the best option for sports fans.

M.C.Homer
Member
3 months ago
Reply to  Jeff Joiner

Totally, but I believe there will be a day when pay-per-view becomes the norm

GrandpaBaseball
Legend
3 months ago

If the Halos really wanted Hernandez as all here believed, then we would have gone out and got him. What is not understood is that not many decent players are really interested in playing for a Arte Moreno owned losing team. Mike Trout plays like he doesn’t care, ditto Rendone along with many others. Meddling in your own team business and continuing to lose is certainly a recipe for disaster and it is now showing. Arte should have taken the 2.5 billion and lawsuit debt and ran with his profit while he had a chance. Thinking you still had a shot at Ohtani messed up his thought process. Sell Arte, no one wants to come to this messed up mess.

Cowboy26
Legend
3 months ago

Well according to Perry, The Free Agents still do. https://twitter.com/SamBlum3/status/1743720226364223861

Senator_John_Blutarsky
Legend
3 months ago
Reply to  Cowboy26

Sam’s post needs to first be run through the “universal bullshit translator”. The translation is as follows:

“Minasian said the baseball operations leadership wanted to keep adding, but the player agents are using the team as leverage to increase contract values.”

“However he added that even if the top free agents wanted to join the Angels, the ownership and executive administrative leadership have limited payroll expenditures to be exclusively on one or two year contract terms.”

“We hired Ron Washington in the hope that the best free agents would want to join the Angels. Unfortunately, that has been unsuccessful thus far.”

Twebur
Legend
3 months ago

Added…….”And, any sane free agent that might have wanted to join the Angels because of Ron Washington are turned off by the ownership and executive administrative leadership”.

halofansince1978
Super Member
3 months ago
Reply to  Cowboy26

He did say that he believes the addition of Ron

Washington makes FAs want to play for LAA.

From what I’ve seen so far…not so much!!

steelgolf
Super Member
3 months ago
Reply to  Cowboy26

🤣 The addition of Ron Washington makes the free agents want to play for The Angels? There is ZERO proof of that, and there is proof that not all the coaches wanted to come here and work with Washington. He got 2 or 3of his original 7 that he said would be on his staff. JH Sr. Is still a delusional coke head.

Fansince1971
Legend
3 months ago
Reply to  steelgolf

Yep – when I read that I thought ‘is everyone in this Org smoking crack?’ On what possible basis would Ron Washington be a FA draw?

BannedInLA
Super Member
3 months ago
Reply to  Fansince1971

Doesn’t matter, Ron is worth 15 WAR. We’re good.

Cowboy26
Legend
3 months ago
Reply to  BannedInLA

And we’d still finish with 75 wins.

BannedInLA
Super Member
3 months ago
Reply to  Cowboy26

Apparently you forgot to carry the one into the next column with Trout-Rendon playing 140+ games.

This is etched in stone.

halofansince1978
Super Member
3 months ago
Reply to  BannedInLA

Pathetic CtPG Loser Guy on hopium agrees!!

PatheticCtPGLoserGuy.jpg
steelgolf
Super Member
3 months ago
Reply to  BannedInLA

🤣

Senator_John_Blutarsky
Legend
3 months ago

In free agency, it takes two to make a deal. If players desire to win a championship within the next decade, do you sign with the Angels or the Dodgers? It’s an easy decision.

Let’s face it, the south coast beaches alone are not enough of a draw to entice free agents to put up with everything else that comes with being under contract to satan Arte.

Fansince1971
Legend
3 months ago

I think this is right. If you are a FA and going to bite the bullet on paying those enormous CA taxes, you at least want to have a chance of winning, right? Perry seems to think playing for our new manager is a draw but on what is that based? I would think playing for the Dodgers would be way more attractive than playing in Anaheim at this point.

ihearhowie3.0
Super Member
3 months ago

The deferral stuff with the Dodgers I assume will lead to a massive trend in NY/CA/WA/IL sports teams and I imagine some politician is going to notice that this is pretty masterful tax evasion in a very public industry. No doubt some 1% business types have been doing this quietly but now you have it becoming a story line in pro sports that these rich athletes figured out how to not pay California tax rates.

Senator_John_Blutarsky
Legend
3 months ago
Reply to  ihearhowie3.0

Yep, this too shall pass and a new loop hole will need to be developed.

Fansince1971
Legend
3 months ago
Reply to  ihearhowie3.0

CA will likely enforce a long arm type tax statute which will chase down any money earned in California even if that money is deferred.

Cowboy26
Legend
3 months ago
Reply to  Fansince1971

Probably already crafted legislation in Sacramento to make this happen for years to come. In Fact The legislature is already planning on spending The Doyer players’ future tax revenue in next years budget.

BannedInLA
Super Member
3 months ago
Reply to  Cowboy26

Sacramento is breathtakingly corrupted, but they’re certainly efficient at fleecing the tax payer. Weird, huh?

Twebur
Legend
3 months ago
Reply to  Cowboy26

The legislature is already planning on spending The Doyer players’ future tax revenue in next years budget.

…..and, add 2 miles of track to the vital Clovis to Turlock corridor for the Bullet Trains *scheduled Grand Opening in *2058…..

*subject to change depending on future corruption costs.