A huge thanks to all of you who have served in the armed forces and kept us safe. Also thanks to the families of those who serve and support our soldiers. Missing a loved one for extended stretches is tough. We appreciate all of you protecting us and allowing us to spend time on something as trivial as baseball.
Now here are links:
We’re only a week into the off season and Perry Minasian has pulled off four moves he hopes will bolster the Angels in 2025.
First he flipped Griffin Canning to the Braves for some much needed DH help in the form of Jorge Soler. Yesterday he signed Kyle Hendricks to essentially replace Griffin Canning. In the aggregate this basically equates to $11 million in payroll additions to update the DH position for 2025.
In an effort to fill in some depth, Perry claimed Scott Kingery off waivers from the Phillies and slugger Ryan Noda from the A’s. The Noda acquisition is particularly intriguing as the Angels acquired a similar three true outcomes player in Niko Kavadas at the trade deadline last summer. Both of these first basemen were acquired after Perry spent a first round pick on Nolan Schanuel just a couple of drafts ago.
Here’s a look at Noda.
Meanwhile, Nico Kavadas has been playing really good baseball in the Arizona Fall League following a solid last couple of weeks at the MLB level in 2024.
If we could somehow combine the defense and low K rate of Shanuel with Noda’s walk rate and Kavadas power we’d have a great player. As it stands, we could have a bit of a camp battle and some actual AAA depth at the position.
The Arizona Fall League has been good for Angels prospects. We haven’t mentioned 2022 draftee Samy Natera Jr. much around here, but his is an interesting story. I highly recommend that link as it looks like we might see Samy at big league camp and possibly Anaheim soon. Samy is carrying the second lowest ERA in the AFL and absolutely dealing.
I love a lot of things about this community and realism is near the top of the list. We realize this team is a ways away from competing and we realize that many if not most prospects will bust. But if you get enough of them and they are rated decently, you should find a few who are good players.
I have to say, this is the best list of minor league upside I’ve seen from the Angels in the decade plus I started following the farm.
I really like my chances of pulling two decent starters and one solid bullpen arm out of that mix, perhaps more. The cool thing is we can all see multiple scenarios for how that could play out.
Want to take your hand at playing Perry? Well our off season tradition has begun. Here are the ground rules. And here is my take on a plan as well as John Henry’s.
The real life Perry says he’s open to anything this off season. Thankfully he made that statement after Diddy stopped throwing parties.
From around baseball,
Congrats to the 2024 Rawlings Gold Glove Award winners. The Angels had two finalists, but we play on the wrong coast and the team sucks. 14 players did receive their fist Gold Glove Awards.
Shohei Ohtani is having surgery on his non-throwing shoulder and expects to be ready to hit in Spring Training. His return to the mound is still TBD.
To my recollection, Ohtani had a patellar tendon surgery and one Tommy John surgery while a member of the Angels. He then had a second elbow surgery last season. Now this one. He’s still pretty young and none of these are too outrageous, but they are adding up and if you’ve turned 30 or more you know things just don’t heal the same as you age. Not wishing him ill will, just stating facts.
The next Japanese phenom to come stateside will be Roki Sasaki. Who is he? Well here’s everything you need to know.
Enjoy your weekend and link what I missed. Again, thanks to you veterans and the families of veterans.
