The Angels are reportedly willing to add an every day third baseman. Meanwhile the Cardinals are looking to trade Nolan Arenado. Perry Minasian says he is not done dealing yet and is particularly focused on doing something about the bullpen.
Tomorrow is the Rule 5 Draft. Get the lowdown on picking order and what time to tune in right here.
This is interesting. The Athletics have to spend more money or they will invite a grievance from the MLBPA.
Mookie Betts will be moved back to shortstop for 2025 while Aaron Judge will be moved back to right field. Mike Tauchman got a deal with the White Sox.
In the “Count your chickens before they’ve hatched” department, we have new World Series odds in the post-Soto world.
They are auctioning off the ball that Aaron Judge dropped so famously in the World Series. Closer to home, it is possible to bid on a Mike Trout meet and greet which is being auctioned off for charity.
Photo credit: Rex Fregosi
Probably won’t get him. Probably don’t want him, not this year. But we’ve made the list!
https://www.mlb.com/news/nolan-arenado-has-list-of-trade-candidates
I dunno he checks off a few boxes…
Cardinal
Aging
On the decline
Double digits GIDP
Contract bloat
Seems a perfect fit to be our big splash.
A Doyer in 25?
Why can’t we sign Japanese bullpen pieces instead of 33 yr old guys nobody wants anymore. This organization needs a ace superstar in the front office like Sean McVay is with the Rams or the late Jerry West was with the Lakers. Is Matt Swanson finally gone or not?
Juan Soto Retires From Professional Baseball To Play For The New York Mets
https://babylonbee.com/news/juan-soto-retires-from-professional-baseball-in-order-to-play-for-the-new-york-mets
Guardians with a very Guardians move. Get salary relief and a fairly good you player back for solid but expensive IF and pen arm.
I actually wondered what we could get off them if we traded for Miles Straw to be a defensive OF and got prospects back for taking his money off their hands….
Annnndddd…. in the most Indians move ever, they have traded the guy they traded for for a solid pitcher from Pitt and two good prospects including Hartle who I wanted. Very Cleveland…..
Kendricks is going to suck for the angels, I’m not looking forward to him pitch.
Draft Lottery thread
Alex Cobb just got 15M. I still say we should be able to trade Mr Anderson for a couple mid-30s range prospects by the end of the winter….
Minasian brothers interview with Dad just off camera on MLB TV was really cool.
When Zack said the sight of any blue now makes him sick fricken made my day.
Big Papa. No BS.
I don’t know what we’ll get in THE DRAFT but I bet we will be winners in the Rule 5 Draft.
Damn it. We missed out on Thairo Estrada! FknArte
Draft lottery getting close to go time
Let’s launch this Rocket…and catch a top 4 pick with a pair of giant salad tongs!
https://youtu.be/dsLuK-kSBAo?si=9qEaenrhtjBzVZel
Wasn’t Perry focused on fixing the bullpen last year? Doesn’t every team spend the offseason tweaking the bullpen anyway? When Perry says that’s the focus, it feels like he’s telling us he’s done with everything else for the offseason.
The Rule 5 Draft order has me thinking—was it better to avoid losing 100 games and pick 4th, or would it have been smarter to hit that century mark and pick 2nd? I’ll defer to the smarter folks here for the answer.
I’d bid $500 for a meet and greet with Trout.
I would love it if the Astros didn’t have Kyle Tucker anymore.
I would love it if the Angels are patient enough to have the payroll room to add Kyle Tucker next off season.
That would be better timing.
OK. You win. Let’s do that.
“Minasian says Halos far from finished adding to roster for ’25” Tagline on Halos website
Feels like we are so far, you know what I mean?
Yep there are numerous other lower level FAs on the market that he will try to convince to play in Anaheim. Also – what do you expect him to say to try and sell tickets?
Is Perry cooking?
The Angels appear to be close to trading an outfielder, per source. Taylor Ward has been generating a lot of interest, so it would not be a surprise if it’s him.
https://x.com/Feinsand/status/1866521014181494868?t=DXT1GMabTcpuRqu8dHbPdQ&s=19
He will likely decline before we are in a place to start winning. Get what you can.
Thank him for the memories.
Nice, it’s time.
No, it is Adell for another team’s low-priced Ace, you just watch and see P12!!
What makes you think that Adell would fetch a low-priced Ace? Adell’s value on the Sim is around 2. Any low priced “Ace” is around 30 on the Sim (minimum) so how do you expect that to work other than magic thinking?
Knowing 4ever, I think you fell into a sar chasm.
LOL, yep, facetious ray was on 100%.
Good if it nets us a couple good kids. Bad if it nets us a 32 year old 3B with a 110 OPS+.
Fake news unless it’s Bryce Teodosio but then who would give a shit ?
1927: SEVENTY THOUSAND dollars???!?!?!?!? That’s more than the President!
1976: Six years and THREE MILLION DOLLARS??!!!????!
“Baseball needs to cap salaries immediately! Fans will not like it! Small teams will never win! Grrr!”
Yep, those OUTRAGEOUS contracts Babe Ruth in 1927, and Reggie Jackson in 1976 signed was certainly the death knell of baseball. ONE WS (this year) out of the last ten was #1 vs #2 payroll (2018 Dodgers were 3).
For argument let’s stipulate spending the most wins.
It doesn’t.
Kansas City (13) – The pre-Cohen Mets were #18
Cubs (5)
Astros (17) Besting the #1 payroll
Red Sox (1) Hey! see! The Red Sox RUINED BASEBALL!!!!!!
Nationals (7)
Dodgers (1) for 1/3 Season
Braves (10) Beating the #28(!) team which took the #1 payroll team out in the 1st round.
Astros (8)
Rangers (4)
Dodgers (1)
There is no way on earth MLBPA ever agrees to a hard cap.
It’s OK to be butthurt I suppose that the Angels aren’t players in that game. They were for a time and gave us “Western Division Champion” flags to fly when we wanted to dick-swing. Neither did the Beloved Cowboy and his “opening of the saddlebags’. Didn’t work for Ray Kroc in San Diego either.
Soto this season was an outlier, and while the salary ticks might move up a bit, baseball will survive.
With or without you. So come along for the ride!
Tell that to the 3,000 fans a day at Oakland’s Coliseum, pretty sure they’d agree with me.
It’s not just about spending the most money to get to or win the World Series. The real problem is the imbalance: some teams refuse to spend, while others blow past everyone else with hardly any competition.
If you really want to make the case, a better analysis would be comparing all 30 teams’ standings or playoff appearances with their spending. That correlation might show how the league’s payroll structure tilts the field.
Oakland’s a pretty incredible outlier. That was when an incredibly inept city and county government that wants to look a certain way combines with a cheap and pissed off ownership group that doesn’t want to deal with the city anymore so the team lights itself on fire to get out of the situation.
Things have to go full special in order to get the 2024 A’s and even now they are being forced to add payroll.
Your right, the A’s are the extreme, but throw in how many times the bottom five payrolls and the top five payrolls get into the playoffs and you see the disparity.
The disparity is real. But the other point holds as well. At least a couple of the bottom five teams are bottom five because they have checked out for their own reasons. Like the A’s.
The Angels are even a current example of that. As they stand now they are at a lower payroll rate than they normally will be when they are paying a bunch of good players. Our payroll rank is usually right about where our team valuation ranks. But right now we are a few ticks below that.
But you have “poor teams” that try. The Brewers, Guardians, Rays, Tigers, Royals and even the Padres (though they are doing it stupid and will collapse) that compete well. Heck, even the A’s a lot of the time.
I want a salary cap like crazy. But I also understand that teams can compete without it. I just think a cap would make the sport more interesting nationally. I’d really like the MLB to create some way that a poor team, like the Rays, can afford to pay a home grown star to stay with their team. I think that would help baseball a lot.
Yes, I’ve advocated for a salary floor as well as a cap. My understanding it’s not that they’re losing money so much as they’re just not spending which causes the disparity.
I also think that if you consider the top two teams in general, The Doyers and the Yankees, (and maybe the Mets upcoming) you have a situation where those two take up two slots in the playoffs yearly. I believe without looking, those two have made the playoffs 21 times out of 22 in the last eleven years with no end in sight. I thing the MFY’s have only missed the playoffs twice in the last 20+ years. Both teams are also known to “reload” rather than rebuilding, because they can afford to. Not even the Red Sox appear to be able to keep up with them.
Yeah, although Red Sox fans have been pissed the last two years cause the SAWX are running on a huge profit now days. They have a ton of money that they are just not spending, probably because they are doing what i want and using MLB innings to check out some kids.
Now they are spending.
But they were not happy with the shoulder shrug that last three or so years and were really pissed about Sale last year. Still, I think the Sox are doing it right. Build a farm. Take the time to see how you will use pieces from that farm…. now make trades and buy FAs.
I think you are off on this one. This is way more than a salary “tick” for a 5 WAR player. A salary “tick” would have been 15 years and $500 million.
Look at Judge’s contract which was entered into last offseason – 9 years $360 million. And he plays defense.
This is essentially a double of Judge’s deal in one offseason. That is way more than a “tick”.
Playing with CTPG…
Here is the list of the largest baseball contracts by decade as of the date of signing, along with their estimated value adjusted to 2024 dollars:
These adjusted amounts help illustrate how contracts have grown relative to inflation over the decades.
This demonstrates perfectly how out of touch the Soto contract was for a one-dimensional player
Agreed, if his power goes south, they’ve got nothing.
I think there’s a good shot the Angels do nothing of note at the Meetings. And I’d be fine with that.
Deals at the meeting tend to be on the less frequent side. As there is no freeze period, Perry’s got weeks to go to twiddle with the roster.
Bu-bu-bu-but Parry said……
They will sorting through the bottom shelf for talent. Anyone they can get for a pack of of Hubba Bubba and bag of seeds.
I’m not too concerned about how much money Soto or Ohtani are being paid. I’m sure fans said similar things when Joe DiMaggio became the first $100K player. And for the record, I was all for paying Ryan a million $ a year, the team could have used a 16-14 pitcher during the 80s.
Famous First Salary Levels, up to Mike Trout’s contract.
https://www.baseball-almanac.com/firsts/first9.shtml
Noted as to prior history, but it’s 15 years. Many prior bad contracts exist. ARod, Ken Griffey Jr., Pujols, Rendon, Hamilton, Baerga, you can go on and on. None of them were for 15 years. This is going to be a problem. It could be a disaster. TBH, if they get 3-4 years of good play out of him and Soto opts out after year 5, the Mets should be thrilled. Let him go elsewhere then.
I hope fans realize any openness to getting another answer at 3B means another Perry affordability special. It doesn’t mean Bregman or Arenado — barring some amazing other considerations factoring in. I also don’t know why everyone always piles on injured guys moaning about their foibles. The execs gave them the contracts. If teammates really don’t like them and feel they are undermining things, that’s different. I don’t get that sense though.
Of note, it seems historically a lot of guys that may have been using substances elsewhere sign here and stop using them. This can never be publicly tracked. But it likely plays a role too, and execs need to provide for same.
I was going to make a post about Rengifo, but this is a perfect segway for it.
Why not make Rengifo the starting 3B? Try to extend him before the season and plug him at 3rd for the next 4+ years.
A decision needs to be made on Rengifo. Either extend him so he can be part of the next contention window or trade him for prospects who will.
Playing out this season and letting him walk would be foolish.
Agreed, and I vote extend x100000.
There are definitely good arguments for it.
He’ll turn 28 in February so should have some good years left. He’s a versatile defender, switch hitter, he’s coming off a 3 year combined OPS+ of 107.
I just wonder what that translates to dollar wise.
If they could get him to play even a little more outfield, which isn’t out of the question, I’d be OK with extending him. He’d basically be Whit Merrifield at that point. Can cover 4 positions with a 100+ OPS+.
I’d still rather trade something of that value for prospects at this point, but I wouldn’t say it’s stupid to extend him through age 33 either.
“Playing out this season and letting him walk would be foolish.”
Oh Jeff, did you really say that about the Halos?
Even with the defensive limitations, Heefo should get the nod due to his bat. KIngery is interesting but he struggles with the bat.
That idea has merit — especially at least as a 50 percent time approach in year 1. Play Rengifo at 3B 50 percent of the time and mix in Rendon if he’s healthy. See what you have then.
I think they’ll get another multi-use guy like Solano or DeJung and I’m cool with that. It will help with the growing pain of playing kids and add a little more floor to our crap offense.
I’d be cool with Solano, his bat plays well. So they would have Kingery, Heefo and Solano. Kingery plays some OF but not expecting much