LA Angels Thursday News Crash: Management-Go-Round

I am actually all for Cheap Arte this winter.

• The team sucks. It’s not like “just spend a little more” gets them anywhere.
• The Payroll is still massive, especially for what comes out of it.
• The “young core” as a whole hasn’t surged forward into near contention.
• The farm is a fail pile. So the near future doesn’t look like it’s just an extra 20M in payroll away.
• If you sign a guy for an extra 10M a year to get you an extra 2 wins per year is that really worth jack shit?
• Anyone I sign now is an expense my GM has to carry for a few years while he should be building something. We already have a huge drag in Trout.

Look at Kikuchi. He’s done a solid job. But all that solid job has done is take a 67 win team and get them over 70 wins. For what? 22M of “my” money? I’m not saying that a good owner should be cheap, but he should be smart about WHEN he spends. Also where he spend.

For example, I love Adell and Neto. But I’d trade them right now. They will only get more expensive. Paying them an extension only means I piss money away on a maybe .500 team. They have a ton of trade value. Soriano too. The work stoppage will happen, then at least another year of shitty Angels, probably two. I wouldn’t spend any of the Rendon money when it comes off the books. Kikuchi I would also trade at the next deadline if he looks good. Nolan if he looks good as well. Out the door for prospects.

I know it will make some of the man boobs on this site ache, but there is actually nothing wrong with an owner actually turning a massive profit from having a cheap payroll for a little while as apposed to keeping the payroll high just to look “engaged” or what ever.

Again, IF I WERE CheapnEvil I’d then plow several million a year into getting a GM who can build a farm and paying for what ever he needs to get that done. What ever it takes to have several good position players ready to go within three or four years when, we hope, some of Perry’s pitching pile is also rounding into form. Create a philosophy or plan that gets implemented all through the system and draft and Intl FAs.

Who plays on the 26 man with Trout? Don’t care. Who manages? Who ever the GM thinks can also develop into a manager who fits the system he is building. Let the manager actually develop along with the farm system if need be. This MLB team will suck hard instead of softly sucking the way we seem to need it, but it’s worth it if you have a pile of young players, a manage, and coaches that are all aligned to get you eight years of success.

After the Labor/TV Deal ruckus calms down Arte can either sell (huzzah) or if I were him I’d have been collecting cash. About 2-3 years into “The Plan” if things are looking like they are gonna get good I spend a pile of that money signing young players to early extensions. THEN I let the GM spend on some fairly large but not MEGA contracts to finish off his build and run a top 10 payroll again.

Or just bring Ward and Jansen back next year….