Welcome to December, Angels fans. With the World Series ending November 1st, December and January will be the only months without MLB baseball of some sort. Players begin arriving at camps in mid February and there are games on February 20th.
There is still baseball being played, however, down in Latin America. Ronald Acuna Jr. is absolutely tearing up the Venezuelan Winter League, reaching base 15 times in 5 games. He also looks trimmer and quicker. Ozzie Guillen knows what to do when a guy is that hot.
Can’t say I’ve ever seen a game start with an intentional walk. But that’s Ozzie.
So while a handful of players use the Winter Leagues to improve their game and/or bank accounts, the rest of MLB is ramping up for the annual Winter Meetings, which kick off Monday. Execs and owners from around baseball will arrive on Sunday and the baseball twitterverse will be abuzz about potential signings and trades.
Storylines surrounding the Meetings are abundant. Here’s one burning question for each team at the 2025 Winter Meetings.
I don’t think there’s any way the Tigers trade Tarik Skubal, but the headline gets clicks and the rest of this trade candidate list is pretty realistic.
In the lead up to the Meetings, many teams have shored up positions of weakness to pare down their shopping lists.
Angels GM Perry Minasian signed Alek Manoah to a Major League deal on Tuesday. Alek was a stud a few years ago, spent last year in the minors, and was cut by the Braves. So, that’s pretty much a perfect trifecta around here. Manoah does have minor league options so he might just be a $1.95 million depth option.
Injuries have derailed Manoah’s once promising career. Perhaps a combination of health and pitching whisperer Mike Maddux can bring him back to something close to his prime, which looked like this on baseballsavant.
Just make sure to stop the slideshow at 2022 if you follow that link. 2023 and 2024 are scary and 2025 doesn’t exist. Alek is a longshot, but this team needs some longshots to hit to have a prayer of being competitive.
Speaking of good baseballsavant pages, take a look at Grayson Rodriguez as recently as a year ago.
It is a lot easier to dream on Rodriguez because he’s younger and been successful more recently than Manoah. We just have to hope Perry Minasian and Arte Moreno don’t think the rotation is fixed by adding two once promising hurlers with major injury concerns.
Looking further into the future, second overall draft pick Tyler Bremner is getting in some work as he prepares to begin his professional career.
We all have biases in life and in baseball. I love a good funky windup. I also love a well executed hit and run and prefer pants at mid calf with some sock showing. But back to the windup. Ryan Johnson’s is definitely unique and he has flashed both promise and some problems. He’s a wild card that could play a part in the Angels near future or he could flame out. I think he’s a storyline worth following.
I think ultimately he’s a multi inning reliever, but you know how much I like those as well. I think it would be cool to see Kikuchi go 6 innings then Johnson take the game over. At least if Johnson can live up to his ceiling. A hitter’s timing would be completely shot adjusting to two vastly different deliveries.
But, back on topic. Winter Meetings pregame.
It was a good week to be a reliever.
Devin Williams moved from one NY team to the other, landing a 3 year $51 million deal with the Mets then promptly blasting Yankee trolls on social media. That will work out well for him.
The Reds re-signed Emilio Pagan for 2 years and $20 million.
There’s been a decent amount of speculation the Angels could bring in Cedric Mullins as a stopgap to Nelson Rada. Well, that won’t happen as Mullins signed with Tampa Bay for 1 year and $7 million.
And it looks like Mullins and his teammates will be able to play in a real MLB park next year. Repairs to The Trop are on schedule.
Helping the Rays cause is the fact MLB hates them and has them on the road for three consecutive series before finally getting some home games. Or maybe it was to give work crews some extra time to complete the roof. You decide.
Notice how many players are getting signing bonuses this year. Normally signing bonuses are an NFL thing, but there’s a good reason for it moving to MLB right now. Signing bonuses are guaranteed in the event of a work stoppage. So if there is no 2026 season, the players still get paid.
Vlad Jr. had his $500 million contract extension set up as a $325 million signing bonus and $175 million in salary last year. So even if a work stoppage cancels multiple seasons or if there are multiple work stoppages, Vladdy Jr. still gets paid.
When I saw Jr. do that, I took note. Thus far, Williams and others have gotten signing bonus money and I expect that trend to continue. Will the prospect of playing players whether a season takes place in 2026 or not motivate the owners to make a deal? On the surface that makes sense, but a billionaire losing a few million in the short term to make a lot more in the long term isn’t all that motivated.
This column has lost any shred of continuity. Sorry, but stories are coming from all angles right now. The longest ongoing drama is taking place in an Orange County courtroom where this week the Angels finally began their defense in the Tyler Skaggs trial. The best content is on The Athletic, but I’ll post some tidbits that are not behind paywalls.
Tyler’s widow again testified she was unaware of his illegal drug use, but now she understands why he did it. Carli Skaggs took the stand for the second time and bemoaned the pill popping culture in the Angels clubhouse stating that playing through pain and returning from injury were more important than players health.
I don’t want to sound callous here, but this is professional sports where guys get paid to play. The Angels look like buffoons in this trial, but guys taking drugs to play better has been around since Tour de France riders drank cocaine spiked wine and strychnine to help them climb up hills better.
Meanwhile, previous testimony by Tyler’s mom asserting she had told team doctors about Tyler’s 2013 Percocet addiction was called into question. Dr. Neal ElAtracche stated he did not recall that conversation and that there were no notes in his medical files regarding Tyler’s previous drug use.
The fact there are no notes about Tyler’s 2013 Percocet addiction in the medical files is rather important because that surgery was performed as part of a Worker’s Comp program. Therefore the Angels would see the paperwork for that procedure. Had Tyler filled in the paperwork correctly and admitted his previous drug use, the Angels would have learned about it. This was painted as a purposeful omission by Skaggs, and it is hard to argue otherwise.
There’s been a lot going on and ultimately nobody looks good. To oversimplify the trial: Only an idiot wouldn’t realize Eric Kay was on drugs and the Angels are claiming to be just that idiot. Meanwhile, those closest to Tyler state they had no idea he took drugs but the Angels should have known to keep Kay away from him.
I’ll set this aside and wrap up with a bit of a feel good story. Just like your local news. If it bleeds it leads, but let’s end the broadcast with an old lady and a puppy to make everyone leave happy.
Ron Washington will be back in MLB as an infield coach in San Francisco. This gets Wash back to doing what he does best and lets him keep living his baseball life. It also gives a rookie manager an old veteran on his crew. I really hope it works out for all involved.
Enjoy your weekend and link what I missed. It should be a fun weekend of college football and there’s a great looking fight between Pitbull Cruz and Lamont Roach that will definitely be on my TV. We’ve had a busy couple of weeks and with the holidays ahead I can think of little better than a quiet weekend at home with my family.
