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.
Kent is in. That’s great for Bobby Grich. Player compared:
https://www.sports-reference.com/stathead/baseball/versus-finder.cgi?request=1&player_id1=grich-001rob&player_id2=kent–001jef
and adios to the steroid dudes. better luck in 2030.
Good news.
Pretty dominant in favor of Kent, right? An MVP to boot. I have no problem with Kent getting in. 8 out of 9 consecutive seasons with the Giants over 100 RBIs (93 RBIs and missed 32 games that one season). Really solid middle of the infield bat.
cant say I ever endorsed his candidacy but looking at his career and this ballot, it absolutely makes sense and happy the way it turned out. Grich also has impressive and important #s head-to-head so his candidacy is definitely enhanced.
Would really like to see Grich make it, best times as an Angel fan during his tenor here. Happy the Roiders got snubbed.
I see Grich’s 1800ish hits as a detractor in voter’s minds. Kenbt has about 500 hits than Grich. I too believe Grich is a HoFer.
Grinch was a superior player to Kent, and a better team mate and nice guy. Kent got caught lying about a motorcycle accident that put him on the DL, by telling his team he fell off of his truck while washing it.
Angels mentioned in HOF induction.
Jeff Kent hit HRs off Angels in 2002
I’m trying to figure out the relevance of Skaggs’ wife knowing or not knowing about his drug use. Other than trying to dirty her up a little bit- what is the relevance to the issue of whether the Angels knew and looked the other way? If anything, Skaggs’ wife saying she didn’t know supports Angel arguments that he was hiding it and they did not know.
Ultimately what Skaggs wife knew or didn’t know seems like something of a non-issue to the question of whether the Angels brass knew tbh.
Character assassination, mudslinging and stinging allegations/iterations is what civil trials are all about. Remember, it is a “Preponderance” of a doubt 51/49 you go with that.
Standard is more likely than not so 50.1/49.9. Mudslinging is right. But the question is the Angels knowledge not the wife’s knowledge.
It’s very pertinent information if the wife knew-Her only response would be that she did nothing and enjoyed the gravy train but holds the halo responsible.
The issue is whether the Angels knew or should have known and whether an Angels employee (who had previously supplied drugs to Tyler) provided the lethal dose.
The issue of what the wife knew or did not know is raised solely to appeal to “gravy train” emotional type thinking.
Addicts give away their lifestyle, even to those who try not to see it. Lots of addicts in my family and neighborhood growing up. She knew, didn’t want to know, and did nothing about it. She holds more responsibility than his employer.
The wife did not give the fatal drugs. An Angels employee did. Someone(s) let this guy stay employed.
And this testimony will also influence the Jury’s decision in restitution. Why would the jury award a large amount to the Plaintiffs (her being one of them) if she knew and did jackshit to help him only now to cry her way to a multimillion dollar award?
Its not just culpability it’s the ultimate Benjamins awarded.
As to damages and comparative negligence, the role of others is actually relevant. Hence, Skaggs’ own role plus those around him making the claim for damages can be pertinent. It’s not all just mudslinging. It potentially lessens the percentage of responsibility, if any, for the team.
My guess: in order to have a sales transaction you need to have a seller and a buyer. Why would the Angels have any reason to suspect a player is obtaining drugs illegally?
If there are no buyers of illegal drugs then there are no sellers of illegal drugs. So the Angels aren’t liable for activity that was so well hidden even the wife of the buyer was unaware of it.
Not saying I agree. But I think that’s the angle.
Hear that – but there is evidence Kay definitely knew and was involved in the buy/sell transactions. Without getting into all of the weeds – it just seems that once it is established that Kay knew (which is established) and that arguably the Org knew or should have known- what does it matter (for this trial) whether the wife knew? Seems like it’s mudslinging which could potentially backfire with a widow.
I’m guessing that the defense is if the wife and mother knew before he died, it makes the Angels not telling them irrelevant because they already knew.
It isn’t a perfect defense, but it’s pretty much all they’ve got.
Yeah that’s interesting but not to belabor the point – the trial isn’t about whether the mom and wife knew. They could know/could have known and the Angels would still be liable if the Org knew or should have known.
See post above. Percentage of responsibility goes down. So it can matter.
So somehow the CINCINNATTI REDS of all teams are showing interest AND WE’RE NOT!!!! Maybe Jo Adel and Logan O’Hoppe are way better players….
😡 😡
if you could have three DHs in a lineup, this would be a splendid idea.
but you can only have one DH. And we already have two.
so this is a terrible suggestion.
I don’t even bother trying to identify your guys anymore. It used to be interesting.
Schwarber has made himself over the years into a quality piece. But he’s aging and hitting feee agency at the top of the market. No thanks. If he is worth the money, the Phillies will give it to him and he should stay there. If he isn’t, teams that overbid for him may be disappointed. These types of signings tend not to age well. See Rendon, Anthony. See also Pujols, Albert.
TBW dropped an Angels + Mike Soroka rumor on his podcast. Soroka was elite with Atlanta (of course lol) in 2019. Has battled injuries and lack of production since. I actually watched him pitch of a few times last season and thought his stuff was pretty decent.
https://youtu.be/Gnwx3onuPnI?si=L4Pz78HfcKzPWJVi&t=61m
Feels like it could be another reclamation project like Manoah. Not the worst idea if cheap
2024-25: 170 IP and 26 starts
I’d feel comfortable enough slotting him in as our #5.
Another way to write this: He’s averaged 85 innings and 13 starts each year over the past two seasons. (And has been about 11% worse than the average pitcher over that span.)
I think collapsing ’24 and ’25 suggests more health and durability than is actually there. Hard to plug him in as a backend starter if he’s putting up less than half a season.
There are many backend starters on the market that are inning-eaters and fairly affordable. Not sure that collecting a whole aviary of birds with broken wings is going to get us two-in-the-hand as it were.
I think I’d prefer the Doyers OF prospect Mike Sirota over injured Mike Soroka.
It was 65 years ago today
Sgt Pepper taught the band to play. They’ve been going in and out of style.
For those who celebrate happy 65th Halos 😇
So we’re going with 3 #5s just like last year.
If anyone interested Angels Heritage Night tickets went on sale. The jerseys given away are really cool. I went to one last year, going again on Japan night in Sept. The black jersey with cranes on it looks amazing. Certain nights will sell out.
I don’t think they do the Italian night any more…….. 🙄
There’s no way that Skaggs’ wife didn’t know about his drug use. I don’t buy that one bit.
They met at a house party, with high school friends
His high school buddies knew about his drug use
His mom knew about his drug use
But his wife didn’t know?
apparently his mom knew about it and told doctors about it but she didn’t tell his wife about it because, clearly, these two just weren’t very involved in his life.
I can see his mom not bringing it up to the wife but Tyler and Carly had a six-year run together. She knew he partied and likely participated in some form of mind altering substance.
after the latest from Friday, maybe I should have known this before because it’s been out there all along, but this hit me today and matters too – Skaggs snorted the pills that killed him.
There’s opiate pill culture and alcohol culture the Angels condoned it seems, but I’m guessing not even evil Arte’s doctors said snorting was OK too. Not a doctor obviously but the choice of intake would impact some one’s ability to survive the ordeal.
Wife just thought he was really in vitamins
I have to agree here.
During Kay’s trial they mentioned a guy who brought blow and x to their wedding reception. And in both cases they’ve mentioned multiple sources for Tyler’s drugs including text messages from his wife asking if a certain friend was holding drugs at a Vegas trip.
I’m willing to see a scenario in which she was kept in the dark about the depth of his pain pill problem. Those are harder to detect than party drugs. But her text messages prove she knew about weed, blow and X at various times.
The Skaggs ladies seem about as appealing as Arte. Everything I have read does not come out and say it, but they kind of sound like trash whose golden ticket got himself dead. Honestly Skaggs kinda sounds like a piece of shit too. While Arte is Arte. I’m kind of rooting for giant meteor at this point.
I’m there with you. I’m sorry but I’ve had some one very close to me have pain med addiction and yes you know when they’re under some kind of influence, hello how does a wife not know your husband is under.. like I’m sorry either you’re a shit wife or you know and ignore. Sounds like she was a user too, and the mom mdt be also or didn’t care. Nobody cared until Skaggs died using it and now they need a scapegoat which is the Angels. Now of course they suck too and look like s terrible mom snd pop organization that doesn’t do anything like a real employer. They act like they’re running the corner general store in a remote corner of the Midwest . I have no love for Arte. They’re probably liable for not firing the druggie who gave them drugs. But the Skaggs women seem like opportunists whose meal ticket died due to their co-drug habits and they want their cash. At this rate Skaggs was going to be out of the league, his body breaking down due to drug use. I doubt he would’ve been in the league past age 30. My bet is that during the Covid year he tanks with the drugs and he’s not very good in 2021.
Angels defense will have more tales to trash Golden Ticket 🍿
Maybe the girls will still cash it in maybe they won’t but their guy and his legacy are about to get trashed even bigger next week.
Gee… I wonder where else I’ve seen that… Can anyone from Anaheim help me out?
conveniently left out the last part of the quote
I was well aware of the second part of the quote. I was referring to our horrible opening schedules for the past five years.
The few drills I’ve seen clips of made it looked like Ron was coaching basic stuff to the infielders.
On drugs: Everybody knows and everybody lies. Personal knowledge/experience regrading drugs and I’m certain stuff was used earlier:
Guys in the 60/s70s – Greenies, coke, cross tops and whatever pain relievers worked
Guys in the 80s/90s/00s – Steroids, coke, “Boutique” steroid masking agents, HDH, better versions of whatever pain relievers worked.
Caribbean, Columbian and DR guys typically have wintered at home because MLB oversite is way more limited.
Best quote on drugs from a MLB friend: To a reliever who had just came into the game during the meeting out the mound. Dude, Wipe your face! You look like you just ate a powdered donut.”
Finally some truth. Thanks Pedro.
Kickass links btw, JJ! An optimal read going into the weekend before Winter Meetings
Thank you.
LOL I’ve got bad news for you
I know their MO. We need 5 pitchers and we have 5 pitchers. No need for any more. Each will stay healthy and post good years.
This also extends to position players.Think how they’ve handled 3B the last few years.
I’m crying /laughing here because they think two of the five are GRod and Manoah.
Correct. They “filled” the number 5 position last year by paying $2 million to an aging hurler coming off down seasons in the Midwest hoping he could take some inning here. Logically, you might expect him to throw until early June and be done. He made it all year in a surprise, but those don’t happen often.
Apologies, I don’t mean to hijack this news crash’ comments section, but I was wondering if any of the CTPG staff could help me with a logistics question or two.
The now former staff of the Crawfish Boxes, the astros SBNation site, is starting up a new website. I pointed to you guys as the model successful example of making the migration from Vox/SBN to an independent site. We got the site, our writers, and our reader base ready to go, but wanted to know how you go about getting your images for your articles? Do you use a service?
If you don’t want to have this discussion in the comments section, I get it, my e-mail is my username here at yahoo(dot)com. Thanks! I think you guys are on year 5 or so of this site, still going strong.
Most of our pictures come from Rex’s spring training shoots. We also have pictures taken by staff and readers.
For stadiums and players on other teams we use Wiki images as those images are approved for use.
The services like Getty are great but expensive. We simply can’t afford them as of now. We get just enough from Patreon subscribers to keep the site running. And we’re thankful for that.
Good luck on your site and thanks for visiting ours.
Thanks!
Curious as to why you, as a group, are leaving SB Nation and starting your own thing? Have they decided to squeeze the writers and masthead?
At the end of October (i think 10/30), all the staff at TCB were sent what were essentially form e-mail letters informing them that they were being dismissed effective immediately. All of their access was removed. There was no warning and no explanation.
Our managing editor who had been editor for 8+ years, didn’t really even mind the release. After 8 years, he was getting a little tired of doing it anyways, but the way he was let go was off-putting. He didn’t even have a chance or ability to write a “thank you and farewell” piece to end his tenure.
The reader base, as you can imagine, didn’t take this very well, and started voicing their displeasure with Vox/SBN in the comments, which led to aggressive moderation, deletion of comments, and suspensions of accounts. This only upset them more.
The TCB reader base was very much a community, just like Halos Heaven’s base was and CTPG’s is. They didn’t want to keep supporting TCB but they didn’t want to lose the community either. Although I was no longer a regular writer at the site, I still did occasional editing, and ran the Discord server the writers used to plan and coordinate tasks and stories. To keep the community together, I opened up the server to the TCB reader base if they e-mailed me, like of like hurricane shelter.
Eventually we got probably 95% of the regulars, but it was tough getting the word out. SBN would delete any comment even hinting at users contacting each other outside of the SBN comments. At one point “mhatter106” was added to the list of auto-moderation words, so if you even mentioned my name, your comment was deleted. It felt like a weird underground rebellion.
Some of the leftover staff still want to keep writing, even though they’re not with SBN anymore, so Cody Poage, the former assistant editor at TCB has spearheaded launching a new site. TCB actually has a new editor now. I don’t harbor any hostility or blame to the new guy, he’s just doing his thing. And 2 of the old writers agreed to come back under this new TCB editor, and we don’t have any ill feelings toward that either. After all, Vox/SBN will pay them (although not much), and the new site being made wouldn’t be able to.
Sorry for the long story. It was a lot of drama.
The new site is going to be called “The Launch Angle”. It’s at http://www.launch-angle.com . There’s nothign there right now, but the hope is to get it running within the week.
Best of luck to you! I hope the new venture is a success.
That’s rough. We all received a shitty form email but they cited a California law change as reason to let us all go. We had about 6 weeks from the email until we were let go and we already had a group Messenger chat going for the writers and it took us about 30 seconds to decide to start our own thing.
Unfortunately we launched in January or February of 2020 and right about the time posters at HH were learning of the new site all baseball got shut down.
I miss the additional exposure and Getty images provided by SBN but I love the vibe and crew here. I’d much rather be independent.
Best wishes. Let’s do some series preview pieces together when the Angels and Astros face off next year.
Ha ha! For about a year I was linking recipes from the players wives and coloring pages of the players. If you have a pen and ink artist among you you can plan early for the 2027 labor troubles.
The Launch Angle, huh.
I’d be remiss if I did not mention that the Angels have a minor league team called the Trash Pandas that you could’ve Sampled for your site name.
Sounds eerily familiar. Is the new editor at TVB one of the original members or done writer from another team’s site whom the cubicle geniuses at SBN/VOX decided was the right person to rebrand the site?
Good luck! It’ll be awesome if you guys can pull it off “indie style”! I have wondered this for CtPG, and have thought about trying it myself but I live too far away, but I know a couple guys who have pulled it off for football teams.
You might want to hit up the media/marketing guys with the Astros and ask if you can get access to a couple games or Spring Training games to take photos. Then get who ever you can that has some photography ability and a good high speed camera and shoot A TON of shots when you get the chance.
I’m sure it’s very dependent on the team, but the Astros may actually like the idea of a big fan site marching on and may be willing to cut you in in some way that allows you to get a stock of photos to use. Maybe if you tell em they can take any photos they want off your hands, etc….
I also know that it’s not super hard to get MiLB teams to let you shoot a game in some places, so you could get some Hooks and Sugar Land shots.
But yeah, I’d throw myself on the mercy of the team and see if anything shakes out. Won’t hurt to ask and it only costs you some emails if it fails.
I’d also look at Astros photographs and see if you can hunt down photographers that shoot them. They may be able to point you in a direction, or they may have some shots they know they aren’t gonna sell/keep that they can hook you up with for just “general images of the Astros”. I’ve done that for music related stuff. I’ll shoot 200 photos of a show. I keep about 20. Every now and again someone wants the left overs for something and I have no problem just handing them over for a photocredit.
But again, you gotta just luck into a nice photographer….
Hanging around spring camp a few weeks at spring training in February is the best experience there is. The entire MLB/MiLB rosters are there working out generally with fan friendly access.
Just bring a camera.
I’d throw myself on the mercy of the team and see if anything shakes out. Won’t hurt to ask and it only costs you some emails if it fails.
nah – you start getting close to the team/PR department, you start signing NDAs and become part of them. There definitely is a price to get through that door.
the Angels were initially quite opposed to independent sites. Then they had a change of heart and actually brought us and a couple of other sites to a suite for a game and invited us to contact them for pictures and access.
That lasted about a season and it turned back into bitter cold again.
Definitely avoid snagging random photos off of the internet. There are professional copyright litigants and you won’t be able to afford ten grand to settle a lawsuit.
(checks profile) – ok his story checks out.
It wouldn’t be me. I work defense, but this is the voice of experience.
There is smoke linking us to starting pitching. I’ll take one SP + Okamoto, please.
The Los Angeles Angels, whose last major free agent signing for more than $65 million was Anthony Rendon in December 2019, are still looking to bolster their rotation after trading for Grayson Rodriguez and signing Alek Manoah.
https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/47201350/mlb-winter-meetings-2025-offseason-free-agency-trade-intel-rumors-updates-buster-olney-jeff-passan
Sources tab the Yankees, Cubs, Mets and Tigers as the most interested clubs, though others including the Orioles, Angels, Padres and Marlins are also in the mix for King.
The Angels, Giants and Tigers are among the teams in on Gallen,
https://www.mlb.com/news/starting-pitching-free-agent-market-2025-update
Good. Yes I’m generally an optimist but I also don’t think Manoah nor Rodriguez will have any impact on the starting pitching staff. We need two starters and these two aren’t them.
King + Gallen would be pretty much my IIPWM (since Framber is outside the budget.
make it happen.
Asking Arte to sign 2 pitchers to sizeable FA deals (both with QOs)… that ain’t happening. Pick 1 and Okamoto, and 🙏
We shouldn’t be giving up ANY draft picks. When is our owner and most of our fanbase gonna grasp the fact that we are cellar dwellers?
I’ve been on record saying I’d prefer to stay away from playing in FA, other than Okamoto (we need a 3rd baseman and I like Japanese players).
When numerous insiders are linking us to SP, and Perry himself says its a top priority to address, feels like a topic worth discussing. Trust, I know where you stand haha
RELOAD! It’s gonna be another magic summer.
You know what is even more depressing for fans less sadistic than me? IF we actually see Arte sell. And IF the magical new owner is actually smart. And IF said owner hires a smart front office….
There is a really good chance that, after all this reloading, we will STILL see a tear down and at least a couple years of rebuild after that.
I’d be happy with a tear down. All I want is a plan! I’d happily endure another 4 years of not winning if we could see how we’re gonna get out of this
Heck yeah. I’m one of those creeps that starts rooting for teams in a rebuild. It’s why I like the Tigers so much now, started following them 5 years ago. I pay attention to the A’s and the White Sox and Cardinals because of rebuilds. I hate that the Red Sox have done such an awesome rebuild….
What’s crazy is Detroit turned it around right about the time I was ready to give up on Mize and Manning and when the Baez contract really started to suck.
That thing had serious potential to tank and it went completely the other way.
And their development system is still wonky. They aren’t the Pirates, but they have a pretty high rate of failure developing hitters who come up and max out their potential. But they draft enough talent and get enough done in the MiLB that they have enough to win games.
Arte, Perry, and the Minions worked very hard over numerous months to develop and implement the plan.
The plan is…..to not have a plan.
Counting on Manoah would be foolish. Grayson is already a big risk.
I’d like to counter balance those moves with a horse like Elfin who might not have huge upside but consistently takes the ball.
Counting on <insert any Angel pitcher’s or prospect’s name here> would be foolish. <Insert any Angel player’s name here> is already a big risk.
And that’s not unique to us, although it seems to be the only thing that happens.
I was huge on trying to trade for Tony Gonselin a few years back. Dustin May, Mark Appel, lots of highly touted dudes simply don’t pan out.
Pitching development is so fickle. A guy learns a slightly new grip, a pitch moves just a bit more or with a bit more control, and he’s a stud. He doesn’t and he plateaus. Then there’s the injury front.
Ever since the all pitcher Minasian draft, I see how futile our pitcher development is. We all hope Maddux will make a difference but outside of Soriano, we just haven’t seen much during the Minasian train wreck.
I know Gallen has a QO attached, but I’d take him all day if his price tag is depressed to the point of something like 4 years, $80-90 mill. He’s a workhorse who has proven capable of reaching a much higher peak.
I like Gallen, too. In your case the QO is shaving about $20 million off his estimated value, so I can see the logic in that. Those funds could be used to get a player of equal value to a good first rounder.
Gallen was ugly the first half of last year and he’s a wild card for sure, but for any shot at 26, he’s gonna be one of the best available options and it makes much more sense than a FA 3b/of. Kelly/Gallen were the last playoff duo to beat the Dodgers.
Reunion in Anaheim is fine with me.
We have no shot at 26.
We’d need both of the above pitchers plus a 3B plus some bench pieces plus bullpen arms.
And then we’d need health.
Yeah. I would literally create a spreadsheet that shows me who has the highest innings pitched over the last three years along with their expected contract and get the best semi-cheap durable arms I can.
Actually, WHAT I WOULD DO, in reality is pitching chaos. Sign a half dozen effective-ish one time through the order pitchers and have no starting rotation beyond Kooch and Soriano. But I’m stupid.
Signing King or Gallen. Unnng. Why? I actually like both guys, and if one gets his shit together and the other’s body doesn’t break they can both be good. But it does almost NOTHING for this roster, especially down the line. All it does is spend money and tie up payroll for years that we (hopefully) need to buy our needs when the team’s close to contention. That and it “raises the ceiling”. Which means our team will be a hovel with twelve foot ceilings. Cool. We’ll lose 85+ games still, but by fewer runs over all. 40 million dollars well spent.
Hello. You play to win the game.
_ Herm
2026 or bust!
sure I know it’s a Christmas miracle for us to get above .500 at this point, but to do it, we need to get pitching.
Why do we need to be over .500 right now? How is being a couple games over .500 worth tying up a bunch of money on pitchers who will be in their late 30s by the time they have a line up around them?