Welcome to the pre-Thanksgiving edition of Weekend Links. Like all of us will be doing next week, Perry Minasian is at the stove cooking away. He made the biggest news in all of baseball this week (or at least through Thursday afternoon) when he traded Angel lifer Taylor Ward to the Baltimore Orioles for hurler Grayson Rodriguez.
While I understand the need to add a high upside pitcher, losing good guy Taylor Ward hurts a bit. A couple of March’s ago Ward chatted with me while he signed a ball for my son and some other kids. He gave my son a big smile when he handed the ball back, my son said “thank you” and it was a great exchange. I’ve loved having the Fresno State Bulldog on the field and my son thought it was cool to see a guy he met playing on the big stage. So I wish him well.
But what about the new guy? I took a fairly in depth look at Grayson Rodriguez and what the Angels might expect from him. If he’s healthy (IF) this trade could go down as a steal. If not, it is a gamble I still think is worth taking.
Where does Perry go from here? Gitcho took his turn playing GM. So did Biggiswrth. Oh, and so did I. Be on the lookout for more of these next week and start typing your own.
The real life Perry also had to protect Walbert Urena from the Rule V draft this week. I spent a decent amount of digital ink on Albert with a W this past season and am intrigued by his future development. Congrats to him to making the 40 man. That is quite an accomplishment.
Another prospect is getting all the love right now, though. Raudi Rodriguez is announcing his presence in a big way. The kid was named the Fall Stars MVP and is getting love from the big publications as a prospect to watch.
Raudi’s late surge did not get him the prospect of the year nod. Those went to Nelson Rada and Dylan Jordan.
Perry has openly stated he wants to both improve center field and add a left handed bat. Rada is far from a masher but his glove and speed are legit. Could we see more of this at the Big A next year?
Perhaps Rada is the guy. The kid can’t legally buy a drink yet and I’d love to have a placeholder at the position to make Nelson really earn the job and give us some depth. But the Angels are aggressive at promoting young talent so we’ll see.
Today is the non-tender deadline and more trades should take place today. Some decent talent could enter the free agent market as well. Here’s a list of guys who might be non-tendered. As anybody who read my piece will know, I’d like to add McCarthy from the D’backs to be the placeholder for CF and slide into the 4th outfielder role once Rada seizes the job.
MLBTR wrote a nice piece on trades the non-tender deadline might create.
While I’d love to keep this column focused entirely on baseball, the biggest news involving the Angels comes out of a local courtroom. This week the two sides in the Tyler Skaggs trial argued over how much money Tyler would have made in his career. Skaggs family had a labor attorney compare him to Taijuan Walker while the Angels countered with Dan Duquette saying Tyler would have earned $0 to $30 million in his career.
Tyler’s mother took the stand as did his widow. Both are in obvious pain and both blamed the Angels for Tyler’s death. His mom stated she never informed the team about Tyler’s addiction to Percocet in 2013 and that the team never asked her about his drug use. She apparently did tell the team doctor about that problem after Tyler had elbow surgery as an Angel. His widow testified she did not know Tyler took pain pills but did know about some weed and ecstasy.
All in all, it was a difficult week to follow the trial. The pain of losing a son must be soul crushing. The same goes with a spouse. But this trial continues to do little more than make everyone involved look bad.
From around baseball:
A record 4 players accepted Qualifying Offers this week.
Which means that 9 players rejected them and enter the free agent market with some baggage attached.
There’s absolutely no reason for the Angels to pursue anybody who rejected a QO this year.
MLB announced 3 year broadcasting deals with ESPN, NBC, and Netflix this week. Sunday Night Baseball will move to NBC while ESPN will pick up the rights to sell the MLB package and some 30 game mini plan. Netflix enters as a new partner. All in all, the money adds up to right about what ESPN alone was paying MLB in recent years.
Enjoy your weekend and link what I missed. There’s a great boxing card on DAZN tomorrow and I haven’t been this stoked about a fight in a long, long time. Ring IV should be really entertaining and I’m looking forward to a good day. I was supposed to corner a Muay Thai fight on Sunday but the card got canceled so now I’m a free agent. Probably a good day to take the boy on and adventure and let Mama do as she pleases.
