I’m absolutely all in on selling everything possible for prospects. We have zero chance of sniffing the playoffs any time soon. I was really bummed we didn’t move Ohtani when he could have brought a great haul. Equally bummed when we gave up so much in overpays to try to compete.
But none of this fixes the huge underlying problem: our drafting has been totally inept. For years our first round pick has been a head scratcher, the apparent thought being to save money for later rounds. Followed up by round after round of nothing close to bpa. Our draft position alone the last two years should have brought up the farm. But not at all. While other teams with much lower draft positions continue to restock excellent farms. Think dodgers et al.
I called for a rebuild back in January 2016 on Halo’s Heaven and almost got banned. Oh if I could only uncover the comments, but after we lost our spot to the Astros and I saw we were getting passed up I said let’s rebuild, everyone said I was an Angels hater, and that specifically I was nuts because we had Trout and of course Pujols under that contract. 10 years later we’re on the same situation. Neto in the fold, a weak minors and aging star under huge contract.
Nice piece JJ, but, with that line of thinking, why not trade Soriano & Neto as well?
Perhaps I’m in overcorrection mode from my stance on holding Ohtani when trading him after 22’ was the obvious hindsight move.
Some of us were pushing hard to trade Ohtani in ‘22 and ‘23. Had they done that the Farm would be much stronger.
There is no one currently on the team that would bring that type of return of top line prospects. However they should still trade everyone that will return decent prospects. Regarding Neto, it’s either trade or extend. There is no adviseable middle ground.
If the Angels are well below .500 at the break or even before it (Likely) they should pretty much feel obligated to trade Detmers and Soriano to teams that are in the hunt and down a starter. That is, if both those guys are starting, uninjured and pitching well. Adell is in this camp too. That’d net us some pretty strong prospects.
I’d also look at our farm at the end of the year. If it doesn’t look like any young hitters might be coming to bolster the roster in 27 (errr 28) then I’d trade Neto this next winter. If some magic gets going and say Rada, Moore, Alford and Raudy are all looking good I’d try to extend Neto.
But I don’t want to pass on the prospects he can bring in and then pay him a ton of money so he can play on a barren team till he’s 30.
If they generate interest/value I’m trading Kikuchi, any pen arms or scrap heap starters who make good like Manoah for position player prospects this season and next. I don’t care if they are “young, controllable, MLB Ready” etc. That’s a stupid requirement for stupid people. On a team this bad, with a farm this bad, just get talent.
Example: The Phillies, with an aging and expensive roster, need to win it all soon. They have a starter go down for the year and the Braves and Mets are fighting hard.
A team like this, that NEEDS to make the post season? We could get Cade Obermueller and Moises Chance as pitching prospects plus nab Aaroon Escobar and teach him 3B during the strike plus get two fast and powerful OF to pair with Rada in Griffin Burkholder and Dante Nori.
That’s for Soriano.
Now do that with Detmers, Adell, Nolan, Neto and say Joyce? If you have a plan during the strike you can be pretty far along in a solid rebuild by the end of 2028.
Trading a cost controlled guy coming off his first MVP season is just all talk. No GM would do that.
Honestly I just whiffed on Soriano.
Neto is under contract for 4 more seasons so I’d like to build around him the last two and hopefully extend him.
If we had traded Ohtani and Ward when they still had one more year of club control we’d have a big pile of talent rounding into form right now. It kills me how strait up BORING our farm is.
you have more faith than I do. Using the results of the all pitcher draft as an example of the front office’s ability to spot winners I would think if we’d traded Ohtani we’d now be looking at 4 or 5 washouts. I don’t trust Perry and staff to evaluate talent.
Still, something, anything, would have been better than nothing….and watching Ohtani do what he does where he does.
Once Ohtani left, that was the time to reboot. Angels are 2 years behind going on 3. With Shohei on the team and not locked up, made it difficult to capitulate.
After Ohtani’s first MVP was the time to reboot.
But NAAAARR! NAH TRAY GENRVATIONAL TALONS! WEE JUZZ WHAN WATCH HEEM SO WUNERFUL!
We’ve been clamoring for a rebuild for 7 years at least and the Angels flat out do not know how. And it all starts with Arturo as lead off at GM. Maybe PTP tried at one time to start the wheels in motion for a rebuild but the lead off guy declined that course of action and we have now for 16 years been in a wash, rinse, dry cycle ever since, proving that the team has no real direction and under Arturo’s reign of squeeze all the money you can out of being an MLB club owner, nothing has changed while the mediocrity continues without even trying to improve by changing those in control and revamping management that knows how to rebuild. BTW, even under Arturo’s guidance PTP is incompetent.
I’m truly BAFFLED by the amount of Minasian supporters/apologists here on this website. I was a fan of the hire, faith evaporated with the 2021 MLB Draft stunt. The Arte excuse is a crutch for a guy who is in over his head.
Eppler struck gold with Ohtani, and once Shohei became the hitter he did, a reboot with Rendon and Trout on the team was not on the menu. AM/PM just had a poor understanding on how to build out the roster. Later to only succumb to the brittleness Mike and Anthony.
The only smart play he had was to risk losing Trout to free agency by kicking off a tear down and rebuild in Ohtani Year 1. Or in the year he had TJS at the least. Hopefully have Trout and Ohtani leading a young team by the time Ohtani is in arb year two.
But at that actual time? It would have been a crazy idea and he’d have gotten crucified for it.
Yup. For seven years it’s been almost impossible to find anyone around here demanding we build around Trout so he doesn’t leave, then weeping about how we need to build around Trout and Ohtani, then bleeding out the nose screaming for investment that will convince Ohtani to stay while refusing to consider we should just trade him.
“We’ve” been clamoring for a rebuild for seven years as long as that rebuild didn’t include a tear down. Which is about as stupid as demanding the owner kick off a rebuild by getting a new owner. People around here couldn’t even wrap their heads around selling off Ward last July without whining about going for it and players deserving and fans deserving and who will hit home runs to watch. That’s some soft clamor.
You of course know I dig the Red Sox trade scenario.
Witherspoon, Phillips and Eyanson were all on my shopping list last summer – some combo of Kyson and either of the other two would be a fine swap.
I really liked Witherspoon heading into the draft, as you well know.
Ironically, Detmers could bring back Witherspoon, Eyanson and (bum bum bum) Patrick Sandoval per the sim.
Not that Boston would do a 3-for-1 swap in practice. It’s one of those cases where the sim is just that.
But in an alternate reality, that would be a coup, if the Angels swapped Detmers for Sandoval in the rotation, and brought in two guys I liked for our first and second round selections in last year’s draft.
That is what the Angels should have done with Ward. Get a guy to fill his spot with getting a good prospect or two. Of course, Perry traded straight across to get an arm with injury woes.
I don’t even care about filling spots via trade. Why? “Oh no. My shitty team is… shitty.” But getting some teams 7th starter back in trade? That’ll fix it? I’d rather get two fire baller 20 year olds off a team than Packy Naughten 2.0 who is in AAAA because “we need our holes filled”.
Not saying the guy has to be good, see TTs Patrick Sandoval discussion. Hell, elevate the Panda roster to The Show. Sound sexy enough for ya?
One move a do think is a major step towards the mountain of hope is the Maddox hiring. I hope he sticks.
As part of my steady inhaling of hopium and lust for prospects I have mentioned several times I want to acquire young arms that have “something” and just need some fixing. MLB top 30 prospect lists are full of arms with 50+ grade pitches who still grade out to 45 grade prospects. I would be over the moon if we became an org that can add those tweeks to get those pitchers going. Actually turn relief prospects into starters sometime.
Here is a dream example:
In 2019 Christopher Sanchez was not on the Phillies Top 30 list. In 2020 he was ranked #17. n 2025 he was #25. In 2022 he was #22. Always a 45 grade prospect. He always had a very good sinking fastball and developed two secondary pitches but always had “reliever” written all over him because of control. He looked like that for 2 years in Philly. His ERA+ the last 3 years has been 125, 126 and 176 as a starter.
We need to pull off a couple of those with our kids. Even the ones who fail to develop into starters for lack of three pitches will be better pen options than we usually have. That’s been the Tigers method.
We can do it too.
I happen to agree with you on the Maddox hiring, one of PTP best moves yet. But I can’t help but ask myself why the Halos? Does he maybe have parents or in-laws or grandkids going to university or college in SoCal? It is a mystery to me unless he is over cold winters elsewhere, or he likes smog, traveling our slow-moving highways. Just glad he is here though. 🙂
Pass some of that hopium on the left hand side
Now available in delicious watermelon gummies.
CBD free?
Watermelon Gummies!
I just might drop off the face of the earth like Mia
Yup. Any combo of trades involving some of our “core” that is the core of nothing and will likely be gone or headed out by the time the team is any good and the strike is over should be traded! We could make those moves you listed. Great ideas. We should trade Soriano too. We could likely trade Detmers and Soriano to anyone. Adell and Nolan less so but still tradeable. Get some 22 year olds in the upper minors ASAP so there is some hope for 2028.
Also trade anyone who we have brought in who has value at the deadline. Like Pomeranz as an example. MOAR KIDZ! And please, for the love of God, BPA this draft.
You’d think this approach would appeal to Arte because it saves money…. and they’ll STILL sell 2.5 million tickets.
“Sell”
Considering a ton of the “sold” tickets right now are likely nowhere near face value, I don’t put much stock in the 2.5 million number.
For example, our Little League purchased tons of tickets for LL day. The Angels then reciprocated and gifted us an equal number of tickets. I’m sure the full total was included in the sold column.
There’s also the official deal with 714tickets who I’m confident “buys” tickets straight from the team at a discount then resells them for competitive prices.
Good job!
Thank you.
Now we’re talking!
Thanks. I can’t go full negative mode nor would I want to create that environment. But I can be factual.
This team is not good.
The executives have presided over a horrible stretch and would be replaced elsewhere.
The TV deal and payroll are linked and not in a good way.
But,
The team does great work with CHOC and local schools.
Players have good seasons
Players and coaches are people that make interesting interviews.
So expect a blend of all of the above.
I get it – you have to be balanced if you want any access to the team for your articles. There may be off the field positives you can focus on and, as you say, players can sometimes surprise with good seasons. These can help balance your writing. But I do not see how you could possibly ever be positive about this ownership or the Org. That would require horse blinders.
The Angels Need to Accept Reality and Rebuild
As promised, here is content from my OnSI page. This my first opinion based piece there. Nothing all that new as far as this forum goes, but there have been some questions about how I would use the OnSI platform.