Former All Star Ryan Pressly announced his retirement after thirteen seasons.
Former Giants right-hander Sean Hjelle has signed with the Orix Buffaloes.
Reliever Yacksel Rios got a minor league deal with the Cubs. The Nationals signed Trevor Gott to a minor league deal. The Astros signed both Carlos Perez and Amos Willingham to minor league deals.
Wilbur Wood passed away. Not a physical specimen or flamethrower, but a prolific knuckleballer who started as many as 49 games in a season and threw over 370 (!) Innings in a season including for the ’72 White Sox.
Many of us tried to learn the knuckleball in the back yard. Wood, the Niekro brothers, and later Wakefield were all pitchers who I followed. The knuckleball seemed like the great equalizer in that if you could throw hard, you could baffle the hitter with the knuckeball.
Rip Wilbur Wood (I have a 3D baseball card of him from about 1973 from Kellogg’s cereal).
Angels strategy decoded:
Look, you all know I’ve been critical. Everyone has. But they’ve clearly thrown in the towel and here’s the actual play:
They’re running a call option strategy:
If 2-3 pop off, you’re suddenly sellers with leverage in July.
The farm is DEPLETED. This is how we get some prospects back. Zero long-term risk. Pure asymmetric upside. It has merit and it’s clearly their unofficial strategy.
The smarter move? Do what they’re doing AND sell the guys with value NOW (April/May) when premiums are HIGH. Throw in the towel and get actual prospects back. Can’t be emotional about players we love – there’s no other path. We don’t have Dodgers/Mets/Yankees money or a strong farm to build around.
But they won’t. They’ll hang on to the guys with value too long and go from getting top prospects to flyers. You watch. (Or of course they will overpay to keep then in Angels red and the cycle will continue.)
It’s a solid strategy. The problem is the org is being run by people allergic to honesty.
In fact, I’d argue what they will do is put lipstick on the pig and sign some well known person just to make the unknowing fan feel better.
I agree and have pointed out this being the direction we’ve taken post Ohtani.
It hasn’t always been executed correctly, which I’ll place the majority of the blame on Arte — i.e. not trading Kenley at the deadline.
To trade or not to trade Neto, Adell, Soriano. I am an emotional fan and want all 3 extended. The worst case scenario for us is that the 2027 season is heavily truncated or entirely locked out and we lose Jo for nothing while Neto and Soriano get closer to FA.
Dude – you really think there is an actual baseball strategy being employed by this 2-bit Organization? The only strategy they are capable of is marketing and that means selling tickets and merchandise to fools like all of us.
Arte has lost the certainty of television revenue and therefore the budget has come way down. That is what is happening here.
Let’s just say that the strategy is …… uhhhh…. “Fluid”!
Fluid – like diarrhea? 😂
What gets me is they are giving us Ramen noodles and will still try to pawn it off as Linguine alle Vongole. Just admit the rebuild. Sell the new guys getting reps. In baseball – a horrible team still wins 4 out of 10 games. Win 6 out 10 and your easily in the playoffs.
They will never ever ever be transparent. For years it was “compete” – now it is radio silence. I think attempting to understand the inner workings beyond (1) the lack of guaranteed revenue due to no media rights package causing less spending and (2) the disastrous prior free agent contracts is the equivalent of trying to figure out what a cow is feeling.
At the MLB level there is a vast chasm between winning 4 of every 10 during a season and 6 of every 10. It is so much easier to write than to actually accomplish. It requires a level of consistency and excellence to win 2 more out of 10 sixteen times in a season. That’s equates to 32 more wins out of 162 games. The difference between 64 and 96 wins. Such a huge and vast chasm and yet it all comes down to winning 2 more games out of every 10 in a season.
The farm is depleted because of terrible drafts. Other than the trade with the Pale Hose, AM/PM have kept our top prospects.
The issue remains that the very same people who created this situation are the very same people who developed and are executing today’s plan.
If they would have admitted how dire it was – we’d have Ethan Holladay – who will likely still be ready in a couple of years. I would have been optimistic of a savvy management team manipulating to get Slawinski, Gray, LaCourse, Haley, Mitchell, etc. – but I have zero faith based on their track record that any of these will land. We’ll likely end up with a bunch of edge MLB players that get some cups of coffee – but maybe one hits as a +2 WAR guy. Holladay has a chance to be a perennial All Star.
No news today. I thought we’d see something like “Angels Sign Free Agents Mark Appel and Tyler Kolek.”
Tyler Kolek is doing pretty well for the Knicks right now 😂
😂
