The Angels are closing in on a deal with Raul Ibanez, per MLB Daily Dish's Chris Cotillo (Twitter link). Jon Paul Morosi of FOX Sports adds (also via Twitter) that it will be a one-year deal. Jeff Fletcher of the Orange County Register tweets that the deal is expected to be for $2.75MM.
The 41-year-old Ibanez turned back the clock with a surprising 29-homer campaign with the Mariners last year. Ibanez slashed .242/.306/.487 and hit lefties equally as well as he hit right-handed pitching. However, the Mariners gave Ibanez a surprising 832 innings in the outfield, where his glove was poor enough for Fangraphs to grade him as a replacement-level player and Baseball-Reference to peg him at a mere 0.4 WAR despite his power.
In that sense, Anaheim is a logical fit, as they don't need to play Ibanez in the outfield given the presence of Josh Hamilton, Mike Trout, Kole Calhoun and J.B. Shuck.
This post was originally published on Dec. 18.
Fine with this so long as it doesn’t prevent LAA from going after Garza/Tanaka. Pitching is the true need.
I don’t think it will. 2.5 million isn’t too much of a dent. .
General not but in an offseason where LAA wanted to trade Kendrick and Iannetta for cap room every million counts. Arte has gotten very cheap this winter, hopefully he is just saving to pay Trout next year.
They will have money next year. You have money coming off the books to make a sizable contract offer to Trout
where did this kid Chris Cotillo come from!! He’s klling it this offseason.
Northborough, Mass. High School….
This will be a good bat for the lineup. Great deal.
Not an awful signing, as Ibanez still has some pop left in his bat. The only problem I would see is that the Angels have been loading up on defensive liabilities lately (Hamilton, Ibanez, Freese, and Pujols has been declining), and they don’t have the lights out pitching that is generally needed to make up for that much iffy defense.
Again, at under $3 million, it’s a good signing, it’s just curious that the Angels continue to buy up aging, slow players while for the most part ignoring their pitching issues.
They traded Trumbo to fill one, possibly two rotation spots, (unless they also sign Garza, which will possibly send Skaggs to AAA or Santiago to the bullpen), picked up Joe Smith, and cleaned up their bullpen. They’ve made great steps at solving their pitching issues.
I agree with your initial premise about the defensive liability, but I do think that DiPoto has made some real gains in terms of pitching depth, and young, team controlled pitching depth at that. Salas, Moran, Santiago, Skaggs, and the other “what ifs” they got have definitely shored up a weakness by dealing a strength. I think this move, plus freese @ 3B helps account for the Pop that’s gone in Trumbo, though he was my favorite Angel.
Assuming one of either Garza or Tanaka are options, I’m pretty happy with the haul this off season. The Bourjos trade was less than ideal, but we’ll see how this all shakes out.
At the very least, I think, assuming another pitcher, DiPoto gets a B+ this off season
I’ll give you the players the Angels picked up from the D-Backs, but I wouldn’t count on Salas being an improvement (I’ll admit to not knowing LAA’s bullpen depth, so maybe replacement level will be an improvement). I’m not saying they haven’t improved their pitching, it just doesn’t seem to me that A) they have improved their pitching enough considering how mediocre it was last year and B) their pitching isn’t quite good enough if all of these guys are in the field at the same time.
I’ll definitely agree that he has done better this offseason than the last two, as he avoided all of the long-term overpriced contracts (Cano, Ellsbury, probably Choo), and if they somehow still Tanaka or don’t have to overpay for Garza, they should at least be better than last year.
I guess the main problem was me saying “ignoring” in my initial statement. They haven’t ignored it, it just seems like their rotation and bullpen both needed a bit of work, and they still seem curiously enamored with players on the wrong side of their peak curve.