The Angels have a tentative plan for Josh Hamilton’s return, Bill Shaikin of the Los Angeles Times reports. Hamilton would report to the team’s extended Spring Training camp in Arizona for a 2-3 week stint, then a minor league rehabilitation assignment and then he’d potentially rejoin the Halos in early June. A source tells Shaikin that Hamilton is expected to report “sooner rather than later” to the extended spring camp, though nothing has been officially announced yet.
Angels GM Jerry Dipoto told reporters, including MLB.com’s Alden Gonzalez, that the club was indeed preparing to get Hamilton ready, though noted that no plans had been finalized and that Hamilton himself hadn’t yet been informed of any details.
As Shaikin notes, the lengthy rehab process still awaiting Hamilton “buys time” for the team and owner Arte Moreno to figure out exactly how they’ll handle the outfielder’s return, given Moreno’s pointed statements about how the Angels might look to enforce clauses in Hamilton’s contract in regards to the use of drugs and alcohol. Hamilton’s 4-5 weeks of rehab time could be long enough to show other teams that he’s healthy and a trade could be worked out, though clearly the Angels would have to cover the majority of Hamilton’s remaining salary in any deal. It’s also still possible that Hamilton could end up back with the Angels if he looks good in the minors, since the team’s offense (particularly from their corner outfielders) has been lacking over the first two weeks of the season.
One thing is for sure, the Angels are pissing money away if he is sitting in Houston rehabbing (watching TV)! He is under contract, get him back in the system and hopefully he can become comeback player of the year. The Angels need something right now… They are playing like they don’t have a pulse right now.
Nope, And seeing cron have a bad start, He was on fire in spring training, too bad he couldn’t carry it over
Might as well let Josh play they are going to pay him either way. It doesn’t take much to be an upgrade over Joyce/Cron/Cowgil.
I’m more upset with cron, he had a great spring and he hasn’t carried it over
I guess we can’t be upset with him, Steven. However, it’s certainly disappointing that Cron did not continue his fabulous spring into April. I’m still trying to be optimistic that Baylor will continue to work with him and hopefully find his early form.
I think this is the problem with assumind spring numbers mean anything. Cron was facing a lot of non-major league pitchers. Spring stats are essentially meaningless.
According to last season’s stats, it would be about the same, if not a slight downgrade. That is unless Hamilton finds the production that got him his contract in the first place. The Angels have an 83 OPS+ as a team right now, which would be historically low, not only for them but all-time. We’re talking 1935 Red Sox losing 110+ games historic. The Angels have too many above average or better players stacked in their lineup to be stuck with an OPS+ that low, even without Josh Hamilton just providing the .330 OBP he had last season. A lot of their regulars are just off to slow starts at the same time, so all the Halos need to do right now is just get those regulars up to at least their career averages and then go from there. I’m not worried. If it was June or July, then I’d be. But not in April. Not with the lineup they have.
I still think the Vernon Wells contract was a worse deal than the Hamilton deal. Josh needs to find his motivation (it’s obviously not money) and get after it. I think he can still produce and play everyday.
Hamilton can produce a.255/.316/.426 line, which is better than the Angels’ other options but I don’t think he will return to MVP form or ever be worth 20+ MM a year.
Agreed, but if we are on the hook for the payroll anyway… make him play and make him find his happy place!
If Hamilton can come back and produce then it will be a big help for the angels right now, I know it’s only april and they get off to slow starts in april but the angels have to start getting on a roll, I only see trout and giavotella hitting over .300 right now, Maybe pujols and calhoun get going soon
I agree, reigns was basically forced into trading for wells if he didn’t , moreno was going to fire him, and since then napoli haunts us in our sleep, But I know this is 2 years too late, I would of kept torii hunter over signing josh hamilton, hunter was the leader in the clubhouse and the heart and soul of the team.
It was way worse because even Hamilton’s subpar stats in 2013-2014 are a major upgrade over Wells. We’re talking OBP almost 100 points higher last season than Wells’ 2011 season. And that was a down year for Hamilton.
The timing of this looks bad with the Angels having struggles in LF. Why couldn’t they do this from the start?
Because it has always been about money and performance.
Performance first, then money, yes.
I think they tried to get out of the contract and found out they couldn’t. Now they’re stuck with Hamilton, so might as well see if he can return.
I was against the hamilton signing from the very beginning, they didn’t need his bat at the time, they had plenty of offense, Trout Trumbo & Pujols, then they had boujous and trout in the outfield at the time, then Calhoun was emerging at the time, but they signed hamilton anyway. Should of kept hunter imo but they didn’t
Same. I don’t know if you believe the rumor that Dipoto wanted to resign Greinke instead, but that would’ve been really interesting to see.
If they had the money to give Hamilton, I am pretty sure they could of had both greinke and Hunter, I know they wanted to keep Greinke because they traded Santana and they didn’t pick up Haren’s option, and instead they turn that into trading morales for vargas and then walden for tommy hanson. and Blanton,
Most Angels fans have to be pretty dang happy they didn’t sign Torii long term. Have you taken a look at how terrible he’s been defensively over the last few years?
I think Hamilton had offseason shoulder surgery and wasn’t going to be ready right away anyway, right?
I guess Moreno finally realized he’s better off keeping quiet and letting Josh play if he expects to get the best value in a trade.
It’s all on him, Dipoto couldn’t’ do anything on this signing, He didn’t want him, he wanted to sign greinke
Here’s to Arte doubling down and signing Josh to a 10 year extension.
Leave it to a bad start to go back on your word, and give this guy a shot with the team again. Seems like somebody is nervous! :D
Package him up with a good young player or two, pay half his salary, and trade him for a decent corner OF. No way he plays for the Angels after how they handled the situation. That would be a looming disaster hanging over their whole season.
Why would a team trade for Hamilton? He’s about as appealing as Ryan Howard.
There’s only 2 players you’re going to be able to package with Hamilton in order for another team to pick up half his contract, and 1 of them ain’t gonna happen: Mike Trout, or Hector Santiago.
This may sound more than a little cruel but I suspect there are some within the Angels organization that hope that Hamilton will relapse again. There is no way that the league doesn’t throw the book at him with another offense. Trading him now and eating $70M sounds good now but if he relapses you might now be on the hook for anything.
It’s a very cruel way to look at the situation but his remaining contract is a TON of money and baseball is a business. Businesses have done far worse to save far less money.
I don’t see this as much different than the A-Rod situation. If you have to play the man, you might as well try to get some value for your dollar. If he’s halfway decent, you are ahead of the game, because otherwise it’s just sunk money.