The Angels signing of Josh Hamilton has set the franchise back in ways other than financial, opines Bill Shaikin of the Los Angeles Times. During the 2012 offseason, the Angels decided to invest their payroll in Hamilton rather than make a serious bid to retain Zack Greinke. The five-year, $125MM contract forced GM Jerry DiPoto to cut corners when building his pitching staff for the 2013 sesaon and eventually he had to deal bats like Mark Trumbo and Howie Kendrick to acquire young arms (Hector Santiago, Tyler Skaggs and Andrew Heaney) over the next two offseasons. Shaikin posits the Angels’ lineup is a Mike Trout injury away from being devasted.
Elsewhere in the American League:
- With public criticism mounting against White Sox manager Robin Ventura, first baseman Jose Abreu came to the defense of his skipper, Colleen Kane of the Chicago Tribune tweets. “If the people want someone to blame, it’s the players, not Robin,” Abreu said.
- Twins Rule 5 pick J.R. Graham is here to stay, manager Paul Molitor tells reporters, including Mike Berardino of the Pioneer Press (on Twitter). “He’s going to be here all year,” the manager said. Graham threw two scoreless innings to close out the Twins’ 13-3 beating of the White Sox this afternoon.
- The Rangers will have a logjam at first base once Mitch Moreland recovers from his elbow surgery, but they won’t be able to move some of the surplus to the outfield because of the injury history of Moreland and Kyle Blanks, reports Evan Grant of The Dallas Morning News. Moreland says there was only one bone chip (a little bigger than the size of a watermelon seed) that needed to be removed from his elbow, tweets FOXSportsSouthwest.com’s Anthony Andro.
- Indications are the continuing waiver wire saga of outfielder Alex Hassan (who has been claimed five times over the past seven months after being picked up by the A’s yesterday) will prompt the MLBPA to make this an issue during the next round of collective bargaining, according to Brian MacPherson of the Providence Journal. The concern is the procedural movement hampers a prospect’s development, a sentiment echoed by Hassan. “You’re just behind,” Hassan said. “Do I prefer to be claimed by another team and have to break my lease and have to move my family and have to go find another apartment and take another short-term lease and get settled — and have to perform right away, knowing you’re the last guy on the 40-man roster? Or would it be better to stay where you are and get some stability and hopefully play well enough to where you might earn your way back up there? I don’t know the answer to that.“
Think Ryan Lavarnway will join Hassan as a frequent flier on the waiver wire as soon as Wieters returns with the Orioles. Another ex Sox decent prospect who has a solid past of hitting well and iffy defense, just like Hassan and Lava was claimed 3 times already over the winter before the Orioles latched onto him.
The bottom line is that Moreno was so obsessed with snatching players like Hamilton and Wilson from the Rangers, that he hamstrung his team from making other moves. Uncle Drayton was the same way when he “stole” Carlos Lee away from the Rangers. The lesson is that owners need to let their GMs make baseball decisions or pay the price.
And yet the Rangers were willing to match any offer.
Yea, when an owner forces a GM to sign guys to ill-advised deals (Hamilton, CJ Wilson, Pujols) it tends to handcuff what a team can do.
I’m not a big C-J fan but honestly, he hasn’t been a bad deal for the Halos. The two previous seasons as a starter for Texas, Wilson was 31-15 .67 with an era just over 3. He gave TX 33-34 starts and gave them 200-220 innings. With LA, CJ is 44-29 .60 with an ERA around 3.8. Last year was the first time he didn’t gave LA 200+innings. Granted, Wilson did not pitch well for LA in the playoffs but he didn’t pitch well for Texas in post season, either. All you can ask of a FA is he produce the type of numbers he did before he signed the contract and CJ has done that. Hamilton & Pujols have not.
CJ’s first season lived up to the deal. However, he had a FIP north of 4.30 last year and WHIP over 1.4. Those numbers are terrible. This season he’s fared much better early on, but that’s his M.O., and it’s looking like his elbow may shut him down at some point soon.
There is no reason the Angels can’t continue fielding a competitive team. Teams with nearly half their payroll have been competed just fine.
angels need to trade Matt Joyce to the D-backs for Mark Trumbo ASAP
sucks to have to keep moving but he’s the one controlling his destiny. Earn a starting spot, don’t expect one
How does he earn one when he can’t play? Everytime he’s DFAd he has to sit around for 10 days before he can play again. The system isn’t particularly fair to fringy major-leaguers.
The key point with regard to Hamilton is ostensibly allocation of funds–and the impact that the luxury tax has–if the team were to approach it to replace him. But the Angels have the money–if they want to spend it. And they have the “cap room” to get a decent replacement. The budget given to them by Moreno may not be large enough to compensate. If that’s the case, then any of the big contracts they signed were imprudent. Certainly Albert’s was, even though he’s still about 4 bWAR player. And Weaver and Wilson. Hamilton’s contract was bad because of Hamilton’s issues. But the rest of the signings–look a lot like significant overpays.
As I said with Wilson, the only thing a team should expect in signing a FA is the type of numbers he had put up before he got the contract and in Pujols case, he hasn’t. His average with LA is nearly 60 points lower than it was with STL. The power numbers when healthy have not been awful, around 30-105. But in STL, Albert was around 40-125. The Halos are clearly not getting the AP they paid for. Wilson has been pretty much the pitcher with LA he was with Texas. He’s not an ace but a good #2-#3 guy in the rotation.
I think teams are moving away from that kind of thinking, recognizing the aging curve and that free agents are generally past their prime. When the Angels paid for Pujols’ age 32-42 seasons I hope they weren’t expecting him to hit like he had before; if they did, that’s a huge mistake on their part. Pujols’ inability to hit like he did in St. Louis is just the normal career arc for pretty much any player.
David….I would agree completely. There is usually a decline in production from age 32 on. There are exceptions of course like Aaron, Bonds, Ruth. It just seems like good business judgement displayed by guys like Moreno goes out the window when they become owners of sports teams.
Exactly. I think we’re slowly seeing a shifting in the way baseball teams think – the Dodgers locked up Kershaw early to get his prime years, the Angels locked up Trout at a huge discount to get his prime years, Boston went just 4 years for Porcello while he’s still young. I think the 10-year contract for the over-30 veteran might be a thing of the past. I can’t imagine what Pujols is going to be like in 2021, when he’s 41 and being paid 30 million dollars, plus a 10 million dollar “personal services” contract that kicks in after that season.
yes. It makes a lot of sense to get guys like Kershaw & Trout wrapped up early up to age 32. obviously, there’s always the gamble of injuries—especially with pitchers arms. But the contracts to Albert, ARod, Cano and Cabrera. The contract Miami gave to Stanton for the next 12 years seems absurd although Stanton can opt out in five seasons. On the other hand, M ownership is trying to send a message to the team, the rest of baseball and the fans they’re seriously in this for the long haul. Maybe this is good and this will be a bargain. Stanton and Trout are the brightest studs in baseball right now.
The stanton deal is a bit odd – none of the big money kicks in until after the opt-out, but I’m assuming he will opt out anyway, because I think even if the Marlins have a couple good seasons Loria will blow up the team again and Stanton will want to go somewhere else. It’s a very team-friendly contract if Stanton exercises the opt-out.
There is no reason the Angels can’t continue building a contender. They’ve done just fine with smaller payrolls over the last 10 years or so. It’s time to move on from Josh Hamilton and stop dragging it with more articles just to draw readers. And regarding a Mike Trout injury, a lot of their players are off to slow starts, but they have a lineup full of guys who can give you a .320-.340 OBP 1-9. They also have a much better bullpen than they did for a few years so they won’t need as much offense this season as they’ve needed the last few seasons. No reason at all the Angels can’t continue to build a contender. Cutting corners to build a team is something a lot of GM’s have to do just because that’s all their front office can afford. So basically Jerry Dipoto has to be more of a typical GM with Hamilton’s salary still on the books, rather than the more privileged GM he was when he first signed.
Umm What is Abreu supposed to say? Look, you cannot fire all 25 players on the roster. The White Sox have constantly underperformed for the past 4 years and a change must be made as excuses have run out