JAN. 13: The Angels have avoided arb with right fielder Kole Calhoun and right-handers Garrett Richards and Matt Shoemaker, reports Heyman (all Twitter links). Calhoun will earn a $6.35MM salary in his second trip through arbitration as a Super Two player, while Richards will earn $6.85MM and Shoemaker will receive $3.325MM.
JAN. 12: The Angels have reached a deal with infielder Danny Espinosa to avoid arbitration, per Jon Heyman of Fan Rag (via Twitter). He’ll receive $5.425MM for the 2017 season.
That’s a slight bump over the $5.3MM that MLBTR and contributor Matt Swartz projected. Though Espinosa, 29, turned in a below-average overall offensive season last year, slashing .209/.306/.378, he did pop 24 home runs over his 601 plate appearances. That helped to drive a solid raise over Espinosa’s $2.875MM salary from 2016.
As he entered his final season of arb eligibility, Espinosa was dealt to the Halos from the Nationals — the only organization for which he has previously played. While it’s a fairly hefty salary for a player with his strikeout tallies, Espinosa is also regarded as a top-quality defender. That doesn’t pay in the arbitration process, but helps justify his earnings for the season to come.
Quite a hefty salary for a .209 hitter who is definitely not guaranteed to have a 20 home run season
That’s the Angels organization for you….
Why Haloshane….Why do you hate the HALOS, your favorite team?
Cmancoley, HaloShane, how much do you think they would’ve gotten had they gone before an arbitrator? Probably not much less, I’m thinking. I personally think it’s better to avoid arbitration in most cases by bumping the salary, especially if you intend to attempt to negotiate a contract extension in the coming years. It shows the player you’re on their side. With Calhoun and GRich, I wouldn’t want them to go into an arb court to get this settled. Keep those young guys happy and get them extensions soon!
Remember, when they go to arbitration, the arbitrator is only only choosing between 2 salaries..the Angels submission and Espinosa’s submission. Otherwise, I agreed with you 100%.
Yeah it doesn’t seem like a good idea to talk about what the player is not good at over a few hundred thousand dollars in most cases.
it’s 5 million…
Quite a reasonable salary for a great defender.
That’s a perfectly fine salary. I mean, it’s 5 million. Worth some great defense and 20 plus homers a year.
Does anyone else wonder why HalosShane rips the angels on all of his comments but is named HALOshane? Usually you try to see the positives in your team’s moves instead of
commenting about what you see to be bad moves. Either change your name or change your favorite team.
Yeah I have wondered that too. And have asked that question but never get answered
That’s about 75% of “blue Jays fans” on here/twitter
It’s really annoying that people are like that. If you aren’t a fan of the team or
you get upset at every little thing the team does you should get a new team.
Maybe he’s fed up with the lack of direction the Angels have and the fact that most of the AL West (A’s not included) seem to be getting better and finding more creative ways to add to their team
Last year there wasn’t much movement aside from Simmons and wasn’t much money to use so last year I get. This offseason they have gotten much better on some of the holes they had with a weak free agent class.
i hate this guy
How is the rest of the AL West getting better exactly? The Astros forgot to develop young pitching to go with their young lineup. The Rangers were 13th in the AL in ERA the last two seasons and only had a 8 run differential last season. No one in the ALW has a what one would call a “good” rotation. And as far as ‘direction’ goes, that’s all BS. It’s internal politics and PR, and it never goes as planned for any professional sports franchise. And if it did, you’d still end up with the same playing field as we have now. Because everyone is running for the same goal. Teams rise and fall every season in MLB. It’s the way the game works. Don’t fall for all this media crap about farm systems and and analytics and ‘direction’. Most of it is luck. Baseball is too unpredictable. Even the Yankees have had their long droughts. There was about a 30 year period from the sixties to the nineties where NYY had only about four playoff appearances. It’s going to happen. The Angels just need to keep doing what they’re doing and wait for their window to open up like everyone else.
Maybe he’s not an Angels fan, but just a huge Beyoncé fan
lol
CALHOUN(the red barren) SHOE! AND RICHARDS! thank goodness i love these guys especially calhoun. They all have so much potential! Great job angels.
Well to be fair, it’s not like the Angels organization did anything remarkable here by signing guys who they had control of anyway.
Well to be fair, it’s not like you had any real reason to reply like that.
Wonder if Eppler is locking down all these deals to see how much room he has to play with for someone like Hammel or Wieters.
They should have about $ 20-25 million after arbitrations
And they would be wise to sign both
Yes on Wieters. No on Hammel. Hammel got lit up a couple years ago when he was traded to the A’s. He is better sutted for the NL.Foster would make better sense for the Angels.
Probably just a typo but you mean Doug Fister right? I’d like to see him in Anaheim on a cheap deal and his value can’t be too high after the second half he had. As a 5th starter with upside or bullpen swingman i think he’d fit very well as a ground ball pitcher with our infield defense and pitcher friendly home field if the money is right (and the MRIs too lol)
hshah
Wieters on a 1 or 2 year deal would be alright but not longer than that. Hammel would be alright although that was a small sample size with the A’s and I think would be better with a good defense behind him.
Hammel had perhaps the best defense in baseball behind him in 2016. Still no one seems to want to sign him.
He was a decent pitcher last year and I was responding to how
angelsfan4life said hammel wasn’t good when he was with the A’s
The luxury tax going up really helps. I’ve been saying since the Wells contract that the Angels could really add some depth in place of that money as well as the $25 million going to Josh Hamilton to play golf. When the luxury tax went up, the Angels had just over $25 million left to go…
I’m still waiting for haloshane to tell me why he hates his favorite team so much….
I think he’s responding by disliking your questions. Go Halos!
You could ask the same question of patborders vs the Jays.
But really, who cares?
Great moves. All this will help the Angels compete for 4th place in the AL West.
If the Angels do sign Wieters, I could see them packaging Cron for a young starting pitcher. Not going to get them an ace exactly but look what they got for Trumbo. And not only that, Tropeano and Perez only cost them Conger and I think a low level prospect. But of course who plays 1B? Move Calhoun there and move Revere or Maybin to RF? Sign a cheap 1B? Sign another OF? Or do you package Calhoun? Or just sign Wieters and Hammel.
We need cron and calhoun. Think of how cron’s numbers will look in a full season. Calhoun is going to be an all star soon. He should have been an all star in 2015 and maybe 2016.
Cron is basically a right handed Matt Adams at this point. He’s been starting too slow to be an All-Star since the game is mid season. One could argue that if he didn’t start so slow in 2015 the Angels would’ve definitely made the playoffs since he was counted on as a key component in the middle of their lineup at that point. His great second half that season was a big reason they roared their way back in September of that year.