11:56 am: Lagares’ deal would pay him $1.25MM if he makes the Angels’ major league roster, reports Mark Feinsand of MLB.com (Twitter link).
10:13 am: The Angels have signed outfielder Juan Lagares to a minor-league contract, as first reported by Rolando Fermín (Twitter link) and confirmed by Jeff Fletcher of the Orange County Register. The deal includes an invitation to major league spring training.
Lagares has appeared in parts of eight major league seasons, all as a member of the Mets. A high-end defender, Lagares had a run as New York’s primary center fielder between 2013-15 but has seen his playing time drop off a bit in recent seasons. Never a particularly strong hitter, Lagares slumped to a .213/.279/.326 slash line over 285 plate appearances in 2019. He signed with the Padres last offseason but elected free agency after failing to crack the big league roster out of spring training. Lagares then returned to the Mets, where he appeared in two games as a defensive replacement but didn’t take an at-bat.
The 31-year-old now looks to have a decent opportunity to play his way onto the Angels’ roster this spring. Young talents Jo Adell and Brandon Marsh might be ticketed for the minors to start the season. That would only leave Taylor Ward as a primary outfielder on Los Angeles’ 40-man roster beyond the projected starting group of Justin Upton, Mike Trout and Dexter Fowler. (Infielders Jared Walsh, Franklin Barreto and Matt Thaiss each have very limited MLB experience in the grass, as well). Fellow non-roster invitee Scott Schebler looks to be Lagares’ most direct competition for a bench spot at the moment, although it’d hardly be surprising to see the Angels bring in another outfielder or two on a minor-league deal before spring training gets underway.
Elite glove throughout his career. Minors deal. Nice little move here. If he figures out how to hit he moves up, if not he’ll enjoy AAA
You may find this interesting….. I like this move. The Angels need an 8th inning guy. A guy with a 2 to 1 FB to GB rate is destine to fail and Buttrey has no track record of success. Find this guy and give this team a much better chance.
me too as well!
Nice. Run prevention had many facets.
I’m picking Anahiem to win the West. They don’t have a frontline starter- but Bundy, Heaney & Ohtani have a lot of upside if they can stay healthy. Quintana, Cobb & Canning could all be above average and chew innings, taking pressure off the bullpen. They could use one more arm for the pen and some pop off the bench.
Kinda interesting on a day that Lagaras signs with a new team thus leaving the Mets, that NY goes out & signs a player in Al Almora that comps IMO most closely to Juan Lagaras only younger.
Baseball has its own interesting rhythm that is unique, random, and ironic…
True. I think Almora is more of a replacement for Marisnick than Lagares, though.
Big advantage for Lagares is he can play CF
Time to move Trout back to LF.
Imagine having literally Mike Trout and you say “Ok, now to to surround him with Heaney, Bundy, Quintana, Cobb, Canning and Ohtani – that will get us to the world series!”
The Angels front office and owner need to be flung into the sun many times over.
Angels win AL west this year
Agreed, free Trout once and for all from this mess of an organization.
As a Dodger fan, Angels can have Gray, May, Ruiz, and whomever for Trout.
Throw in Bellinger and Lux
You need pitching. Hence why Gray and May are in there. Want Lux, sure. Trout isn’t going to win in Anaheim. I don’t know if you guys take the AL West. Hate to say it but Astros will compete and you can’t count out the A’s either.
Not that it would be ever done but Buehler would have to be part of trade for Trout.
Oh boo hoo for Mike “I’ll make $37.1 million a year for the next 106 years” Trout. Come on you don’t really think that winning is at the top of his list do you? $$$,$$$,$$$ is number one and winning might fall somewhere in the top five on his list and I stress ‘might’. Did they really need Rendon or did they really need Gerrit Cole? That team is such a joke lol. Since Trout they haven’t had one impactful homegrown prospect I can think of off hand. Pujols is what, 57 years old and is due $30 million this season? LMFAO The Los Angeles Angels.
Cole was going to NY no matter what
They used to have one of the best farms in baseball. Jerry DiPotto completely gutted it and made it one of the worst. Then signed huge contracts with players that didn’t work out. They are still digging out of the hole DiPotto left them in.
And that is why they should make trades and restock their farm system.
@mysteryteam You can’t think of one homegrown prospect off hand, yet you go ahead and take time out of your day to regurgitate some idiotic BS lol. Yet the Angels are the joke right? lol
I have to disagree as Trout could have been paid more elsewhere. That in itself shows he chose the team over the paycheck.
Free Trout? He had his chance two years ago and he chose to sign a 12 year deal with the Angels so it’s his own fault. Hard to feel sorry for someone that chooses to stay with a s&&t organization.
imagine being names Marty
imagine not living in reality
imagine being named Marty
Why are you disrespecting me when I literally want Mike Trout to be on a good team?
Imagine being awakened from a sound sleep at 2AM…you would still be more aware than Marty on his best day.
Angels need to make a big move. Go get Castillo for Adell +
Trout’s situation with the Angels reminds me of Tony Gwynn and the Padres. One elite player that, with the exception of ’84 and ’98, they just couldn’t manage to build a halfway decent team around.
Gwynn never complained, just did his job and put up otherworldly numbers year after year. Trout is the same way. I hope he gets a ring before his playing days are over.
Its nothing like Gwynn because you literally said they got the right pieces to get them to the WS 2 times and on top of that, they were contenders 8 other times during Gwynn’s career.
Trout is also 5x the player Gwynn was, and the Angels are STILL clueless about building a rotation by any of the available means (draft, trade, sign, acquire).
The Angels will not be making the playoffs this year unless they get 2 elite arms in the rotation, currently they have Ohtani but he’s broken, so they have zero. How have they passed over so many SPs but had the money for Rendon or non-pitcher? How do you have Trout and be so clueless how to build a team around him? He’s literally the best player we have seen since Bonds.
Marty you act like the angels haven’t been trying to add quality pitching. They offered Cole comparable money last season but he wanted to play for the Yankees. What other aces have been available that the angels have passed up on?
Mike trout’s career is not over, but you’re saying he will never win a World Series with the angels. What are this week’s lotto tickets then, Nostradamus? Plenty of great players don’t win the World Series and plenty of bad players do. If trashing on the angels gives you so much joy, I am sad to know what you’ll do when they are actually good again.
And enough of how terrible Arte is. Yeah, he is too involved and that’s annoying. But at least he spends money. Give me arte over the rays, pirates, reds, brewers, etc owners any day of the week. Oh, and none of those teams have won a World Series as a result of their rebuilds…
In limited starts, Teheran and Ohtani were awful, but it wasn’t their starting pitching that kept them out of the playoffs last year. It is laughable that people think their starting pitching is their big problem.
Marty you are implying Trout is 5x the player Gwynn was? For starters Gwynn had a lifetime .338 batting average. Trout has never batted .338 for a full year to this point. Sure Trout has lots more power but saying Trout is 5x the player is ridiculous.
Marty is not the sharpest knife in the drawer. One would expect his posts to be filled with hyperbole. If the Angels had Hendricks last year they make the playoffs. Adding an RP is much easier to add than a Cole. The As know this, the Angels don’t.
Great take Taco
Halo11, the Angels RP was bad last year for sure. Too many blown saves. But in defense of the people that think SP was the Angels problem last year, they did have the 2nd worst rotation ERA in MLB.
Which is heavily influenced by. Ohtani and Teheran. Go look at Bundy, Canning, Heaney and Barria.. You are doing what many seem to be doing, you are putting a lot of weight in the 33 innings Ohtani and Teheran threw. That’s about the same amount of innings Barria threw and he won’t even be in the rotation.
Halo11 is right. The bigger problem for the Angels is the bullpen. The Angels need a surefire ace, but aside from that their rotation is “decent.”
The reality of the situation is that the astros and As will be worse this year. They both lost key players and did not make any noteworthy additions. The angels, however marginally you want to argue, are better than they were last year. Are they world series favorites? Absolutely not. But neither was the team in 2002.
I agree that Bundy, Heaney, Canning and Barria did well last year. I wish Barria had gotten more starts and allowed to go deeper in games. But Ohtani and Terhan only pitched 6% of the Angels innings last year. Mathematically, they could not impact the team ERA that much.
When your SP ERA is #29 out of 30 teams several SP contributed to the collapse including Sandoval, Andriese, Suarez and Peters.
Its tough to defend 29/30 in rotation ERA.
Perhaps our difference of opinion is that I’m referring to last year and you are focusing on this year.
That’s exactly the mathematical problem. They gave up a ton of runs without pitching a lot of innings. A player can give up 20 runs and not record a single out, and that has a greater impact on ERA than anything.
NL West. Team ERA no, Starters ERA, yes
29/30 thats hard to defend and say SP was not a problem. And we give credit to Heaney for being part of the solution. But his ERA was nearly 4.5.
Heaney was around 4 before the last game of the season. And Think math for a second. If Teheran has an ERA of 10.5 in 3o innings, how many starts does it take to recover from that? Math is your friend; looking at a ranking of ERA is a very simplistic misleading way of looking at things. So one out of every 5 starts they were in trouble. Four out of every five starts they were fine.
29/30, not sure I need to say anything else.
Marty, we don’t care. We’re never trading trout. Doesn’t matter if he makes the playoffs or not. Shut up and FO with your played out, regurgitated “free trout” BS.
Both Gwynn and Trout signed long term deals with their teams and never made it to free agency. So I don’t feel sorry for either of them. They both could have went elsewhere.
Do you know how many bad contracts they have surrounded him with. Threw big money at big names that didn’t work. The new GM is trying to be smart it’s a new approach.
Smart signing of Juan Lagares who has been an elite CF running down fly balls with the best and with a strong accurate arm holding and gunning down baserunners. Solid hit tool with speed with upside to steal bases with better plate discipline and baserunning guidance. He has to play smarter to reduce the unnecessary injuries due to playing with reckless abandon.
Dumb signing, Mike Trout plays CF for the Angels. Lagares will play like 4 games there.
And if Trout gets injured or has to go on the COVID list, now they have a depth replacement. It’s a minor-league deal, so if they don’t need Lagares, nothing lost.
Don’t use logic with him. He’s just angry Marty. Going to have to spout vitriol and hatred everywhere he goes. Imagine being that angry all the time.
Trout’s job is on the line this season. If he makes one bad move, his job is going to be easily overtaken by the up and coming Juan Lagares or Dexter Fowler.
lmao
Clearly, this is a precursor to a Trout trade.
Wow the excitement of this off-season continues.
No one asked if he can pitch yet
It’s only a matter time until someone does so.
I can’t wait until that happens.
2021 World Champion Angels
This was a no-brainer. It’s not often you can pick up a relatively young player who has already been a part of and has contributed to a World Series championship on the cheap that also fills a need on your team. I’ve seen him make some sensational plays in CF so the glove is undeniable. If he regains his stroke then this will be the best value signing the Mets have made so far this off-season. LGM!
This was supposed to go on the article regarding the Mets signing of Albert Almora.
The no-brainer part of this is that there are literally dozens of minor leaguers that can be called a “defensive wiz”, but couldn’t hit there way out of a wet paper bag. Dime a dozen.
Legares and Almora have both been given plenty of opportunity to differentiate and separate from these dozens of defense-only minor leaguers and have failed miserably.
A no-brain move would to be to acquire players who play Mike Trout’s position when you have Mike Trout.
Lagares is depth, in case Trout ends up on IL. He can play CF.. He will be in mix with Ward and Schebler for 4th OF spot.
Solid depth move. The Angels aren’t the Mets yet but this puts them on the way. The Mets are bonkers good. Now it’s the Angels turn. Let’s go!
Thanks for the laugh so early in the morning.
Finally, some frontline starting pitching!!!
Angels had zero CF depth in case Trout has any injury or short-term IL stint. Now they have a short-term AAA back-up plan.. All they need now is an elite ace lol
Ladies and gents Artie “99 Cent” Moreno. This guy runs the Angels more like a Minor League team than a MLB team.
Literally top 10 in payroll. Their luxury tax number is like 194. What the crap are you talking about?
They’ve also signed 3 of the 12 largest contracts in baseball history. But yeah, they’re cheap.
Almora, Lagares… I’m sensing a trend with today’s signings.
He played for the Mets a Few Weeks In 2020 Before They Dumped Him Because The Defense wasn’t There Anymore
He played two games for the Mets, and in 2019 he was well above average.
Lagares got dumped because he became redundant with Marisnick coming off the IL.
i like this much better than fowler signing. younger, cheaper and better potential.
Their is offense and defense.It’s a simple game.Why is half the game overlooked as a specialty.We have a bullpen so why not have a defensive replacement?Hes not going to play anything but 9th inning left field anyways.I like it,halos can lock it down with great defense in the late innings.
Lagares is another all-glove-no-bat defensive replacement type. The Angels probably could use a RH Outfielder to play RF against lefties as Fowler’s numbers from the right side are horrible
RSox. My only guess is Adell and Marsh are ticked for the PCL. If Adell wins the job, the Angels can decide between Schebler and Fowler. Fowler is terrible. I don’t know that much about Schebler. Lagares gives them a backup CF.
I know they want some depth but they need more pitching. Go out and get Odorizzi and trade for sonny gray.
I’m not the least bit happy with their starting pitching moves. They added two low floor, low ceiling pitcher. They should have gambled and added a player with more upside like Richards.
Depth is not an issue. Barria, Sandoval, Detmer, and even Suarez who was a borderline top 100 prospect who just turned 23, are there. All of which are at least as capable as Cobb and might be as capable as Quintana.
I’m concerned with the rotation, but the bullpen has me in a panic.
Enough with Richards. What “upside” did he even possibly display throughout his years in so cal? How about durability?
Looks like the Angels are focusing on the 21-22 off season when so much money comes off the books – pick up a couple of SP and a SS.
Hope the Angels SP holds up this year. Lots of depth with several SP4 and SP5 type pitchers.
Irony or catch 22 is, even if the Angels staff balls out Bundy Cobb Q Heaney Rasiel are all free agents next year
Angels still have 101 mill in Trout Rendon Upton next year- They need to allot the next 60 mill to pitching before they even start to think about the offence – Their gonna need to sink or swim with Marsh Adell Fletcher Walsh in 22 and just keep getting cheap ss/C imo to be most productive –
I liked the Jose Iglesias move this year, hopefully its a sign of more moves like that in the future to come . I think they will take a different angle in but never doubt Arte with a little payroll scratch to burn…. I could see Trevor Story somehow someway making his way over next year
Cap, I agree. At the end of the day, teams need to draft and develop a solid core of inexpensive, controllable talent and supplement with free agents and trades when the window opens. Unfortunately, the Angels have not done this under Arte’s leadership.
I’m with you, liking Jose Iglesias a lot.
I was hoping my jays sign this guy
Jose Iglesias film looks great. The Angels should extend him now and get a little discount. This guy is gonna get 15m plus per year, if he has a healthy year. It appears his bat skills are catching up with his elite glove. Lock him up!