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Amateur Signing Bonuses: Angels

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Next up in our series looking at each club's five largest amateur signing bonuses, the Angels…

  1. Jered Weaver, $4MM (2004)
  2. Kendry Morales, $3MM (2004)
  3. Kaleb Cowart, $2.3MM (2010)
  4. Troy Glaus, $2.25MM (1997)
  5. Joe Torres, $2.08MM (2000)

Coming off a junior season at Long Beach State in which he posted a 1.62 ERA with 213 strikeouts and just 21 walks in 144 innings (13.3 K/9, 1.3 BB/9), Weaver was the best pitching prospect in the 2004 draft but fell to the 12th overall pick due to bonus demands. The Scott Boras client held out until the following May (this was before the days of the signing deadline), pitching in an independent league to stay sharp in case he re-entered the draft in 2005. The Angels eventually got him to sign, and just about a year later he was in the big leagues. Weaver has a 3.55 ERA with 7.8 K/9 and 2.5 BB/9 in 144 career big league starts. He earned his first trip to the All Star Game in 2010, leading the AL with 233 strikeouts.

Morales defected from Cuba as a 21-year-old during the summer of 2004, signing with the Angels that December after establishing residency in the Dominican Republic. The $3MM bonus was paid up front as part of his six-year, $4.5MM major league contract. That deal just expired this season, but the Halos still control him as an arbitration eligible player for the next three years. The switch-hitting first baseman is a .284/.336/.502 career hitter in 1,240 big league plate appearances, coming into his own with a 43 double, 34 homer season in 2009.

The third overall pick in 1997, Glaus zoomed through the minors and made his major league debut in July 1998. A three-time All Star with the Angels, Glaus hit 40+ homers twice with the team, leading the AL with 47 big flies in 2000. He was named the World Series MVP during the team's 2002 title run, and overall hit .253/.357/.497 in six-plus years with the Angels before signing with the Diamondbacks as a free agent after the 2003 season. That $2.25MM bonus, a staggering amount at the time, was a tremendous investment. The Angels got their money's worth and then some.

Cowart was the the team's first round pick this year, the 18th overall selection. He hit .192/.214/.308 in just 28 plate appearances down in rookie ball after signing, but his career will begin in earnest next season. Torres flamed out after being the tenth overall pick in 2000, never getting out of Single-A. He missed part of 2003 and all of 2004 after having Tommy John surgery, and left the team as a minor league free agent after the 2006 season. Torres threw 375 innings in the Angels' system with a 5.40 ERA.

Casey Kotchman is right behind Torres at $2.075MM. He was the 13th overall pick in 2001. Mike Trout, the best prospect in baseball and the 25th overall pick in the 2009 draft, was originally asking for $2.5MM to sign last year, but he settled for $1.215MM. Through 807 minor league plate appearances, he's a .344/.426/.489 hitter.

Baseball Blogs Weigh In: Ichiro, Garza, Greinke, Bell

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On this date two years ago, the Mariners named former Brewers vice president Jack Zduriencik as their new general manager. His defense-heavy approach resulted in a 24 win increase in his first season at the helm, though team scoring dropped by 31 runs. The Mariners won just 61 games and scored a mere 513 runs in 2010, the fewest by any team in the DH era. Unsurprisingly, there's already talk that Jack Z. is on the hot seat.

These links don't have to worry about being on the hot seat, they've made this week's edition of BBWI…

If you have a suggestion for this feature, Mike can be reached here.

Odds & Ends: Mets, Inge, Reynolds, Angels

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On this date in 1974, the Yankees and Giants swapped Bobby Bonds and Bobby Murcer in one of the many deals that had Bonds packing his bags. Now, the Yankees and Giants are preoccupied with something else entirely: trying to reach the World Series. Here are today's links…

Odds & Ends: Beimel, Angels, Mets, Peralta, Dunn

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On this date 27 years ago, the Padres signed Sandy Alomar Jr. as an amateur free agent. Now, the former catcher is one of four finalists for the Blue Jays managerial opening. Here are today's links, as the Phillies send the NLCS back to Philadelphia…

Odds & Ends: Dodgers, Wood, D’Backs, A’s

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Links for Wednesday, as the Yankees try to prolong their season…

  • Baseball sources tell Ken Gurnick of MLB.com that the Dodgers are likely to bring Trey Hillman aboard as their bench coach.
  • Scott Lauber of the Boston Herald wonders if Kerry Wood could have made a difference for the BoSox.
  • Nick Piecoro of The Arizona Republic reports that the Diamondbacks are expected to name Ray Montgomery their new scouting director.  Montgomery has spent the last eight years in the Brewers organization.
  • Bryce Harper will bat seventh in his Arizona Fall League debut tonight, according to the Nationals Baseball Media Relations department (via Twitter).
  • The A's have announced several staff changes via press release.  Gerald Perry has been welcomed back as hitting coach in place of Jim Skaalen.  Joel Skinner, a longtime member of the Indians coaching staff, will take over as bench coach.  Former bench coach Tye Waller will be reassigned as the first base coach.  Waller replaces Todd Steverson who has been offered a position in the A's farm system.
  • Mark McGwire is on the fence about returning as the Cards hitting coach, Tony La Russa told Joe Strauss of the Post-Dispatch.
  • Former Angels scouting director Eddie Bane will join the Tigers scouting department, according to ESPN.com's Keith Law (on Twitter).
  • MLB.com's Jason Beck introduces us to Tigers assistant GM Al Avila, the longtime Detroit exec who remains a GM candidate. The Tigers recently declined to let the Mets interview Avila. 
  • If you play fantasy baseball, head over to RotoAuthority, where Tim Dierkes examines the impact of Ted Lilly's new deal on the lefty's fantasy value.
  • It doesn't look like Japanese shortstop Hiroyuki Nakajima will become available to MLB teams this year, according to reports passed along by Patrick Newman of NPB Tracker (Twitter link).
  • Cubs GM Jim Hendry told MLB.com's Carrie Muskat that he will "absolutely" welcome Ryne Sandberg back to Chicago's minor league system if the Hall of Famer wants to continue working his way to the major leagues. Sandberg, a finalist for the Cubs major league job, was disappointed when the team hired Mike Quade.
  • Brewers managerial candidate Pat Listach was pleased with his interview, according to MLB.com's Bill Ladson.

Rockies Rumors: De La Rosa, Mora, Tulowitzki

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When Ted Lilly finalized his three-year $33MM deal, he established a standard for other free agent left-handers. The agreement may not impact Cliff Lee, who figures to be in his own tier, but it could be a point of reference for Jorge de la Rosa's contract negotiations this winter. Here's the latest on de la Rosa and the Rockies:

Gammons On Red Sox, Crawford, Moreno, Liverpool

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Peter Gammons made one of his regular appearances on WEEI's The Big Show today to discuss the playoffs and look ahead to Boston's winter moves.  Albert Vontz of WEEI.com has a partial transcript, and here are some highlights…

  • The Red Sox are "going to go real hard after Carl Crawford."  Gammons thinks one advantage Boston has is that they're looking at Crawford as middle-of-the-order bat rather than as a leadoff man, and Crawford "doesn’t want to be the guy trying to steal 70 bases."
  • The Angels are another team rumored to be pursuing Crawford this winter, and they'll have the money to do so.  Gammons hears that Angels owner Arte Moreno "is on the cusp" of a new local television deal worth approximately $4BB.  Gammon says Moreno and the Halos are moving fast to "swallow up even more of the Dodgers market" what with the Dodgers embroiled in the McCourt ownership dispute.
  • In the wake of the Red Sox ownership group's purchase of Liverpool FC of the English Premier League, Gammons thinks Red Sox fans will blame the soccer club if the Sox can't acquire and/or afford any major free agents this winter.  Gammons was told, however, that Liverpool is "a $1BB business that they bought for about $400MM" and surmises that majority owner John Henry sees the purchase as "a great business deal…[that] might help the Red Sox in a ten-year period."

Angels Owner Prepared To Spend

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Angels owner Arte Moreno says he plans to spend aggressively to send his team back to the postseason. Moreno told Bill Plaschke of the LA Times that he dislikes losing and will do everything he can to improve the Angels.

"We know where our weaknesses are, we know where we are thin, we know where we have to go to market," Moreno said. "It's going to cost money, but our fans need to know what we're committed to winning."

Moreno said he hopes to sign an outfielder who creates runs. Carl Crawford and Jayson Werth, who are both free agents this winter, are potential targets for the Angels. Both will likely be expensive, but Moreno said he’s prepared to complement homegrown players like Jered Weaver with free agents.

"Championship teams develop their players like we have, we know that," Moreno said. "But sometimes when the prospects aren't there, you have to bridge that area, and I'm willing to do that."

GM Tony Reagins may pursue relievers, third basemen and outfielders this offseason as the Angels look to return to their winning ways. The team finished below .500 (80-82) for the first time since 2003 and missed the playoffs for the first time since 2006. It has been apparent for weeks that the Angels will be able to spend and it now seems like Reagins will have the flexibility to bid on whichever free agents fit the Angels' needs best.

Mike Napoli And The Arbitration Process

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One area that's always been murky for baseball fans is the process by which salaries for arbitration-eligible players are determined.  Using Angels catcher Mike Napoli as an example, let's attempt to shed some light on arbitration.

The first conclusion I reached when looking into Napoli's comparables is that there aren't any good ones.  Do you know any catchers who went to arbitration for a third time in recent years?  All the good ones were locked up, and all the bad ones were non-tendered.  John Buck might have been a comparable, but the Royals cut him loose before he could go to arbitration a third time.  The only catcher we found who recently went to arbitration a third time was the Tigers' Gerald Laird.  Laird's offensive stats after the '09 season paled in comparision to Napoli's current body of work, so we need to look elsewhere.

If an agent and team are forced to go to an arbitration hearing over a player's salary, the statistics used to make arguments are simple.  For Napoli it might be his .251 batting average, 92 home runs, 249 RBIs, and 246 runs.  He's heading to arbitration for the third time.  He has four years and 151 days of service and will be building off his 2010 salary of $3.6MM.

A baseball source gave me two comparables he thought Napoli's agent Brian Grieper might be able to use: Jorge Cantu after '09 and Xavier Nady after '08.  The criteria for an arbitration comparison talks about service levels, but not positions.  It's already been proven that catchers get extra credit in arbitration for being catchers – in his first year of arbitration, Russell Martin got $3.9MM.  You might expect that salary for a 30 home run, 100 RBI player, not a 13 home run, 69 RBI guy like Martin.  Napoli himself got $2MM in his first arbitration year coming off a season in which he played 78 games.

So even though Napoli falls short of Cantu and Nady in most basic offensive categories, they're workable comparables given the lack of similar catchers.  Napoli has a half-season of playing first base on his resume, so that might strengthen the comparison.  Cantu went from $3.5MM to $6MM, while Nady went from $3.35MM to $6.55MM.  Their raises were between $2.5-3.2MM, or 71-96%.  Napoli's agent might be able to argue for a $6-7MM salary for 2011, unless the Angels find more similar players who were paid less.

Could Napoli be non-tendered by the Angels this winter? One baseball source agreed with my estimate of a 10% chance, while another put it below 5%.  We all agreed Napoli is more likely to be traded than cut loose, though one of them remarked, "I think if they are stuck with him they will wish they would have non-tendered him."  The Angels won't be desperate – they can afford Napoli if no one wants him, but they should be able to find a taker for a 26 home run catcher even if his defense is poorly-regarded.  Keep in mind that even though Napoli is technically under team control through 2012, his 2011 salary could make him a likely non-tender.

Odds & Ends: Iwakuma, Ichiro, Red Sox, Barmes

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Links for Sunday evening, with the regular season behind us and the playoff picture defined…

  • Angels GM Tony Reagins tells Mike DiGiovanna of the L.A. Times he's "confident we'll be able to add an important piece."
  • As passed along by NPB Tracker's Patrick Newman on Twitter, Sanspo reports that a posting announcement will come soon regarding Japanese pitcher Hisashi Iwakuma.  The righty, 30 in April, posted a 2.82 ERA, 6.9 K/9, 1.6 BB/9, and 0.49 HR/9 in 201 innings this year for Rakuten. 
  • Ichiro Suzuki's 10-and-5 rights kicked in today after the Mariners' game, tweets Larry Stone of the Seattle Times.
  • In his end-of-the-season press conference, Red Sox GM Theo Epstein indicated fixing the bullpen and retaining important free agents are his offseason priorities (WEEI's Alex Speier reporting).  Epstein fielded all kinds of questions and was noncommittal in most cases, but the transcript is still worth a read.
  • Clint Barmes would like to return to the Rockies if he can't find an everyday role elsewhere, he explained to Jim Armstrong of the Denver Post.  We discussed Barmes' non-tender candidacy in August, and 79% of MLBTR readers predicted he'll be cut loose.
  • The Dodgers officially announced Brad Ausmus' retirement with a press release.  Ausmus revealed his decision to reporters in July.
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