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Ohtani Feels “Negative” About 2022

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Shohei Ohtani’s patience may be wearing thin with the Angels’ consistent lack of success. Los Angeles’s two-way superstar has repeatedly indicated his desire to win to the press, sparking a plethora of rumors regarding his intentions once he becomes a free agent. With only one season left until he is scheduled to hit the open market, every word that comes out of Ohtani’s mouth is going to be perceived as a potential clue as to his future plans.

On Tuesday, Ohtani arrived home in his Japan where he spoke with reporters, including Koji Ueda of the Associated Press. This time, he not only reiterated his commitment to winning, but explicitly stated his disappointment with the Angels’ inability to win. Speaking in Japanese, Ohtani said that “August and September in particular felt longer to me than last year” because the Angels “were not able to play as many good games as we would like — including 14 consecutive losses. So I have a rather negative impression of this season.”

These statements lamenting the final stretch of the Angels’ season come even as Ohtani closed his season on an absolute tear. From August on, the reigning AL MVP slashed .303/.363/.560, posted a wRC+ of 156, and logged a 1.62 ERA over 66 2/3 innings. It speaks volumes about Ohtani’s team-first mentality that he would describe August and September as specifically woeful, considering how fantastic his individual performance was during that timeframe.

The Angels finished 73-89 in 2022, 13 games back of Tampa Bay for the final wild card spot. In Ohtani’s five seasons, the Halos have never had a record at or above .500 and have ended each season at least ten games behind the AL West champion, despite frequently getting world-class production out of Ohtani and Mike Trout. They will also face difficulties in changing their fortunes going forward. The Angels’ farm system was ranked dead last in MLB.com’s 2022 midseason rankings and features only one top-100 prospect in catcher Logan O’Hoppe (#67). As such, they do not have many young assets with which they could flip into Major League-ready players via trade. Also, with owner Arte Moreno exploring a sale of the club, it’s unknown how willing he will be to make major investments in the free agent market this winter.

With the club underperforming this year, the Angels considered Ohtani trades at the deadline but Moreno reportedly put the kibosh on that plan. Of course, if the team has a new owner, that has the potential to change things. If the team is having another disappointing season as next year’s deadline approaches, the trade rumors will only grow louder.

Like everything involving Ohtani, his trade market would no doubt be unprecedented and allow the Angels to add a large pile of young talent to their system. In fact, Ohtani has already demonstrated a capacity to break records on the market, having agreed to a $30 million contract in his final year of arbitration, the largest ever for an arbitration eligible player.

What is uncertain is which team would have the motivation and assets to unload a massive prospect haul for one guaranteed year, or just a few months, of Ohtani. Contending teams would be most likely to hedge a big chunk of their future to do so, but there are only so many contenders with sufficient farm systems to land him. The Dodgers, Guardians, and Rays are the only three playoff teams with farm systems ranked in the top 10 of MLB.com’s 2022 midseason farm system rankings. Additionally, the Mets, Cardinals, and Yankees all have at least four top-100 prospects that, if included in a theoretical deal, could help a deal come together.

Whether Ohtani stays an Angel or is traded somewhere else, speculation regarding his future is sure to dominate headlines in 2023.

19 Players Elect Free Agency

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Players hit minor league free agency on a daily basis during the postseason, as opposed to major league free agents who hit free agency following the World Series when their contracts expire. On Thursday, MLBTR covered 15 players who elected minor league free agency, and we will continue to provide occasional updates as players continue to hit the open market, as noted on the MiLB.com transactions log.

If a player is not on their organization’s 40-man roster at the end of the season, he will hit minor league free agency as long as he has at least 3 years of MLB service time, been assigned outright more than once in his career, and/or has played in the minor leagues for parts of seven or more seasons. Everyone on today’s list is part of that group of players, and most will search for another minor league deal this offseason, though a few may manage to latch onto a major league club and secure a bench or bullpen spot entering the 2023 season.

Infielders:

Outfielders:

Pitchers:

Angels Re-Sign Three To Minor League Deals

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The Angels have re-signed three players to minor league deals, according to Sam Blum of The Athletic. Outfielders Aaron Whitefield and Ryan Aguilar and lefty Kolton Ingram will return to the organization next year. All three have been invited to MLB Spring Training.

Aguilar, 28, made his MLB debut this year, getting a seven-game cup of coffee with the Angels wherein he hit .136/.231/.182. In 93 Triple-A games this season, he fared much better. He hit .271/.415/.491 for a wRC+ of 144 and also added 11 steals. He was designated for assignment and outrighted in September.

Whitefield, 26, appeared in three games for the 2020 Twins and five games for the Angels this year. Those eight games make up the entirety of his MLB experience to this point. He spent most of this year in Double-A, getting into 79 games and hitting .262/.343/.432, wRC+ of 104. He managed to swipe 29 bags in that time, despite only playing about a half season’s worth of games. He was outrighted off the club’s roster in May.

The Angels have an uncertain outfield mix at the moment, with Mike Trout and Taylor Ward set to take up center and right field again, respectively. Left field is more open, as Jo Adell has yet to cement himself as a viable big leaguer. He was given brief tastes of the majors in 2020 and 2021 but a larger tryout this year. In 88 games, he hit just .224/.264/.373 for a wRC+ of 77 while striking out in 37.5% of his plate appearances. Given that he’s still a work in progress, it makes sense for the Halos to add some outfield depth to their system.

As for Ingram, who turns 26 in a week, he has no major league experience, having topped out at Double-A so far. He threw 60 2/3 innings at that level this year over 50 appearances, registering a 2.67 ERA with a 47% ground ball rate, 30.8% strikeout rate and 7.2% walk rate. He’ll stick around as left-handed bullpen depth and try to continue building off a strong season in the minors.

15 Players Elect Free Agency

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As the postseason rolls along, players hit minor league free agency daily. It’s customary each offseason for dozens of players to hit the open market, separate from the players who reach MLB free agency at the end of the World Series based on the expiration of their contracts while having six-plus years of MLB service time.

Any player who is not on his team’s 40-man roster at season’s end but has three-plus years of MLB service, multiple career outright assignments and/or seven-plus seasons in the minor leagues has the right to elect free agency. Everyone in today’s group falls under that umbrella. The majority will take minor league deals over the winter, although one or two could find a big league deal as a bench piece or middle-inning reliever.

MLBTR covered 34 players who qualified for minor league free agency last week. We’ll periodically provide updates as plenty more hit the open market, as reflected on the MiLB.com transactions log.

Pitchers

Infielders

Outfielders

Eric Kay Sentenced To 22 Years In Prison For Drug Distribution Related To Death Of Tyler Skaggs

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Former Angels communications director Eric Kay has been sentenced to 22 years in prison after being convicted of drug distribution resulting in the death of Halos pitcher Tyler Skaggs, Gus Garcia-Roberts of the Washington Post was among those to report. Terry Means, a judge in the Northern District of Texas, handed down the sentence.

Kay was convicted by a Fort Worth jury in February of supplying Skaggs with fentanyl that led to his death in July 2019. The Angels were playing a road series against the Rangers at the time.

At the trial, a number of former Halos players testified they’d received opiates from Kay during their time playing in Anaheim. Matt Harvey, who admitted on the witness stand that he’d also supplied Skaggs with a controlled substance, was hit with a 60-game suspension by MLB in May for violating the joint drug agreement. Harvey was granted immunity from criminal prosecution for his testimony, and the trial jury found beyond a reasonable doubt the drugs supplied by Kay were those which caused Skaggs’ death.

The conviction carried a mandatory minimum sentence of 20 years in prison. Judge Means announced at the sentencing hearing he went above that minimum after hearing disparaging remarks Kay had made about Skaggs (which are excerpted in the Post’s report) while in prison. Kay’s mother tells Garcia-Roberts his family plans to appeal the conviction.

Dustin Garneau Announces Retirement

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Former major league catcher Dustin Garneau took to Twitter this afternoon to announce his retirement. “Hanging them up. Thank you to everyone who had an impact on my career,” Garneau wrote. “To my wife for always being by my side through the ups and downs. To my agent (Marc Kligman) for always being there and making me a part of your family as well. And to my friends and family who were by my side.”

A 19th-round pick of the Rockies in the 2009 draft, Garneau reached the majors for the first time six years later. The Cal State Fullerton product broke into the big leagues just after his 28th birthday in August 2015. It marked the first of eight straight years in which he’d get to the highest level. Garneau was a prototypical depth catcher, never appearing in more than 41 MLB games in a season but donning six different uniforms along the way.

After two seasons in Colorado, Garneau bounced to the A’s on waivers. He’d find himself in the transactions logs fairly frequently thereafter, moving to the White Sox, Angels, back to the A’s and Astros through 2020. He returned to the Rockies on a minor league deal in 2021 but was dealt to the Tigers, with whom he spent the past couple seasons. That included eight games early this season, but he spent most of the year in Triple-A before reaching minor league free agency last week.

Altogether, Garneau appeared in 168 major league games. He hit .205/.285/.373 over 506 plate appearances, connecting on 15 home runs and 28 doubles. Six of those longballs came in a 20-game stint with Detroit in 2021. Over parts of eight Triple-A campaigns, the righty-swinging backstop was a .248/.329/.480 hitter. He played parts of 14 professional seasons. Best wishes to Garneau in all the best in his post-playing endeavors.

34 Players Become Free Agents

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The Wild Card round of the 2022 postseason begins today, but for the majority of teams and players, the offseason is now underway. With that will come plenty of roster formalities, including veteran players who’ve been outrighted off their respective teams’ rosters reaching minor league free agency. This week, there have been 34 such instances throughout the league, per the transactions log at MiLB.com.

None of these are a surprise, to be clear. Any player who is not on his team’s 40-man roster at season’s end but has three-plus years of Major League service time, multiple career outright assignments and/or seven-plus seasons in the minors has the right to elect free agency. Everyone in today’s group of players falls under that umbrella. The majority of the group will likely find minor league deals over the winter, although a few of the players in question could potentially find a big league deal as a bench piece or middle-inning reliever.

There will be several more waves of players of this ilk, and we’ll make note of them in bunches over the coming weeks as we await the launch of Major League free agency, when all unsigned players with at least six years of Major League service time will reach the open market. For now, here’s the first of what will likely be several waves of newly minted minor league free agents:

Catchers

Infielders

Outfielders

Pitchers

Angels’ GM Perry Minasian On Ohtani, Rotation, Coaching Staff

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The Angels have already gotten a head start on some notable offseason business, both regarding the roster and its clubhouse leadership. In recent days, the Halos both avoided arbitration with the reigning AL MVP and finalized their managerial situation heading into 2023.

Over the weekend, the club and two-way superstar Shohei Ohtani agreed to a $30MM salary for next season. The one-year pact avoided the possibility of what would’ve been the most fascinating arbitration case ever, with no clear precedent for a player of Ohtani’s talents. The sides won’t need to go anywhere near a hearing room, though, with the two-time All-Star instead agreeing to the largest salary for an arbitration-eligible player in big league history.

While the Halos are surely relieved to have Ohtani’s case settled, there are still plenty of questions about his long-term future in Orange County. The 2023 campaign is the final year in which he’s under club control, and Los Angeles heads into the winter coming off another disappointing season. General manager Perry Minasian met with reporters this afternoon (links via Sam Blum of the Athletic and Jeff Fletcher of the Orange County Register), and while he didn’t offer any specifics about Ohtani’s situation, he unsurprisingly indicated he’d be thrilled to keep him beyond next season. “I think it’s Step 1,” Minasian said of avoiding arbitration. “Hopefully there are more steps down the road. … I’d love to have him here for a long time.”

That’s obviously not a firm declaration about Ohtani’s future, but it stands to reason Minasian and his staff will look to engage his reps at CAA at some point over the winter. They’ll surely receive calls from other teams inquiring about his availability in trade as well. The Halos obviously would’ve received ample interest in Ohtani at this past deadline, but owner Arte Moreno reportedly quashed any potential for a deal early in the process. Not long thereafter, Moreno announced he was looking into the possibility of selling the franchise.

Minasian told reporters he wasn’t aware of the status of the sales process, little surprise since he’s not involved in that decision. Asked whether it’d impact the club’s budget, the front office leader largely demurred. Minasian noted that ownership “still wants to put a good team on the field” and “is really competitive” but didn’t reveal any specifics about the franchise’s 2023 payroll outlook. The Halos opened the 2022 season with a player payroll north of $188MM, a franchise record figure, per Cot’s Baseball Contracts. They already have roughly $133MM committed to next year’s books, in the estimation of Roster Resource. That’s before accounting for an arbitration class that includes Luis Rengifo, Jared Walsh and Super Two qualifiers Taylor Ward and Patrick Sandoval.

Working in the Halos favor, however, is that Minasian and his group aren’t faced with the losses of too many key contributors. Aside from Kurt Suzuki, who has already announced his retirement, the Halos stand to see Michael Lorenzen, Matt Duffy and Archie Bradley hit the open market. Lorenzen is the only member of that group who was relatively effective this year. Signed to a $6.75MM free agent deal, he pitched to a 4.24 ERA across 18 starts. Minasian suggested they could look to retain him via free agency, although he also noted the team wasn’t firmly committed to redeploying a six-man rotation again next season. The Halos have run with a six-man staff in recent years, in part to reduce the workload Ohtani has to shoulder on the mound. “I wouldn’t rule it out,” the GM said of a five-man rotation. “But if it’s not broke, don’t fix it. There’s a balance there. Is the risk worth the reward?”

Minasian also addressed the coaching staff, noting that the club is still evaluating whether to make changes in that area. Phil Nevin will be back as skipper after signing a one-year deal yesterday, but it’s to be determined whether his staff will remain in place. Asked about the short term of Nevin’s first permanent managerial contract, Minasian said the club will “(see) where it goes next year and (go) from there, but my hope and my expectation is that this is a long-term thing.” Of course, the long-term future of the organization will be determined in large part by the direction any incoming ownership group plans to take. Jon Heyman of the New York Post suggests the franchise sale price could run as high as $2.5 billion, although the identities of the groups currently in talks with Moreno and his staff haven’t been publicly reported.

Angels Sign Phil Nevin To One-Year Deal As Manager

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The Angels announced that they have agreed to a one-year contract with Phil Nevin to manage the club in 2023. Nevin had taken over on an interim basis this year when Joe Maddon was fired but will stick around for another season in the dugout.

Nevin, 51, will get his first proper stint as a manager next year. After playing in 12 seasons from 1995 to 2006, he transitioned into coaching. He began in independent ball before getting some work in the minors. He got up to the major league level in 2017, joining the Giants as a third base coach before taking on the same job with the Yankees and then the Angels.

2022 got off to a roaring start for the Angels, with the club going 14-8 in April. For a moment, there was hope that the club could finally put it all together after years of not being able to capitalize on all the talent on their roster. However, the club slumped after that, eventually undergoing a 12-game losing streak across the end of May and early June, leading to Maddon getting fired as bench boss.

Nevin was promoted to interim manager at that point, losing his first two games to extend that losing streak to a 14-gamer. Overall, since the switch, the club has gone 46-59. Those aren’t exactly inspiring numbers, but it’s hard to know how much of that to pin on Nevin given the deficiencies of the roster.

Despite Nevin’s lack of experience and tepid results so far, there’s some logic to maintaining the continuity of the staff by keeping him around. There’s a great deal of uncertainty hovering over the club right now for a few reasons, one of which is that owner Arte Moreno is exploring selling the team. It’s possible that the club has a new owner in place or at least lined up by this time next year. At that time, they may have their own plans about how they want to run the club, whether they want to try to compete immediately or embark on a rebuild. Given that uncertain future, it makes sense to keep Nevin in there as a sort of placeholder until the future becomes clearer. The alternative would be conducting a lengthy search to find a new manager, but candidates might not be enthused about stepping into a situation that is still very much in flux.

There’s also the uncertainty around the on-field product. Despite having tremendously talented players like Mike Trout, Shohei Ohtani and Anthony Rendon on the roster, the team has continued to disappoint. They haven’t made the playoffs since 2014 and haven’t had a winning record since 2015. Ohtani is currently slated to reach free agency after the 2023 campaign, at which point Trout will be 32 and Rendon will be 33. It’s entirely possible that next season is the one that they finally put it all together, but it’s also possible that they disappoint yet again. The roster has obvious holes right now and it’s hard to guess how much Moreno would be interested in spending on a team he’s actively trying to sell.

There’s a wide variety of potential outcomes for the next year with a vast number of unknowns beyond that. The club will eventually have to decide what kind of manager they want, depending on which path they go down. However, today’s decision to keep Nevin around effectively kicks that can down the road for another year.

Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.

Angels Outright Three

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A trio of players designated for assignment by the Angels last week — right-hander Mike Mayers, first baseman Mike Ford and outfielder Magneuris Sierra — went unclaimed on outright waivers, per the league’s transactions log at MLB.com. All three were assigned outright to Triple-A Salt Lake. All three can reject the assignment in favor of free agency right now, though that’s largely a moot point, as all three can also become free agents after the season concludes.

Mayers, 30, is the most experienced of the bunch and has spent the most time with the Angels organization. From 2020-21, he was a regular in late-inning roles for the Halos, recording four saves and 22 holds through 105 innings pitched. In that span, Mayers worked to a sharp 3.34 ERA with a terrific 30.5% strikeout rate and a solid 8% walk rate — easily the best stretch of a big league career that now spans parts of seven seasons.

Unfortunately, Mayers wasn’t at all able to sustain that pace in 2022. He’s pitched 50 2/3 innings this year — third-most of any season in his Major League career — and been clubbed for a 5.68 ERA along the way. His average fastball velocity, which sat 94.6 mph in 2020-21, is down to a career-low 93.7 mph in 2022. He’s also seen his strikeout rate plummet to 20.2%, and after allowing just 1.11 homers per nine innings in 2020-21, he’s surrendered a whopping 2.66 long balls per nine frames this year.

Ford, also 30, has suited up for four big league teams in 2022 alone. The longtime Yankees prospect spent 16 games with the Mariners earlier in the season (across two stints), one with the Giants, eight with the Braves and now 28 with the Halos. Ford has been designated for assignment by each of those teams, however (twice by the Mariners), bringing his DFA total to a whopping five on the year.

Ford impressed in his rookie showing with the Yankees back in 2019, debuting to the tune of a .259/.350/.559 batting line and a dozen homers in just 163 plate appearances. He hit just .134/.250/.276 in 156 plate appearances over the next two seasons before being cut loose by the Yankees, however, and has now logged a combined .206/.302/.313 output in 149 plate appearances between his quartet of new teams in 2022.

Sierra, meanwhile, hit just .165/.200/.242 in 96 plate appearances with the Angels prior to his DFA. The former Cardinals and Marlins prospect is one of baseball’s fastest players, ranking in the 97th percentile for average sprint speed, per Statcast. He’s never gotten on base enough in the big leagues to make much use of his wheels, though, as evidenced by a lifetime .228/.273/.272 slash in 636 plate appearances.

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