Los Angeles Angels Offseason So Far: Worse Than Last Year? Any More Moves? | FANMAIL FRIDAY

28 comments

1. I hear we made an offer to Gleyber Torres 2nd basement from Yankees, and he turned us down wants to stay on East Coast.

2. What’s the chance of bringing back Estevez? Looks like the Phillies didn’t extend him

3. Y'all miss Ohtani?

4. Jon, Good job. If you take a flyer on a starting pitcher how about Verlander. He's proven several times that he can reinvent himself. Plus, i think he's a big positive for our young pitchers.

5. The only guys they're going to sign are the "hope and prayer guys" for depth

6. I can't believe this is even a question. This off season is BY FAR better than last year. However, last year they didn't want to sign any big money players. It was clear to me that the proper strategy for last year, after a couple of years of trying to "build around" Ohtani and Trout and Rendon, was to let the kids play and see what they can be. Now that they've got a young core, it's time to start filling in with experienced vets and a couple impact players which is exactly what they've done.

7. Great show and great questions from everybody. This year, all I want for Christmas is for the Angels to nab Brendan Rodgers because I think he and Neto would make a great SS and 2nd base pair. With Rengifo at third and Shanuel at first, I think we'd have a solid infield that could grow together and stick around a while.

8. What would you say about Justin Verlander or Max Sherzer for a year

9. What about Charlie Morton

10. Kind of copying MLB’s trade rumors with their predictions here, but Kyle Gibson and Tommy Kahnle are good candidates.

11. That thumbnail’s like, “It’s not my fault. I didn’t miss that bunt.”

12. This is definitely a better offseason than last year, and Perry has the ability to make more space considering they could free up 3 spots for injuries to Neto, Silseth, and Stephenson, they should be back around (may-June). Last year, Perry was kinda handcuffed to the young guys on the 40man, which limited the room for support. They also lacked an identity because of wash coming in, and Ohtani leaving, but now this is a young, hungry, fun, but an injury-plagued team.

13. If we don’t get Corbin burnes then yes this off season is another failure in my opinion. Another typical angels offseason giving us hope with early signings and saying how they are willing to spend and how “we are exploring all options” and blah blah blah

14. Call me crazy but are they just settling with Moore at second. This imaginary second base power guy free agent doesn't exist right now. I think they may take their lumps with Moore's rookie struggles cause he can knock 10-15 HRs.
    Also Jon! Why does this organization act like a girlfriend who can't decide what to eat? Do you want Burnes? No. Buelher? Ummm..no. Alonso!? Naaa.
    FLAHERTY?!? mmmmm..I don't know.
    😤

15. No way it’s a failure. For once Perry is getting depth and building from ground up this offseason. The catcher is huge for the younger arms they have (Koch, aldegeri, Detmers, Soriano, silseth etc) these are non ace arms but they all can be 2,3,4 guys and help them grow. Kukuchi give Dana and other arms like klassen time to grow and work on stuff in minors opposed to needing to come up out of need. Also Hendrix but he can go to bullpen swing man. Hopefully the rule 5 will lead to Saurez being dfa also

16. It seems like it is the usual suspects that sign the big name players. Are we in danger of seeing a two tier system develop. My proposal is that we do away with the luxury tax system and instead enforce a hard salary cap, no going over it allowed.

17. Nothing but disappointment for Angel fans. Discount players will not win 50% of their games.

18. Jack flaherty and lance Lynne would be great additions!

19. Hey Jon I think Cristian Moore is our guy either on second base or third power bat and a game changer just like he was in college.

20. If you get a 3rdbase man. That would be a success. So far.

21. Jo Adell has made defensive improvements, true- but he was a GG finalist simply because AL right fielders were all pretty horrible last year. Based on the award's required games played, chances, etc. only a handful of players actually qualified to even be nominated. Does anyone really believe that Adell has suddenly become an "Ichiro-class" right fielder?

22. A healthy Trout would be a significant upgrade this year….

23. I don’t see this is a failure and I also don’t understand people who won’t recognize that sometimes your best solution was the internal one… or that every time you bring in a starter, you’re blocking somebody else who might be one of your stars of the future

    How many wins is a healthy Mike trout? How many wins is a healthy Luis Rengifo? How many wins can we get from Chase Silseth and Reid Detmers? what about a full season of Kochanowicz? and what if Adell, Moniak and Ward have figured things out? Let’s not pretend they don’t all have huge ceilings.

    at the end of the day last year was about letting the kids play. I don’t even see that as a failure. and we’re probably not gonna win a World Series in 2025 either but could this be a 95 win playoff team? Yeah, it could if the players continue to develop, the team has better health and the improved depth keeps major league talent on the field when starters get hurt or are rested

    as Jon pointed out this season’s moves have not been flashy, but they could very well be exactly what we needed to raise the floor and help with development.

    every at bat you give a new player is one you have to take away from somebody else… and what if the guy you’re taking it from develops into a player better than the one you just spent trade capital or cap space on?

24. you don’t need to be the best team in the league in the first half. You just need to put yourself in a position to make a playoff run in the second half and then carry momentum into the postseason.

    The reason I bring that up is I don’t see a problem with setting the goal as finishing the season with Schanuel at 1st, Moore at 2nd, Neto at SS, Rengifo 3rd with Rendon backing up 1st and 3rd and Newman backing up short and 2nd

    Even if it means going through the first half with Rendon at 3rd, Newman short and Rengifo at 2nd

    you’re not settling for that because you already know the goal of where you want to end up.. you go in to the season not planning on finishing with Rendon at third, but if old Rendon shows up that’s another position you’ve improved the team at since you’re paying him anyway

    If they didn’t already have Christian Moore and Neto coming back, I’d say you’d need to be more aggressive on the infield… but why spend free agent money or trade capital on blocking Moore and Rengifo?

    I say if you get the right starting pitcher, maybe from the international market fine otherwise just focus on adding two bullpen pieces and look at spending in 2026 on an ace

    We don’t have to try to be the LA Dodgers or New York Yankees in 2025. Set the goal as being the Kansas City Royals or Baltimore Orioles in 2025. by 2026 we will know exactly what we have with our young core and if any of those pieces need to be swapped out.

25. The only pitcher they need is One good #1 starter. Let the rest of them fill out 2-5 and expect the offense to carry pitchers into the late innings. Listen even if he gets injured again next year, Mike Trout will increase the offense which was much better at the end of season than the start. The biggest hurdle this group has without any more outside improvement is cutting down on "K's" . Look, between Neto, Ward and Adell that's three bats with 23+ hr power. Add Trout and your looking at maybe 35 more if he gets though a season. O'Hoppe is another 20+ , so they have offensive potential they need to hit more as a team instead of leading the league in killing rallies. Anderson and Soriano have shown they can keep a game close for 7 innings and a better hitting team as a whole will win games. But again, one good #1 starting pitcher is a necessity.

26. If we recast the conversation into that of a rebuild and we need at least 2 years for the full potential of the farm to show itself; then we should give up trying to get a wild card this year and stop thinking we are signing Burnes and Alonso or Bregman .

    We did relevant FA signings. Did we get the top of market? No . The FA class is good so if we did sign Burnes for 7 years and overpaid I would be happy. He is one of those talents you want to sign before he goes away . I will bet we dont give anymore contracts over 30-40 million going into next year.
    But the hopium is in 1) the farm is developing well
    2) Rendon money going away in 2 years
    3) Trout being the bat we always knew in the past.
    4) trades of our excess talent to get talent we need.
    My expectations are that every year we promote 1 or 2 guys from the farm and they succeed as major league players. On top of that if every year we can win 4-5 games than the previous year in consecutive years, then we are doing really well

27. With this offseason's additions, do you think the angels have added 10 wins? If yes, do you guys think with a healthy trout on top off these additions we could make a wildcard push wildcard push?

28. This team can’t be competitive with a single offseason of FA signings. We can’t be giving up draft picks for FA signings. This process will take a couple of years before we see drastic improvements. It will start when Rendon’s contract comes off the books. We don’t need artificial improvement. We need to build our team.