Morning everyone!<\/p>\n
Recently we\u2019ve been hearing more and more whispers about the A\u2019s looking to add some more certainty to the lineup. First we got the news that the front office was kicking the tires on a potential Miguel Andujar reunion<\/a>, followed by a scuttled trade for future Hall of Famer Nolan Arenado<\/a>. After being left at the altar by Nolan, the team was a speculative candidate to dip their toes back into the free agent pool of remaining third basemen. The two specific names mentioned in Ken Rosenthal\u2019s report<\/a> were former Mariner Eugenio Suarez and former Angel Yoan Moncada. Both fit the A\u2019s need at third base and with the season creeping closer both teams and players will soon need to make decisions.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n Well you can cross one of those speculative fits off the board. Moncada yesterday evening re-upped with the Angels, agreeing to a modest one year, $4 million contract for the upcoming campaign:<\/p>\n That\u2019s a contract that the A\u2019s easily could have outbid if they really wanted Moncada, especially after the Arenado report indicated the Athletics were prepared to take on a substantial amount of money in the scuttled deal. That can really only mean three things:<\/p>\n The A\u2019s believe that Moncada, who has been repeatedly injured throughout his career, is simply not worth that \u201clarge\u201d of an investment. The front office truly believes that their in-house options (Max Muncy, Darell Hernaiz, Brett Harris) will perform as well or better than Moncada at a fraction of the rate.<\/p>\n There could perhaps be other negotiations going on right now that we aren\u2019t aware of, and Moncada simply took the offer in hand. That could mean either trade talks or contract negotiations for the A\u2019s but they waited around too long for him.<\/p>\n Moncada just didn\u2019t want to come here, no matter what we offered and playing time be damned.<\/p>\n Any of those could be true, but I\u2019d lean towards Option 2. The A\u2019s are still looking for upgrades if the Arenado deal was indeed about to happen. Adding him wouldn\u2019t have changed the heart of the batting order, but it certainly would have elevated the floor of the production coming out of the hot corner. Add in the positive influence a guy like him could have had on Jacob Wilson and Nick Kurtz, and the appeal is obvious.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n Moncada never really felt like the type of player that really changes the outlook at third base though. While he could have another fine season at the plate his overall production probably won\u2019t be the difference between the A\u2019s and a chance at the playoffs. The most likely outcome is that he\u2019s a solid batter when healthy, but just can\u2019t stay healthy. If the A\u2019s do end up running out of options for an upgrade over the guys here, then they might as well roll the dice and see if a Muncy or Hernaiz or Harris can break out. It\u2019s not worth blocking that chance for a minimal upgrade in Moncada.<\/p>\n This could all be sour grapes but he was truly at the bottom of the list in terms of potential additions. The team is running out of legitimate upgrade options though and the past few days have made it much more likely our starter at third base on Opening Day is already on the roster. The trade market seems like the only path now for an upgrade at third base.<\/p>\n Have another great day everyone. And don\u2019t forget to vote in today\u2019s Round 2 of our CPL!<\/p>\n A\u2019s Coverage:<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n MLB News and Interest:<\/p>\n Best of X:<\/p>\n Three top-100\u2019s!<\/p>\n Considering how deep shortstop is right now, #4 ain\u2019t too bad, Leo:<\/p>\n Amazing how far we\u2019ve come\u2026<\/p>\n #2 prospect in the system?<\/p>\n Tough to see but more progress is being made on the new stadium:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Morning everyone! Recently we\u2019ve been hearing more and more whispers about the A\u2019s looking to add some more…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":532807,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2390],"tags":[291,537,5,21619,62143,37028,1950,1165,446,3223,774,56,3224,3222,1532,4808,4,459,1028,3511],"class_list":["post-532806","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles-angels","tag-angels","tag-athletics","tag-baseball","tag-brett-harris","tag-contract-negotiations","tag-darell-hernaiz","tag-jacob-wilson","tag-la","tag-la-angels","tag-laangels","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-angels","tag-losangeles","tag-losangelesangels","tag-max-muncy","tag-miguel-andujar","tag-mlb","tag-nick-kurtz","tag-nolan-arenado","tag-yoan-moncada"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/115939627949551967","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532806","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=532806"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532806\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/532807"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=532806"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=532806"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=532806"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}