The AL West saw no shortage of action this offseason, with notables Albert Pujols, Yu Darvish and Yoenis Cespedes joining the ranks, but the division may yet make a few more transactions headlines before Opening Day. Here's the latest …
- Angels outfielder/DH Bobby Abreu told Enrique Rojas of ESPNDeportesLosAngeles.com that he'd like to be traded if he's not assured of an everyday role this season — this after Halos skipper Mike Scioscia said Sunday that Abreu will split time at DH with Mark Trumbo and/or Kendrys Morales. GM Jerry Dipoto responded by saying Abreu has "no right" to issue an ultimatum, according to Alden Gonzalez of MLB.com.
- Rangers GM Jon Daniels said Texas has no trades in the works right now, including any involving releiver Koji Uehara, and still has no plans to sign right-hander Roy Oswalt, according to T.R. Sullivan of MLB.com. Uehara has long been rumored to be on the trade block.
- Athletics GM Billy Beane said there are no guarantees for DH Manny Ramirez, recently signed to a minor league contract, beyond Day 1, tweets Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle. Beane also told reporters, including Jane Lee of MLB.com, that signing Manny was strictly a baseball decision — not for PR — and that "we couldn't come up with a reason not to sign him" (Twitter links).
I coulda sworn that C.J. Wilson was already in the AL West…
Dude he was, he ditched us (rangers) because he knew he had sucked recently in playoff play and he knew we were interested in Yu Darvish.
I’m sorry .. didn’t your whole team suck recently in playoff play? .. 1 strike X 2 opportunities = Rangers are the Buffalo Bills of baseball ..
Where were the angels in 2010 and 2011? Oh… That’s right.. At home playing as the rangers in MLB 2k11 and crying to themselves while eating Bon Bons lol and just so you know ANGELS=SAN ANTONIO SPURS OF BASEBALL and will probably suffer the same fate. Good regular season and blowup in the playoffs and get beat by either the Detroit Tigers and or the Tampa Bay Rays
1 ws vs 0. scoreboard.
You represent Ranger fans so well.
Pulling out the bon bons reference from about fifteen years ago, nice. And you basically described the Rangers with your Angels description, since you still haven’t done anything in the playoffs to result in a World Series title (which the Angels actually have one of).
Sarcasm is a delicate art, Jose.
He didn’t “ditch” you the Front Office didn’t want to bring him back at market rate. (understandably so).
Good for Bobby, he still has something left to offer to a team (OBP) and the Angels just don’t have a spot for him. This needs to happen, that would free up the 5th outfield spot for a Jeremy Moore.
No offense.. But he offers pretty much the same as Damon does at this point of his career and we don’t see teams clamoring to give him even a couple of million.
Abreu has had a good career, but it will be rough moving his contract.
Rough = impossible.
Unless the Angels kick in $4m or take on a bad deal Abreu isn’t going anywhere.
If he really wants to be moved then he should give back $4m. Otherwise Bobby isn’t guaranteed to get a single AB. If there are better players on the roster (which there are) Bobby should be sitting on the bench.
Granted, Halos may have to kick in $$ but nothing’s impossible. Just ask Abreu’s BP buddy Vernon Wells.
Yeah, but the Angels can’t trade him to the Angels, so he ain’t goin anywhere without abundant salary relief.
I took “moving his contract” to mean that a team would absorb all of his contract. Goes without saying that if the Angels picked up the entire tab or even most of the tab that teams would be interested in him.
Abreu is obviously on his last leg and Pujols obviously makes the lineup better but when you look at Abreu’s 2011 it’s hard to say he DOESN’T belong in the lineup.
Among players w/ at least 100 AB:
2nd in OBP at .353
1st in BB% at 13%
3rd in SB with 21
It’s better to say that it’s more difficult to move Wells and his hellish contract than it is to move Abreu so Abreu is the more expendable of the two. The BEST LA lineup should be…
PB, Hunter and Trout w/ Morales (if healthy) @ DH or replaced by Abreu if he starts the year on the DL.
Yeah, those stats might be good for someone that can actually field a position. Or for someone that can actually hit LHP (.319 OBP and .270 SLG vs. LHP) For a DH he is wasting at bats considering the plethora of other options (Morales, Trumbo, Hunter and Wells on off days, etc.).
He is valuable as a reserve or as a pinch hitter or runner off the bench, but that’s about it at this point. The guy can’t field for beans, and there’s tons of DH options out there nowadays on the open market. For him to be complaining about a bench role while making $9MM is fairly ludicrous at this point in his career.
Thank you. One of the best comments I’ve ever read on this site.
My guess is, the money matters to fans, and to potential teams he might be traded to. I’m 99% sure that Abreu probably just wants to play everyday seeing as how he obviously knows he’s at the end of his career. If he were a free agent and team “A” said I can offer you $5 mil but can’t guarantee you will play 100 games and team “B” said I can give you $1 mil guaranteed plus incentives but you will be my everyday DH and see some time in the field I’m 99% sure Abreu would take the $1 mil and playing time.
It’s easy to say he should just shut up and sit on the bench but if anything, I admire the fact that he wants to earn his pay on the field playing in as many games as possible. I worry more about the guy w/o the fire in his belly.
You left out SLG, OPS, UZR, etc.
Bobby still does a good job of drawing a walk and catching pitchers snoozing when he’s on first. There is value there it’s just not great value. Trumbo, Morales (if healthy) and even Wells offer better options at this stage than Abreu.
That said, if the team is only going to get $2-4m in salary relief I would probably just keep him.
It would be surprising knowing that the Yanks already dealt Burnett to the Pirates….
How long does Abreu have left on his deal? If its only 1 year I wouldn’t mind the Tigers swinging something. We could use a DH for the year while Vmart mends
Filling the DH spot (especially with a guy like Abreu who is pretty much strictly a DH at this point) would be a huge mistake. That spot needs to be left open in case Cabrera is not able to play a passable 3B.
Fair enough. I just don’t want to see Kelly DHing
Fair enough. I just don’t want to see Kelly DHing
You’ve already got a DH. He’s just playing third base.
– Mark Reynolds
I can’t believe Roy Oswalt still has not signed. It’s almost March!
Bye Bobby.
I love Manny, but I could come up with a couple reasons not to sign him.
Ya but think moneyball 2.0 lol… they give him 500k.. big loss?- no…. say he plays those last 100 games after the suspension and does decent.. the A’s arent going to be in the playoff hunt this year so manny could become a trade possibility at the deadline… in which the A’s will probably look for a prospect or something
I say Manny is going to juice it one last time and A’s will trade him and Manny will call it a career or maybe do the same next year.
It’s so annoying how some of you angels fans get on here acting like your a lock to win the WS cause you got Pujols and CJ??? You were 10 games back last year. You angels fans will soon find out CJ Wilson is not what you think he is. Even in that stadium. He dosnt care about fans. All he cares about is his japanese anime and guitar hero. He’s a tool. And honestly its Pujols. You paid a man 25 million a year till he’s almost 45. And his numbers are declining. Every year. Soon you will be paying for the name rather than the stats. Rangers are still a better offensive team so whatever happens, happens. But until then rangers are the back to back AL Champs and arguably the best team in the American league until proved otherwise.
Ummm…where in this section has ANYBODY said anything about the Angels being a lock for the world series? And Pujols wasn’t even mentioned once…
It will be a great race… It was pretty close last year til the last 2 weeks. Rangers offense is definitely better, one of the best in baseball, but pitching is a whole different story. Angels have 4 strong pitchers. 2 great pitchers. It will be a good race. Glad to see some competition in the west.
Hahaha no one said anything about us being a lock for the World Series. In fact, no one in here made any sort of prediction towards next season. Don’t act like CJ isn’t a good pitcher either. We didn’t sign him to be our number 1. He’s our number 3. Meanwhile you criticize the Pujols signing, but the Rangers go and sign an unproven pitcher for over 100+ mil. I’m not here to tell you that the Angels will win the west, or that the Rangers are bad…but you can’t have it all one way. What’s actually annoying here is the Rangers fans that suddenly think that 2 good seasons = 27 championships.
I would say the Angels have lots of reasons to be optimistic. A rotation of Haren, Weaver, Wilson and Santana is fantastic. An offense with Pujols, Hunter, a potentially healthy Morales, Bourjos, Trout, Trumbo, Callaspo, Kendric, Wells and Abreu can score some runs.
How much crazier is it to minimize Wilson but then assume Darvish is going to be a world beater?
On opening day, anything you did in 2011 becomes meaningless.
Its funny how no Angel fan is saying that we will be champs we are just excited to have the best player in baseball on our team and to have a starting 4 that can match any 4 in baseball. Haters be hating it’s all good
Its funny how no Angel fan is saying that we will be champs we are just excited to have the best player in baseball on our team and to have a starting 4 that can match any 4 in baseball. Haters be hating it’s all good
As others have pointed out nobody here is breaking open the bubbly for the Angels. That said here are some interesting points:
— CJ Wilson was worth 5 wins last season. That’s 5 wins that the Angels now have and the Rangers do not (net swing of 10 wins). Sure Yu and Neftali may turn out. Then again it wouldn’t be shocking if neither lived up to the hype.
— Albert Pujols dealt with nagging injuries all last year and he still was a better offensive player than anyone on the Rangers. Who cares what the team will be paying him in 2022. We are talking about NOW. Those 5-7 wins will be huge.
— Look at the difference in value between Mathis and Iannetta. I’ll save you the time (2011 Ianetta was worth 3.3 WAR while Mathis was worth -1.0). That’s a 4 win upgrade.
— Consider what happens if Morales returns to 2009/2010 form. Or if Vernon Wells remembers how to hit (one year removed from a 30+ HR season) or when Mike Trout gets his call up.
— Consider what happens when Mike Napoli comes back to earth (wOBA of 444 was 50 points higher than his career peak and 75 points higher than his career average).
— The Angels were around 3 games back with 2 weeks to go. From Sept 10th to the end of the season the Angels went 6-11 while the Rangers played out of their minds at 14-2. The Angels went cold and the Rangers went hot over the last 10% of the season. Aside from that they had virtually the same results.
I’ll give the Rangers their due. It’s no small accomplishment to make it to the World Series in back to back years. However, that has little bearing on how 2012 will shake out. If things break right for the Halos they could be a 100 win team (Pujols and Wilson play well, Morales returns to 2009 form, Wells hits like 2010, Trout makes a big splash, etc). Meanwhile the Rangers could easily slip to 80 wins if things go horribly wrong. Point is, both are very similar teams in terms of talent. What will determine the winner is most likely injuries and who progresses/regresses more than expected.
I’m talking about mr Angels guy up there talking noise already. And he has the Pujols jersey as his photo and we can assume that he thinks Pujols is the savior to take LA to the WS. And I’m surprised he’s not talking about beating your team too! He’s the kinda guys that give angels fans a bad look. By the way hell of an ALCS dude lol tigers are looking good this year with prince miggy and verlander
You are to replies what the Rangers are to World Series rings.
I could see Abreu being traded in spring training, maybe to the Giants.
As a pinch hitter? He should never wear a glove.
Abreu and wells for price prospect
somebody has to say this the angels really did not need albert pujols.
I wouldn’t say that now…
Boston and the NYY have the other 2 best all around 1B in the game and imagine THEY would both say they would “need” an upgrade to Pujols even.. not pay what Anaheim did perhaps, but he is a definite upgrade over both Tex and Agone and those 2 are the 2nd and 3rd best all around 1b in the game if one considers offense + glove, age etc..
except looking beyond 2012
no one knew if Morales was going to play again
Hunter’s contract is up
Abreu’s contract is up
Wells was awful last year
So having an outfield of Trout, Bourjos, Trumbo with Wells at DH and Pujols at 1B for 2013 is not only possible, it’s likely.
So Blue Jays…the Angels took Wells off of your hands, want Abreu? 🙁