2:22PM: It isn’t yet known if the Angels have ducked under the tax line, as Jeff Fletcher of the Orange County Register notes that putting Stassi on the restricted list will save the team roughly $300K off the tax bill (due to how the luxury tax figure is calculated by average annual value, not by pure dollars). It might not be revealed until after the season whether or not the Angels have gotten under the tax threshold.
1:31PM: The Angels announced that catcher Max Stassi has been placed on the team’s restricted list (retroactive to September 2). Stassi hasn’t played at all this season due to both a hip strain that required a 60-day IL placement, and a personal situation involving his family.
That latter reason has led to the restricted list placement, since as per the club’s announcement, Stassi “informed the Angels that while he is in a position to resume activities to return to MLB, he has voluntarily chosen not to do so for the remainder of the 2023 season as a result of a serious family medical issue. Out of respect for Max and his family, the Angels will not have any further comment. The Angels wish Max and his family all the best.”
A veteran of 10 Major League seasons with the Astros and Angels, Stassi was dealt to Los Angeles at the 2019 trade deadline and hit quite well in part-time catching action for the Angels in 2020-21. That prompted the Halos to sign him to a three-year, $14.5MM contract extension that runs through the 2024 season with a club option (worth $7.5MM with a $500K buyout) for 2025. Unfortunately, Stassi then struggled through the 2022 campaign, and entered this past Spring Training competing for playing time with Logan O’Hoppe and Matt Thaiss.
Stassi’s hip injury removed him from the catching picture, and it appears as though he has been healthy for some time, but has instead been spending time with his family. We at MLBTR express our support for Stassi and his family during this difficult period.
When on a Major League restricted list, players can’t amass any big league service time or salary. As a result, the Angels won’t have to pay the $1.16MM still owed to Stassi over the course of the 2023 campaign, which has some bigger-picture implications for the team. The Athletic’s Sam Blum (X link) writes that with Stassi’s remaining salary off the books, the Angels will be able to duck under the $233MM luxury tax threshold.
This desire to avoid a tax payment was part of the reason for the Angels’ recent flurry of waiver wire placements, as Lucas Giolito, Hunter Renfroe, Dominic Leone, Matt Moore, and Reynaldo Lopez were all claimed away from the team prior to September 1. However, because Randal Grichuk wasn’t claimed, the Halos remained slightly above the $233MM tax line, but today’s move with Stassi has now apparently cleared the last financial hurdle.
The Angels hadn’t been tax payors since 2004, but were prepared to surpass the threshold this season in a push to contend in what might be Shohei Ohtani’s final season in Anaheim. The Halos were aggressive in adding to their roster last winter and during the season, including a busy trade deadline push that saw them land Giolito, Lopez, Leone, Grichuk, C.J. Cron in three separate trades. However, Los Angeles’ 8-19 record in August and Ohtani’s UCL injury led the club to effectively throw in the towel, and put six players on the waiver wire in the hopes of recouping some money to at least avoid any tax penalty.
In staying under the $233MM threshold, the Angels will avoid the (fairly minimal) tax payment itself, but will gain bigger rewards in terms of free agent compensation rules. The Halos will be able to sign qualifying offer-rejecting free agents without having to pay a bigger penalty in terms of draft picks, while L.A. will receive a compensatory pick prior to the third round of the draft for any free agents (i.e Ohtani) who might reject a QO and sign elsewhere. Had the Angels been tax payors, that compensatory pick would’ve fallen beyond the fourth round.
Another great Angels contract
Completely out of anyone’s control, can’t blame the angels for this one.
Funny how the Angels seem to have a lot of those.
Do they? The Angels org is poisoned by ownership yes, but yall pick bad examples sometimes because youre emotional.
Why are there so many to choose from?
I can blame the Angels for being swept by Oakland. End the season now.
He’s not that bad. One bad year since since signing extension. He’s a serviceable catcher, but will be a backup in Anahein due to Ohoppe. He’s slightly overpaid, but decent catchers are hard to come by hence the extension
Omar – Twins are paying $10M for a catcher with a .581 OPS and -.4 bWAR, so yeah there’s other catcher contracts that are worse.
@bmp010 Isn’t that a bit harsh considering his reason for not playing is a “serious family medical issue”? You’re telling me if you have a death in the family or something like that that you’re ok with your employer/coworkers responding with “Man, bmp010 is really inconveniencing us with his personal issues. He should do better.”?
The fact that it’s another bad Angels contract remains. Facts are facts man. Sorry for the inconvenience.
The Angels paid $3 million for last season and will be reimbursed by their insurance carrier for most of this years salary since he has not played a game, so not such a bad contract after all up to this point.
Oof
Casual homophobia by JAD earns a mute even though I agree with their browser point.
Fil. Most of the article was about his contract.
I think people can talk about what they want, and I am fine talking about his contract. If you are not, you are always free to go on a venue that appeals to you.
If you want people to control what you can talk about, there is always Facebook.
No homophobia on my part…….I couldn’t care less one way or the other.
@Halo11Fan. Granted……..however the article also made reference to the family issue Stassi has been dealing with. Maybe I’m way off base here but I’m assuming for most people would agree that baseball issues take a back seat to that. Obviously that’s not the case with tone deaf bmp010. Makes me thankful he’s not a member of my family.
File my comments under talking about what I want.
JAD. We wouldn’t even be talking about this if he didn’t have a horrible contract.
He likely would have signed a minor league contract and no one would even know why he was away from baseball.
And if they did mention this while on a minor league contract, maybe it would have gotten a dozen posts. Players die and there typically are not two dozen posts.
People have their own motives for being offended, but commenting on his contract is not meant to be offensive.
H11F:
Right
I can talk about what I want
I want to talk about what a tasteless comment that was
Facebook? I remember that old site.
JAD:
Obvious homophobia.
Trying to insult someone by saying they are gay
As if there was something bad about being gay.
I guess I forgot to mute you last time
I won’t forget this time
Adios
Sure you can. But It’s a baseball site. The horrible contract is the only reason anyone is talking about this at all.
By the way, I doubt he even read the link. Just wanted to be the first to post and commented on the horrible contract.
It wasn’t a big deal.
Maybe part of the poor performance is because of the family situation?????
So it’s a bad contract because the Angels didn’t anticipate that something would go horribly wrong in his family?????
Good lord.
Believe it or not, your life situation may impact your performance. I wonder if there’s an analytic measure for that?????
Yeesh.
Did I put enough question marks?
?
He was bad last year. And if he’s taking money, and not doing his job because of family issues, he’s basically committing fraud.
A player has to rehab.
Stassi has a life time bWAR of just over 2. His lifetime average is 202.
My God, Why did the Angels lock him up for 3 years at 7 million per year? Bad Contract.
@filihok You’re reading into things if you think that’s homophobia, or if it’s even homosexual at all. You’re assuming the perceived gender of JAD’s target.
People reading into things and overreacting on a message board.
Shocking!!!!!”
Is there any rules on who can go on the restricted list? Any team that’s out of it should put all their top earners on it so they could get under the luxury tax if they need to.
“And if he’s taking money, and not doing his job because of family issues, he’s basically committing fraud.“
That is the dumbest thing I’ve read here. Ever.
Hey Halo11Fan…….do some research. Stassi was signed to the 3 year deal after the 2021 season, a year it which he was anything but bad (hit 13 HR’s and put up a 1.8 WAR. Additionally he was above average defensively and the pitching staff raved about his pitch framing.
Now, as for your idiotic comment that if he is “taking money and “not doing his job”…..God forbid you have a family member dealing with a serious medical issue but if ever you do you best resign from you job forgoing both your salary and insurance. of course you would never do that which makes you an unmitigated hypocrite.
Kettle meet pot
If he is not telling the Angels he is OK, and not doing everything to earn his 7 million dollars, he’s committing fraud.
He’s under contract, he has to do his job. Bottom line, you can’t just not do your job. He can’t just sit on his ass.
You’re the one that is clueless.
There used to be a regular here that blamed Jerry DiPoto for all the Angel’s woes. He called him Dip Dip. Others defended him saying ownership was mostly to blame. DiPoto has been gone now for several seasons and the Angels are a hot mess while DiPoto has done a great job in Seattle where it appears ownership gives him leeway and support.
The only GM I’ve ever ripped apart is Perry.
After the off-season in 2020/2021, it was apparent to me he wasn’t up to the job.
Seriously…..what’s it like being a “halos” fan? Forget this season. Moving forward…with an awful minors, bad pitching, about to lose Ohtani, your other generational player is aging and can’t stay healthy….what is it like?
You got an interesting catcher and the first basement who pretty much jumped the minors is interesting. What else is there?
SeaLVLA
Enjoying watching baseball?
Right after his 300 plate appearance, where he got hurt once again.
Yeah, great resume. Signing guys like this to three year contracts is one of the reasons the Angels suck.
Just to add, I’m sure he’s telling the Angels he’s sitting on his ass and taking care of family issues, which is why he agreed to go on the restricted list, which was my overall point. He’s not lying to them, that would be fraud.
Which is why wrote Moron isn’t all bad.
4.83 is Stassi’s avv H11fan, But u like fudging things to make your opinions look better. See, even when your kinda right, your wrong with the amount. But then again, if this were the Angels worst contact, they’d be doing awesome.
JAD
Your post is bigoted and homophobic.
JAD
When you use an orientation as an insult, you are a bigot and a homophobe.
There are a lot of bad contracts.
And full disclosure, the Angels had no catching, I was for this contract, but it was still a bad one.
I was against the Fletcher contract and kept bringing up David Eclstein who was non tendered.
Stassi was never good, but the hole at catcher was incredibly large.
Who cares? When I tell my high school friend of 40 years, or he tells me, “That a girl”, It not misogynistic.
People love to control other people with this faux offended crap.
filihok:
Some people just like to argue, then insult if you don’t see eye to eye with them.
This means they save his September salary against the CBT. Too bad for them he didn’t do this in August or even July.
It also means the Angels insurance will pay for 80% of Stassi’s 2023 salary.
Guess this gets them below the CBT.
twitter.com/SamBlum3/status/1698398925219373446?t=…
I must say that it was a classy move by the Angels to keep paying him for most of the season even though the reason he has been out since April is the family medical problems he is going on the restricted list for now.
hmmm.
I don’t know why people think Minasian can spend money better than Moreno.
The Angels have a lot of money coming off the books and the last person you want to spend it, is Minasian. At least Arte has a couple of good spends.
“Minasian can spend better than Moreno” I think a blind monkey could “spend better” than clueless Arte Moreno, that’s an awfully low bar.
Yes. A blind money is better than either of them. Renfro, Stassi, Fletcher, Anderson, Syndergaard, Quintana, Urshella, Loup, Tepera? And on and on and on.
Drury was a good buy. Estevez has a whip of 1.5. I really hope they don’t depend on him.
They need a better GM.
Do you really think Perry Minasian makes these moves by himself in a vaccuum?..Moreno is right there, in his ear, telling him exactly what to do. Another one of Arte Moreno’s fired “bad GMs”, Jerry Dipoto, is up in Seattle, building arguably MLB’s best young, High-end pitching rotation, something the Angels have never been able to do.
I think he recommends those moves. Yes. Moreno wanted Turner, Minsian wanted the dregs we brought in.
They are both terrible talent evaluators. The difference is, Minasian is getting paid to evaluate players…. He sucks at it.
I’m pretty sure Perry is the one making the trades. Arte may be the one giving him the OK to make those deadline deals but he didn’t tell Perry to trade Bush & Quero for Giolito and I’m fairly certain he didn’t tell them to trade for Cron & Grichuk or Dominic Leone either. Signing free agents may be another matter as I’m sure any big contracts that they’re going to hand out needs Arte’s approval.
If you’ll notice everyone of the Angels last 3+ GMs “sucked”. The only real common denominator for the Angels losing last 10 yrs is Arte Moreno. He fired everyone else, including Dipoto, Eppler and even Manager Rick Scoscia, who apparently had Arte’s ear for many, many years. You can only keep blaming GMs for so long.
The other two GMs had no semblance of a pitching staff. The Angels went five years where the only starter that came close to pitching a full season was Nolasco.
Perry had a chance to win, especially last year. He failed miserably.
Perry can’t make good moves. He doesn’t help the team get better and we can’t him him spending money next year.
Rick Scoscia???? Is that a relative of Mike who secretly managed the angels
Minasian spends the money Arte says he can spend.
And the players he brings in suck. Look at the money he’s spent. He spends it horribly.
Anderson?
Minasian has angered both Shohei and Trout.
If that doesn’t get him shown the door I don’t know what will.
Taking that comment public about Shohei refusing imaging was unprofessional and unnecessary.
He was obviously worried about the heat and his job.
Seriously? Get over yourselves.
As someone who had family members go through serious medical issues, nothing is more important than family, especially as the Angels baseball season is going nowhere.
I don’t blame him a bit.
I wonder how many teams would have continued to pay a player for 5 months knowing since the beginning of April that they would not be back this season because of family medical issues?
Hope he gets well and those troubles behind him,
I wish the best for Stassi and his family. But this frankly looks to be mostly desperate machinations from LAA to duck under the tax threshold.
The Angels could have put Stassi on the restricted list in April when he originally told them he was not coming back because of a family medical emergency. Instead the Angels paid him for the next 5 months.
Then why didn’t they in April? Why are they doing this now when they are very obviously and desperately trying to manipulate their payroll?
Because they are a class organization that takes care of their own.
I feel like this could be a form of salary manipulation to get under the tax. This late in the season while it is pointless to have him try to comeback for meaningless games the timing and all the stories about the Angels trying to get under the threshold just doesn’t jive right
The Angels could have put Stassi on the restricted list in April when he originally told them he was not coming back because of a family medical emergency. Instead the Angels paid him for the next 5 months.
Yes….you’ve repeated this many times now. Good on them. Admirable. We get it already. They paid Stassi when they didn’t have to. Very cool.
Still an very poor run garbage organization with no future.
People kept repeated stupidity. I posted what actually happened. I can see that you are on the side of the former.
Wrong thread. Sorry. Was meant for scream_name on Padres thread. Carry on,
So you say its an admirable thing to do and then say the Angels are a garbage organization? Garbage organizations don’t do the right thing by guys that has a situation like this. They just put him on the restricted list to start the season and save themselves millions. Go crawl back under your rock.
Or maybe it’s a win-win for all involved except for a few of the posters on here whose whole life revolves around what how some baseball team is doing as if that were the most important thing happening in life (I suspect for many of them it is).
Garbage organizations trade 2 of their 5 top prospects for players they then put on waivers less than a month later. Garbage organizations allow their farm system to turn to crap. Garbage organizations sign the wrong free agents and overpay (Rendon, Anderson ect). Garbage organizations have 2 of the best players in the game…and never sniff the post season. I could go on and on but it’s pretty obvious the point. The Angels are a garbage organization. Put that under your rock.
Good organizations go for it when they are just a few games back and add a starting pitcher with a 3.90 ERA and a reliever that was even better.
For those two they gave up a catching prospect at the back end of the top 100 that can’t hit for power and is having issues on defense and with game calling and a starting pitcher that was and still is failing at AA.
Basically they gave up nothing that would help the team any time soon if at all.
The farm system was already crap because all the good prospects, O’Hoppe, Neto, Joyce, Silseth, Bachman, Moniak, and Schanuel, had already been called up to the majors this season.
What is truly garbage is your tragically uninformed opinion. The only point is the one at the top of your head.
Was Cron not waived last week because he’s on the IL? My guess is he’s out for the season with some kind of injury because getting him off the roster would have definitely gotten them under the tax threshold
Would have to be released. That’s why.
How is this allowed? He’s injured and should get his salary and service time.
Read it again and saw the personal family situation. Still sounds suspect. Very suspect.
Lord. I have a feeling he was ready to resume baseball activities a while ago. Moreno is a family first guy and didn’t press. I bet both agreed to let this slide as long as they could.
Moreno does have some good qualities..
@Halo, and that’s quite possible. Obviously, if Moreno was doing anything unethical here, he’d face a grievance. Moreno may have told Stassi back in April that he planned to keep him on the active roster until he returned unless business and / or baseball decisions required he be placed on the restrictive list. That may have arrived this month.
When Trout was ready to come back from injury, his brother in law committed suicide. Moreno told him he could take all the time he needed.
Moreno, like most of us in life, is a mixed bag.
He says he doesn’t want to report due to family issues.
The injury is not preventing him from resuming baseball, activities, He just doesn’t want to.
Stassi isn’t injured. Hasn’t been during the regular season at any point. He originally told the Angels he was not coming back because of a family medical emergency in early April. That was reported in many places including this site on April 3rd. The Angels could have put Stassi on the restricted list then. Instead the Angels paid him for the next 5 months. Paying him and keeping him on the 40 man was a class act by the Angels.
Stassi was expected back mid-April, so he was still rehabbing his hip when the season started. You are correct about the date that he informed the team about the family situation that has kept him out all season.
As a fan, I am really proud of the way the Angels have handled the situation.
Sorry. I thought he was ready to go physically when he told the team about the family medical situation.
I was going to say queue the conspiracy theories, but I can see I’m about an hour too late.
Conspiracy – his wife cheated and told him that it was because he was gone so much. He decided to step away from the team to focus on his already failed marriage. He’s going to retire after the season, and then he’ll end up divorced a year later, anyway.
Now, I’m going to sit back and wait until this gets quoted in some sports blogs.
There is something “not right” about this story…too convenient…
Yep…..that’s it. And the world is flat, the moon landing was faked, Trump won and O.J. really didn’t do it.
QAnon much?
Sounds like a Players Association grievance waiting to happen…
I doubt it. Stassi isn’t hurt and won’t go back to work. I agree with Stassi, but everyone in life has to make similar decisions in life.
Go back to work, or be with family.
Seems oddly convenient. Odd coincidence if it’s the case.
The AAV is $5.83 million. One month is $970k. Fletcher’s numbers are off.
It doesn’t matter what the Angels sign/resign. As long as the owner stays the same. There is no hope. Stop being fans and stop paying for attending games and products.
Its truly sad the trajectory of Stassi’s life and career the past year. First the injury to his hip that was expected to keep him out of action until mid-April this season. Then at the beginning of April we found out he was dealing with family medical emergency that was severe enough that he left the team indefinitely.
That the team kept him on the roster so he could accrue service time and continued to pay him was both admirable and not typical of MLB teams.
I pray that all will turn out for the best for Max. While he struggled last season he has overall been a good backup catcher for the Angels. I hope he makes it back for 2024.
Stassi’s status is stasis?
Sounds like Stassi is doing them a favor. The timing of this is suspiciously convenient.
I think the Angels reach a settlement with him to pay half his remaining salary at the end of the year and he retires.
He is on the restricted list. The Angels don’t have to pay him anything. That they did for 5 months shows incredible class on the part of that organization.
I know nothing about Stassi’s situation but the union presumably will defend his interests if he has been wronged by the team. In the NHL, a hard cap league, roster status manipulation to remove salary when technically allowed is a frequent part of business and is often viewed with suspicion by fans of teams other than the one taking action. Weird (and not good, to me) to see it in MLB,
I don’t see that happening. The team supported him and kept him on salary during his injury and family issues. Since he is apparently not continuing his baseball commitments, he deservedly will not be getting paid!
Angels are cursed. So cursed, that after this move they probably end up $1 over the tax line! The Cowboy is rolling in his grave!