Free Lucas Giolito. And Reynaldo López. And Matt Moore. And…
Hey there. Are you a major league general manager or president of baseball operations? Do you work in a front office role for a playoff-contending team? Do you wish you had another starter, a good closer, or maybe an outfielder? Well, I’ve got great news for you, my friend. Operators are waiting now for your call: the Los Angeles Angels just yelled “Everything must go!” and threw their roster on the waiver wire like a miffed fantasy owner.
More specifically, the Angels placed Lucas Giolito, Matt Moore, Reynaldo López, Dominic Leone, Hunter Renfroe, and Randal Grichuk on waivers. For the next 47 hours, any team in baseball can place a claim on any or all of their services. It’s an unprecedented maneuver that could inject talent into playoff races across the league, and in an unpredictable fashion. If you’re on the fringes, you’ll get the first bite at the apple, but there are so many players here that even some teams currently in playoff position might end up with someone. If you’re looking for more specifics on the waiver process, Jon Becker wrote a nice explainer here.
Let’s talk about the way this works for the Angels first. Coming into yesterday, we projected them for a competitive balance tax payroll of $234,398,925. The first CBT threshold for this year is $233 million. That means they need to save around $1.5 million to duck under that threshold. The players put on waivers are owed around $6.44 million over the remainder of the year, and a similar amount even when CBT tax calculations are applied. The total tax savings will be slightly less than that, because the Rockies are paying a portion of Grichuk’s salary, but assuming most of these players find takers, the Angels will end up below that threshold.
That’s the clear goal here, along of course with saving a bit of money. You might wonder why getting just a few dollars under an arbitrary threshold matters. After all, the CBT is a 20% tax on the amount by which you exceed that first threshold. That’s a miniscule amount, dwarfed by the savings the Angels will get if other teams pick up their players’ contracts. The tax part of the equation seems like a smoke screen.
But there’s a key consideration here: I’m not sure if you’ve heard, but Shohei Ohtani seems likely to leave this offseason. The Angels are going to extend him a qualifying offer on the way out the door, though, and their compensation for that qualifying offer depends on whether or not they exceeded the first tax threshold. If you didn’t pay tax or receive revenue sharing in the previous year, your compensation pick falls just before the start of the third round. If you paid the tax, however, it comes just before the fifth round. That’s a meaningful difference.
From that perspective, this seems like a reasonable decision by the Angels. Let’s not mince words here: They’re cooked in 2023. It’s over for them; all they’re missing is a Vince Carter GIF. They’re 11.5 games out of the Wild Card chase, Mike Trout is hurt, and Ohtani is done as a pitcher this year thanks to a UCL injury. We give them a 0.0% chance of making the playoffs and honestly, that sounds about right to me.
Is this an anti-fan maneuver to save a few bucks at the expense of team legitimacy? I don’t think so. I don’t want to be overly harsh to these players, but nobody’s going out to an Angels game to see Matt Moore. The team tried to make the playoffs, and spent both real money and real prospect capital to do so. Did it work out well? It most definitely did not, and salary dumping after a bad month is sure to irk some people. But this isn’t a team deciding not to be competitive in January before any games have been played. The Angels could have acquired peak Barry Bonds and not seen their playoff odds budge. In fact, I confirmed that fact by having Dan Szymborski add peak Bonds to the current Angels roster, which pushed their playoff odds all the way to 2.9%. I then had him make Ohtani healthy again – if only this were real life – which got them all the way to 7.8%. In other words, this isn’t fixable.
If your competitive sensibilities are instead offended by the unfairness of it all, by the sheer lack of respect for the unwritten rules of the game that putting all these players onto competitive teams outside the trade process entails, that’s a defensible position, but I disagree. This isn’t some pointless exercise done to mess with the game’s legitimacy. The Angels are after a real goal, and teams strategically place pending free agents on waivers all the time. Harrison Bader and Carlos Carrasco are also on waivers right now. The scale of the Angels’ moves might be unprecedented, but the fact that useful players are available on the waiver wire certainly isn’t. Heck, Elvis Andrus was a waiver wire addition who nearly swung a playoff race just last year.
The Angels aren’t messing with their own future competitiveness to save a few bucks. None of these players would have been around next year, and none of them would have drawn a qualifying offer. We’re constantly on front offices for behaving irrationally; this one feels like a down-the-middle value play to me, though I’m not sure I get the point of putting Grichuk specifically on the wire given his small remaining compensation.
Of course, this kind of behavior could get tiresome if taken to the extreme. If every non-contending team cut all their impending free agents every year, the trade deadline might start to feel kind of silly. And the fact that it’s a record-based system, where you can’t bid more if you have greater need for a given player, makes the player movement feel arbitrary. Teams that did nothing at the trade deadline might get bailed out, through no ingenuity of their own.
To that I say: change the rules, then. We’re not looking at a complete mockery of the game here. The Angels aren’t putting MVPs on the waiver wire. They aren’t forfeiting games. Teams intent on securing a first round bye still have plenty of incentive to improve at the deadline so they can enjoy the services of good players longer, and unless this becomes a trend, I’m not sure it changes how fringe playoff teams understand their own deadline incentives much. No one’s going to declare the 2023 World Series trophy a sham if the Reds unexpectedly end up with Reynaldo López in late August. Baseball is full of teams gaming everything they possibly can: service time, arbitration, roster limits, injured list stints, you name it. At least this one puts deserving players into the playoff chase.
Ah, right, the deserving players. Let’s talk about them a little bit. Giolito has been downright atrocious in Anaheim, but he still looks like a nice depth option with upside, and a lot of fringe contenders could use a fifth starter. Moore and López are both better than that, though in more limited roles. Moore profiles as an excellent lefty specialist. López has been great out west and could be a setup man for pretty much any team in baseball. (Leone isn’t quite the caliber of the other two relievers, and I think he might actually pass through waivers, so let’s set him aside.)
We give 16 teams a 10% or higher shot at making the playoffs; by my count, all 16 could use Giolito, Moore and López. Naturally, though, all 16 can’t get them. In fact, none of the 16 might get them, because the Padres have a worse record than all of those teams but still harbor playoff dreams. They’re also in dire need of some pitching. I think that all three pitchers would be meaningful upgrades for them. Luckily, my friendly neighborhood Dan Szymborski was still around from the earlier Bonds shenanigans, so I asked him to run an alternate-universe ZiPS projection where the Padres get all three players and nothing else changes.
Adding those three pitchers nearly doubles San Diego’s playoff odds. Just one problem – it moves them from 5.1% to 9.6%, and from a 79-win median projection to an 80-win one. That’s nothing to sneeze at, but it’s hardly an earth shattering change. No team needs wins more than the Padres right now, and with Yu Darvish on the IL and Robert Suarez facing a suspension for a sticky stuff ejection (he’s appealing), they have a clear need for pitching as well. It simply isn’t enough to move the needle, even if they take advantage of their waiver position and claim all three players. And hey, just in case you want the numbers in table form, Dan has you covered:
| Team | W | L | GB | Pct | Div% | WC% | Playoff% | WS Win% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Los Angeles Dodgers | 99 | 63 | — | .611 | 99.9% | 0.1% | 100.0% | 14.6% |
| San Francisco Giants | 85 | 77 | 14 | .525 | 0.0% | 71.6% | 71.7% | 4.9% |
| Arizona Diamondbacks | 85 | 77 | 14 | .525 | 0.0% | 67.6% | 67.6% | 3.1% |
| San Diego Padres | 79 | 83 | 20 | .488 | 0.0% | 5.1% | 5.1% | 0.4% |
| Colorado Rockies | 59 | 103 | 40 | .364 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| Team | W | L | GB | Pct | Div% | WC% | Playoff% | WS Win% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Los Angeles Dodgers | 99 | 63 | — | .611 | 99.9% | 0.1% | 100.0% | 14.3% |
| San Francisco Giants | 85 | 77 | 14 | .525 | 0.0% | 70.1% | 70.1% | 4.7% |
| Arizona Diamondbacks | 85 | 77 | 14 | .525 | 0.0% | 66.0% | 66.0% | 3.0% |
| San Diego Padres | 80 | 82 | 19 | .494 | 0.0% | 9.6% | 9.6% | 0.8% |
| Colorado Rockies | 59 | 103 | 40 | .364 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
Okay, but those are the Padres. They weren’t likely to make the playoffs either way; throwing a few random guys on the squad is hardly going to change that. Throwing the aforementioned Barry Bonds on the squad might not change that, in fact. Let’s go way up the chain and try to find the most impactful roster change imaginable. One team in baseball is both locked in a tight playoff race and desperately in need of some undeserved pitching help: the Baltimore Orioles.
Are the trio of Angels likely to make it to Baltimore in the waiver claim system? I think not. As I mentioned, there are a lot of playoff hopefuls, and most of them could use pitching. But if we’re talking about potentially season-altering waiver claims, I can’t imagine a more monumental one from among our options here. More specifically, per ZiPS, it would move the Orioles from a 72.7% chance of winning the AL East to an 84.5% chance, which would move their odds of winning the World Series from 7.5% to 10.9%:
| Team | W | L | GB | Pct | Div% | WC% | Playoff% | WS Win% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Baltimore Orioles | 99 | 63 | — | .611 | 72.7% | 27.3% | 99.9% | 7.5% |
| Tampa Bay Rays | 96 | 66 | 3 | .593 | 27.1% | 72.1% | 99.2% | 5.1% |
| Toronto Blue Jays | 89 | 73 | 10 | .549 | 0.3% | 50.1% | 50.4% | 3.0% |
| Boston Red Sox | 84 | 78 | 15 | .519 | 0.0% | 5.4% | 5.4% | 0.1% |
| New York Yankees | 79 | 83 | 20 | .488 | 0.0% | 0.1% | 0.1% | 0.0% |
| Team | W | L | GB | Pct | Div% | WC% | Playoff% | WS Win% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Baltimore Orioles | 100 | 62 | — | .617 | 84.5% | 15.5% | 100.0% | 10.9% |
| Tampa Bay Rays | 96 | 66 | 4 | .593 | 15.4% | 83.7% | 99.1% | 4.3% |
| Toronto Blue Jays | 89 | 73 | 11 | .549 | 0.1% | 49.2% | 49.2% | 2.7% |
| Boston Red Sox | 84 | 78 | 16 | .519 | 0.0% | 5.1% | 5.1% | 0.1% |
| New York Yankees | 79 | 83 | 21 | .488 | 0.0% | 0.1% | 0.1% | 0.0% |
That’s nothing to sneeze at. It is, for example, a lot more than the Orioles added at the actual trade deadline. Even getting one of those three players would be a coup for them. But more likely, this will work with Mario Kart rules; the worse-off teams will exercise their waiver rights and claim some of the pitchers, so either the very worst team in the hunt will end up with all of them, or they’ll end up spread out across multiple squads.
The universal appeal of useful pitching – everyone needs dudes like this, which means not everyone can get them – makes their eventual homes difficult to predict. I think the Padres make the most sense, but I could see them letting Moore through in favor of Tom Cosgrove and allowing some other fringe contender to end up with him instead. I could also see them deciding to stop chasing wins with a roster languishing below .500 and letting the next teams in the queue make a claim.
The two outfielders, on the other hand, don’t have that many obvious homes. Renfroe is a weak side platoon bat having a down season, and Grichuk might be worse than that. Most of the playoff contenders have those kinds of players available already. But as an example of the biggest impact they might have, I asked Dan to place both on the Marlins, who are desperate for offense:
| Team | W | L | GB | Pct | Div% | WC% | Playoff% | WS Win% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Atlanta Braves | 105 | 57 | — | .648 | 100.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 27.1% |
| Philadelphia Phillies | 89 | 73 | 16 | .549 | 0.0% | 94.9% | 94.9% | 2.8% |
| Miami Marlins | 81 | 81 | 24 | .500 | 0.0% | 14.2% | 14.2% | 0.2% |
| New York Mets | 76 | 86 | 29 | .469 | 0.0% | 0.6% | 0.6% | 0.0% |
| Washington Nationals | 72 | 90 | 33 | .444 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| Team | W | L | GB | Pct | Div% | WC% | Playoff% | WS Win% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Atlanta Braves | 105 | 57 | — | .648 | 100.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 27.0% |
| Philadelphia Phillies | 89 | 73 | 16 | .549 | 0.0% | 94.6% | 94.6% | 2.8% |
| Miami Marlins | 81 | 81 | 24 | .500 | 0.0% | 16.9% | 16.9% | 0.3% |
| New York Mets | 76 | 86 | 29 | .469 | 0.0% | 0.6% | 0.6% | 0.0% |
| Washington Nationals | 72 | 90 | 33 | .444 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
Oh. Well then. I guess this might not be the move that turns the season on its head. ZiPS isn’t particularly high on either outfielder, but given that they’ve combined for 1.1 WAR all season long, that seems like a fair assessment. The pitchers are the most exciting additions, and they’re likely to be scattered widely across the league unless a single team at the very edge of the playoff race gets frisky.
Will the Angels’ fire sale change the fate of playoff races? Definitely maybe, but certainly not definitely. An extra arm is always welcome, but no one is building a lockdown bullpen or rotation on the sly in these deals. Honestly, Bader might be the most impactful player currently on waivers, because that kind of center field defense doesn’t grow on trees.
So if you’re a fan of a team on the fringes of the playoff race, take heart: the more desperate your situation, the more likely you are to find a solid pitcher under the Angels-sponsored Christmas tree come Thursday afternoon. But also, be warned: a solid pitcher or two probably won’t change your team’s fate very much. That’s just where we are at this point in the season. It’s part of why teams in the hunt decided to add good players a month ago. The wins and losses that have already been banked are hugely important. Small upgrades are simply less so. The big winners in this whole saga are probably the players themselves, who will now get a second or third bite at a playoff race instead of playing out a depressing string in Anaheim.
Ben is a writer at FanGraphs. He can be found on Bluesky @benclemens.
Reynaldo Lopez, Harrison Bader, and sure Giolito are welcome to Cubs
If the Reds don’t figure out how to come up with $3-4 million dollars to pick up the better pitchers, also blocking the Cubs, and make a legit run at the playoffs, their owner and GM should be shot into the sun.
Honestly it wouldn’t be crazy to see a team like the Cardinals or Mets pick up Giolito so they can evaluate him directly before pursuing pitchers in free agency.
I was thinking the Tigers could/should do the same..assuming they lose E-Rod, Giolito would be a logical candidate for them.
It would also give them a month to start a relationship, see if the pitching coach can work with him, etc.
I mostly picked the Cardinals or Mets because both of them are indicating that they’d like to sign 3 pitchers in free agency, and it’s not clear they will be in on the top tier of guys that would get QOs (Nola, Snell, Urias, Sonny Gray, Ohtani if he hadn’t gotten hurt). They’ll both be going hard after Jordan Montgomery and E-Rod, and if Stroman opts out I would expect the Cardinals to go hard after him as well. But really, any team that wants to go after that class of pitcher or the one directly below it (Flaherty, Maeda, Ryu, Seth Lugo) might be in on Giolito as well. And by that principle, there are a whole lot of losing teams that might want him. The Cardinals, Mets, Tigers, Padres, Rockies, (wouldn’t that be awful), Yankees, maybe even the Pirates. Maybe even the White Sox would claim him.
I think I would be surprised if he made it all the way to a team with a winning record.
I wouldn’t be surprised to see Cleveland kick the tires on Giolito.
That would require an outlay of funds which is never, ever, ever popular with Indians ownership
He is an impending free agent. Teams with losing records have no reason to pick him up unless you want to go waaaay out on an “they should try to impress him so he will come back in free agency” limb
I mean, you can literally just keep him hanging around to work with the pitching coach to see if they can make any quick fixes. If it turns out he can’t implement them, maybe it’s not worth pursuing him at all.
I wouldn’t trade for him under those circumstances but for the cost of his remaining salary, I’d certainly bring him in as due diligence.
It’s probably better to save that million or so bucks for their actual free agent offers.
The Mets 100% should do that with Giolito and Lopez.
man, I would be frustrated if I got traded to what I thought was a WC contender, went 7-18 or whatever, and got waived for what I thought was a playoff race, only to end up with another loser with no shot at a run/ring.
The only way it would be worse is if he blows out his elbow pitching for the second loser. Actually, that’s the worst case scenario anytime, no matter what else is going on.
I have a feeling that the Padres and maybe even Boston will snag a guy or two before the Reds have their chance. But the Reds should be going all-in on any pitching help available via waivers, absolutely.
Haha nope. Evidently they feel that they need more OFs for … reasons
Take the Angels, please.
I’m not one for collusion, but the owners can really stick it to the Angels by not signing anyone.
What if every player you claim off waivers in August (who’s full year salary is $5M+) causes your first round pick to be moved back by 5 picks? So if the Padres claimed three Angels players their first pick would move back 15 spots. Would add more strategy and perhaps keep a fringe contender from lucking into all these players. Thoughts?
This would ostensibly be a players-friendly rule (maybe?), but could not possibly be anywhere near top of their list.
I don’t think we need to go running for a solution to what doesn’t really seem like a problem. If a couple playoff teams have these guys instead of quad-A guys moping up playoff beat downs, who does that really hurt?
*mopping
won’t let me edit, what’s my membership even good for?
I also noticed the edit feature no longer works, and it was mentioned in a comment on another article yesterday also
Why are we trying to fix something that isn’t a problem?
I agree. I don’t like what the Angels did but even then, this is hardly a thing that requires a fix. There are probably 30 other things that are higher up on the priority list over this.
Its just an anomaly. We see it happen here and there otherwise (Mets and Yankees both did it), but all 3 situations are similar in the end: teams that went for it and expected to compete for the playoffs, but somehow their season’s definitely over.
The Angels are just in the embarrassing position of having gone for it a month ago, but it’s all the same: their season’s over. Whatever it they went for getting these guys is long gone. The players aren’t hurt, and in fact are helped (they get paid either way, and now might play October baseball on a team that doesn’t suck)
It’s weird, but it’s nothing.
I think everyone would prefer to see these guys on contending teams for the last month and possibly playoffs than on teams going nowhere. Language could be built into player contracts to prevent this if the player is opposed to it, much like a no-trade clause, but I doubt Giolito or Lopez are that upset about switching teams again and having a shot at playing in the playoffs.
The relative impact of a month of the kind of players that are being waived (players who aren’t going to get qualifying offers) is tiny.
This is just such a hilarious failure. I feel bad for all 12 Angels fans, plus the people who follow Shohei. How do you go, in one month, from “these guys, at their current salaries, are valuable enough for us to give up real prospects to have them” to “these guys are so worthless to us, we’ll cut them just to save the remainder of their salaries?” This is just the worst.
I don’t know what to rip on more. Should I rip on them for being overly optimistic and deciding to buy? Should I rip on them for not taking a haul for Shohei when they could? Should I rip on them for acquiring the wrong guy in Giolito? The options are endless.
How do you do it? By losing all your games for a month, dude.
The entire purpose of the acquisition of these players was to try and go on a hot streak (like the Mariners or Dodgers have), make a playoff appearance, and make Shohei feel like he can stay in Anaheim without committing to a Troutian lack of ever playing in the postseason.
That plan failed. The salad fork sticking out of the back of the Angels is made of solid gold and about 18 feet long. They are done.
There is no reason to keep these guys now. Their season is over. Shohei is almost certainly leaving. The best thing they can do now is try and prevent penalty to the compensation pick. They are one of the worst organizations in baseball from top to bottom, mitigated only by tripping and falling into having the two most talented players of this generation on their team. They suck at everything – player evaluation, acquisition, development, etc. All they can do is mitigate their loss by a tiny little bit. So they do.
I dont know that going all in for the 2% chance of a playoff run to convince Ohtani to stay was worth it. But it was their only chance of keeping him. So whatever. They’re horrifically run and probably will continue to be until Arte Moreno sells the team. Ohtani’s gonna leave, and nothing that happens in Anaheim for the foreseeable future is going to be relevant to anyone anywhere unless they’re a fan of the Rangers, Mariners or Astros.
Was it their only chance at keeping Ohtani? Or was it just a hail mary to try to win one while he was still there?
I don’t buy the idea that Ohtani would have stayed if they managed to win a pennant or a World Series. He’s not dumb. He would know that they mortgaged the future to do it and his chances of getting any more in Anaheim would be severely compromised. If their plan was to try to convince him to stay long term by trading what little future assets they had for rentals, then it was a stupid effing plan.
I look forward to Ohtani playing somewhere else. Free Mike Trout next.
He is continuing to hit with a (partially?) torn UCL. His motivations seem quite unusual.
Maybe the Angels are the only team who say “we are going to allow you to continue being a two way player”. (This seems very unlikely, but it seemed unlikely that he would choose the Angels in the first place)
IMO, the fact that they’re doing this against the backdrop of Ohtani playing through a UCL injury is the part that I think is most egregious. He clearly hasn’t given up. But the Angels sure have.
I think Ohtani would be doing this if he is on the A’s.
Ohtani picking the Angels makes tons of sense when you remember that A: he was picking an AL team and B: he was predisposed towards certain teams that had tried to recruit him before he entered the NPB draft, and who still employed the scouts he had gotten to know, except that the Angels were *run by* the scout he had gotten to know, and so he had a pre-existing relationship with their PBO/GM.
Can’t defend their previous decisions, and I also want to see Trout freed next, but if it was a hail mary to try to win one while he was still here … that sounds perfectly fine. I mean, what else were they going to do?
Admit defeat and take a big ass haul of prospects before he tore his ucl
Like the Angels have any idea what to do with prospects.
I sort of wish they had done that as the haul could have been legend. As a Mariners fan, I’m glad they didn’t as the Angels now step into a bleak future.
I think they clearly thought that it was and I understand why they thought that. Individual motivations are inscrutable, however.
This is definitely one of my favorite / least-favorite team building scenarios–when no matter how you frame it, the decision-making looks terrible. Either they screwed up big time before, or they’re screwing up big-time now. And it’s not like you have to look very hard to find people saying that this made little logical sense at the time. But you can’t fire the owner, so it’s hard to say that it would get better with a new front office.
I was very much on the pro-Angels go all in side – mainly because the future is so bleak that a 10% playoff chance is the best it is going to be for a while. And while the prospects are nice, if the Angels rebuild fails because they are missing a 40 and 50FV, then there are much bigger reasons why the rebuild failed – and these are the same structural reasons why the Angels failed to build just an average team around Trout and Ohtani.
I do think the Rendon signing is very unfortunate – he was great with the Nats, and then in 2020, his first season with the Angels he put up 2.5fWAR in 52 games (with Trout putting up 2.5 fWAR in 53 games). But that is the year Ohtani pitched 1.2 innings, and had an 80wRC+.
They really need to get rid of that cursed monkey’s paw.
Maybe Peter Brady picked up that cursed idol again
The “tax part of the equation” is the complete opposite of a smoke screen, it is the blindingly obvious point of waiving these players. The point isn’t to save a little bit of money in 2023, the point is to save a lot of money between 2024 and 2025. By getting under the tax threshold this season, that means any excess in 2024 would incur a 20% penalty rather than a 30% penalty, and any excess in 2025 would incur a 30% penalty instead of a 50% penalty.
It stands to reason that the Angels will offer Shohei Ohtani the biggest contract in the history of the sport, and it is likely that they will have to give him an opt-out after 2025 for him to accept. If he does re-sign under those conditions, and they bring in additional players like Yoshinobu Yamamoto, then they’re going to be well over the tax threshold in the next two seasons. By getting under the tax now, they’re looking at saving $15 to $20 million in penalties alone.
That’s great but that’s not really their line of thinking because:
A) They’re not going to offer ohtani the biggest contract in the history of the sport
B) Ohtani wouldn’t re-sign with Anaheim if they offered him all 3 Scandinavian countries
C) They’re not going over the tax threshold in 2024 or 2025, no matter what happens
There are 5 Scandinavian countries: Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, and Iceland.
Finland is never part of Scandinavia, ever. It has small amount of territory that is on the Scandinavian peninsula. But the poster is correct, Scandinavia is 3 countries, sharing culture and language. If you want to say Nordic, you can throw in Iceland, Faroe, Finland. But Finland is always and awkward country to include.
They could have gotten under the line without waiving all of the players they did. It makes a ton of sense to get under it. They also should be clearing roster spots to give inning or at bats to anyone they might want to get a look at for next year.
I think that this is possibly what the Angels are thinking, but it’s delusional. By raising the white flag like this they are moving themselves further away from signing Ohtani. I agree that the actual effects on the remainder of the season are minimal but it’s also super embarrassing.
Of course, the Angels weren’t going to be able to re-sign Ohtani anyway because this is only one incident in a long line of embarrassments, so it probably doesn’t matter.
It is also possible they’re just doing this because Moreno is ideologically opposed to going over the tax, even among owners. Although who knows about that.
I agree that the Angels will offer Ohtani a record-setting contract, if only because Arte Moreno wants to be able to show his face in public and live.
Is it still record setting if another place offers him more money? Like, it was a record setting contract offer for 2 weeks, when another team sets a new record?
That is indeed how records work
I agree. The Angels will offer second. As soon as we have a confirmed number in the press, they will offer basically that same amount, and then not participate further, so they’ll get outbid. But they’ll be able to say that they were in, and within a few football fields of wherever it ends up.
Exactly. Like the Nats did with Harper, the Red Sox with Mookie, they can talk up how much money that greedy Ohtani turned down to leave town lol.
Maybe I’m the only one who feel this way, but I love that the Angels are doing this.
The Angels went for it, it didn’t work out for them, and they’re trying to salvage something, anything from this. Understandable.
A little bit of salary relief? Sure, that’s nice.
A bit of CBT gaming? That’s fine too.
Giving some players a chance to get back in the playoff race? Awesome.
I like the single trade deadline, but I do miss the player in late August suddenly thrust back into the pennant chase on another team.
Yeah as much as this looks like a pathetic white flag, its a huge upside for all those players so who cares? laugh at the Angels for being a Rockies-level trashfire and move on
I’ll never laugh at teams that go for it, no matter how ill-advised the decision is.
And calling the Angels a Rockies-level trashfire is unkind to the Angels, who are spending at least $48 million more on trying to compete, and at least had an idea of how they were going to win. It wasn’t a great idea, but at least it had a chance, however small, of working out. That’s more than the Rockies had for competing this season.
Its biggest drawback was that it required players to stay healthy, something that the 17 players currently on the injured list were unable to do. I mean, sure, Anthony Rendon has had problems staying on the field, but what cursed rally monkey gave Gio Urshela a fractured pelvis, broke Mike Trout’s hamate bone, and hit Taylor Ward in the freakin’ face?!?
The Angels aren’t even close to being the dumpster fire the Rockies are. Sure, the Angels aren’t doing great right now, but their front office is at least smart enough to pull this move, which is more than I can say for the Rockies right now.
I definitely think the Rockies are going to claim Grichuk – “hey, he’s our guy, and we get him back for nothing? We’re geniuses!”
I would actually love that move for the Rockies if it wasn’t for the fact that the Rockies will probably demote Nolan Jones after getting him. A little bit of fan service usually doesn’t hurt, unless it also means blocking a your second best hitter.
C’mon, they wouldn’t be the Rockies if they didn’t make a completely illogical self-sabotaging move.
No, it’s not. The Rockies try and compete too. They just suck.
The Angels are one of the worst organizations in MLB and the only thing that makes them look moderately respectable are Trout and Ohtani. They suck at everything, from scouting to player development to decisionmaking. They just draft a veneer of respectability from being perpetually mediocre in record because they somehow managed to luck into the two most talented players of a generation.
They are Rockies/Royals/White Sox level bad organizationally.
It might be a little early to say that they’re still terrible at scouting since Neto and Schanuel look like they’re going to be MLB regulars. But with Moreno around to overrule his front office whenever he likes, it might still be one of the worst organizations in MLB even if they can pick guys well.
I remember back when Dipoto was just spinning his wheels with the Angels, then he got to go to an organization where he got to do things his way and surprise, that team is now tied for first place in the AL West! It might matter who runs that front office, but it doesn’t matter enough.
Maybe the Angels know their development sucks and they’re drafting the likes of Neto and Schanuel because they don’t need a lot of development and are pretty close to being MLB ready.
From my perspective, over 1000 miles away from any of those teams, the Angels are still better than the Rockies.
The Rockies try, I’ll give them that. They just don’t have a plan. It guess that makes it less disappointing when the plan falls through. Having your 2023 Fangraphs pre-season projection be 66.7-95.3 and, with a month out, having your projected standings be 59.4-102.6 at least doesn’t give your fans false hope. Five straight losing seasons, and now the Rockies can’t even say they’re better than the Diamondbacks.
It is tough building a team in Denver, for multiple reasons, but I just don’t see how they’re planning to get better. I’m glad that Kris Bryant got a bag of money, but he wasn’t the one piece they needed. They have a middle of the pack farm system and a front office that has to obey an owner that doesn’t know the limits of his own competence. Not that I have any confidence in their front office in the first place.
I do not understand what Colorado is doing. Are they tanking? Not tanking? Just going through the motions? They puzzle me.
The Angels have a bottom two farm system, and it will take years to restock. They’ve been bad at scouting, drafting, and development, no two bones about it, especially under previous regimes.
Perry Minasian has had his crew in place since late 2021, and the recent drafts have been more about finding immediate reinforcements than long-term development. That said, Nolan Schanuel and Zach Neto both look like they’re major leaguers, so the two most recent #1 picks have hit at least.
The Angels at least had a plan to compete in the short term while they had both Shohei and Trout. Some of the ideas, like drafting only pitchers in 2021, worked poorly. Others, like drafting top picks who they think are major league ready, have worked better. But in general, I understand what and why the Angels front office does things. Sometimes it is bad, but at least I understand it.
One thing the Angels, Rockies, and White Sox have in common are meddling owners who don’t know what they’re doing.
Eventually, Minasian will have to light it all on fire for the rebuild, which I hope Moreno will allow him to do. The Angels front office, as far as I can tell, is at least a step up from the Rockies/White Sox/Royals right now.
The White Sox are full of dysfunction.
The Royals continue to break my heart. That’s nothing new, and we’ll always have 2015 and 1985.
The Rockies, Royals, Angels and White Sox form my small list of teams in MLB where it remains true that you could give baseball decisionmaking powers to, say, Ben Clemens, and they would make better choices.
Once upon a time long ago it was basically true that the sabermetric community understood how things worked better than 29/30 front offices, around 2000-2002 when only the Athletics had a clue how run scoring in baseball actually worked.
That list has continued to shrink over the years, and only a few teams are left that are run worse than you could achieve by relying entirely on publically-facing information.
Kyle Boddy had a nice Twitter thread about this a while back, basically arguing the same thing – that if you ran a MLB organization on purely public data (from prospect lists from FG/BP/MLB Pipeline/BA, to statistical analysis from Fangraphs, BP and BR, and so on), you would be a bottom half team in MLB, but not the worst team in MLB, because there remain a few teams who simply don’t use that information in a useful way.
Maybe Perry Minasian will show that he’s taken the Angels out of that place. Thusfar, he doesn’t really get the benefit of the doubt. They certainly haven’t got any kind of useful player development structure into place – maybe they have got enough scouting now to identify players like Schanuel and Neto who can contribute quickly and don’t need much development. It’s too early in those careers to say that for sure.
And there is no reason to give them the benefit of the doubt. They have been awful at everything for a long time, and coasted on Arte Moreno spending some money poorly and the singular talents of Trout and Ohtani to looking like a middle of the pack team, instead of the flaming dumpster they are.
Prompted to investigate the Angels player development structure, I just read Jeff Fletcher’s three part series in the OC Register on the Angel’s farm system, “Farm Failures.” If you haven’t read it yet, it’s a good read.
While Arte Moreno can still mess everything up, I am cautiously optimistic that Minasian is turning things around from Fletcher’s report. Still a few years too early to tell, but we’ll know if some late round draft picks start making it to the majors.
I also appreciate a front office that can admit their mistakes and perceive these players as sunk costs, rather than a front office whose ego is so big they’d keep these players and have their QO pick fall.
It sucks for the Angels losing all these players for essentially cost savings, but purely from a baseball fan perspective this is great. Contenders just getting to freely add an impact player right before the playoffs is fun and I hope we see this more in the future.
I think it’s fine also. I always want teams to chase pennants with anything more than a 10% playoff shot, and I really don’t care about August acquisitions.
Agree. This is embarrassing for the Angels, but it’s the smart thing to do. People hold on all to stupid positions all the time so that they don’t have to admit they were wrong. The Angels are biting the bullet/swallowing their pride/pick your idiom and trying to salvage whatever they can out of the hole they put themselves in.
None of these dudes are worth much. Some of them are outright negatives. Let them go. Who cares.
Maybe bring back waiver trades? It was less than great but from a pure baseball perspective it was better that just waiving a pile of useful players without any returns.
I think that trying to find logic in this is a bit besides the point. It is almost certain that they did this because Arte Moreno told the front office to get under the tax line. Did they do it because of the delusional idea that Ohtani will re-sign with them and thus they will be over the tax line next season? Because Moreno is so ideologically opposed to exceeding the tax line he can’t stomach the thought of being over for one season? Because of some min-maxing interpretation of baseball analytics that says if you’re not going to the playoffs you should save every cent possible?
It is possible it is all of them, and it’s also possible the rationale for this was never even spoken out loud when the order came down (or only one of the many rationales was articulated). All I know is that it is embarrassing to waive 20-25% of your roster at one time…2/3rds of your outfield, a starter, and two of your better relievers. People talk about how trading established players for far-away prospects can be demoralizing, but it can’t be worse than cutting them loose for nothing. Friday is going to be a very tough time to be in the Angels’ clubhouse.
Also, I’m not sure it needs to be said, but why would Ohtani ever re-sign with this group? Not that they ever had a shot with them missing the playoffs repeatedly, including this year, and generally being a dysfunctional organization. I’m of the mind that they lost any hope of re-signing him after they dumped Raisel Iglesias for nothing right after signing him to a four year deal. But I’m not convinced the Angels know that this is the case. And if there was any hope of keeping him, this would be the last thing he remembers on his way out the door.
Why would Ohtani re-sign with them? Well, if they offer him the most money that usually works.
From Ohtani’s (and his agent’s) perspective, what the Angels are doing now would only be seen as a good thing. Ohtani (and his agent) aren’t dumb. They are well aware that this move doesn’t matter in the least at this point in the season. The Angels are setting themselves up to blow past the luxury threshold. Whether that’s all for Ohtani, or for Ohtani plus other free agents, it’s all a good thing to him (and his agent).
I’m sure they want the Angels to make an offer to drive up the bidding. But they’re probably not going to offer him the most money. They might think they are going to offer him the most money, because Arte Moreno has successfully made the largest offer in the past. They probably will not this time.
And even then, they would probably have to outbid other teams by a significant margin to wash away the experience of missing the playoffs every single year.
We just don’t know what Ohtani’s motivations are. It appears that money isn’t the primary motivator given his timing on coming stateside when he could have waited 2 years and gotten the massive contract once he was no longer subject to the IAFA cap. Winning doesn’t appear to be a massive motivator since he chose the Angels and hasn’t made any public demands for a trade even as they have struggled over the last few years.
What we do know is the Angels let him do whatever he wants. They let him be a two-way player and they let him essentially set his own schedule regarding his usage. He kind of has the superstar treatment from the organization that you see in the NBA or with NFL QBs that is very uncommon in baseball. It could be that is what is most important to him.
The Angels weren’t nearly as pathetic when he signed with them as they are now, though. In the winter of 2017, he was signing with a team that had just come off an 80-82 season and that had a winning record as recently as two years prior and made the playoffs three years prior. But the team literally hasn’t had a winning season since he signed. And IIRC they were one of the only teams that was willing to let him be a full-time two-way player. That won’t be an issue this time around.
It’s just really hard to see him go back to the Angels after his comments at the all-star game about how he hates losing, or after the WBC saying how it was great to play at the highest level of competition. I suppose if the Angels are the only team that is willing to let him set his own usage schedule, or other teams can’t convince him of that, then he has a much better chance of going back.
What we know is that…
1) There is a lot of smoke that Ohtani has already decided he wants to play for the Dodgers, and that the Dodgers can offer more winning in the recent past than virtually any other team
2) That the Giants went all out to sign Aaron Judge last offseason and have a ton of money and payroll flexibility, and a huge track record of spinning straw into gold
3) That the Padres are going to offer him the largest contract and dare him not to take it
The Mariners, Cubs, and Rangers were on his list the last time too and will probably make competitive offers, and it’s a pretty good bet all three will make the playoffs this year (in addition to the Giants and Dodgers).
If the narrative is “Ohtani likes everything about his current situation except the endless losing” its easy to see why the Dodgers are considered a favorite, and there was some evidence to suggest that the only reason they weren’t his choice the first time is that there was no universal DH and he was definitely going to play in the AL where he could P/DH and not commit to outfield play.
With that said, I don’t know how reliable that narrative is. However, it did appear last time that he valued things like geographical west coast location and a city with a substantial Japanese-American population and a media experienced in dealing with Japanese-speaking players (which is why it seemed like LA and Seattle were the primary leaders last time). If he still values those things, I’d expect those places to remain in the driver’s seat. But I don’t think anyone really knows too much about how his priorities have actually changed.
And I think not much should be chalked up to his ‘Came 2 years early when he could have waited and made money’, because anyone who pitches knows their UCL is a ticking timebomb, and he in fact would not have made it those 2 years without his first TJS – indeed, to this day we don’t know what existing damage he had when he signed the first time. Its possible that he recognized that the gap was not so large as people tend to assume because he had substantial chance of injury in that intervening period.
But I may also just not think like MLB pitchers do – if I were a pitcher, I would go to a private practicioner for yearly MRIs of my elbow so that I knew exactly what was going on with it, and had baseline comparisons to use any time there were problems. You can’t have the team do it, because they’d use asymptomatic damage against you in negotiation, but players aren’t obliged to reveal their private medical records, and if I were a pitcher I’d sure like to be able to have reference information for my elbow if problems arose. Is it sudden? Has it been accumulating over time? What inferences can we make about how long it will hold before it gives out?
Even if his UCL blew out in Japan, he still would have made significantly more money by waiting two years. He signed for >$3M and then made the minimum for 3 years. Through last year he had made about $12M over his first 5 years in MLB. As a true free agent he would have effortlessly been able to beat 3/12M even if he was a hitter only. Even including his $30M 2023 arb salary, that is still only 4/42.
He was making more money in salary in Japan than he did over his first 3 MLB seasons. He took more than a 50% salary cut (including his signing bonus) to play in MLB for 2018 and 2019 instead of staying in Japan while delaying his access to unrestricted free agency by 4 years.
Even coming off a TJ, Ohtani could have signed a 4 year deal for Yoshida/Seiya Suzuki money and doubled his cash while reaching free agency again this year having had the opportunity to demonstrate his two-way capacity.
Moreno is going to be penny wise and pound foolish, and so saving a few $ by getting under the tax threshold is of utmost importance to him right now.
If George Steinbrenner had to deal with a luxury tax, he would have been a whole lot like Arte Moreno is now
Remember, if the Angels get under the tax line, the compensatory pick for losing Ohtani goes back up 2 rounds.
Also a possible motivation! The possibilities are much more numerous than the number of answers we will get (which is probably going to be zero). And even if we get an answer, I’m not sure that is the only one.
If the Reds get the chance to claim Giolito and don’t, their fans should riot.
They should claim everyone. Everybody should.
Eh, all of these guys are low value. Some I would expect to hurt more than they help here on out.
Someone will take Lopez because all teams have a crappy reliever they can replace. Bader will go because he’s a defensive replacement/pinch runner if nothing else. Someone will pick up Giolito and live to regret it.
The rest I wouldn’t touch. That’s why the Angels are dumping them, they have no value.
I could see the Pirates claiming Giolito just to add to their injury-ravaged rotation.
The poor Angels are like the anti-Midas, everything they touch turns to crap. They’re not bad because of a cheapskate owner or lack of trying, but every single major acquisition they make immediately turns into a pumpkin upon arriving in Anaheim. I really wonder if any franchise has had such an extended run of bad luck when acquiring players.
None of their prospects work out, either.
At some point it isn’t luck but the decisionmaking that is bad.
Trout signed up to play out the rest of his career in this team culture #loser
“The Angels could have acquired peak Barry Bonds and not seen their playoff odds budge. In fact, I confirmed that fact by having Dan Szymborski add peak Bonds to the current Angels roster, which pushed their playoff odds all the way to 2.9%. I then had him make Ohtani healthy again – if only this were real life – which got them all the way to 7.8%. In other words, this isn’t fixable.”
This is one of my favorite paragraphs ever seen on FG. The idea that you thought to do this, then did it, brings me so much joy on a Wednesday morning.
This kind of confirms my initial reaction that the reporting on this is breathless and overblown. None of these guys is that good.
I know this isn’t the point of the article, I am disappointed that ZIPS predicts that the Nats will go 10-19 the rest of the way, given that they have played nicely above .500 since just before the All-Star Break.
To get more on point, though, the Nationals have the same record as the Padres, thank you very much. Although DC is not going to the playoffs either, I would be tickled if the Nats took back either Giolito (to help rest our young starters) or Lopez (to bolster the bullpen). It would keep players from the Phillies, and wouldn’t be a risk to the team’s draft order, given that they can choose no sooner than 10th in next year’s first round.
The Nationals being a fine team for a month and a half isn’t really that big a deal to projecting them in the future, but them having the same record as the Padres *IS* hilarious and you should enjoy that and also if you manage to finish ahead of the Mets, which would also be hilarious.
One thing I’ve always been curious about and can’t get a clear answer on is what systems/technology/infrastructure teams use to do things like discuss trades and act on the wire. We use the term “‘making calls” when discussing GM’s and trades, but do they really? I have a hard time believing that the way a trade transaction is initiated in 2023 is by a GM cold calling another GM. Does MLB have Slack or Teams or Discord channels? How, physically, do waiver claims work – a conference call like the draft? Sending an email into the league office?
I’d love to see an article on day on how, mechanically, all of this stuff actually goes down.
This seems like a job for Effectively Wild
Most of it these days is by text, but the tech level depends on who is communicating so it depends on org. The older Gen X and Boomer GMs still call each other. The millennials all text.
Kevin Goldstein talked about that stuff when he was here. IIRC, he said a lot of talk is done through text. And phone calls for bigger stuff. And I believe he said there’s some program that all the teams have that they make claims on. Not all that different from fantasy spots. I don’t remember exactly, I’m sure someone could clarify.
That’s exactly what Goldstein stated, so the info is a couple years old. Proprietary system for handling roster/waiver claims. For the team to team contacts, certain staff members are assigned to specific team (probably based on who they know) and the staff members begin informal chats regarding interests and availability. If/when the chats start to become somewhat viable, then the conversations get kicked up a level to the real decision makers. The informal chats can be sort of constant “hey, just checking in” kind of thing.
What a complete and utter embarrassment of a franchise. Ohtani needs his head examined if he stays in that dumpster fire
Not many comments have mentioned this, but I think a key part to this the draft pick compensation. They’ll offer Ohtani a qualifying offer, which he’ll decline
When he signs with a new team, the Angels will get a pick between the 2nd and 3rd round.
If they were to keep all this guys, and exceed the tax. That pick would be between the 4th and 5th round.
They in effect move up two rounds of the draft, assuming these guys get claimed
we know that because we read the article
The team that gets Giolito also puts themselves in line for a compensatory pick if they offer him the QO.I know he’s been bad since the trade and he was bad last year, but he was decent the 1st half of the year and is only 2 years removed from being pretty good and he’s still only 29. Offering him the QO would not be a bad deal.
He was traded midseason–can’t get a QO.
****EDIT*****
Check that. Mid-season trade. He’s not eligible. Ignore this post, nothing to see here, keep moving on .
(Tried to edit the post but it’s already locked)
Players can only receive a qualifying offer if and only if:
1. That player has never received a qualifying offer previously in his career.
2. That player spent the entire season on that team’s roster (in-season acquisitions are ineligible).
Giolito can’t receive a QO this year.
Good article, but how does the NL Central not get updated numbers? Surely the Reds and Cubs are possible options if these guys get past Miami and SD.
While I understand thinking the talent level in the NLC is so much lower that maybe the impact would be higher there, the two examples are illustrative, and the answer is that they don’t have that big an impact anywhere.
If he gets that far, the Rays should snap up Giolito in a heartbeat. They love changeup guys and they need starting pitching. I’ve never been a believer in him, but he could be very impactful for the Rays.
“ The Angels could have acquired peak Barry Bonds and not seen their playoff odds budge. In fact, I confirmed that fact by having Dan Szymborski add peak Bonds to the current Angels roster, which pushed their playoff odds all the way to 2.9%.”
What about 59yo Bonds?
Hold on now… did you just set Dominic Leone aside because he’s not quite the caliber of the more capable waiver guys? Ding! The Red Sox are now interested.
Speaking of Barry, I remember in 2008 when he was good enough to help every single team in MLB, and every single team in MLB refused to even consider signing him. When reading/writing an article like this it might be good to remember just how non-competitive MLB teams are in practice, despite what they’d like you to believe.
Ah yes, I remember him. The guy who had just been arrested for perjury and obstruction of justice, was a known user of performance-enhancing drugs that had been banned at a time when MLB was strengthening all the tests for it, had beaten up his girlfriend, hadn’t been fully healthy in three years, had created his own parallel organization within the Giants, and was hated by virtually everyone in baseball? I cannot imagine why teams wouldn’t want him around.
Yeah people who claim this vast conspiracy are either too young to remember or have forgotten how utterly despised Bonds was at this point. I promise, fans were not clamoring for their team to sign him.
I mean I think it is understandable but also its surprising no one even offered him like a cheap flyer, because there was a lot of upside there and if he had no offers but wanted to continue to run up the HR record, he might accept a pittance.
There was a point where having Bonds on your roster in 2008 could have been worthwhile for teams trying to compete, but no one did. Yes, he was toxic in a bunch of other ways, and his availability was questionable (both legally and injury risk), but there are teams out there that would absolutely have benefitted from, say, having him on a league minimum deal, and if teams were serious about winning someone would have offered one.
No, if teams *only cared about winning* someone would have offered one. It’s not hard to see how 30 teams could have all independently come to the conclusion that he wasn’t worth it
I also can’t imagine Bonds signing for a minimum deal. In fact I would be shocked to learn that no front offices made a call to his agent to find out what it would take, if only so they could internally weigh the pros and cons before they eventually decided to pass.
Bonds offered to play for the minimum, which was the basis of his collusion case (which he lost).
I think Bonds was a victim of “soft collusion” as opposed to hard collusion. I.e., I doubt that a memo went around saying that no one was allowed to sign Barry Bonds. But everyone knew Selig was going to be very very pissed at you if you did.
Yeppers
While he didn’t win that case, he certainly had evidence that he got literally no offers, which is pretty nonsensical. Someone would have benefitted from giving him 150 PAs for the league minimum, given he was like 30% better than league average the year before.
I don’t even think there was a “soft collusion” case to be made. Thirty teams can all independently arrive at the same conclusion: that even if a player might be able to help them on the field, he’s too much of a liability, on and off the field, to be worth the trouble he’ll bring to your team. Same thing happened with Trevor Bauer.
This certainly isn’t going to encourage Ohtani (or any free agents) to sign with the Angels.
From a business perspective this does make sense. The team, and Arte, saves millions, they get a higher draft pick, and their luxury tax stays below the threshold so that if they were to go over next year after they sign Ohtani (stop laughing!), then they’ll only be a first-time offender next year, not a second-time offender with higher penalties.
Beyond that, as a baseball fan, I don’t like the idea of quality players suddenly becoming available for September and perhaps switching which teams will make the postseason. The more fringey the contender will get first shot at a top player. I wouldn’t allow this in the fantasy league I run, so I don’t see it as a good thing for MLB. They should address this moving forward.
One additional point. While I don’t like it, I am interested to see how contending teams handle the influx of talent. Do they all try to claim a player? Do they claim a player they don’t fully need simply to block that player from their competition who might need that player more? The choices teams make and don’t make will be interesting. We’ll know shortly.
From player perspective this is pure upside for the players. The contracts are guaranteed. Now these guys all have the opportunity to move to a contending team and play meaningful baseball if claimed.
This is similar to how you see guys like Donaldson just getting released – their services are not needed there, but maybe someone with a ton of injuries wants a stopgap.
There isn’t any reason for players in general (as opposed to players on the Angels right now) to think badly of this – it would be a good thing for them if they were in that position.
I do wonder when Moreno is going to do one of his patented splurges on a big name that they will later regret (Pujols, Hamilton, Rendon). Or, alternatively, whether he will just sell the team.
I think if he was selling in the near future it would have been last year, that team was so much more valuable with the prospect of having Ohtani on it than it will be without him
The giant offer to bellinger and/or soler after he strikes out on ohtani is practically writing itself right now
The curse of naming them the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim continues. They will never succeed until they drop that silly cursed name.