The 2023 Baseball Season - Things to Come

https://www.usatoday.com/story/spor...chasing-200-wins-in-final-season/70538172007/

But take a look at how ugly last year’s free agent market has turned out with all of the struggles that have led to releases and salary dumps:

Shortstop Trea Turner, $300 million, Phillies: Demoted to eighth in the batting order, hitting .236 with a .656 OPS in the worst season of his career.

Shortstop Xander Bogaerts: $280 million, Padres: Hitting .266 with 11 homers and a .740 OPS.

Shortstop Carlos Correa, $200 million, Twins: Hitting .220 with a .295 on-base percentage and a .678 OPS.

Starter Jacob deGrom, $185 million, Rangers: His season lasted 30⅓ innings and he won’t be returning until 2025.

Starter Carlos Rodon, $177 million, Yankees: He has won one game and pitched 24 ⅓ innings.

Catcher Willson Contreras, $87.5 million, Cardinals: It took three weeks for the Cardinals to regret the decision when their pitchers told management they didn’t want to pitch to him. He’s on the trade block.

First baseman Jose Abreu, $59.8 million, Astros: He has a .653 OPS and -0.8 WAR.

First baseman Anthony Rizzo, $40 million, Yankees: Batting .172 with one homer and 9 RBI since May 28 after colliding with Padres outfielder Fernando Tatis at first base, and is now on the IL with post-concussion symptoms

First baseman Josh Bell, $33 million, Guardians: Hit .233 with a .701 OPS and was traded from the Guardians to the Marlins in a salary dump.

Shortstop Jean Segura, $17 million, Marlins: He was in that salary dump, with a brutal slash line of .219/.277/.279 and immediately released

First baseman Trey Mancini, $14 million, Cubs: Released with his .234 batting average and four homers.

Outfielder A.J. Pollock, $13 million, Mariners: He was traded from Seattle to the Giants, hitting .173 with five homers and 15 RBI, in a salary dump.

Outfielder Michael Brantley, $12 million, Astros: Yet to step onto the field.

DH Matt Carpenter, $12 million, Padres: Hitting .166 with four homers, and in danger of being released.

Starter Matt Boyd, $10 million, Tigers: Underwent season-ending Tommy John surgery in June.

Starter Corey Kluber, $10 million, Red Sox: 3-6 with a 7.01 ERA.

Outfielder Will Myers, $7.5 million, Reds: He was released in June, hitting .189 with three homers and 12 RBI.

Catcher Mike Zunino, $6 million, Guardians: Hit .177 with three homers, struggled defensively, and was released in June.

Infielder Josh Harrison, $2 million, Phillies: Released last week.

DH Nelson Cruz, $1 million, Padres: He had five homers and a .681 was released last month.

It’s hardly a ringing endorsement for this year’s weak free-agent market.

 

They are missing Montero's contract.

 

Maybe an unpopular take, but steroids would probably help

 

Seems pretty silly for the media to call them out now. They were slobbering all over them when they decided to make trades/moves and dug-in on their stance to keep Ohtani…. Even though they were 4+ games out at that time with less than a 10% chance of making the playoffs.

Now that number is in the low single digits… and they have lost a lot of prospects and now they’ll start hearing questions whether its in Ohtani’s best interest to preserve his health for the upcoming FA frenzy.

 

I’m more calling out the media hypocrisy when it comes to pushing certain narratives based on the good of boys mentality that is baseball pundits. The Angels do dumb stuff on their own and there was little chance any of these moves were going to get them in playoff contention (and that remains the case) unless magically Rendon was coming back to an MVP level and Trout was ready to play 3 weeks earlier also at an MVP level.

They were too afraid to call them out for being buyers because they didn’t want to do anything to offend the Shohei Ohtani love-fest… but any rational baseball analyst should have been calling them out to sell… and should have encouraged them to trade Ohtani.

Now they’ll pull a 180 and basically say that the continued failures of the Angels organization’s inability to develop a farm system and build a successful team around Shohei warrants him to leave. And next they’ll campaign for them to trade Trout to replenish their now barren farm system.

Also Seattle sold… and now they’re on a run. Some will say maybe they shouldn’t have, or some will say that maybe the selling re-invigorated the team to make a push. (And most likely, they’ll revert back to the up/down team they’ve been all year).

 

The angels were stupid for thinking they were a playoff team beating cupcake teams and then decided to get cron and guchiuk to convince Othani to stay lol

 

The Angels have been grasping at straws for a long time. Ohtani picking them masked how bad their player development and win now moves were. The Angels are 384 and 437 since Ohtani joined them. For all intents and purposes, Ohtani picking them was like a free 30 wins over that time period. That's a 72-win team on average if Ohtani had picked someone else despite having Mike Trout.

The A's despite being nearly 2 years into a rebuild that will rival the Astros's from a decade ago still have more wins than the Angels over the Ohtani years.

 

Ohtani would be a fool to resign with the Angels, regardless of how this season turns out for them. And I don't think Ohtani is a fool

 

There were plenty of analysts on MLB network that thought they should have sold and traded Ohtani. Hell even Bo Porter was one of them.

 

I wish he would because we know the Angels aren’t going anywhere regardless.

 

That was one of the luckiest play I’ve seen lately…until it turned out to have broken his thumb lol

 

But none of the main cronies with all the followers.

and calling porter an “analyst” is a slight stretch.

 

Yeah this. The other day a coworker said to me, don't you want to see Ohtani win(I'm Japanese so I cheer for all Japanese players). I said no because if he signs with a contender, better chance Astros face them in playoffs than they face the Angels.

 

I didn't hear Kevin Brown say anything egregious. There has to be more to the story.