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Monday, October 25, 2004 |
Angels Notebook
- Rich's Weekend Baseball BEAT passes on this Baseball America story indicating the Tigers have made the mistake of signing Justin Verlander to a five-year major league contract with a $3.12M signing bonus on a contract worth a maximum of $5.16M, this eight days after the Tigers said they were no longer interested in the righthander. Rich asks:
Question to Boras and Angels’ General Manager Bill Stoneman: Why can’t you agree on a five-year deal for $7.5 million? When you finally get together, don’t forget to send me a check for 3% of the transaction value. That’s “L-e-d-e-r-e-r.”
Because, Rich, that's spelled r-i-p-o-f-f. The Indians made hay signing their good young players to long-term contracts only after they had proven themselves at the major league level. Giving out guaranteed contracts to unproven amateurs is bad for baseball. You may recall that Darren "Ouch, That Hurts" Dreifort was a first-round pick, too... Guys become ineffective. They become injury magnets. They don't even make it out of the minors. - Pedro Martinez may well end up in Anaheim "where he is close to Vladimir Guerrero and Bartolo Colon, and owner Arte Moreno is serious about winning", but the "winning" part won't happen with an imploding Pedro on the mound for the Angels.
- Future Angels has put up three articles from the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reporting that the executive committee of Ray Winder Field will be moving the Arkansas Travelers (AA) to North Little Rock. According to my mother-in-law, if that ever happened, GM Bill Valentine would retire. I wish him well, in that event...
Comments:
Boras laid out the numbers before the draft and that is why Weaver fell to the Angels. Perhaps, the Angels thought that was just posturing, but that is hard to believe considering Boras's recent history with the draft.
# posted by 
: 10/25/2004 09:29:00 AM
: 10/25/2004 09:29:00 AM
It's one thing to play that game with Mark Prior. It's quite another with Jered Weaver, whose mechanics aren't as good.
The point is that Weaver's contract demands were well known before the draft. If the Angels weren't planning on a major league deal then they wasted their pick. Boras doesn't compromise-- often against his client's best interest.
Sure maybe the Angels are better off pursuing a free agent pitcher, but that doesn't excuse them for throwing away a high first round pick. That is a poor long term strategy as the Mariners and Giants have shown.
Sure maybe the Angels are better off pursuing a free agent pitcher, but that doesn't excuse them for throwing away a high first round pick. That is a poor long term strategy as the Mariners and Giants have shown.
# posted by : 10/25/2004 12:37:00 PM
: 10/25/2004 12:37:00 PM
I understand your point, Richard, but $7.5M for essentially a total gamble is obscene. Nobody -- nobody -- has seen him pitch against major leaguers. He could be a total bust. We just don't know. Yes, he has a nice record against collegiate players. So did Darren Dreifort. The Angels haven't paid that kind of money to Ben Weber, and he actually gave them some good innings over the last three years. Essentially, the Angels made the bet that no other clubs would be dumb enough to give guaranteed major league contracts to their high-round picks. And that turned out to be a mistake.
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