At the end of every season the baseball world goes on their rants about another year wasted for Mike Trout. The Angels are wasting his career. As an Angels fan I would love to see them back in the World Series, I don’t see it as a wasted year of Mike Trout. He has chosen to be in Anaheim. He had a chance to leave and didn’t. He wouldn’t be the only Hall of Fame caliber
player to never play in the World Series or have limited playoff appearances.

The 2020 season made me realize there is no reason to constantly build for the future. When the Rays traded Blake Snell to the Padres, they showed that the future is all they see. Whereas the Padres have decided to build upon the core and try to make it happen now.

The Angels jettisoned Billy Eppler after he was unable to pull off an Andrew Friedman with the Angels. Forgetting that Friedman walked into a much stronger organization with better talent evaluators than the Angels have had in years. Enter Perry Minasian, another hire with no prior GM experience. He does however have a lifetime of varied experience in the game.

Will that matter? Arte Moreno has said and proven many times he is willing to spend big money. Problem it has never really worked out. And they never seem to get exactly what they are looking for. When we needed starting pitching, we got a 3rd baseman. Not that we didn’t get a great one, but we saw that without top line pitching Mike Trout still didn’t get to the playoffs with Anthony Rendon. For whatever reasons they were unable to get any top pitchers to come to Anaheim.

Now it is time for Perry to make something happen. He has made a couple of okay moves. But will he able to draw Trevor Bauer or some other upper echelon starter to sign? Were the Angels in talks for Blake Snell? Or even Yu Darvish? Are they really going to pay Bauer the money he is expecting? Are they going to look for potential upside bargains and hope for the best? Or are they going to stop fooling around and get what it will take to make it to the World Series?

I am tired of hearing and reading that they must watch their spending. Do you want to compete or not? Go after all the top guys. Get DJ LeMahieu who can play anywhere in the infield. Lure J.T. Realmuto to the Big A to be a solid backstop and another big bat in the lineup. Sign Bauer and another top tier starter. And then add a couple of arms to the bullpen including Liam Hendriks. Trade Jo Adell to get another solid arm like Joe Musgrove. Then go get Brian Goodwin back and try out Brandon Marsh in the outfield.

2021 is more uncertain than 2020. No idea when a season will start. The latest CBA will end at the end of the season and could lead to another work stoppage. Since there are no guarantees on the future why not go ALL IN and get the piece of metal. Doesn’t matter how you got there. It only matters that you are Champions!!! Oh and Mike Trout finally makes the playoffs…

Note:

At the time of this writing Liam Hendriks was available. He has since signed with the White Sox. Insert Brad Hand in his place.