http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/...in-santana.html

With Santana traded and Haren on the block it will be interesting to see what they do after freeing up some space.

Hamilton?

No .... Greinke ... maybe

Sounds like the Angels got a minor league reliever for free, since they paid the Royals the 1 million that Santana's buyout would have cost.

Did the Royals think Santana would have gotten more than 12 million as a free agent?

whobob wrote: Sounds like the Angels got a minor league reliever for free, since they paid the Royals the 1 million that Santana's buyout would have cost.

Did the Royals think Santana would have gotten more than 12 million as a free agent?

Probably not, but they probably figured that Santana wouldn't sign with them as a free agent. The Royals are desperate for any starting pitching they can get their hands on.

Thank God, Santana is gone.

Angels making deals is sort of like patting the red headed child in the corner. Especially since they blew 1/3 billion dollars on garbage last year.

Very hard to take them seriously.

Even in seasons in which he was struggling Santana has always dominated against the A's. So it is good to see him out of the division.

Echo the sentiments that it's great to see Santana gone, but after losing the season series to KC does this spell impending doom for the A's when they play KC?

angels arent likely to pickup haren's option or will trade him, either way he probably wont be back. angels look to be clearing payroll to attempt to sign greinke or other fa's. lets not ignore they also have that huge cable tv deal. the angels and rays made an effort to overtake A's , maybe if the season was a week longer, they may have. it would be nice is they remain one of those expensive, under achieving teams but i dont see it. angels and rangers will remain powerhouse teams for awhile, something A's will have to deal with. no weak division like the giants have the luxury of being in

arly2380 wrote: angels arent likely to pickup haren's option or will trade him, either way he probably wont be back. angels look to be clearing payroll to attempt to sign greinke or other fa's. lets not ignore they also have that huge cable tv deal. the angels and rays made an effort to overtake A's , maybe if the season was a week longer, they may have. it would be nice is they remain one of those expensive, under achieving teams but i dont see it. angels and rangers will remain powerhouse teams for awhile, something A's will have to deal with. no weak division like the giants have the luxury of being in

If the season had gone one more week we may have finished 7 games ahead of those teams instead of 5 and 4 respectively.  A's gained 3 games on LAAAAA and 1 on TBR in the last 7.  Going back further the A's gained, from Sept. 1st on the A's gained 1/2 game on each of those teams.

jclay09 wrote: Echo the sentiments that it's great to see Santana gone, but after losing the season series to KC does this spell impending doom for the A's when they play KC?

Ditto

no point of bringing up impossible hypothetical scenarios. we played a 162 game schedule and won the division.

The A's will always be the underdog team. but i feel we have the talent and youth  in place to compete with the big boys in the division -- no matter how much they spend or misspend

arly2380 wrote: angels arent likely to pickup haren's option or will trade him, either way he probably wont be back. angels look to be clearing payroll to attempt to sign greinke or other fa's. lets not ignore they also have that huge cable tv deal. the angels and rays made an effort to overtake A's , maybe if the season was a week longer, they may have. it would be nice is they remain one of those expensive, under achieving teams but i dont see it. angels and rangers will remain powerhouse teams for awhile, something A's will have to deal with. no weak division like the giants have the luxury of being in

arly2380 wrote: angels arent likely to pickup haren's option or will trade him, either way he probably wont be back. angels look to be clearing payroll to attempt to sign greinke or other fa's. lets not ignore they also have that huge cable tv deal. the angels and rays made an effort to overtake A's , maybe if the season was a week longer, they may have. it would be nice is they remain one of those expensive, under achieving teams but i dont see it. angels and rangers will remain powerhouse teams for awhile, something A's will have to deal with. no weak division like the giants have the luxury of being in

I think you're basing a little of this on fear rather than reality. Sure, the Rays an Angels made an effort to overtake the A's - every team made an effort. The question is whether or not they actually gained any ground.

Last 10 games of the season:
A's - 8-2
Rays - 8-2
Angels - 6-4

Last 20 games of the season:
Rays - 13-7
A's - 12-8
Angels - 12-8

Last 30 games of the season:
A's - 19-11
Angels - 19-11
Rays - 18-12

That doesn't suggest to me that another week of the season would have caught them up. These guys weren't making a charge at the A's the last week, 2 weeks, 3 weeks or even 4 weeks of the season. They were making up no ground - they didn't just run out of time. And let's not forget the A's had the tougher schedule over that last part of the season, too. By a lot. More time wasn't going to help them.

Now, maybe we'd have collapsed, but I think you were expecting that all year and it never happened. We might just be a better all-around team than you think we are.

arly2380 wrote: angels arent likely to pickup haren's option or will trade him, either way he probably wont be back. angels look to be clearing payroll to attempt to sign greinke or other fa's. lets not ignore they also have that huge cable tv deal. the angels and rays made an effort to overtake A's , maybe if the season was a week longer, they may have. it would be nice is they remain one of those expensive, under achieving teams but i dont see it. angels and rangers will remain powerhouse teams for awhile, something A's will have to deal with. no weak division like the giants have the luxury of being in

Well..... We do get the Astros starting next year.

The Angels underachieved last season but thats not something the A's can count on. In fact by 3rd order win % the Angels were 4 games better than the A's so the A's should be looking at 2013 as if they need to close the gap.

www.baseballprospectus.com/standings/

joshbalt wrote: The Angels underachieved last season but thats not something the A's can count on. In fact by 3rd order win % the Angels were 4 games better than the A's so the A's should be looking at 2013 as if they need to close the gap.

www.baseballprospectus.com/standings/

Thanks Joshbalt for the link and comment.  Truly an amazing season for the A's and perhaps a bit of luck thrown into the mix.  However, can't a fantastic bullpen skew these numbers a bit due to their use in high leverage situations?  If I do recall that correctly it is important to not only improve in all areas, but to try to upgrade the pen as it is notoriously hard to duplicate its effectiveness year over year.  I also know the Angels had bullpen issues especially in the first half of the year and that the Orioles had a fantastic pen.

A's had 3 walk off wins in 2011 vs 14 in 2012

if you cut that number in half next yr, thats a huge difference in win total. A's obviously improved their hitting over the past yr, despite not getting much from C, 2b, SS, and 3b.

Rangers and Angels will continue to have top tier payrolls. Dont sleep on mariners. Personally i think their smoak, montero, ackley, saunders, seager core can be very good. with zunino, franklin, and 3 top tier pitching prospects on the way. They could make that leap into contention as A's did in 2012 next yr

Maybe with Seattle moving in the fences next year we'll see the kind of amazing growth in Smoak as a hitter that the Orioles got from Chris Davis this year, but I'm not convinced.

I've heard some talk that what the Angels are doing is trying to free up some space  to bring in a top flight reliever like Soriano, who turned down a guaranteed 14 million for 2013 from the Yankees to go free agent. That may be why E Santana is gone and Dan Haren and his sore back will probably be gone - trying to clear some money. And they may want to bring back Grienke, and that's going to cost major $$$.

Course the Angels are still paying the price for the Vernon Wells deal, which still has a few years to run...

the a's also blew 2 run leads (and lost) going into the ninth or later against the O's, Giants, Yankees, Twins, and Dbacks. Those were 5 games we should have won too. So it's not like we won every close game and lucked out and won a bunch of walk off games. We lost some games we should have won. We won some games we should have lost. In the end it evens out.

arly2380 wrote: A's had 3 walk off wins in 2011 vs 14 in 2012

if you cut that number in half next yr, thats a huge difference in win total. A's obviously improved their hitting over the past yr, despite not getting much from C, 2b, SS, and 3b.

Rangers and Angels will continue to have top tier payrolls. Dont sleep on mariners. Personally i think their smoak, montero, ackley, saunders, seager core can be very good. with zunino, franklin, and 3 top tier pitching prospects on the way. They could make that leap into contention as A's did in 2012 next yr