Joel Sherman if the NY Post ranked each MLB team based on who he thought had the most successful offseason. He listed the Blue Jays as his best team and rounds out his top five with the Red Sox, Phillies, A’s and Rays.
In the bottom he ranked the Angels as the worst which was kind of odd to me.
30. ANGELS
This was a setback not only of player personnel, but perception. Owner Arte Moreno began the offseason vowing to spend what was necessary to return the Angels to the top of the AL West, and then lost out on main targets Beltre and Crawford. Then the Angels seemed out of the baseball mainstream by not understanding just how much Toronto would do to unburden itself of as much of Wells’ contract as possible. The Angels did not get Toronto to eat Scott Kazmir’s odious contract or a lot more future dollars for Wells. They also included Mike Napoli in the trade to get Wells when they should have used him in a separate trade (consider that Toronto immediately traded Napoli to Texas for reliever Frank Francisco).
It’s no secret Sherman hated the Wells trade, ranking the Blue Jays 1st and the Angels 30th in his offseason rankings. But how about some objectivity Joel?
He lists the Angels as his worst team because they vowed to spend whatever it took to add a slugger and didn’t, and in the same breath he pounds them for spending too much on Vernon Wells, who by the way is a slugger. Which one is it?
Sure they overspent on Wells, but they added a player who had 78 extra-base hits last season with an .847 OPS. He was in the top ten in doubles, home runs, slugging percentage and OPS in 2010. Plus, it’s the Angels who are one of the most richest franchises in the game.
Even more egregious is the fact he doesn’t even mention that the Angels aggressively addressed last season’s disastrous bullpen by signing top reliever Scott Downs to a 3-year deal and adding the versatile Hisanori Takahashi to bolster the bullpen.
Come on Joel, you’re better than this.
My worst team this offseason would have been tied between the Pirates and the Indians who sucked big time and didn’t do anything to change their predicament.
Sherman ranked the Mets 23rd which I guess is about where they should be mostly because many of their signings are high risk in terms of the probability of getting a full season out of some of them.
23. METS
They probably made the right choice to try to fix at the margins with Chris Capuano, Chris Young, D.J. Carrasco and Ronnie Paulino while hoping stars such as Jose Reyes, Carlos Beltran, Francisco Rodriguez and Jason Bay get healthy and productive. But as the Wilpons’ revelation that they are seeking limited partners revealed, the organization also is hurting financially. In addition, does Terry Collins really have the stature and temperament to be a successful manager in New York, or was the first major move of the Sandy Alderson administration a dud?
The season hasn’t even begun yet and he’s already speculating that Terry Collins could be a dud?
I can already tell that it’s gonna be a long season.
