Are the LA Angels trying to build a superteam?
Gone are the old days of the Angels being left standing with their pants down during free agency, the days where agents would screw over the Angels in an attempt to maximize their clients dollar value. Last year the Angels signed Albert Pujols, one of the best hitters to ever play the game, to a mammoth 10 year 254 million dollar contract. Just as that move was completely unforeseen and shocking to the entire sporting world, the Angels have done it again, this time signing long-time rival slugger Josh Hamilton to a 5 year 125 million dollar contract this past week.
What does that mean for the Angels?
Not only have they gone out and signed one of the best hitters in the game in Josh Hamilton, they took him away from their bitter divisional rivals the Texas Rangers. Not only does this make the Angels better, it makes the Texas Rangers worse. This rivalry between the Angels and Rangers has grown incredibly heated over the past few seasons, turning it into a prime-time baseball rivalry. The Josh Hamilton signing is a sweet repeat of the Angels signing of then Texas Ranger ace pitcher C.J Wilson. The Angels didn’t just break the bank last year to sign Pujols and Wilson, they repeated that performance this year by getting Josh Hamilton.
Which leads me to the all important question….
Are the Angels trying to build a superteam?
Prior to last offseason the Angels organization was a joke. The team GM was incredibly incompetent, making many bad free agent signings and trades that eventually lost to him leading his job when he traded Angels power-hitting catcher Mike Napoli to the Blue Jays for outfielder Vernon Wells, who owns one of the biggest contracts in baseball. It only makes it worse that not only did Vernon Wells put up one of the worst seasons from a outfielder in baseball while making 20 million a year, Mike Napoli was traded to the Rangers just days after the initial trade to the Jays. Napoli went on to put up an incredible All-Star season for the Rangers alongside Hamilton which took the team all the way to the World Series, though they would go on to lose in the World Series two years in a row.
Now the Angels have an incredible GM who is not only a great negotiator (in contrast to the previous GM), but knows how to do his business behind shadows. Just like Albert Pujols the year before, the Angels weren’t even in the conversation of “who would sign him”, the news that the Angels were in on the player would only break mere hours before they signed him. The new tactics behind the Angels front office leads us to believe that this habit of signing the best free agent out of nowhere could become an annual event.
Josh Hamilton, paired up with Albert Pujols gives the Angels the deadliest 3-4 combination in the entirety of baseball. When you add 21 year old phenom Mike Trout to that list you have the deadliest offense in the game. The Angels already have the floorplan to a superteam, you could even say they’re already well on the road to creating one.
Next year the Yankees All-Star second baseman Robinson Cano is going to be a free agent. He will no doubt command well over a hundred million dollars, and the Angels have shown already that they have no problem breaking the bank for a player who is hands down one of the best, if not the best, at their position. I wouldn’t be surprised if I was sitting here a year from now writing about the shocking, last-minute signing of Robinson Cano to a 150 million+ contract.
Crazier things have happened.