Olney Predicts Angels will sign Matt Holliday

The Boras factor has a little to do with it. Holliday will be the last major free agent to sign and the price will start to get inflated.

Personally, I’d like to see the Angels get Bay. Then I think Juan moves to RF and Abreu becomes the primary DH. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like there’s room for Vlad.

What are we going to do with Granderson? ;)

Rivera at RF and Abreu at DH? Rivera or Napoli is going to be traded this offseason.

but this could be an interesting deal. what does on our lineup look like then?

Aybar SS
Abreu DH
Holliday LF
Morales 1B
Hunter CF
Kendrick 2B
Rivera
Napoli C
Wood 3B

we’ll be involved but eventually bow out. Other teams will want him more.

The Angel roster already has 3 capable outfielders— Juan Rivera, Torii Hunter, and the recently re-signed Bobby Abreu. Adding another outfielder forces Abreu to DH, which no longer becomes an option for a platoon type position. Holliday seemingly found his bat in the National League. But was he ever terrible in Oakland, facing American League West Pitching.

A Holliday signing could bolster the offense of the Angels which looked somewhat anemic during the ALCS, however signing Holliday all but guarantees that Chone Figgins will not be returning and the Angels will probably have a need to move another player (Gary Matthews Jr., Reggie Willits, or even Juan Rivera.) Also a contract to Holliday would be expensive which would probably tie the hands of Angel Front Office to re-sign John Lackey or another free agent starting pitcher.

I would have to say that I would be against such a signing. Holliday’s price tag will be much to high and there is no guarantee will be getting the Matt Holliday of the National League or the Matt Holliday of the American League.

Has he ever been right about anything Angels-related? Frankly, I take his comment as pretty much a guarantee that Holliday will NOT be signing with the Angels. Kansas City is a more likely destination than LAofA.

I am convinced these guys will go with any wild rumor or half-baked idea they come across, just so they can claim to be “first” should it actually be true. Immediate communication medium formats like Twitter just make the whole problem infinitely worse.

Boras has stated he is shooting for Teixeira money for Holliday, and while Arte came up short is his appraisal of Teixeira’s value (relative to the final price), nobody who is in good mental health would consider Holliday the equal of Teixeira, especially in terms of defense. Teixeira is a once-in-a-generation player in terms of talent; Holliday is a guy who hits the ball hard.

I don’t see any way on God’s green Earth that the Angels come close to meeting the minimum buy-in on the Holliday Bidding Derby.

Holliday did say last year that he’d like playing with the Angels as he likes our area- but he could get more from Red-sox, Yankees et all so I don’t think it will happen – he would have to take a steep pay cut-

When is the last time that Olney had decent inside information on a West Coast team?

The “source” for this story was more than likely somebody within the Boras camp. It was last year that various media chimps were used by the Boras team to create rumors that Team X was interested in Teixeira, when Team X had no interest at all, or had dropped out. But when the rumor is repeated enough times—and with Twitter, it can get repeated dozens of times in mere minutes—it becomes “truth” and creates an illusion that the player is an even hotter commodity than he is.

This whole rumor from Olney is as ridiculous as the “Adrian Gonzalez to the White Sox with Konerko to the Angels” rumor which is reverberating in the echo chamber of the genuinely stupid.

Matt Holliday proved last year, whether he was unhappy in Oakland or not, that he is simply not as good against American League pitching. Look at the simple numbers (from baseball-reference.com)

In 400 plate appearances in Oakland, Holliday’s line is:
BA- .286 OBP- .378 SLG- .454 OPS- .831 HR- 11 RBI – 54

That is comparable to his worst and similarly incomplete season in Colorado, in which he posted .290 .349 .488. .837 14 57 in 439 plate appearances respectively.

When Holliday was traded on July 25th, he went back to the NL, back to AAAA pitching and ballparks he was familiar with. He posted

BA- .353 OBP- .419 SLG- .604 OPS- 1.023 HR- 13 RBI – 55
in only 270 at bats

Many people disregarded the stat differential as simply being back on a contender and being back in a situation with which he was happy. I disagree, I think Holliday could not quite figure out AL pitching since it is far superior and was happy to get back to hitting the NL pitchers out of parks built for home runs.

Simply put, I do not want Holliday in our outfield. I am comfortable with the Torii, Juan, Bobby combo. I am a little worried about our future out there with Torii and Bobby getting up there in age, and Juan not exactly being a speed guy out in the field. Plus, let’s not forget the bone-headed play he made that cost St. Louis the chance of tying up the series going home! I do not think, however, a 30-yr old Matt Holliday, who just experienced his worst season statistically (albeit shortened) in the AL, is the answer! I’d be very very very disappointed if our front office spent the kind of money he’s going to require on Holliday.