We don't have verified details, but it does appear the Angels offered him over $100M across six seasons, with a vesting option for a seventh season. Apparently, the math works out to meeting Jayson Werth's deal with the Nationals.

By any reasonable yardstick, offering a player the opportunity to earn over $100M while playing in a great city, under excellent management and for a terrific fanbase, is showing a player interest. That the offer wasn't completely over-the-top in the manner of the Red Sox offer isn't really a failing of the Angels front office. As has been noted before, the team does have limitations within which to work, and while Arte, in his frustration, did pledge to Simers that he was prepared to spend serious money--and I think a $100M contract offer pretty well defines "serious money"--this was before the Nationals pissed in the free agent pool with their unprecedented and irrational offer to Werth. Arte's offer to Crawford did represent a large increase in the sort of contract previously given out (in terms of money and years), but it clearly wasn't the top bid.

I have come to believe, though, that there is a secondary problem. Crawford did identify a desire to play on the East Coast, a familiar arena to him after his years in Tampa. I am thinking that players who want to "brand" themselves and become spokesmen for products simply won't want to play in Anaheim, or in the Pacific Time Zone, for that matter.

This thought comes to me as one who follows the Angels while living in EST. Games on the West Coast begin a 7 pm PT and end around 10 pm PT, but when viewed on the East Coast they begin at 10 pm ET and end around 1 am ET. God help me if there are extra innings, or many trips to the mound to change pitchers, or any of a dozen other circumstances which drag the game out to 2 am or later on a school night.

Meanwhile, the scores don't make it into the morning newspaper and the highlights are harder to find. In essence, to a player who is accustomed to playing in the AL East, he will have greater visibility if he remains in the AL East, and that means he has access to endorsements as a reward for that greater visibility. Quick: Think of a player with national endorsements who plays west of the Mississippi and isn't a first baseman in St Louis.

I think Crawford took the offer because it was more money, but my guess is he would have signed with the Red Sox even if the Angels matched the offer. All things being equal, I think he wants to play in the spotlight, and with 2/3 of the US population living east of the Mississippi, that involves playing most of one's games in the Eastern Time Zone.

It is nothing but a theory of mine, but I think there might not have been any way the Angels would have gone home from Orlando with a signed deal from Carl Crawford. This isn't about sour grapes in any way, just analyzing the comments made by the participants.