Free Agent Day
Thursday, November 2nd @ 9AM EST
Yunel Escobar, Brandon Phillips, Yusmeiro Petit, Bud Norris, Jesse Chavez, Ben Revere, Cliff Pennington, and Andrew Bailey are now automatically free agents. However, nothing really happens until November 7th since teams have the option of qualifying offers so don’t worry, no one is snagging Petit and signing him to a deal today. You can bet Eppler and crew are already working on offers to the guys they want to bring back, though I’m not sure that goes beyond Petit.
Decision Day
November 4th
Contract option decisions are due this day. Most notably, Justin Upton. Less notable are Ricky Nolasco who has a 13 million club option for 2018 and Huston Street who has a 10 million club option for 2018. Buying either Nolasco or Street out will cost the team 1 million each and is money well spent imo.
As most of you probably already read by now - at least one of these decisions has been made. Justin Upton has agreed to a 5 year deal with the Angels - so next up will be decisions on Street and Nolasco.
Justin Upton's new contract with #Angels: 5 years and $106 million, tacking on one year and $18M from existing deal
— Bob Nightengale (@BNightengale) November 2, 2017
Qualifying Offer Deadline
November 6th
This year that number is 17.4 million. The Angels don’t have any eligible players who are worth that kind of money.
Free Agency Begins
November 7th
The beginning of free agency is kinda like Christmas for GMs.
Qualifying Offer Decisions
November 13th
Shouldn’t apply to the Angels this year
GM Meetings
November 13th-16th
Not a trade frenzy like the winter meetings, but Billy Eppler snagged Andrelton Simmons at these meetings in 2015.
Rule 5 Protection
November 20th
This is the deadline date for guys to get added to the 40 man roster to be protected from the Rule 5 draft. Zach Houchins and Micahel Hermosillo would seem to be two candidates to get added to the 40 man roster and protected from the Rule 5 draft.
Non Tender Deadline
December 1st
Contract offers are due to arbitration eligible players and the Angels have A LOT of them. Here are the estimates according to MLB Trade Rumors:
I’m not sure I want to see Alvarez come back, but given the shortage of lefties and relatively low price tag, we’ll probably see him on the 2018 roster. I would agree that Young, Robinson, and Wood are all non tender candidates. Wood just wasn’t that good to warrant 2.2 million.
Winter Meetings
December 10th-14th
They take place in Orlando this year. Will Billy Eppler work some magic here?
Rule 5 Draft
December 14th
Last year the Angels grabbed Justin Haley but dumped him for cash. He ended up on the Twins after a trade from the Padres but the Twins gave him back to his original Team, the Red Sox. In short - the Angels didn’t do anything in the draft last year. IN 2015 they picked up Deolis Guerra and Ji-Man Choi. The Rule 5 draft rarely works out all that well so don’t get too excited about this date :)