How Much Value Did the Angels Lose By Going All-in?

All told, the go-for-it decision cost them an estimated $27M in prospect capital. They not only missed a golden opportunity to beef up a bad farm, but they absolutely decimated what was left of it. This will leave them bereft of young impact talent for years to come.

To be fair, they’ve promoted a few young players to the major-league level already (and have been one of the most aggressive teams to do so, calling up guys like Logan O’Hoppe, Zach Neto, and Nolan Schanuel). But the pipeline is dry.

So how much did the veteran waiver-wire dump salvage those losses?

Assuming any on-field production they would have received from those veterans would have been worthless, since they’re out of contention, the only positive here is the salary savings, which amount to about $5.7M.

There’s another benefit as well: The Angels were slightly over the luxury tax limit, so by shedding these salaries (update: and by putting Max Stassi on the restricted list), they scooted back under it, which means they don’t have to pay any financial penalties on the overage.

That amount would have been tiny, though. The real benefit was that the draft pick they’ll likely receive once Ohtani declines the qualifying offer they’ll issue is that it will come to them after the 2nd round instead of the 4th round. By our math, the delta between the value of those two picks is roughly $2M.

In other words, by dumping veterans, they netted roughly $7.7M in positive value.