MLB Bullets makes Anaheim the happiest place on earth

I don’t want to repeat what Al wrote in his Winter Meetings wrap, his report on the netting, or his story on the (positive) changes in the drug policy. Most of the free agent signings are covered in the Winter Meetings wrap. Sara also has almost everything you need to know about MLB’s report on the ball as well.

• The first few links all deal with the Angels signing of free agent third baseman Anthony Rendon and a lot of them are going to say very similar things. Alden Gonzalez writes that the Angels are in “win-now” mode with the signing of Rendon but that they still need to upgrade their pitching.
• Keith Law writes that the Angels got a great deal in Rendon who should stay good through most of his seven-year deal, at least. (ESPN+ sub. req.) But that they still need to add more pitching.
• Tony Wolfe explains just how bad the Angels pitching was last year.
• Ben Clemens projects out how good Rendon has been and how good he should be over the next few seasons. He’s also a big fan of Rendon’s personality.
• Fabian Ardaya explains why the Angels wanted Rendon so badly and why he’s a great fit for the team. (The Athletic sub. req.) But the Halos still need to add pitching if they want to compete.
• Emma Baccellieri writes that the Angels may not be a good team in 2020 (unless they add some pitching) but they’re going to be really fun to watch.
• Mark Townsend looks at the Angels’ problems with pitching and how they could possibly upgrade this winter.
• Michael Baumann looks at how the Angels might build a winning team around Mike Trout and Rendon and where the Nationals go from here.
• Will Leitch looks at the five teams (not counting the Angels) who are impacted the most by Rendon going to Orange County.
• The Dodgers are one of those teams and Matt Snyder looks at several directions the Dodgers might go after losing out on Rendon and Gerrit Cole. One of those directions is trading for Kris Bryant. It should be noted:

D’oh!

• Mandy Bell looks at some possible ideas for a trade that would send Indians shortstop Francisco Lindor to the Dodgers.
• Ben Clemens thinks the Dodgers made a smart pickup by signing free agent reliever Blake Treinen. He also finds it unusual that the Dodgers gave Treinen a higher salary than the contract that the Athletics declined to give him.
• Mark Feinsand looks at the market for free agent third baseman Josh Donaldson, whom many of the teams that missed out on Rendon are now looking at.
• Thomas Harding examines the Rockies options for trading third baseman Nolan Arenado, who was rumored to be “available.” (Prediction: no team will even come close to offering anything that would tempt the Rockies to part with Arenado.) Harding also examines the checklist of things the Rockies have yet to do this winter.
• The Rockies did sign reliever Scott Oberg to a three-year, $13 million extension.
• The Yankees re-signed outfielder Brett Gardner to a one-year, $12.5 million deal and Devan Fink thinks the Yankees got a solid deal on Gardner.
• Eric Stephen has four things we’ve learned from Cole’s $324 million deal with the Yankees.
• Bob Nightengale proclaims that the “Evil Empire” is back with the Cole signing.
• Mike Axisa has eight candidates to be the next pitcher to get a $300 million contract.
• David Schoenfield has an interesting history of the highest-paid pitcher in the game from Catfish Hunter to Gerrit Cole.
• Commissioner Rob Manfred blasted Minor League Baseball owners for the way they’ve responded to MLB’s desire to run many of them out of business. Those locally-owned book stores should have said “Thank you” to Barnes and Noble and Amazon, apparently. (As Craig Calcaterra notes, MLB seems to have not understood the kind of bad publicity this move would bring and now want to blame the minor league owners for the controversy.)
• Evan Drellich reports that MLB thinks the controversy over contacting the minor leagues will go away with time (The Athletic sub. req.) and that the politicians will lose interest as the next election comes around.
• Manfred also said that the investigation into the Astros sign-stealing is ongoing and will be the “most-thorough” ever.
• Jay Jaffe examines that MLB report on the baseballs and argues that the entire topic of the “lively” baseball needs further study.
• Free agent infielder Jose Peraza has signed with the Red Sox. Boston also signed left-handed pitcher Martin Perez to a one-year, $6 million deal.
• The Tigers have signed free agent catcher Austin Romine to a one-year, $4.1 million deal.
• Tom Verducci applauds the Mets deal to pick up free agent pitcher Rick Porcello.
• Mets general manager Brodie Van Wagenen thinks the Mets have “the deepest rotation in MLB” with the Porcello and Michael Wacha signings. We all wish it were 2016 again, Brodie.
• Matt Snyder writes about how a signing-filled Winter Meetings restored some shine to MLB’s offseason.
• Tim Brown wonders if all these huge contracts given out to elite players will now “trickle down” to the free agent middle class. It never does.
• Richard Justice has seven pieces of “unfinished business” as the Winter Meetings end.
• Jim Callis has scouting reports on all the players taken in the Major League phase of the Rule 5 Draft.
• I’m sure I’ll have a lot of these on Monday, but we might as well get a head start. R.J. Anderson has the “winners and losers” from the Winter Meetings.
• Mike Oz has “winners and losers” from the Winter Meetings.
• The Giants announced that they are moving their fences in so they can take their bullpens off the playing field at Oracle Park and put them behind the center field fence. Basically what the Cubs did at Wrigley Field few years ago. (No word on dancing in the bullpen, yet.) Of course, there is that urban legend that the architects of the Giants’ home stadium simply forgot to include bullpens so they put them on the field.
• Andrew Baggarly has more details on this including pictures. (The Athletic sub. req.) Baggarly writes that despite the fences coming in, Oracle Park will still favor pitching.
• Joe Posnanski has some thoughts about the little things in baseball that he loves.
• And finally, if you want to sign a big free agent pitcher, it’s not enough to just give the guy $324 million. If you’re the Yankees, you needed to give Gerrit Cole a “30-pound-ish contraption” in order to seal the deal.

And tomorrow will be a better day than today, Buster.