Angels sign Scott Downs

[A.E]

The Angels sign Scott Downs to a three-year, $15 million contract​

UPDATE: Ken Rosenthal of FOXSports.com confirms it. The Angels have signed Downs to a three-year, $15 million contract. He could earn an additional $1 million based on games finished.

Downs, who turns 35 in March, posted a 2.64 ERA and 48/14 K/BB ratio over 61 1/3 innings this past season. The southpaw has a 2.36 ERA over 262 appearances since the beginning of the 2007 season.

Updating my previous entry, the Angels’ first-round pick (#14 overall) is protected in next year’s draft, so signing Downs (a Type A free agent) would cost them their second-round pick. If they signed Adrian Beltre — who has a higher Elias ranking — that pick would go to the Red Sox and the Blue Jays would receive the Angels’ third-round pick.

This isn’t exactly sticking it to the Red Sox for losing out on Crawford, but it’s obviously a little better than I originally thought. That being said, you would think this would have to take them out of the market for Rafael Soriano, right?

6:15 PM: Unless some “sick fake person” took over Peter Gammons’ Twitter account, it appears that the Angels may be close to signing Scott Downs to a three-year, $15 million contract.

That leaves me with this question. If signing Hisanori Takahashi to a two-year, $8 million contract was a “splash,” as Angels general manager Tony Regains described it the other day, would it be fair to classify Scott Downs as a tsunami?

-HBT

Now reading that signing Downs rules out the potential that the Angels sign Rafael Soriano.

 

[snipezo]

Too bad their 1st round pick is frozen <_<. At least we get a sandwich pick.