the dodgers traded for mookie betts back in feb 2020 ... 2 months after they were snubbed by mr hollywood lifestyle. betts has brought 3 titles to LA and hopefully a 4th this year and hollywood has been the epitome of the angels' failure down in anaheim and the poster child for bad contracts
in march 2022, atlanta chose to trade for atlanta native matt olson from oakland while freeman was still on the open market. this essentially marked the end of freeman's tenure. atlanta was unwilling to meet freeman's price tag and chose olson bc he was younger and slightly cheaper. a couple days later, LA won the bidding war for freeman's services. in the immediate future, he essentially replaced seager in the lineup, who had already left for texas in free agency.
while freeman and olson were and still remaining very productive players for their clubs, freeman has separated himself from the guy who replaced him down in atlanta due to his performances in the playoffs, notably the 2 walk-off HR's in the world series. while no fault of his own, meanwhile, atlanta has yet to win a playoff series in the olson era.
arte moreno signed this 'hollywood lifestyle' guy back in dec 2019 to a 7/245M contract and it turned out to be a disaster. however, we ended up trading for mookie betts 2 months later and we have won 3 WS with betts and counting !
hollywood is the biggest bullet dodged in dodger history and LA fans shouldn't forget it ! however, it is clear the hollywood lifestyle gimmick won't be as effective anymore with hollywood no longer on the angels and the arte, the guy who signed him, no longer owning them. therefore, after 7 years, I'll have to eventually largely reduce or retire the gimmick
however, it should not be forgotten how this non-signing of mr hollywood changed the history of dodger baseball and I'll still quietly celebrate dec 11, the anniversary of hollywood signing with the angels. also ... angel fans are still kinda fun to troll.
great contract, am I right ? dodged a major bullet. they're also set to miss the playoffs for a 12th straight year and 16 of the last 17.
matt beaty's accomplished more in baseball than pretty much all of us on the dodger subreddit. however ... it should also be noted that he was (1) DFA'd when we signed hanser alberto back in march 2022 and then (2) traded to SD for river ryan. as we all know, river ryan was flipped 3 weeks ago for tarik skubal.
matt beaty never really accomplished much in SD before being DFA'd that same season, electing FA and barely playing much in the majors right afterward
for somebody who got into club football ⚽️ relatively recently (2014), getting 9/9 is so rare for me. and when I do, I usually still score triple digits ... unlike baseball, my main sport that I follow and I can normally get single or double digits
I would have assumed turning a club that hadn't won anything in europe to B2B UCL champs would see this guy get a lot more respect in ballon d'or talks. I was surprised ppl were saying he had to win the WC just to get anywhere near the top of ballon d'or talks.
anyway ... it isn't bothering me too much. all that matters to me is our pursuit to 3-peating, something only real madrid has done in the modern history of the UCL.
in the offseason in 2019, NY had dreams of winning the number 1 pick in the draft to select zion williamson and signing both kevin durant and kyrie irving in free agency. instead, NO won the number 1 pick and NY 'only' got number 3, and both kevin durant and kyrie irving went to the 'other' team in NY. instead, NY had to 'settle' for julius randle.
so what would have happened if NY had their 'dream' offseason in 2019 ? they selected zion and got kevin durant and kyrie irving in free agency ? what would have happened to NY and the rest of the basketball world ?
NY ended up drafting barrett, who was eventually flipped for anunoby. they prob would have been forced to give zion a max extension and given his injury history, the club wouldn't have won with him and he would prob have been booed in NY.
randle was used in the towns trade. kevin durant and kyrie irving both eventually got their way out of brooklyn in 2023, who never made the ECF with them.
and finally, kevin durant indirectly helped NY bc when he was traded to phoenix, brooklyn got bridges in return, whom NY was eventually able to acquire for 5 first round picks.
so ... create ur alternate universe if NY, whose fans were unhappy with their 2019 offseason, actually had their 'dream' offseason that year
while cole is still a great pitcher and it is a joy to watch him perform and I am happy for his recovery, I still can't help but thinking about this game when it comes to cole and the rest is history. hoping his first game back goes smooth !
also cole is from southern california and pitched for ucla's team.
bc the dodgers and angels meet again in the freeway series, I wanted to remind dodger fans how the angels have had their share of inadvertedly helping the dodgers start their dynasty by running into bullets that the dodgers ended up avoiding.
the most notable is this dude in the photo who 'didn't want the hollywood lifestyle' back in dec 2019. we ended up trading for mookie betts 2 months later, who helped us win 3 world series titles afterward. I don't wanna live in a world where we signed hollywood, the club never wins any of its titles and is still going on its title drought from 1988, mookie betts goes to san diego and they win a title or even 2 afterwards, clayton kershaw leaves LA ringless and gets his WS ring in texas in 2023.
they also helped us with the pages trade. LA wanted to trade away pederson, pages and stripling for rengifo before arte pulled out the trade. instead, pederson helped us win the 2020 WS, pages helped us win the 2024 and 2025 WS and is now among the club's best players and rengifo was a dude anaheim let walj for nothing.
there was also a time when the angels had the 'better' owner in southern california when we had mccourt. if it wasn't for mccourt bankrupting the club and being worse than arte and not paying his players and staff, the legal system wouldn't have stepped in and force him to sell the club. and to the guggenheim nonetheless bc MLB prob didn't want a big money owner like guggenheim to own us. they wanted somebody who fit into their mold like a john fisher or bob castellini to own us. bullet dodged !
and finally the angels ran into the albert pujols bullet in dec 2011 bc we didn't have guggenheim yet who might have been willing to spend the money on him to bring back the fans alienated from the mccourt era. instead, guggenheim took over in 2012 and the club traded for adrian gonzalez that same year. massive upgrade over pujols. and after gonzalez left, the club had bellinger and muncy waiting in the wings as opposed to a diminished version of pujols for 10 years.
the dodgers also signed greinke away from the angels during the 2012/13 offseason, leading arte moreno to go on a rage and sign josh hamilton instead. that deal was so bad, they essentially gave him back to texas for free while eating the rest of his contract.
so if angel fans wanna get arrogant with us ... just remind them how much they inadvertedly helped us become this dynasty that we are. most notably due to hollywood lifestyle