A ballroom in the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino buzzed Thursday as the news of a blockbuster three-team trade spread through a crowd of reporters and baseball executives gathered for the final day of the winter meetings.
Sure, the Angels agreed preliminarily to a one-year contract with first baseman Justin Bour and announced the official signings of seven players to minor league contracts this week. But they departed for Anaheim at about noon without patching the most obvious holes in their roster.
As the Seattle Mariners, Tampa Bay Rays and Cleveland Indians swapped Carlos Santana, Edwin Encarnacion, Jake Bauers, Yandy Diaz and cash, Eppler was not fazed by his inability to gain traction on his earliest pursuits.