During spring training, General Manager Billy Eppler insisted the Angels were not a “white-flag-waving organization.”
“It sure feels very similar to the DNA of the Yankees,” he said then. “There’s always an opportunity, especially with the extra wild card.”
While the two trades he made Monday to send away Hector Santiago and Joe Smith did not dismantle the team, they definitively did not make winning any more likely. And the 2016 Angels were already on pace to lose 89 games.
Still, Manager Mike Scioscia insisted Tuesday that “there’s absolutely no white flag being rung up.