A Trade Simulator Rabbit Hole that Remakes the Franchise

Happy New Year everybody. I was going to do a factual, analytical introduction to this piece but let’s be real: the Angels need an influx of talent at all levels and I had just enough time on my hands to go down a rabbit hole on the trade simulator so I figured I’d share it.

Like all rabbit holes, it started off as a casual look then went deeper and took on a life of its own. All in all, for the cost of about $23 million in payroll, I was able to completely remake the Angels in a way I think helps both this season and with the rebuild.

Let’s start with the big guy.

The Diamondbacks are clearly going for a chip this season and need a right handed hitting outfielder and some financial wiggle room. This achieves both of their goals. The Angels, meanwhile, need to hit on a lottery ticket or three for any hopes in 2025 and Montgomery is an expensive but promising one. He comes with a solid bullpen piece in AJ Puk who costs minimum wage and comes with 4 years of control.

Druw Jones is the son of Andruw Jones and comes with 70 grade speed and a ton of tools but also injury risk. Caden Grice was a two way player who is now focusing on just pitching and has the look of a back end starter.

This adds $13.3 million to payroll but now our rotation looks nice with Kikuchi, Montgomery, Soriano, Anderson and Kyle Hendricks as the top 5. Puk adds nicely to the bullpen and Jones adds the type of position player upside sorely lacking on the farm. Jones would likely be our top position player prospect and no worse than 2 behind Moore. He’s that toolsy.

At this point I have to accept the fact Reid Detmers might be great but he also might never be great here. So I cash him in now.

Chayce McDermott is the opposite of Detmers in that he likely does not posses front of the order stuff on a good day. He also is a lot less volatile and likely has fewer bad days. Enrique Bradfield is a Vanderbilt kid with 80 grade speed, a decent batting eye, and no power. At his best he’s a Peter Bourjos who actually gets on base about 35% of the time and will steal more bases. His floor is likely a solid improvement over Moniak as the fourth outfielder. Again, this is an upside play bringing in tools our farm currently lacks and hoping they develop. Griff O’Ferrall is currently a shortstop who likely ends up at second base or as a utility guy. Another college player, he’s 21 and looks pretty close to developed.

So the Orioles get the upside in Detmers as they push for the playoffs. McDermott has options and joins Silent C, Caden Dana, Chase Silseth, and George Klassen in a potential battle for a sixth starter or first man up from AAA.

Now I need an outfielder and still haven’t addressed third base for 2025 or beyond. So trade number three:

This is probably the least realistic of the trio but this is my rabbit hole and I’m not stopping now. The Mets need a first baseman and are knee deep in luxury tax territory (not that they care). Nolan Schanuel gives them a lefty with solid contact and on base skills. Nowhere near the power of Alonso, but the Mets did sign Soto and have an otherwise deep lineup. And considering Nolan has options, the Mets can stash him in AAA if the trade deadline brings about an upgrade.

Tyrone Taylor is a switch hitter without major platoon splits who can cover all three outfield positions. He’s league average with the bat and solid with the glove. Trout in left, Taylor in center, Adell in right should be a good defensive alignment. Taylor will make $3 million next year before becoming a free agent.

Brett Baty is a man without a home in NY. He might be a solid third baseman. He might not. The Angels could give him a season of at bats to find out. Baty has fared quite well in the minors including slashing .252/.349/.504 across 269 AAA plate appearances last year. I think he can be decent, Turk’s Teeth doesn’t believe in the bat which has not produced at the MLB level. His minimum wage salary replaces Schanuel’s and doesn’t impact the math.

Jesus Baez is a nice third base prospect. He’s 19 so adds some intrigue to the lower minors. Given the improvement on the farm lately, he might fall outside of our top 10 prospects but would certainly slot in the top 20.

Here’s where the rabbit hole goes rabbit hole and leaves one glaring weakness: first base. Ideally we’d coax Fullerton legend Justin Turner out to the Big A for one season at about $7 million, making this a $23.3 million net exercise. The dude put up a wRC+ of 117 last year and should be a solid bat for another season.

So where would this leave us?

Starting rotation: Kikuchi, Montgomery, Soriano, Anderson, Hendricks with McDermott, Silent C, Caden Dana, Chase Silseth, and George Klassen each having multiple option years remaining so they can go up and down to AAA as needed for injury coverage and development.

Bullpen: Joyce, Puk, Stephenson, Quijada, Suarez, and some camp battles to fill it out.

Outfield: Trout LF, Taylor C, Adell RF with Moniak as the 4th outfielder/pinch runner.

DH: Jorge Soler and hopefully Trout on 2 days per week.

Infield: Baty 3B, Neto SS, Rengifo 2B, Turner 1B if we can swing it. If not we have to gamble on Aaron Noda or Nico Kavadas (who just tore up the AFL).

Bench: Kingery, Newman, d’Arnaud, Moniak

Prospects added: Druw Jones, Enrique Badfield, Chayce McDermmott, Jesus Baez, Caden Grice, Griff O’Farrell.

That’s a really nice mix of prospects with very high, could be here quickly upside in Jones and Badfield, further away upside in Baez and some safety in McDermott being a big league contributor as soon as he’s needed. Grice and O’Farrell are lower on the promise scale but both do have positive attributes as well. Adding the second and 45th selections in the 2025 draft to this group and the promising arms mentioned above and you just might have yourself a decent farm.

Overall I think this is a better Major League product and it adds much needed upside and depth to the farm. $23.3 million (all of which is off the books after 2025) to try to win more now and later seems like a smart investment to me. Now there’s zero chance all this actually gets done. But it made for a fun afternoon for me and hopefully brightened up your day a bit.

Give me your thoughts below.

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grichmanpoorman
Trusted Member
1 month ago

If we’re looking for lottery tickets, I don’t see the point in trading Detmers. Higher upside than any other pitcher involved in these notional trades and too high a price to pay for a journeyman AAAA guy and other assorted slag from the Orioles.

Biggiswrth
Trusted Member
1 month ago

JJ going crazy down the rabbit hole on the trade simulator and I’m here for it. I think they are great ideas in therory and the Angels and they would be wise to use their larger payroll to infuse the system with even more talent.
While I don’t think any of the above mentioned trades will happen, what I do see is a clear indication that we will be highly active to trade during the season.
When good teams have an injury we will have the tools needed to keep them in the race. We can then pluck talent away from those teams in their time of need.

I’m also not sleeping on this team yet. The Al West is super weak this year and with the correct development (and health) this team on paper is good.

Kevin
Member
1 month ago

Interesting ideas. I don’t mind the flyer on Montgomery and some extra talent. I’m unsure why trading Ward, Detmers, and Schanuel needs to be done though. Especially when those guys could be part of the future here.

It sounds mainly like you are trading guys with upside here for guys with upside from other teams and hoping it pays off. Again, your approach is creative which is a credit to you. I don’t see giving up on Schanuel right now. Detmers could be traded — if you really don’t think it will happen here. But there needs to be a longterm replacement, it just Montgomery for a year.

It’s a fun read though.

Jimmuscomp
Trusted Member
1 month ago

I don’t think I can give up on Detmers or Schanuel yet. These are exactly the years you let them play and see the development either happen or not.

Best case this year, they win 75 games. Who cares if both guys are absolute shit. At least then, you know. And I doubt they are both shit. They are likely somewhere around decent regulars. Like 1.5 WAR players. That’s good to know. And both could be quite a bit better than that.

Erstad with the catch
Member
1 month ago
Reply to  Jimmuscomp

Detmers was worth 2.4 and 2.2 WAR in past years. I’m going to bet he will bounce back and produce at least 2 WAR next year.

On the other hand, Shanuel doesn’t have a high ceiling. Not enough pop, too slow on the bases. I doubt he ages well. What you see is what you get.

Cowboy26
Legend
1 month ago

While I agree the Angels should hold onto to Detmers, (I got a feeling that Barry & Sal can fix him) I dont agree with your take on Schanuel. Nolan is 22 years old and has a whopping 700 professional plate appearances. He maybe slow afoot but his defense is league average for a first baseman according to most all metrics. But Giving up on him now or declaring he’s reached his ceiling at this point is fool hardy. In fact if you look at his last 372 Major League Plate Appearances dating back to June 12 of last year hes slashing .280/.387/.386 . That aint Lou Gehrig but I would take those Dave Magadan numbers any day. I know hitting at the Big A half of his games isn’t helping his nos. (he had a .56 negative differential in his Home to Road splits) and he definitely needs to eat his wheaties and increase his exit velocity to produce more gap power, but at this stage in his development I’m not convinced the is an impossible task.

Angels2020Champs
Legend
1 month ago

Fun read. JJ > Perry

Fansince1971
Legend
1 month ago

Here’s a question for you all. If the Angels make no further moves or signings (which I think is unlikely) how many games do you think they win in 2025?

My guess (presuming Trout plays 125 or so games) is 68.

Cowboy26
Legend
1 month ago
Reply to  Fansince1971

Wow thats a shocker. I’ll go with 99 wins.

Pineapple12
Super Member
1 month ago
Reply to  Cowboy26

I’ll price is right you at 98

Cowboy26
Legend
1 month ago
Reply to  Pineapple12

Well played P12.

Born_in_59
Trusted Member
1 month ago
Reply to  Fansince1971

As currently constituted and with a minimum of 130 games by Mr. Trout, I see this as a 70 win team. This doesn’t count however many wins our manager adds to the total.

Fansince1971
Legend
1 month ago
Reply to  Jeff Joiner

68 and 70 are in the same basic neighborhood. I am figuring 4 WAR from Trout., 1.5 WAR from Soler, 2 from Kikuchi and around the same performance by the rest of the pitching staff. Neto is a big question mark since he had a breakout season- can he repeat it or improve on it – hard to say. So I basically see an addition of around 7 WAR from last year which is around 70 wins.

My 68 prediction is because I am very skeptical that Trout can stay healthy and/or Neto can repeat the offense he provided in 2024.

Born_in_59
Trusted Member
1 month ago
Reply to  Fansince1971

This will be Neto’s age 24 season, so I think he can repeat the production. The question is over how many games. With recover and rehab, he might only get in 130 himself.

Erstad with the catch
Member
1 month ago
Reply to  Fansince1971

I think they’ll wind up in the low 70s. Let’s say 72 or 73.

If I squint, I can see how the front office is convincing themselves this team can make the playoffs. Last year they had 11.6 offensive WAR and 7.9 defensive WAR for a total of 19.5. So you’re looking at a baseline record of 67–95.

The magic number to make the playoffs is 86 wins which means they need to improve 19 WAR.

Drury (-2) and Detmers (-1.1) is already +3, so now you’re looking at 16.

If you get 2 from Kukuchi, 3 from Trout, 2 from Moore at 2B, Soler give you 2 suddenly you only need 7.

You hope Adell breaks out, Moniak doesn’t crater and maybe you need 4.

Add in some improvements of other players and maybe a break out star and you get to 86.

To be clear, this will not happen. But you see why they suddenly want to sign Santander because they think they’re one bat away from contention.

Fansince1971
Legend
1 month ago

It’s fun to play with the simulator for sure. But it’s more of a geek endeavor (I am a trade geek as well) than a reality based analysis. I personally don’t think any of these trades would actually be made (even if the simulator says they would be fair) but I enjoy when you play GM. No ce work.

CAoldskoll
Trusted Member
1 month ago

I like your revamp Jeff. The Monty contract is little scary after a horrid season, maybe we can pull a Dodger and turn a lost player into an allstar Lol. Best piece of your package is Tyrone Taylor, home town hero from my Torrance high school, bring him home !

FungoAle
Legend
1 month ago

Nice post, great to read this and ponder the possibilities. Not being a simulator believer, some observations:

Ward is not stout enough for the D-Backs to lump in Jones. Zero percent chance of that unless the Angels kick-in additional value. I also think the D-Backs OF is pretty set and run 5-deep. However, would love for it to happen.

Not sure why a team vying for a championship would settle for Schanuel at 1st, pretty much a foregone conclusion Alonso will end up back there. Onboard with trading Schanny Singles.

I do think these are the types of trades to make. Help out a contending team while bringing back some players to plug into the active roster (since we are “trying” to complete) while boosting up the prospects.

2002heaven
Super Member
1 month ago
Reply to  Jeff Joiner

Plus Nolan Schanuel sign Anthony Rizzo on a 1yr flyer
Intangibles (has a WS ring and plays good defense)

Last edited 1 month ago by 2002heaven
CAoldskoll
Trusted Member
1 month ago
Reply to  2002heaven

Good idea, he’s probably dirt cheap and may have some pop left in his bat.

Cowboy26
Legend
1 month ago
Reply to  CAoldskoll

Well he aint as dirt cheap as Nolan Schanuel thats for sure.

FungoAle
Legend
1 month ago
Reply to  2002heaven

I’d rather have Schanuel than Rizzo

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