Angels have been losing a lot. But we do get have some players to look forward to. Like Soriano! Uh. About that. With the trade deadline almost here, our new temp GM has scratched Soriano. Doesn’t mean he will be traded but everyone now expects it. So it was a bullpen game today. Yay…
Somehow, that was working against the 2nd best team in Baseball. Be it Suter or Kerry, or Natera Jr, the Angels staff kept the game close, only allowing a solo home run in their first 7 innings. How? I have no idea. And I watched it!
Brett Kerry was the bulk pitcher. So his stat line is the one that matters? He went 4 innings, giving up 1 run on 2 hits, striking out 3 and walking none. I’ll take it. I’ll take anything positive at this point.
Highlighted Recap
First, some defense, as Adell shows why he needs a gold glove.
Angels scored first, a bloop double that brought in Trout from 1st.
As Angels played small ball, Brewers hit a home run in the 4th.
Brewers defense also showed up, great sliding catch in the 5th.
Just as I was writing how the Angels pitchers were keeping the team in it, a misplay and a bloop scores a 2nd run in the 8th.
Kirby Yates came in for the 9th. And gave up another run. WHY IS HE STILL HERE?!?
Yeah, that’s ballgame. Angels do squat. And lose their 5th straight game. Actually the only win of late is because the ump blew a call in SF.
Upcoming
Last game before the deadline tomorrow. Because the Angels do not play Monday. Trade deadline 3 pm Monday.
Did we trade anyone yet?
Today’s lineup. The good news is that Trout is not in CF. The bad news is that Lowe is in CF.
It the good news is : no Soler!
Holding him out to avoid injury and hurt his trade value…lol
Red Sox made offer for De La Cruz
https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2026/08/report-red-sox-made-offer-for-elly-de-la-cruz.html
Not saying any MLB GM would lie but do you suspect this is out there to let Angels know “you better get with it on Neto.”
We don’t need to get on with it with Neto, he’s under control for 3 years. If the Red Sox want to be cheap, they can have fun missing the wild card by a few games.
So for Peralta the Mets get no prospect in top 100. TB # 15 – OF AA, #27 RHP AA, and #27 2B AA. That is a good return for a starter with one more year. Let’s hope the Angels do as well with each one.
I think he’s in his walk year and Mets added some prospect depth
I misread his contract. It is a club option for 2027.
Rays get Peralta
https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2026/08/rays-to-acquire-freddy-peralta.html
another suitor off the board 🙃🔫. There may be truth to teams not wanting to shell out the necessary prospect capital for controllable players with the looming lockout
I thought you were watching Spiderman ??
Peralta is not having a good season, but the Mets are terrible. Last season he was spectacular, all star and 5th in Cy Young vote. In fact, the past several seasons he has been excellent. The Rays are going to send three players to Mets. I, for one, don’t second guess what the Rays do, small resources and big results for years.
Good comments. BTW why would anyone like the White Sox trade for Castillo? He seems to have lost it. He also I think pitched better in Seattle than elsewhere.
And the Sox is absorbing a huge contract from Seattle with Castillo.
Fair market value (FMV) is the price at which property would change hands between a willing buyer and a willing seller, both acting without pressure and having reasonable knowledge of relevant facts.
Yep. Whatever is being sold is worth what someone is willing to pay.
Not necessarily. Sometimes buyer’s make unrealistic offers in hopes of getting a steal or a bargain.
In a competitive league, FMV is also determined by: (1) who has the most money to spend heedlessly based on unlimited resources; and (2) what loopholes exist whereby teams with more resources can evade whatever system exists to obtain current assets for future deferred dollars.
In baseball, there is no true FMV. There are the Dodgers at the top picking off whoever they want and deferring as much money as possible to an absurdity at times. Then you have teams like the Mets and a few others who, depending on their level of competence, may buy some guys. Then you have most of the other teams operating in a different world playing Moneyball and trying to be competitive enough to keep the franchise afloat and bring some dollars of profit in. Once the playoffs come, they don’t have the talent to succeed barring enormous outliers occurring.
The Dodgers have acquired three MVPs as hitters, and two Cy Young winners still in their primes plus Tucker who would qualify generally as one of the best players in baseball other than the guys LA already had. This is what the all-star game is for, not one team.
Expect a work stoppage next year.
My thought is Moz is going to be holding the line up until the end. There is no reason not to. Now that Skubal is gone, If teams want Detmers, Soriano, or Neto, they’ll have to pay.
I do think if he’s unable to make the trades that it sets the rebuild back years. No baseball in 2027 and then we’ll be entering 2028 with the same last place team. We’ll have some money to spend but we’ll be just a year or two away from everyone becoming free agents and none of them are likely to stay unless we pay them more than they’re worth, and we’d still be the same last place team or worse.
It’s the watershed moment.
If Mo can get the same return as the Tigers did he’s a genius. But I don’t think that is realistic. There may not be any trades. See what comes around next draft.
That’s certainly a possibility that if it occurs will mean we are years away from meaningful baseball.
Angels have two in their top 30 at AAA. Or restated, currently there is little coming from the farm. The Angels can improve their team in 2 years (even if 2027 doesn’t happen) by getting multiple prospects preferably in AA or High A.
https://www.mlb.com/milb/prospects/angels/
And while I complain, the Angels can see what they have in those two (Nada is only 21 this month) for next 2 months. But he is blocked by Soler and dumb line up cards. Soler at DH, Trout plays CF. Why wait until ST? Let both get a taste. They MIGHT be able to improve the team because I can’t imagine them making the team worse.
Noted Roy, but you are expecting whatever return the Halos get to be chock full of high quality guys that within two years will be in MLB and playing well. While everyone hopes so, I’m unsure that’s truly realistic.
Also, the Halos have spent years without quality young pitching. I think you might have to go back to 2014 to find when they had multiple younger guys that were fairly good on the staff. They now seem to have that. They also have Bremner on his way. The response is to trade two of the starters they have now for a box of hopes and dreams. Again, we can and will all hope it works out. But there are other ways to rebuild and become competitive — including having Detmers, Soriano, and other young guys be stud starters next season, actually get a closer, and then establish a quality lineup via smart acquisitions and a little money. There isn’t just one way.
We will see what happens one way or the other. At least Perry isn’t making the decisions.
I don’t disagree with much of what you say and I’m not actually counting on the players we would get to necessarily be ready to go soon as you say, but without making trades, I don’t know where the quality line up you are referring to comes from. I just don’t believe we are a closer and a couple players short of being good.
One of the players the Tigers got from the Dodgers is River Ryan, 28 years old in AAA. Lol.
He’s been injured during his MiLB career. He’s got talent, he could surprise if he can stay healthy
Wow, that’s old for a “prospect”
I agree but look at the age of Angels “Prospects?” at Salt Lake City.
https://www.milb.com/salt-lake/roster
AA is where angel prospects really get tested, lots of AAA is just filler players where they keep their depth/call ups.
If any trades do go down expect them between 11-2 because that’s when I’ll be watching Spider-Man.
Slightly disappointed I’m eating my ticket and missing the Wally vs Mis duel but that’s what happens when we’re 42-69.
Let’s see, August heat wave, day game, watching a last place Angels team that is just going through the motions, or an air conditioned theater with comfortable seats. Your priorities are correct!
I see that Trout had 2 hits and a BB last night. Cool.
Anti-Dodger hysteria reaches new heights after Tarik Skubal trade as MLB lockout looms
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7486126/2026/08/02/tarik-skubal-dodgers-trade-reaction-mlb-lockout/
Yes, well if/when no baseball is played for lengths of time next season, this moment will be one that is pinpointed as showing the reasons why the old system didn’t work and a new system was needed. It also can be pinpointed as to moment when many fans decided the playoffs this year aren’t worth watching because the outcome appears predetermined.
In NBA terms, this would be like SGA being traded to the Knicks now or midyear because OKC couldn’t afford him anymore and the Knicks could spend whatever without oppressive penalties. This would be in addition to the Knicks adding another top allstar in the offseason as well.
It Will be very interesting to see who blinks first in the negotiations: ownership or MLBPA.
Why didn’t anyone offer Detroit a better package? Milwaukee easily could have, for example.
I wouldn’t call it “hysteria” since that implies “exaggerated emotion.” I don’t think it is exaggerated at all — I think all the emotion is appropriate to what is actually happening.
The hysteria should be when they sign him to a 5-7 year contract with deferrals. All teams had a crack at him yesterday.
Characterizing fans who are tired of the Dodgers’ using their structural advantages tied to broadcast revenues and the McCourt bankruptcy to threepeat as “hysterics” is stupid and polarizing. What’s sport without change, variation, action, difference? Far more exciting if all the best players are distributed broadly across the league than concentrated on a single financially superior team.
Teams like the Rays and Brewers can’t throw away top prospects on two month rentals because they can’t afford to fill the off-season hole with expensive free agents like the Dodgers can.
But setting that aside, fans are not hysterical to want to change up the script. Repetition is boring – it’s why the MLB introduced a pitch clock, eliminated the shift and enlarged the bases. They made structural changes to vary the tempo and the results, away from the numbing repetition of Ks and solo shots.
It’s rational, not hysterical, to want less predictability.
I’m going to be the first to post this Future headline prior to what will happen after the 3peat. ‘Tarik Skubal accepts $300 million 5yr extension to remain with Dodgers’. With $180 mil deferred after 2030. Then boom, MLB gets locked down.
The Dodgers aren’t playing baseball, they are collecting Infinity Stones…..and Freidman is Thanos.
Am I the only one that doesn’t get this reference? I know it’s from Marvel or whatever, but that’s it.
…
Then who is Mark Walter, with his ownership stake and large financial contributions to ICE detention centers ??
The deferral part is so real
For those who think the Dodgers have a shitty farm system, the headliner of the return for Skubal – Hope – wasn’t even the best outfielder they have. There’s legitimately two better outfielders, maybe three, before you get to Hope.
I think the Tigers did good in the trade. Hope and River can be all-stars. They *might* have gotten more from another team if they waited until closer to the deadline, but only they know how the trade talks were proceeding.
It’s not hyperbole to say the Dodgers have put together the most dominant starting pitching staff ever seen in MLB.
..and they still have highly rated prospects in their farm system.
I think this trade could cause some GMs to back off from gutting their farm systems to win in 2026.
Think you’re right, many teams may back off giving up better prospects in trades now that Skubal goes to Dodgers. There is very little hope for any team to beat them right now. I feel those fuks have actually diminished the market for young talent we were looking to trade for.
Which is why our GM should’ve made his moves sooner rather than later.
This would be our doomsday situation. Gotta hope Milwaukee, Atlanta and TB don’t throw in the towel. Plus we now have competition on the trade market with Kirby and potentially Hunter Greene.
In other words, we aren’t going to do anything of significance on the trade front. Got it.
It will be interesting to see what the Dodgers do once their cornucopia of top pitchers all come off of the IL. 8 or 9 man rotation? Demote Shohei to DH only, making him the most expensive DH to ever play? Trade off pieces after the lock out?
It is almost a rationalization to bring back the trash can method of anticipating pitches. Gotta level the playing field somehow.
Surely teams need to counter the Dodgers move. The next two days will be interesting.
Dodgers get Skubal. Wow. There was a brief window where the Angels were the undisputed class of So Cal. Somewhere around 2005-2009. I remember feeling vindicated for my youth when the Dodgers dominated and the Halos were 3rd class citizens. It’s right back to those times again.
Yes that run from 2002-09, running parallel to the McCourt era in Doyerville was a great time for the halo-sphere that I thought would never end. There were eras where the teams bad, before ’79, 16 years from 1986, and now over the last decade plus. Now we have a glimmer-only to ‘cupped again?
Hope not
Hard to believe next year will be 1/4 of a century since ‘02….
The door is now open for us to start trading, and I’m with P12, sell everything.
Also, making one or two trades helps but it’s all or nothing. Empty out the garage. Especially with 2027 not likely to happen.
Suzuki says the same thing every time they lose. Tip your cap. It’s never anyone’s responsibility.
Certainly not his.
As shitty as the Angels are, since May 1 there is no shittier team than the Athletics. I had them penciled in to possibly steal the division. Horrible season with the talent they have.
I know right? I was all fired up to watch Reds, Tigers, A’s, Rays, Brewers, Pirates…. I thought all of them would take steps forward this year. Shhheeeeeeit.
Bad luck with injuries and they need some pitching.
As someone who has watched many of their games this year, it’s not really comparable to the Angels – it’s not lack of talent or poor construction – it’s been relentless injuries that have taken all their best players off the field for large stretches of the season – Langaliers, Kurtz, Wilson, Rooker, Gelof, Clarke. Severino, Hoglund and Ginn all down in the rotation.
It’s been apocalyptic. Every time a guy comes back from the IL, two more go down. Even some of their more promising prospects have gone under the knife.
I blame an Angels Fan named Turks for proclaiming his is going to follow the As this year and brought the Angels bad Jojo with him.
This team can totally pull off 31 losses in the next 50 games.. We can crack 100 and then we can tell people “we were there” for the rest of our lives.
100 losses for us, 3peat for LAD, and a lockout for everyone. Never gonna forget the 2026 season!
I’ll pull the knife out of my ass if we end up with a top 10 farm after trading everyone and 2027 #1 pick
That’s not where you’re supposed to keep your knife buddy.
Moz can help me remove it with a couple trades tomorrow
Knife in the ass is quite the analogy. Or is that a euphemism?
Felt like the right metaphor 😂. I knew Skubal to LAD for a certainly, didn’t expect it to make me as angry as it did
I like that.
I like being the only team in history to never lose 100 games. One of the only comebacks I got when someone says the Angels suck.
While some aspire for greatness, some of us yearn for historic levels of futility. Awesome.
Skubal trade was the domino the Angels needed to fall. I expect 1 deal announced from us tomorrow.
They are so bad.