What an incredible trade deadline across MLB this season. There were big bats added in Seattle, killer bullpens created in SD, NY (Mets), and Philly, and prospects flying everywhere.
San Diego was the most active. They landed stud closer Mason Miller from the A’s in a package that included one of the top prospects in all of baseball. The Padres day was just getting started as they were active all day.
A great storyline is an added bonus to the transactions, so Carlos Correa going back to the Astros got a ton of press. He looks natural in cheater orange.
Not to be outdone, the Angels were buyers and added two relievers per the team site. I know the main site’s job is to promote the team, but that headline is laughable.
But, wait, there’s more. Arte’s other favorite team sent us Oswald Peraza, who is currently sporting a very Kevin Newman-esque OPS+ of 26. The trade was met with much rejoicing….in New York.
Granted, New York can be a tough place to play. Let’s take a look at the player the Angels are getting and why he was available.
I could go on a tangent here and really lay into Perry and Arte, but there’s nothing I can say that Clark Griswold hasn’t already said.
That being said, he is only 25 years old, cheap, and under club control through 2029. He has less than 1 full season of MLB at bats and did slash a very nice .268/.347/.421 across the minor leagues.
This isn’t exactly how I’d have gone younger at the trade deadline, but if you told me in March the Angels would add Peraza I’d be happy. The fact he’s the lone trade of note at the deadline, however, elicits the Griswold rant.
Really, there were too many trades to recap and have space to cover what the Angels did on the field this past week. Check out the trusty MLBTR site for all trade news.
On the field, the Angels had a pretty good week. First there was a split of a 4 game home series with Seattle. That was followed by a series win against Texas that featured two games straight out of Dr. Seuss books.
Zack Neto was honored with his first bobblehead night last Friday and produced our Highlight of the Week, an extra inning single to win the game.
All in all, it was a pretty good week for the kids. Jose Soriano pitched a 7 inning gem against Texas on Wednesday night, allowing a lone earned run. On Neto Bobblehead night, Soriano went 6 innings and allowed 2 runs. Over those 13 combined innings he tallied 12 K’s against only 3 walks. On the year he’s sporting a very nice 3.65 ERA across 133 innings pitched with 115 strikeouts.
Taking a look at his Baseball Savant page, his fastball is a true weapon and he’s turned into a really good pitcher.
I’m a little surprised at his breaking run value. His knuckle curve is a nasty pitch when it is on. But all in all, he’s throwing hard, not getting hit too hard, and keeping the ball on the ground at an elite level. Let’s hope this is the beginning of a front end starting pitcher.
Nolan Schanuel is another kid who is quietly turning in to a good player. He launched a two run bomb off a lefty on Wednesday and is currently sporting a slash line of .277/.365/.403. That’s a tide wRC+ of 115 with improving power.
The key with Nolan is the power increase is not leading to a corresponding decrease in on base percentage. In fact, the OBP is a little higher than last year’s. He’s like a boxer who is content to win rounds using the jab but will throw the big right hand when he sees an opening. He’s picking his spots to search for power and seems to be finding them more often.
So now we know the Angels 2025 roster for the rest of the year. A Wild Card isn’t likely, but we are trying for it. Between that and the young kids playing well, this is shaping up to be an entertaining stretch run.
Enjoy your weekend and link what I missed. You can catch me, John, and some of your other CtPG friends at the game on Saturday Night. If you’re going and didn’t get a ticket with us, drop a line in the comments and we can try to link up.
In the meantime, let’s hope Chafin walks out to this song.
Tonight we have O’Hoppe catching and d’Arnaud at DH. This is all the proof you need that Ray is a f-ing imbecile.
Who should DH? Soler out and Trout sick.
Travis was the best option to start with Trout out.
No more Newman meme’s, no more Newman HR as an Angel off great pitchers, darn, well there is always the .10 cent head to root for…..yuck.
Trout not in the lineup. Hhmmm
Just when I posted that I was glad to see Trout in lineup nearly every day, I see your post, and then find out on MLB website that he is, indeed, not in lineup.
lol.
So, the off-day yesterday wasn’t enough rest for him, I guess.
Way to go, Phil. You jinxed it all up.
😂
Bug going around…can’t be chasing our health, if we want to be competitive
https://x.com/samblum3/status/1951430908634190314?s=46
This is not flu season, I suspect copious amounts of alcohol was consumed yesterday sweating out the deadline, to ease the fear of being traded away from the best clubhouse in 5 years. Campy Campero is going to come up BIG tonight .
Our main lineups (pitching, hitting) remains the same, now that the trading deadline is over.
Bye, Newman! Thanks for that homer off deGrom.
For today’s game:
Rookie Shane Smith has not faced the Angels
For the season, he’s 3-7, 4.26 ERA
Anderson has faced White Sox 4 times, going 0-2, 7.94 ERA
He last faced the Sox in September 2024, and got bounced, giving up 4 runs in 4-1/3 innings.
For the season, he’s 2-6, 4.41 ERA
For this series, Angels face 3 pitchers with 4.17 ERA or higher.
For goodness sake, let’s score some runs and sweep the Sox!!
Also, glad to see Trout continually being in the lineup. Let’s pad those stats (hits, HR, RBI), eh?
I get the impression Perry spent most of yesterday huffing paint thinner. The best word i can think of to describe the outcome is muddled.
Paint thinner, Pam, Elmers….we all have our favorites
the Twins just called up six MiLB players. Is it weird that I envy them?
Yes
Twins gave up on .500 ball? Clubhouse must be filled with cancers.
If I’m not mistaken, is this the 13th anniversary of “The game that didn’t happen?”
I am sorry, I looked on my Google Calendar and there is no August 1, 2012. That year, the calendar went from July 31 to August 2 for some reason.
Of course. Must have been a fever dream.
Paging Red Floyd, Red Floyd…
What game?
Precisely!
Pareza was a 55 grade prospect with 50 grade offensive tools till the middle of last year. Now he’s had 400 ABs and didn’t hit. So he’s total trash. 55s just grow on trees. Just look at our farm. We should bitch endlessly about this pick up. The Yankees, who will toss anything overboard to try and NOT lose out to the Blue Jays, were gonna DFA him, so clearly he’s worth nothing to all the other teams but us and the Rockies. Stupid Perry.
Yes stupid stupid Perry! His disrespect for us knows no bounds!
PTP also thru in International Money to get a player we don’t need and might have come to us on waivers.
That’s the really frustrating part.
So. I have the Angels incredible fight for .500 to root for. Who needs prospects?
The play offs look kinda bleak for me this year. I like the Tigers, so there’s that, and the Brewers. The Cubs Phillies and Mets I enjoy, so OK. Then I have to hope hard for the Reds, Padres and Rays.
Then I get to watch a crazy washed up Aaron Rogers lead the my Steelers to nine wins. Yay. They are also in it to win it. As long as I don’t look at the Ravens, Chiefs, Jaguars, Colts, Bengals, Bills, Dolphins, Chargers, Broncos or Texans we are clearly the team to beat in the AFC.
It’s a good year to get into booze or hockey.
You have more confidence in my Colts than I do.
Chargers are going to be fun to watch this year, I think KC finally gets challenged for the AFC West crown this season. That whole division is going to be interesting. Even the Raiders look much improved on paper coming into this season.
I already bought my ticket to Colts/Rams and Colts/Chargers lol. Rooting for AR to win the starting QB job and put it all together.
KC is running thru the AFC West per usual. Next time Herbert wins a big game will be the first time
I’ll be there for the Chargers game!
Hell ya !!! Have you been to Sofi before?
I’m not confident in the Colts. I’m just not confident the Steelers are much better. If this were some other team and not THE STEELERS people would be writing this team off.
I noticed the Browns didn’t make your “Teams to Beat” list?
These are the position players that many are counting on to improve, next year over this year, in order to be competitive. Just for comparison, here are their hitting performances via OPS+ for last year and this year. There are still 2 months to go this year so things could go up or down.
2024 2025
Neto 112 115
Schanuel 100 113
Trout 139 126
Ward 110 114
O’Hoppe 99 96
Adell 90 109
Neto, Ward, and OHoppe are virtually the same hitters as last year. Schanuel and Adell are the 2 players who so far have improved, although Adell’s OPS+ has been steadily dropping since June so we’ll see where he ends up. Trout has been more healthy but his performance has declined. Honestly, which of these players do we believe are going to hit significantly better next year? It’s certainly possible that O’Hoppe breaks out but Trout and Ward are in their 30s and will be a year older. It’s very likely they are not as good next year. Banking on the other 4 significantly improving from this year is a long bet assuming they’re all healthy and have new career years, and that we have equal luck with our starting pitching. Kikuchi has far and away been the biggest contributor to the clubs improvement. This year and 10 games with Houston last year, he has performed magnitudes better than at any time in his career. Moore and Paris are the only remotely likely position players in the organization that could potentially provide positive impact next year. it certainly could happen, but that’s a lot of hope. This year so far we have had really good health and a lot of things go right and we’re still below .500.
All I read here was that we are rolling with what we got, in it to win it, right on the cusp of being a perineum contender. You just don’t mess with magic like this.
Just like in ’23 when we swept the Yankees just before the trade deadline and then held onto Ohtani. Except that was obviously worse given the assets that were traded away for what turned out to be a 1 month rental. But otherwise, the narrative is the same.
Perineum? Do you mean Perennial or is there an intimate body-area joke I missed?
😃😂😃
I am a scientist. Don’t ask questions.
We taint trying to be a Perennial Contender yet. That is in 2035. Right now, we are in the “ just trying to be competitive phase” of our
rebuild,errr process.Considering his usual streakiness and health issues this year, I’d bet on Soler improving his 86 OPS+ next season. Probably not a ton, but I could see a bounce back to 100 even at age 34.
Second base and third base have been black holes for the most part. Rengifo is at 69, Newman 32.
Rengifo is a fascinating case for me this year. BABIP last year or year before was .339, this year as low as .269, now a bit above. You would hope that creeps to mlb average. Tough choice to extend or not.
It’s why I wonder if Neto cools off a little next year. He is at .337 BABIP now. That should shrink a bit next year, I think.
Correction Jeff. Newman WAS at 32
Very Possible for Soler.
Yankees cut Marcus Stroman. He’s been bad this year but can see us trying him over Koch
Hasn’t it been his life long dream to play with Trout? Maybe they can combine forces now for our fight for .500
Perry is evidently in love his his guys and culture, the risk of Stroman to mess that up, is high
I suppose. The culture has already been irreparably wrecked by the loss of Kevin Newman 🙁
Great link that came out last night after I’d finished this post.
The amount of overall trades in July was astounding.
Another former Angels draft pick is getting a shot:
https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2025/08/orioles-select-jordyn-adams-terrin-vavra.html
Jam Jones is already with the Tigers and Jeremiah Jackson got called up with Baltimore a couple of weeks ago. Outside of Jones the Angels aren’t missing much, but I would like to see them all succeed, especially Jones.
I just realized. all those extra wins we were promised if we just replaced Soth with a ham sandwich? I think we got them this year finally.
I think the wins we knew we should be getting if our pitching wasn’t ravaged by injuries every season are what we’ve been finally getting, and they still aren’t enough to make this team competitive.
Soooo…. still waiting for the Soth Replacement Wins I was promised by CoachDad back on Halos Heaven? Sigh.
I hear Soth finally getting a statue next year…
https://x.com/rainmaker1973/status/1948760113776304169?s=42
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Ausmus, Maddon, Nevin, Washington…somewhere Mike is having a glass of wine with a slight grin on his face
I envy you.
Must be nice to not to give Ray a thought too.
LMAO…of course, Ray-Ray
Ray Ray is “likes to fight manager.” Has some grit, has some Earl in him.
And goes well with CTPG guys that think the umps are out to get us
(and they are).
https://x.com/super70ssports/status/1951023116320383427?s=42
lol…luv it, The Original Weave
Ausmus, Nevin, Maddon, and Montgomery are the lipsticks. The Angels org is the pig.
You got that right, Logic
Padres making moves only to inevitably be laughed out of the playoffs by the Dodgers. It’s as trAdition as the Angels collapsing after the ASB is.
I took a look at that roster this morning. Man, if they can limp into the play offs this those Padres, that bullpen…. they could be really tough to beat. The Dodgers have more thump, but the Padres have more pitchers over all.
Yeah, they kept Suarez and Cease. JP Sears and Cortez provide depth on the backend. If King comes back next week strong, I like the Pads chances to get to the post season and f-over LA. O’Hearn and Laureno fill holes and are good vets in todays game, Preller gets an A+
It would be awesome to see the brown uni boys beat the billion dollar boys in blue, and knock them out of the playoffs.
Arturo Moreno and his errand boy Minasian continue to prove they are the worst owner and GM in baseball getting nothing for their tradable assets while never competing for the playoffs. As a fan, I am completely enervated by them. As an objective observer, I laugh at their incompetence.
This feels like a must sweep series now that the goal is a Wild Card. The White Sox are the last bad team we face until a 3 game set with the A’s in 2 weeks.
August features series against the Rays, Tigers, Dodgers, Rangers, and Astros.
And Cubs. Meaningful baseball, here we come.
😄
Losing to teams like the White Sox’s/bottom dwellers, keeps us on track for 500 and reach our goal of competitiveness….offsets us playing well against the top MLB teams.
Let’s start a new winning streak tonight and get to .500. That’s the first goal. There’s some relief help coming in and the defense should be a bit better with Moore coming back.
The discussions are a plenty regarding the decade of Angels mediocrity and suckish. I look at the AL West teams and see the other guys with better talent combined major and minor league level. The A’s young talent is amazing, and they just added an 18 year stud from the Padres. If the Angels’s hierarchy is aiming to be “competitive” (whatever happened to the goal of winning the WS?), they are wasting a tanker full of money (why do I care, its not my dough.) Just become the A’s or Rays, Have a sub $100 million payroll and still be “competitive.” In the past ten years. I’m guessing the Angels have spent well over $2 billion on payroll and not had a winning season, over 100 games below .500, and mediocre drafts. Player injuries can be blamed, but every team has injuries. Overall, with the huge payrolls, and overall record of non “competitive” futility, the Angels have been the worst run MLB team for ten-years. Saying that, Arte has seen the teams value increase considerably, so there’s that.
Most of the financial loss revolves around Pujols, Trout, and of course, the incomparable RenDone.
You are forgetting awesome moves like Upton, Hamilton and the always popular Vernon Wells plus some mid-sized stuff like Cozart.
Basically anyone he’s paid more than 20M a year to to provide offense has either sucked or had Indian Burial Ground level injuries. Other than Ohtani.
Maybe we SHOULD pay Ward since he was born with immunity to the Angels fan suck juju.
Even Ohtani had 1 year of being absolute garbage while on the team.
The burial ground doesn’t care if you’re a unicorn.
The dead do not care about grit or intensity.
18 of our next 21 games are in California:
12 at home
3 in LA
3 in SAC
If there was ever a time for a run, now would be it. CMo should be back by Monday. Probably best not to count on Soler or Stephenson returning lol.
We are the LA angels…. So I guess we play our home games in LA.
Doyers come here this month to get their revenge for our road sweep.
You right, I messed up.
15 of the next 21 games at home
To be fair, Dodgers games at Angel stadium are hardly home games
As are games against Boston and NYY.
Let’s get it! No reason the boys cannot go 16-5.
They come in limping
And what team does a slumping team want to play, to turn things around and bust out of that slump?
WOOOOO! We are contenders yall. Come git some of this!
Angela upon learning the Navy has docked and shore leave begins within the hour!
The second to the Last Detail, always leave room for another round
The always benevolent halos
I would call this a “now or never” window for contention. We all moaned about the April sked and copious road games. Here’s the get-back.