Here is the Angels Trade Deadline Big Board by JJ.
The owners are apparently committed to a lengthy lockout if necessary to get their way.
I think I just found a good trade proposal for Jorge Soler. I wish I was worth 60 cases of beer.
The Brewers just released Lance McCullers Jr. I guess he wins the Alek Manoah award for July. Who will be the next pitcher to flame out catastrophically?
The Athletics designated right-hander Geoff Hartlieb for assignment apparently to make room for Scott Blewett. They are probably losing Shea Langoliers for the rest of the season with a torn meniscus.
Reds second baseman Spencer Steer will be out of action for a significant time due to a sprained wrist.
Blue Jays third baseman/outfielder Addison Barger just had season ending elbow surgery.
Pitcher Luis Contreras, formerly of the Astros, has announced his retirement from playing.
The Cubs just designated Jameson Taillon for assignment. It’s to make room for Andrew Wantz.
The Braves reactivated Ronald Acuna Jr. He had once again been on the ten day IL with a hamstring issue.
For Fantasy Baseball enthusiasts, here is today’s Roto Riteup.
The San Diego Padres are looking for a Software Engineer.
Photo credit: Rex Fregosi
Ordered my Detmers and Adell t-shirts today. I am that confident that no relevant trades will be done.
Go Halos!
I looked up the definition “sunk cost. AI told me “look at LA Angels payroll.”
https://www.spotrac.com/mlb/los-angeles-angels/overview
That is $200 million of ???’s money.
The Red Sox losing their new infielder Curtis Mead to a broken wrist via HBP the day after they traded meaningful pitching for him is cruel but telling.
Does Boston get more aggressive at the trade deadline now to compensate for the loss, or do they look at it as an object lesson in why you shouldn’t trade to hastily due to the manufactured urgency of the deadline?
They need Zach Neto more than ever now – but maybe they’ll be reluctant to trade long-term assets, knowing one errant pitch can change everything in a second?
I think they saw Mead as a lets get a hot bat into the lineup. I think they see Neto as more of a long term fit in their lineup. I think they’ll be willing to give up a solid package for Neto.
They control Mead for four years, and believe his improvements to be sustainable, so I think their calculation in trading Early for him is quite similar to the logic of acquiring Neto. The hot bat was just a plus – they already had the hottest team in the MLB at time of trade.
Yikes, Breslow’s deadline deals get a lot of scrutiny, this won’t help
AR-I-AS. AR-I-AS.
175 comments on a random Tuesday. CtPG is back baby!
Tonight is Reid Detmers’ final appearance as an Angel. Thank you Reid for the memories, including that unforgettable no-hitter.
We’re gonna celebrate, one more time!
https://youtu.be/A2VpR8HahKc?is=eaF4i8kpfTPXUjPO
I’ve wanted good starts from Detmers and Soriano – but can we please blow another one in the 9th.
Kirby Yates is fresh
I appreciated Reid Detmers. In 2022 and 2023 looked to be on the rise until the Angels messed with his pitching mix. Happy he got back on track and looking forward to seeing what he can do in Chicago.
What if he get scratched from his start? We would all be salivating.
If he plays, need him to be lights out.
Of course the sentiment might be premature, as we don’t truly know how much leash Mo has from Arte yet, but presuming you’re right…
The Reid Detmers draft was one of only three times in the past dozen years when the first round target at the top of my draft boards aligned with the Angels selection (2017: Adell/Canning, 2020: Reid Detmers, 2023: Zach Neto).
Still feel it was a smart pick at that point in the draft, and Detmers has accumulated the third-most WAR among first-rounders from that draft (only PCA and Crochet have outpaced him).
The 2020 draft was always cursed because of Covid but holy shit was that first round bad. You nailed your draft board per usual haha.
I’ve always been in Detmers’ corner and like Fungo I am excited to see him take off in Chicago. His advanced numbers are stellar this year and I’m sure a better org will squeeze more of that potential out of him.
I hope he takes off for the Dodgers, though – landing the Angels some OF fuel from the deepest prospect well in a generation!
I’m going back and forth about who’s worse, Suzuki or Nevin. Just by record it’d be Kurt but Nevin had Trout (40 HRs, .999 OPS) and Ohtani (35HRs) in 2022 and “led” the team to 46-60 finish after replacing Maddon. Compared to 42-65 that’s probably equivalent. On second thought I think Nevin was worse. Kurt has very little to work with
Nah, Kurt has alot ! That includes Urena with a 2.70 ERA, Soriano who has some of the best stuff in the League, Detmers, and better team OPS than the Mariners, Blue Jays and Guardians… and in the case of Cle. and Sea. the lack of slugging and OPS has not stopped them from being competitive ! .. there is certainly enough there if well managed to at least be a .500 team.
Just the fact Suzuki continues to put Soler and Lowe in the line, well as utilized Yates as closer makes him the worst manager in Angels history, imo.
Beer?
Brings back memories of 10 cent beer night – worth a google if you haven’t heard of it
https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2026/07/top-50-deadline-trade-candidates.html
Only 8? Sounds a little light to me.
Perhaps those are all that can be traded without having to send 3 or 4 top prospects with them and some cash.
After Skubal we have the 2 best starting pitchers on the market, and Neto is one of the top hitters available.
This is our deadline to control! Praying the Tigers win their remaining games before the deadline and keep Skubal 🙏🏼
I didn’t even think about becoming a temporary Tigers fan for this very reason.
if they run the table they’ll keep him imo. Yesterday’s loss hurt
I would be selling if I were the Tigers. They are only 4.5 back but would have to finish with a better record than 5 other teams. That’s a tough one.
Actually, it would be awesome to see all of our traded players in the post season. We could live vicariously.
Kurt is inspirational!
“Obviously a tough way to lose,” Angels manager Kurt Suzuki said. “Definitely a tough one tonight, tough way to lose, just couldn’t make the plays. … Sometimes stuff like this happens. You’ve got to pick your head up. You’ve got to move forward. You’ve got to prepare again tomorrow and come back ready to play.”
Perfect. Stuff just happens. Absolutely no accountability. If he had inserted Peraza and Peraza made an error, then his statement would be correct. But when you don’t do the right things and then something happens that might have been prevented. Grissom’s value is in his bat and that is not the 1st time he has made a big error. His bat put them in a position to win the game. Trout should have been replaced as well.
Grissom did Rengifo the hell out of The Angels last night. I guess now Grissom giveth, and Grissom taketh away!
Let me run Suzuki’s quote through the universal translator:
“You can’t chase wins every night”
(Apologies to whoever requested that quote be forgotten)
“Turn the page.” (Good God, this team is awful!)
I wish he would just sigh and say “Well at least we all got to watch every last drop of Ohtani in our uniform PLUS we get to watch Mike Trout. Mike Trout everybody. Mike Trout.” Then walk away.
Work with what the org gives you.
Cubs DFAed Jameson Taillon because he has been horrible this year. $18M contract and they let him walk.
Someone show this to Mo and tell him that Soler needs to go.
Give it a week, he’ll be gone and then you all can find a different pinata
Suzuki will be the next pinata
LOL…how could I forget. But seriously, a round of beers for all if Soler is on the roster in 7-days from now. Hoping we get 2-3 more home runs out of him prior to the deadline to enitce some team in trading a top 30 ranked prospect.
I hope you’re right.
Unfortunately, nobody would give us anything for him at this point. He could hit a HR every day between now and then and probably have no trade value.
There are always people that think they can fix somebody.
Tony “Carlton” Reagins isn’t in any front office making decisions, so no, no one will offer anything for Soler.
He’ll likely be here until after the trade deadline and then it may be a day or two before he’s released if they do it, so I would say 10 days. But I would not be shocked if remains on the roster and plays for the last 2 months. I could be surprised but I’m not convinced things are substantially different until they actually are. If they are sticking with Suzuki, then why not everyone else.
I believe Jeff when he says Molly wants to win and there is the supposed 100 day plan for which so far there is no tangible evidence. If next year was not a lockout year then waiting until after the season would not necessarily be a big deal, but this is a unique situation with the expected work stoppage. So far other than the draft being a little different, we’re all pretending things are different.
Now, if they trade everyone, fire Kurt, release Soler, and hire Tori as an interim for the last two months, then I’ll believe they’re serious. At least Tori will be more interesting to listen to and our minor leagues would get very interesting.
It’s all or nothing. Trade everyone.
let’s hope so….
I hope he sticks around till Sept. I want to read CtPG Guy reacting like he’s been stabbed with a sharpened toilet brush.
Stabbed with a sharpened toilet brush, then brushing our teeth with said brush, after using the brush to clean the toilets after a busy and rough night at the Golden Corral Buffet!
I do not like the word ‘rough’ in the context of this statement lol
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Mystery Suflet
I worked at a restaurant in the mid 70s as a busboy/ dishwasher. I’ve seen things…….. horrible, horrible, unspeakable things…… and had to clean it up. No OSHA, no hazmat suits …….. just a young man, facing his biggest fears …. with only his own wits and ingenuity. They didn’t pay me enough for that job.
But it made you the man you are today!
🤪
Oh yeah. The sun came up and Soler’s still on the team. Are you guys OK?
I think we’ve made it clear at this point that we are most definitely not ok
Lots of competition on the trade front.
https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/49424586/mlb-trade-deadline-2026-expert-deals-skubal-miller-lindor-tigers-yankees-mets
For teams interested in obtaining a SS, Jermey Pena is a better piece to get over Neto. Lindor is laughable.
Will be interesting to see which is chosen. Pena better overall offensively, Neto better overall defensively.
Pena strikes out way less.
I’m not a sabermetric dude but I got this off of the Red Sox fan site. They were talking about Neto’s defensive chops:
2026:
OAA: -8 (35th)
RunsPrev: -6 (35th)
2025:
OAA: -8 (33rd)
RunsPrev: -6 (33rd)
2024:
OAA: -6 (37th)
RunsPrev: -4 (37th)
*From Statcast
Yeah. Neto LOOKs like he’s a good defender. And guys like our TV mouths and fans who can’t google bref say he are amazing how wonder. But he’s really not very good.
Passan doesn’t say stuff just to say stuff … 👀👀🎱
Passan: “I think by the end of this deadline, Zach Neto might be the best player traded. All the big markets [NYY, BOS, LA, PHI] could be in.”
“The Angels are gonna want to hit a homerun on this. And considering the paucity of bats on the market, I think they very well could.”
https://youtu.be/A9IVwqVHiXk?is=w8Q5BzxIwVrkiRfQ
more Passan
“It’s going to be extremely interesting how emboldened Moz their interim GM is… And if he’s been told you can trade any of these guys, the real question is which of them will bring back the kind of value the Angels believe they can.
To me the Angels should be an all or nothing proposition. If you are trading Reid Detmers, you should trade Zach Neto, you should trade Jose Soriano, you should trade everyone you can short of Walbert Urena and just start over. Do it the right way. And it’s tougher to tank with the anti tanking rules that penalize especially large markets that wind up in the lottery, but where the Angels are at right now they need to power wash the entire place, get the stench out, and hopefully rebuild the right way”
This is exactly what I have been saying and I actually believe if they do it, they can be good much sooner than people think.
Yanks really do need to move off of Volpe. Red Sox have a fool for a GM, he still might be interested in Neto.
Looks like Tampa Devil Rays are in the Neto hunt. Hope to see some AL East competitive bids beginning to take shape for Zachary’s services.
I saw that, and I believe if they want to trade him there are trade options.
Yeah. This isn’t the “trade some 2 point scrub” type trades we were lookin at in go for its past. We have guys on the barrel who can really net GOOD prospects. We could stop acting like Rada is gonna change it all.
Neto + Soriano/Detmers for Tampa’s top prospects is a wet dream …
🙄
In the trade scenarios I shared earlier this week, Tampa was my premium match for Neto – lots of ways to play it. Nice to see confirmation of serious interest.
I hope your intuition pays off!
Never a prediction though with this club – just oft-thwarted desire. Angels ownership is a chastity belt at the annual orgy of each trade deadline.
I’m just standing over here, winking shamelessly, and casually pointing at where everyone left their wallets when the key party began.
Passan’s my boat homie. Walbert n that’s it.
This season couldn’t be unfolding any better. Perry fired, successfully tanking, and my boy Wally becoming the face of the franchise. Win, win, win
Untrue, your boy Adell came back to Earth. Would have been even better if got another step forward from the Jo Show.
Tis true, but we did get the legendary 3 HR robbery game!
That is still dope in my head….
That’s a proposal.
Hell yes. Do it!
The only of those four “big” markets whose systems I like is LA. The Angels could get really hosed dealing with NYY, and PHI’s system is awfully depleted.
Hoping this just drives up prices for teams with good systems like TBR, MIL and LAD, and Mo is patient and discerning enough to know the difference.
Neto + Soriano/Detmers to Tampa … Need it sooooo bad
Also, if they get dealt to a smaller market team it is likely I will still root for them. Extra fun points for me.
How dare Passan talk like this about his teammate. Does he think he’s a GM?
Trade everyone Angels and start over. Last place is getting old
Yeah. I would push to trade everyone on the current MLB roster with more than 1-year of active service. Guys like Walbert and Denzer, keep them.
I’m no scout but I am really impressed with Guzman. Watched his BP up close and seen him doing infield drills. He moves so smoothly, especially his hands.
He stands out for moving smoothly even among his peers.
Clearly you haven’t tried the hot dogs.
Si si. And if you have to suck, it’s more fun watching kids suck.
You nailed it with the big board write up. After blowing the Ohtani opportunity, we’ve been given a second chance. Let’s learn from our mistakes.
Thank you.
People hate uncertainty. It’s the driving force in equity markets. It’s what guides people away from taking risks. Uncertainty is scary.
It’s why folks would rather go with the comfortable known players versus the scary and uncertain unknown players. Even against a 12 year tide of extreme suckage, known is better than uncertain. For most people.
Generally to succeed you need to take some risks. That is the position the Angels find themselves at this time. It’s time (and has been for awhile) to take some reasonable risks and build a stronger farm by trading away players. Accept and even love uncertainty and your life will be better.
I can understand the apprehension to a degree, and am writing a longer piece on it.
Soriano, Detmers, and Urena is a nice starting trio with years of control remaining.
Guzman looks good, Neto has been better than this, Schanuel is hitting. Trout is playing his best in years.
This is by far the best collection of young talent we’ve had in forever. But it still is far from enough and we are in last place with no end in sight.
We need 8 stud pitchers, not 3. We need a real center fielder, much better overall defense, several bullpen arms, and two catcher.
In order to get all that, we need to trade valuable pieces and draft intelligently.
I would argue the players you mention are okay but their familiarity to us give them greater value to us. In reality to the rest of the league these dudes are meh+. Maybe one will develop into an All Star. The familiarity makes it all scary. But it’s time to take that step into the abyss and see what happens. The whole place smells like crap. Time to throw away that old familiar chair and couch and have the cleaning crew come in.
Nothing really scary about baseball trades, might be just me
When you are at the bottom it’s the perfect time to try stuff out and have stuff blow up in your face. Work stuff out baby. Sure, some of us may be dead before it gets sorted out, but that’s OK with me too.
71, he is agreeing with you.
I realize that but I think he is overstating the value of the players like Soriano, Urena and Detmers. Those names have familiarity to us and we therefore assign greater value than reality.
We have young talent on the big league club, and I have been saying this, but it is not about the players ! It is the culture and all of the small, mostly intangible things that entails…of course Suzuki’s stupidity is a big part of it as well…. Last night was a perfect example — should have been a W, easily. But for some inexplicable reason the idiot manager decides to try and give Fermin his first save of his career… he hits Trammell on the FOOT (snakebit Angels badluck etc ) and not being a Closer Felix cannot recover and we lose. A well managed game gets us a win, but once things start to go against us we can’t stem the tide… That is emblematic of a losing culture ; you find ways to lose even when your talent got you a late lead.
I get that. And it likely starts at the bottom of the organization.
What’s funny is I was looking at defensive metrics with a buddy last night and we were both amazed at how bad Grissom has been.
Then an hour later he blows an easy double play.
If a guy in the press box knows Grissom is bad at defense, why doesn’t anybody on the field?
It’s cause Grissom has that huge contract. The fish rots from the contract down.
YES ! This is exactly what I am talking about Jeff ! Great example by you there ! Another one alot of folks have mentioned is Trout in CF ….Not only should he not be playing the position regularly, but somebody on the bench needs to tell him to move the hell in when the light hitting dudes come up ! This is part of a losing culture, the lack of attention to detail. This has now happened multiple times that late in a game we are leading an opposition hitter gets on base because Trout is playing nearly on the track ! It is these kinds of things that are losing us games, not because we are outclassed on the field talent-wise. It is the coaching and in game strategy (or lack thereof) that continually get us beat, not being beat by teams with better players !
This is why the cries to “trade everyone” including Soriano and Detmers for a couple buckets of used batting practice balls is so ridiculous. These guys are not the prolem, and getting a handful of unproven prospects is not the solution… it is addressing the entire coaching staff, the scouting, the coaches up and down the minor league system and everybody in between that needs to be changed or at least seriously evaluated !
Stupid Zuksuki should hah known Fermin would throw a pitch, hit a guy in the foot, then loose his mind.
Here. I’ll fix it.
FERT
There you go. A whole new culture. All will be well now.
I can tell you aren’t the kind of pool turd that sits there bitching about culture and invisible magic right up until the team is in the play offs. Then wanks about grit and tactics if we lose in the play offs. No way you’d do that.
But it’s gonna be OK. I went and got us a new culture.
We all certainly missed this during your hiatus 😆
I am a balmy blossom scented breeze.
Walbert Urena (22 years old)
93.1 IP
2.2 bWAR (35th amongst SP)
1.5 fWAR (50th amongst SP)
2.75 ERA
3.18 xERA
3.85 FIP
4.32 xFIP
22% K rate
53.3% GB rate
All of this to say Wally a ⭐
Amongst rookie SPs Wally is
— 3rd in bWAR
— 5th in fWAR
And he started late.
Perry forced him to begin the season in the bullpen and Suzuki immediately let him die in his 2nd major league appearance.
Briefly sent down to AAA for a few weeks and returned as a demon possessed. Makes 0 sense but who cares, Wally counts as a homegrown SP even if we got lucky.
We have seen this over and over and over. Flashes of brilliance from a young kid and then the league catches up. Maybe he is the real deal but that eval is at least 1 to 2 full seasons away.
Other than Soriano I can’t remember an arm this special. Garrett Richards maybe? Wally is bound for regression eventually, but he’s also bound to develop his sweeper and better command. The kid is for real
Angels should trade him. His future is short.
The Minasian is really, really Stupid Department nuggets for the night:
Apparently we’ve blow 9 games in the 9th this year. If instead of buying a lot of junk free agents, he could’ve re-signed Kenley for the same money and won eight of those games. And he wanted to stay, amazingly.
Not that it matters, but Minasian really was the Mount Everest of dumb.
Unclear whether he asked for money to sign Jansen and it was denied. We dont and won’t know. But Jansen could have made this team into a 75ish win team probably.
The fact of the matter is Perry needed to sign 4 guys because he had failed to draft and develop internal options and traded away Burke.
This was a problem entirely of his making.
Burke’s lookin good on the Reds….
He could’ve signed chafin as well but nope
How? More sweat? Cooler hair? He’s basically the same pitcher as Yates. Just look at the brefs….
With Zeferjahn emerging as a solid bullpen piece, the Angels could have had a solid combination at the end of the bullpen.
Add in Brock Burke who was traded for a negative WAR outfielder and the Angels have a solid trio.
I can’t argue that Jansen has got the results this season, but would he have achieved them on this team? A cursory look at his stats indicates he hasn’t pitched much better than Yates has. Jansen has a FIP of 5.06, WHIP of 1.229, RA9 of 4.23 and slash line of .179/.293/.337. Compare this to Yates FIP of 3.56, WHIP of 1.095, RA9 of 4.01 and slash line of .184/.298/.333. Seems fairly close to me, so instead of cursing signing Yates we could be cursing signing Jansen at nearly twice the price.
At the end of the day, it didn’t matter at all. I’m just pointing out Minasian took a bad situation of his own making and made it worse.
I don’t fault them from moving on from Jansen and investing $11M but when the ex-GM singed Yates for 1-year @ $5M, a healthy Paul Sewald was available. Mike Hazen swooped in and brought back Sewald for 1-year @ $1.5M. In 2026, Paul Sewald: 24 saves out of 26 opportunities. a 0.94 WHIP. He was healthy and Yates has had issues from day 1. The ex-GM read the room wrong, again.
In the case of Sewald, we can say the same thing about what? 25 GMPOBOEIEIOs? As long as we’re picking cherries we could have made moves to get Jake Bauers or Robbie Ray. Hell, if I wanna completely tuck my package and have a go for it I could list all the guys we drafted instead of Cam Schlittler. That’s always fun.
Perry may have sucked, but not signing Sewald or Jansen (who sucks as much as Yates, take it from a guy who has been watching both all year) has nothing to do with it.
But this is the same issue with Jansen. Sewald, despite an abnormal BABIP of .198, is still surrendering runs with a RA9 of 5.06 this season. On this team, he wouldn’t be near as successful giving up that many runs.
The Angels can make Mason Miller look like a hobo.
Totally true. But why not wahhh?
Buzz from the press area last night:
No sight or sound from Arte.
Mo making himself available to the media the other day was a bit of a surprise.
All speculation but the feeling is that if Mo is expected to stay he’s being given power to do things his way.
Most still think Mo will be a POBO or similar and hire a day in day out GM.
Don’t know why it took him so long to realize but this is perfect for Arte with Mo as the teams face.
Did we trade anyone yet?
Nothing reported yet. I saw we offered a 3 legged dog, and their counter was a one-eyed cat but that trade fell through.
We should see if Jerry Dipoto will take a couple of opossums for Jimothy.