Calling At Least Some Angels: Three Trade Deadline Options for the Halos

We’re one week away from the August 3 trade deadline, and yet there’s still very little clarity for a handful of teams. The American League is a jumbled mess, and National League teams like the Nationals and Padres are straddling the buy/sell line, too. But one thing is for sure: The Angels will be sellers. What’s not yet settled is the extent to which they’ll sell.

With interim general manager John Mozeliak running the show after the ouster of Perry Minasian, the Angels suddenly have their most decorated baseball ops head since Bill Stoneman, the architect of the 2002 World Series champions, who briefly returned to handle the 2015 trade deadline. That came after a power struggle with manager Mike Scioscia led to Jerry Dipoto’s departure, and Stoneman went through with a handful of depth moves, bringing in post-prime David DeJesus, David Murphy, and Shane Victorino to bolster a club that was 55-47 at the July 31 deadline. Those Angels were just two games out of first place and had a three-in-four chance at making the playoffs. They finished 30-30, fading to third place and out of the playoff picture with an overall record of 85-77. They haven’t had a winning season since then, and they haven’t made the playoffs since the year before, when they won 98 games but were swept by the Royals in the ALDS. It’s been a miserable stretch for the Halos, one that will continue through the remainder of the season. As of Monday morning, our Playoff Odds projected the Angels to finish with their second-worst record in the last 30 years.

Still, these woes don’t have to drag on in perpetuity. The Angels have options aplenty as the trade deadline nears to try and change the direction of their wayward organization. Here are three paths they could take:

Option One: The Usual Deadline

Despite a playoff drought that will extend to 12 seasons, the Angels have hardly ever been aggressive sellers at the trade deadline. The last significant player they moved during the season with multiple years of club control was Brandon Marsh in 2022, and that was in exchange for a then-yet-to-debut Logan O’Hoppe, who has been a mainstay — for better or worse — as the club’s starting catcher.

Since then, it’s been a litany of rentals in and out the door, from the waiver purge of 2023 to the exoduses of Carlos Estévez and Luis García in 2024 to the re-acquisition of García along with Andrew Chafin last year. This is what the Angels do: They soft buy or soft sell and convince themselves that next year will be their year, keeping core pieces with the strongest trade value in place, whether that’s the right decision or not. (Spoiler: It’s not.)

If this is the route the Angels go this year, there is (as tends to be the case with rentals) not a whole lot of future value that they can add here. There’s no Estévez-level player on the 2026 Angels to net them a couple of nice arms in Sam Aldegheri and 102nd-ranked prospect George Klassen. Jorge Soler and Kirby Yates could be solid complementary pieces for teams, but they’re not going to top anyone’s list of trade targets, and whatever return the Angels get for them will reflect that. Soler’s contract is so onerous (over $5 million for the remainder of the season) that the Angels may have to pay significant money down just to get a vaguely interesting player back. Brent Suter and the currently injured Adam Frazier, Yoán Moncada, and Travis d’Arnaud are also free agents after the World Series.

Option Two: Cash in on Two Big Arms, Compute Adell Package

It wouldn’t be a trade deadline — especially with the expanded playoffs giving more teams hope that they can contend — without a disconnect between “teams who feel like they really need starting pitching” and “actually good starting pitchers available.” If the Tigers stay in the hunt, Tarik Skubal probably isn’t going anywhere. The Nationals might hang onto Foster Griffin, as they’re within striking distance of a playoff spot. Freddy Peralta and Robbie Ray are perfectly good rentals having down seasons. But for contenders seeking a longer-term fit from a bad team, look no further than the Angels’ Reid Detmers and José Soriano, both having the best seasons of their careers and under club control through 2028.

If this were 1982 and we only knew enough to care about wins and ERA, nothing Detmers has done this year (4.05 ERA, 3-7 record) would jump off the page. But, of course, in 2026, we’ve got far more data. All of the fancy ERA estimators like him considerably more; his FIP is 3.27, his xERA 3.32, his SIERA 3.55. These numbers are driven by his solidly above-average 28% strikeout rate and a career-best 8% walk rate that lies under the league average for the first time since he broke into the bigs in 2021. If there’s any short-term concern with Detmers, it’s that he spent last season in the bullpen and as such has already nearly doubled his 2025 innings total. But to me, workload increases are best dealt with on a case-by-case basis, and Detmers has shown no sign of slowing down: He’s bounced back from four rough starts before the All-Star break to give up just one run in 11 1/3 innings since.

Soriano is best known for his white-hot start to this season, allowing just one run (total!) in his first half-dozen starts. The big righty has seen things come crashing down since then, with a 4.64 ERA and a 4.51 FIP across his last 16 starts, owing in large part to 44 walks. The bases on balls have always been a problem for Soriano, and frankly some degree of effective wildness (or is it wild effectiveness?) might be part of his appeal, but despite the recent downturn, there’s still a lot to like. He frequently hits triple digits with both his sinker and four-seamer, and batters whiff on more than two-in-five swings against his knuckle-curve. He may also be some tweaks away from true stardom; for example, his four-seamer gets hit around far worse than his sinker, and yet he throws each pitch at roughly the same rate, coming at the expense of his splitter, his highest-graded pitch by Stuff+.

Jo Adell is a free agent a year sooner than Soriano and Detmers, and there’s a real argument that no other player could benefit more from a change of scenery and working with a different coaching infrastructure. The raw tools are brilliant, with 97th-percentile bat speed to go along with sprint speed and arm strength in the top third of the league, but none of this has consistently translated. Adell popped 37 homers last year and has another 15 in 2026, but there’s a lot of unideal contact mixed in. His average exit velocity is under 90 mph, and his hard-hit rate has backed up from a very good 49% last season to a merely above-average 42% this year. This isn’t simply an early-career Jordan Walker or Yandy Díaz situation, where the hard contact rate is consistently extremely good but the spray isn’t; there’s just so much mis-hitting going on. Adell also has never been much of a basestealer despite the above-average speed, and while he’s got the talent to rob three home runs in the same game, he’s totaled -19 FRV over the last two seasons.

Option Three: Blow It Up

This path involves putting everyone on the table for trade with the exception of Mike Trout. Trout, I’ll remind you, has a full no-trade clause that he has never been willing to waive no matter how many mock trades he’s put in and how often a trade to the Phillies is wish cast. I am of the opinion that the validity and effectiveness of going even further than option two is predicated on what kind of trade packages the Angels are getting. That is to say, if Detmers, Soriano, and Adell produce a strong group of close-to-the-majors prospects that reshape the farm system at the top end, there’s an argument for hanging onto players under club control beyond 2028. But if the best packages Mozeliak can arrange aren’t expected to be impact players until 2030 at the earliest, he might as well trade almost anyone else if the interest is strong enough.

The “almost anyone else” primarily includes the enigmatic Zach Neto, who isn’t a free agent until the conclusion of the 2029 season. Neto’s work at short is beloved by DRS (he’s been evaluated positively in each of his four seasons) and dinged by FRV (negative every season). He’s a consistently above-average runner but not always good at running the bases; he’s just 13-for-23 in steal attempts this year. And nothing’s harder to parse than the bat: His strikeout rate has never been higher than it is this year, but neither has his walk rate. Owing to a steeper attack angle, Neto is hitting more fly balls than ever, but there’s a lot more auto-out flies mixed in, with a IFFB% above 10% for the first time in his career. It’s still translating to metronomic production: His wRC+ in the last three years has been 115, 116, and 113. He’s clearly an above-average shortstop league-wide, pacing for his third straight three-win season, but like many Angels — including Adell, Soriano, and Detmers — he hasn’t hit the upper stratosphere that his talent and pedigree (he was drafted 13th overall in 2022) would suggest is possible.

Also under club control through 2029 is first baseman Nolan Schanuel, who’s reaching his usual slightly above-average production in a different way this year, with a slightly faster bat and increased willingness to pull the ball. There’s modest value there, but that’s owing more to his improved defense, and ultimately he’s still just a first baseman. Teams want more offensive production than he probably offers, and locking into three-plus years of a low-power bat at first base or DH doesn’t seem very prudent. The Angels also have flame-throwing reliever Ben Joyce, but he’s been working his way back from shoulder surgery. Considering he’d probably have more value in the offseason after he has the chance to prove he’s healthy and effective in the majors down the stretch, moving him now may feel like trading him just for the sake of it. Pseudo-closers Sam Bachman and Ryan Zeferjahn are also having fine seasons (Zeferjahn especially) and are under club control through 2030, and in a seller’s market always full of teams looking for bullpen arms, I wouldn’t be surprised to see either on the move.

Regardless of the exact path the Angels take, it’s clear that it wouldn’t be wise for them to run it back with option one again. Their future simply isn’t bright enough. Walbert Ureña, Tyler Bremner, and Klassen could be a really nice front three of a rotation, but the organizational depth is, as always, severely lacking, and the Halos have just one hitter on our Updated Top 100 Prospects list, and it’s a far-from-the-majors Hayden Alvarez. This isn’t the time for yet another deadline of touch-up work and maybe putting up some new wallpaper before declaring the house to be fully remodeled. The Angels need real change for the sake of 2027 and beyond, and if Mozeliak doesn’t have the cachet to convince owner Arte Moreno that that’s what the club needs, I’m not sure anyone does.