The 2022 Angels Trade Deadline

The 2022 MLB trade deadline has now passed, with many big names moving, notably headlined by Juan Soto, Luis Castillo, and Frankie Montas. The Angels swung some deals too, but none of that caliber. If you told people in May that they would be deadline sellers, it might be hard for many to believe. After starting out the year 27–17 with the best early performance the team has seen in a decade, the Halos went into a tailspin and have an abysmal 16–42 record since that great start. There have been numerous causes — Anthony Rendon struggled before having a season-ending injury, Mike Trout has also been injured for an extended time, Taylor Ward’s early-season breakout has largely faded away, and many new acquisitions in the lineup and bullpen have performed below expectation. These circumstances made selling the easy decision for the 43–59 Angels, whose playoff odds (according to FanGraphs) now sitting at under one percent after being in the 50–70% range earlier in the season.

A natural candidate to be traded was Noah Syndergaard, whose contract expires at the end of the year. While he is certainly a big help to teams in need of starting pitching down the stretch, he was never going to fetch returns anywhere near the level of the more coveted starters on the market. Players like Castillo, Montas, and Mahle don’t become free agents until after 2023 meaning their teams have roughly four times as much time with them under contract. Additionally, Syndergaard has fallen from his days with the Mets — while he had multiple seasons with an ERA below 3, his numbers were closer to league average this year (98 ERA-, 97 FIP-). While there were multiple teams rumored to be asking for Syndergaard, the prospect return was never going to be very high.

Syndergaard ended up being traded to the Phillies, and the return came in the form of two outfielders, 21-year old Jadiel Sanchez and 24-year old Mickey Moniak. Sanchez was a 12th round selection out of Puerto Rico in the 2019 draft. He hasn’t been able to play all that much in pro ball, putting up an OPS around .800 in a month at A ball last year before suffering an injury. This year, his stats have regressed in a 38-game sample, slashing .236/.286/.429 (101 wRC+). Because Sanchez played in the Florida State League, we have batted ball data for him this year. Coming into the season, many public facing reports on Sanchez described him as a hit-first guy who doesn’t whiff much and displays a disciplined approach. However, the data tells a different story — he does have a high contact rate (he’s striking out just 17.5% of the time this year), but swings at a lot of pitches out of the zone. His 37% chase rate would rank in the 16th percentile of major league hitters. However, Sanchez has also demonstrated more power than a visual evaluation would tell you, with an above average 43% hard hit rate and a max exit velocity of 108 mph (slightly below average raw power at present, but could become above average or better at physical maturity). Analysis of his spray charts indicates that while he does have a good number of batted balls hit hard in the air, he hits ground balls almost half the time with very few line drives. Consequently, his sweet spot rate would rank in just the 6th percentile of major league hitters, so barrel accuracy will definitely be a developmental focus for him. There’s a wide variety of possible outcomes for Sanchez, but I think a good number of them have him contributing to a big league team in some form, although likely off the bench.

Moniak was the first overall pick in the 2016 draft out of high school (he’s a semi-local kid, from the San Diego area) but has struggled at times in pro ball. While he first appeared in 2020 and has spent time on the big league club in each of the last three seasons, he’s only appeared in 47 games during which he has an unenviable slash line of .129/.214/.172 with a strikeout rate nearing 40%. He’s a fastball hitter with at times debilitating issues making contact against secondary pitches, but his strikeout rate in the minor leagues over the past two years has been a more reasonable 24%. Due to the higher quality of pitching and advance scouting in the majors than the International league, the swing and miss issues will likely continue and in all likelihood prevent him from being a starter. The Angels have already announced their plans to bring him onto the major league roster this year, so he’ll be playing in some capacity and the results will be seen soon. I don’t think the team’s plans for next year should involve Moniak being on the Opening Day roster, but with his defensive versatility he’s a nice guy to have as 40-man depth, especially when the current alternatives are Dillon Thomas and Magneuris Sierra.

Syndergaard was actually the second Angels player traded to Philadelphia yesterday. The first, in a possibly surprising move, was Brandon Marsh. Marsh was one of the best prospects in all of baseball last year, and earned a midseason callup. He wasn’t great, striking out 35% of the time while hitting just two homers in 260 plate appearances. But the pieces of a major contributor were there — his hard hit rates were in Aaron Judge territory, his lack of over-the-fence power was made up for by hitting a ton of line drives (many projection systems had Marsh as the projected league leader in BABIP this year), Statcast metrics said he was getting unlucky, and it was easy to see how a version of Marsh that struck out less could be a potential future All-Star.

But this season a lot went wrong. Even after having 2021 to adjust to big league velocity, his strikeout rate actually went up while his walk rate went down. His hard hit rate went down by 15 points and his wRC+ fell from 86 to 80. While Marsh’s defense did improve and he’s been one of the best outfielders in the league, every arrow pointed down for his offensive potential. As other teams’ advance scouts have seen Marsh in the majors, his rate of breaking balls seen has climbed, especially in two-strike counts (Marsh is hitting just .168 against breaking balls with an ultra-high whiff rate).

I think Marsh’s combination of batted ball profile and elite defense make him an everyday player, but with the strikeout issues he profiles as more of an average regular than a potential star. But the Angels still decided to move on from him, and in return got a player who, despite being a bit younger and at a lower level, likely has a similar outlook. The Phillies traded catching prospect Logan O’Hoppe to the Angels in exchange for Marsh. After being drafted in 2019 in a round that no longer exists (the 23rd), O’Hoppe has done nothing but perform throughout the minor leagues and now looks like one of the premium catchers in a prospect class loaded with talented backstops. He first appeared on people’s radars last year, hitting .270/.335/.459 in high-A ball and earning brief callups to AA and AAA. He’s spent all of this year in AA, only improving upon last year’s performance. He has an impressive slash line of .269/.385/.492 (139 wRC+) with 15 home runs, more fly balls than ground balls, and above average strikeout and walk numbers.

While O’Hoppe has been one of the biggest breakout prospects of this season, there are a couple nits to pick about his offensive performance. He’s popped out in 20% of batted balls this year, and has posted a popup rate of at least 14% at every minor league level. Popups are near-guaranteed outs, and unlike outfield fly balls they have zero chance to go over the fence for a home run — they’re basically strikeouts (which is why the pitcher fWAR calculation treats a popup as a strikeout). He also has an odd swing of sorts, striding towards third base rather than straight at the pitcher. The main issues this type of swing can cause for hitters are a lack of non-pull power and whiff issues on breaking balls outside. While O’Hoppe does pull the ball a lot, it’s not an extreme profile and he’s kept the whiffs down all throughout pro ball, so the swing shouldn’t be a huge issue.

O’Hoppe is also a very solid defender behind the plate. In 57 games at catcher this year, his framing has saved his team 3.3 runs, according to Baseball Prospectus’ metrics. He was also an above average framer last year, while his arm and blocking have graded out about average over the past two seasons. He’s stayed effective as a defender despite a large catcher workload — he appeared in 126 games last year including the Arizona Fall League, and has served as the DH in many of his catching off-days. The solidly above average defense is one of a few separators between O’Hoppe and the Angels’ second best catching prospect, Edgar Quero (who has been worth -6 runs via framing and is younger and further away from the majors). He easily slides in as one of the top prospects in the Angels system (you can argue for Neto or O’Hoppe, I personally lean Neto while many publications favor O’Hoppe) and looks like a great future everyday catcher once Max Stassi’s contract expires.

The final trade, broken right before the 3 pm deadline, sent closer Raisel Iglesias to Atlanta for pitchers Tucker Davidson and Jesse Chavez. This was a bit of a confusing move, as Iglesias was in the first year of a four-year extension with the Angels, but I’ll talk about the players involved before talking about the trade itself.

Jesse Chavez is a 38-year old relief pitcher on a near-minimum deal who’s having his second consecutive excellent relief season for the Braves. This year he’s posted a 2.66 ERA and 2.91 FIP across 48 innings. This isn’t Chavez’ first run in Anaheim, though, he had an unsuccessful stint with the team as a starter in 2017. That ended up being his final season as a starter, and after a few up and down years as a reliever for the Cubs and Rangers, he changed his pitch mix (up to 60% cutter after throwing the kitchen sink before) and has had two great years in Atlanta.

Davidson is a 26-year old lefty with 37 total innings in the majors. He sits 92–95 with his fastball. The heater has decent shape, with an above-average 17 inches of induced vertical break and good bat missing ability. It lacks horizontal run, averaging just 3 inches of horizontal break. While this makes the pitch look more unique out of the hand, it also makes it vulnerable to allowing hard contact, especially when the pitch isn’t located well. A fastball like Davidson’s should be living at the top of the zone, but in his limited big league time it’s primarily been thrown in the zone but not located optimally. This year, batters are hitting .385 against Davidson’s fastball. He occasionally throws a curveball around 80 mph that he executes well low and to the gloveside, but the real weapon in Davidson’s arsenal is his slider, which he throws almost 40% of the time. The pitch has good depth, with zero induced vertical break (a 17 inch separation from his fastball). Davidson throws this pitch hard — averaging 87.5 mph on it. He commands the slider well, often using it below the zone to contrast with his fastball in the zone. And so far, it’s worked, earning a 31% whiff rate while batters have hit just .139 against it. I don’t think he profiles as a starter just because of how hittable his fastball is, but I think he’ll get tried out there for a little bit. His best role should be in relief, where he can weaponize his slider more without having to worry about facing the order multiple times.

And who is Raisel Iglesias? This may sound like a dumb question to anyone who’s watched the past two years of Angels baseball, but it’s a valid one. Last season, Iglesias had one of the finest relief seasons in franchise history, striking out nearly 38% of batters with elite control, saving 34 games and posting a 2.57 ERA. That earned him an extension that pays out $10 million this year and $16 million in each of the next three. This year, he’s still been really good, but not someone you could argue is the best reliever in the AL. His velocity has been inconsistent and is down about 1 mph on average from last year. I don’t know what his medical records look like but the Braves do, and they just committed to paying him until 2025 so I don’t think he’s injured. I think the most reasonable explanation for his velocity decline has been rust from an inconsistent playing schedule on a team that really hasn’t needed a closer for the past couple months. He’s had two stretches this year where he went over a full week between appearances, including once during the team’s 14-game losing streak. And even this version of Raisel has an excellent 3.17 FIP, 2.43 SIERA, and lands in the 92nd percentile of K-BB%, one of the best predictors of future ERA for relievers. He might not repeat the most dominant Angels relief season that many of us have seen in our lifetimes, but my money (and Atlanta’s) is on him being an excellent closer for the life of his contract.

It’s no secret that the Angels haven’t been good in recent memory. With just one playoff appearance in the last decade and seven years since the team’s last winning season, the Angels have been the wanderers of baseball. Consistently fielding a 75–80 win team despite having two generational talents, while striking out on all the home-grown prospects in the system, the team has refused to undergo a full scale rebuild (which is admirable, and every team has the ability to always compete, but more on this later). But to be competitive, the team has to field a strong roster from top to bottom, and doing the same thing year in and year out will never work. There are three default (and correct) answers to why the Angels have been the way they have since the 2000s — bad contracts, bad player development, and unwillingness to spend over the luxury tax. Through multiple different administrations running the baseball operations department, all three problems the team has point back to the same place — ownership.

There haven’t been any sweeping changes to the player development group despite its clear failures, and last year there were reports of Arizona Complex League games being cancelled because Arte didn’t pay to fix the lights in the stadium and it was too hot to play during the day. The Angels are on a shortlist of some of the most backward organizations in terms of embracing modern technology and analytics in their scouting and player development processes. At the end of the day, the Angels will never be good until Arte Moreno changes the way he views himself as the owner of a baseball team. Until he spends money to develop more homegrown players and increase payroll, the roster will look the exact same as it does now — a group of stars with painfully little around them, and a deplorable lack of depth that will be visible as soon as the first injury or underperformance happens.

Have the last thousand words or so of this article been a rant about ownership in the wake of the Iglesias trade? Probably. There’s no call to action here or anything, I think it’s really silly and gross to tell people how they should or shouldn’t enjoy their baseball. I’m still going to watch the team, whether they win 100 games or lose 100, even if the hitter in the 6-hole is batting .130. But I think it’s important to understand the role that ownership plays in the operation of a team. Coaching changes, general manager regime shifts, and new players have an impact on the team, but ultimately it all starts from the top.

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