Mike Trout to Stay Put? Why the Angels Might Not Trade Anyone at the Deadline

Another year, another terrible season for the Los Angeles Angels. They’re sitting in last place in the AL West with a 34-48 record. They haven’t made the playoffs since 2014. And yet, if you expect them to sell off pieces at the trade deadline, you might want to think again.

According to MLB Network insider Jon Heyman, the Angels are — once again — reluctant to call themselves sellers. “We can never assume anything about the Angels,” Heyman said. “You would think they would be a seller, but they are very reluctant to sell. If they did sell, they could have a great, great sale.”

That last part is the kicker. They could have a great sale. They just probably won’t.

The Core the Angels Won’t Touch

So who might actually be available? Maybe nobody. Heyman pointed out that Reid Detmers, Jo Adell and Jose Soriano are all under team control beyond this season, so there’s no urgency to move them. And if Arte Moreno isn’t eager to trade a younger controllable arm like Detmers, Heyman argued, there’s no way he’s trading a franchise icon like Mike Trout.

“I don’t think (Angels owner) Arte Moreno, if he doesn’t want to trade Detmers and Soriano, he’s not going to want to trade a legend like Mike Trout,” Heyman said. “So that’s the one team I would say we really can’t predict what they’re going to do.”

For what it’s worth, nobody actually expects Trout to get dealt. But the idea that the Angels might also hold onto Detmers, Adell and Soriano feels like a missed opportunity. These are the kinds of assets contenders would pay a premium for. And the Angels, frankly, need to restock a farm system that’s been gutted by years of win-now trades that didn’t actually produce wins.

The Same Old Cycle

Here’s the thing about the Angels. They keep doing the same thing and expecting a different result. They refuse to tear it down and rebuild. They keep trying to add around Trout and Shohei Ohtani (well, Ohtani’s gone now). And they keep finishing near the bottom of the division.

A real rebuild would mean trading guys like Taylor Ward, Tyler Anderson, maybe even Luis Rengifo. It would mean taking the kind of painful short-term losses that set you up for long-term gains. But the Angels have never been willing to do that. Not under Moreno. Not in this market.

It doesn’t help that the Angels are notoriously hard to read at the deadline. They’ve been deadline non-sellers before when logic said they should have been. There’s no reason to think this year will be any different, even if the math says it should be.

So expect the Angels to hold onto their guys, roll the dice on a second half that probably won’t materialize, and head into next season with the same core and the same questions. The only real surprise would be if they actually changed course.