The Angels have acquired righty Chad Smith from the Athletics for cash considerations, Oakland announced. Smith had been designated for assignment.
The 25-year-old had a rough go in a short stint this year at the big league level for the A’s, who claimed him off waivers from the Tigers this winter. All said, he owns a 8.31 ERA in his 13 big league frames, with 11 strikeouts and eight walks. He was better in his 11 2/3 innings at Triple-A this season, however, permitting just three earned runs while striking out seven and issuing five walks.
For the Angels, the move was about building bullpen depth. As Jeff Fletcher of the Orange County Register tweets, Smith will be optioned to Triple-A.
What is is about the AL west and trades?? These teams trade within division all the time! I don’t get it. They are in direct competition with one another and they all seem perfectly fine with trading with one another to make the other better…
If you can improve your own team, so what? Obviously the teams involved feel the players they’re receiving are better than the ones they are trading away.
Obviously that’s what they think.
My point is that the AL West appears to be the only division in baseball that freely trades amongst itself like this.
If it was a simple as you made it all divisions would do it. Which they do not…even when the players involved and the incentives to do so are pretty compelling.
That last point has a lot to do with the GM’s running each respective team, and the lack of hatred between each team’s history. All of the GM’s. Are fairly forward thinking and none of the rivalries have anywhere near the vitriol of the Yanks-Sox, etc.