Here’s the latest from around the AL West…
- Angels GM Billy Eppler is non-committal about his team being sellers at the deadline, Pedro Moura of the Los Angeles Times writes. “Let’s let this club play a little bit longer. There’s no rush to make a decision right now,” Eppler said. The front office wants to “get the full team intact and guys back on the field and healthy” before making any decisions, Eppler said, though Moura points out that this will be impossible given how many key pitchers are either out for the season or indefinitely shelved. It could be that Eppler is simply engaging in some gamesmanship, as the Halos’ record (31-44, last place in the AL West) would certainly indicate that they’ll be selling come August 1.
- Don’t look for the Athletics to trade reliever Ryan Dull, Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle tweets. Dull has been a bright spot for the A’s, posting a 2.31 ERA, 9.7 K/9 and 5.25 K/BB rate over 39 bullpen innings this season. The 26-year-old is under team control through the 2021 season, so it makes sense that Oakland hang onto Dull and instead focus on older players closer to free agency as possible deadline trade chips.
- Astros pitching prospect David Paulino has been suspended by the club for an undisclosed period of time, Jake Kaplan of the Houston Chronicle reports. “We’ve got rules and every once in a while rules are violated and we have to enforce them,” GM Jeff Luhnow said, though he noted that Paulino’s violation “wasn’t anything major” and the 22-year-old righty won’t be out of action for too long. Paulino, ranked on top-100 prospect lists by Baseball America (91st) and MLB.com (98th), has a 1.86 ERA, 10.2 K/9 and 6.0 K/9 rate over 58 Double-A innings this season, with eight of his 13 appearances coming as a starter.
- Sam Dyson has emerged as the Rangers’ closer but is also tied for the league lead in appearances. As Gerry Fraley of the Dallas Morning News writes, this is an untenable situation for any closer, especially one with a checkered injury history like Dyson. The logical answer is to limit Dyson’s innings, though that could be difficult with Texas in the thick of a pennant race. The Rangers are known to be exploring bullpen upgrades, and they could even replace Dyson at closer if the Yankees made Aroldis Chapman or Andrew Miller available.
Angels are in a tough position. Even if they did decide to sell, what meaningful prospects would they get in return?
just about any prospect is meaningful for the Angels
if arte tells eppler to stand pat at the deadline cause he thinks we still have a chance…
the angels future looks very dark for the near future. A empty farm system with a bunch of old players at the majors. Its so bad Trout could be traded for the right price. Why they don’t trade players like Escobar makes no sense. Sell now while its a sellers market because come Aug 1st more teams out of the playoffs make it a buyers market.
Who are the “bunch of old players” you’re referring to? Pujols/Weaver/Wilson/Street are pretty much the only old players on the roster.
Escobar, Street, Weaver, Salas, and Santiago. Pujols is not going any where with that bad contract. Sell all the players that will be free agents and bring in some prospects even if they are A ball players.
25% of the Angels current 40-man roster is 30 years old, or older.
Please get rid of Fernando Salas…
I think he’s a FA any way so good riddance to that.
As to that … I would move the entire worthless bullpen plus Wilson, Escobar, Chacin, any other player who’s contract is up at the end of the season… Build the team around Simmons and Trout…
The pen isn’t an issue IMO. Deal Salas/Smith/Street/ for ML ready pieces. I’d love to put a package together for Conforto or Nimmo from NYM. Probably unrealistic but maybe Escobar/Cron or Escobar and an arm could get talks started.
Who wants salas? His strike outs are way down, not slighly down, but 3 full points below. And the odd thing is his xfip is higher, around 4.3, but his BABAIP is .255…..
The angels have nothing that would net nimmo, conforto. They could probably get both in a trout deal, but they got nothing individual or paired to net either.
Yunel escobar and cj cron could net ynoa, montero, reynolds, and gsellman plus 1 or 2 lower pitching prospects, but they wont net anything close to nimmo or conforto.
Angels have no chance of contending trade Escobar, smith, street, Calhoun and basically anyone u can get good value for. Trade trout and Simmons in the offseason and just commit to a rebuild.
Street, Cron & Escobar to Mets for Nimmo, Varret, Montero & Reynolds
Let’s get this straight. The Angels are not trading Trout. Stop with that nonsense.
The only saving grace for the Angels is they have a ton of payroll coming off the books in the near future. But it’s going to be hard to build a team through FA
And even then, signing anybody with a QO would probably not be worth losing picks.