The Yankees have traded infielder Oswald Peraza to the Angels in exchange for outfield prospect Wilberson De Pena, as well as international bonus pool money. Both teams have announced the deal. To make room for Peraza, the Angels have designated Kevin Newman for assignment.
Peraza, now 25, signed with the Yankees as an international free agent in 2016, and as he rose through the ranks of their minor league system, he also rose up organizational prospect rankings. Entering the 2022 season, when he made his big league debut, he was a consensus top-100 prospect. He impressed during a cup of coffee that September, hitting .306 with a 145 wRC+, and was once again a top-100 prospect entering 2023. Since then, however, his stock has fallen fast. He has slashed .190/.262/.285 in 429 plate appearances from 2022-25, with seven home runs and nine stolen bases in 145 games. Spending time at second base, third base, and shortstop, he has graded out as an average-to-slightly-above-average defender, but his versatile glove has not been nearly enough to make up for his ineffective bat. His offensive numbers at Triple-A over the past few years have also been less than impressive.
After the Yankees traded for infielders Ryan McMahon and Amed Rosario last week, the clock began to tick on Peraza’s tenure with the club. Their deal to acquire José Caballero today was surely the final nail in the coffin, even though the Peraza trade was technically reported shortly before the Caballero agreement. The Yankees have revamped their infield and bench as part of their efforts to take down the Blue Jays to defend their AL East crown. A floundering former top prospect no longer fit into the picture.
Peraza is a textbook change-of-scenery candidate. The Angels acquire him with four years of team control remaining after 2025, although he is out of options. For now, he will offer them depth off the bench and a potential alternative to the slumping Luis Rengifo. If he impresses, he should be in the mix for the second or third base job next season, with Rengifo and Yoán Moncada set to hit free agency at the end of the year. On the other hand, if he continues to hit as poorly as he did with the Yankees, he’ll soon be staring down the barrel of a DFA.
Meanwhile, De Pena is a textbook example of a lottery-ticket prospect. The 18-year-old has not has not yet had much of a chance to make an impression in his professional career. He signed with the Angels as an international free agent last January and has spent the past two seasons as a corner outfielder in the Dominican Summer League. He has hit .211 with four home runs and five doubles in 31 games this year.
Newman signed with the Angels in the offseason on a one-year, $2.75MM guarantee. While he has never been known for his bat, he hit just well enough to offer some value as a utility infielder for the Pirates, Reds, and Diamondbacks from 2022-24. In 2025, however, he has hit just .202 with only four extra-base hits in 57 games. He has a .481 OPS and -0.7 FanGraphs WAR. Given his poor performance and the not-insignificant amount of money remaining on his contract, he is almost certain to pass through waivers, after which he is likely to reject an outright assignment in favor of free agency.
Peraza to the Angels was first reported by Jack Curry of the YES Network. Joel Sherman of the New York Post added that the Yankees would receive De Pena and international bonus pool money in return.
Angels all in!
Why would NY do such a nasty thing to this guy?
Probably figured he won’t make the playoffs either way.
He was going to be cut. Caballero makes him expendable and he’s out of options
Every year is Groundhog Day for Angels fans. Same crap every time. Every. Time.
Lol alright I guess. Angels were feeling left out I suppose
Why?
Well, they do need to open up a bunch of 26 man roster spots with all these trades…
Better than nothing
Peraza rocking a -0.2 bWAR this season and a career -0.1 bWAR.
This is, by definition, worse then nothing.
Touché
it isn’t worse than nothing it is less valuable than a replacement level player meaning that it is worse than something
The Pirates’ next cost-saving plan: not fielding a 3rd baseman
But better than something else
Change of scenery can also change players. You think Mariners would be taking back Suarez if he was the same player he was in Seattle?
No, it’s not
Luis Rengifo can smile knowing he’s no longer the worst hitter on the team
Kevin Newman, Scott Kingery, Gustavo Campero, and Mike Trout would like a word.
Campero wins that award
Newman, Kingery, Rengifo, and Peraza are all basically the same player.
Trout is at least a future Hall of Famer
Trout should have his red carpet to Cooperstown yanked due to his clear lack of interest in playing baseball. Has 2 automatic strikes on him before his walk up music stops playing and, after taking a borderline ball one, swings pathetically at a low and outside breaking pitch. He’s a liability at the plate. They might as well use a DH for him instead of him DH’ing for the pitcher.
He’s 33 and he’s hitting 24% better than league average. I don’t know how anyone can hate on Trout. He was a pure joy to watch for a long time. But here we are.
Was…
Trout is hitting .247/.400/.495. He may not be the best anymore but is contributing.
Breaking balls going away from your body doesn’t require full mighty swing. He even had a triple with a check swing to the right. I dearly wish Adell can hit breaking balls to the right.
‘In July.’
No. Actually I don’t suck as a baseball fan. But thanks for your brilliant insight.
You’re an idiot.
Trout has a 126 OPS+. You are either trolling or outing yourself as a fool
May be the worst fielder, though.
If you think Trout is the worst hitter on this team, you’re an idiot.
You say dumb things. Rengifo is not the worst hitter on the team.
Welcome to New York Mike Trout! 🤣🤣🤣
….. But why
Angels lol. I dont even know man.
Ok.
This franchise baffles me.
“Top Yankees Prospect”
That’s all it takes.
Andrew Velasquez
Wade
Peraza
got any left?
Wade wasn’t terrible.
Word Arte Moreno!
Ranked a top 40-80 prospect at one point and done nothing in mlb opportunities
Bro the angels are soo dumb! As an angels fan I don’t understand why we did this. We should fire Arte Moreno ASAP. I cannot stress this any longer bro! WE NEED PITCHING!!!!
They need a lot of things. Such as defense, hitting, and yes, pitching.
I hope he gets his chance on the West Coast. He tried his best and played hard every time he was in the lineup in New York. His glove is outstanding maybe a change of scenery and some different coaching can help out his bat.
Yep. Nothing but good wishes for Oswald!
WITH THIS TRADE THE ANGELS MAKE A DRASTIC IMPROVEMENT!
They now will finish the season with a 76-86 record. YA BABY.
Holy chit! Shut the franchise down! This is pathetic!
Yup, that’ll fix it. God we suck. We already have an awful backup infielder in Kevin Newman. Why the hell do we need another one?
Well, they DFA’d Newman to add Peraza, so at least one of them is gone now.
At least Peraza is above average at defense and on the bases this year. Newman was bad at everything (hitting, baserunning, and defense)
This should help with the Oswald/Oswaldo confusion.
If a franchise were a participation trophy …
Obviously the missing piece… must be an injury to announce.
Angels are all in
We already have Kevin Newman with a wRC+ in the 20s. Didn’t need to add another one.
Although, if this spells the end of Newman, all Angels fans would be happy.
To Newman’s defense… he has 2 clutch hits this year… which is about 2 more than Golden Boy Trout.
This trade getting its own article is very funny to me
More funny is the 110+ comments of hatred from a minor transaction.
Real good glove. Supposedly could hit way hack when. Maybe everyday use unlocks him. Some speculation he hates playing in cold, so SoCal could help
as a NYY fan I didn’t even know that info… I think he has some talent to hit a bit but who knows
Wilberson De Pena where’s the first name?
It was either trade him or DFA him. I wonder what they got for him?
Good infielder. Hed benefit from consistent ABs.
How’s his range. Im asking for a friend, maybe we finally got a replacement for neto. Lol
he’s excellent as a fielder, both at SS and 3B and prolly could play 2nd very well too…. If he can hit at all he can contribute, just didn’t happen here.
Tyler Wade 2.0
Squid 2.0 unfortunately
Hahaha, angels 🤦
Int’l bonus pool bucks, an interesting young prospect, and more importantly a 40-man roster spot for Peraza. Per usual, I have no idea what the Angels are doing. Peraza was gonna be DFA’d really soon.
He was just taking up space. Maybe the Angels see something in him that they think can help.
Peraza was interesting enough that multiple teams would have gone after him. The Angels gave up a little to get first shot. If they waited for his release, likely he would have gone elsewhere. He’s still got upside if he gets a real opportunity.
Simple, there next utility IF for 4 years, if he somehow turns the page maybe with a change of scenery, and becomes a starter, a win win then.
Sleeper of a deal
Just needs playing time
Laughing out loudly!
Classic addition by subtraction.
It’s embarrassing to be an Angels fan. They are completely lost!!
They gave up just about nothing for him
So they over paid? Typical Angels
And they got just about nothing
I am not embarrassed. What team do you cheer for that we are supposed to bow down to?
What? Go back to bed. I was joking FFS!
Ciao, Oswaldo!
Ah, wonder how Minasian’s admirer born in 1972 would make candy out of this!
He can play defense, that makes him a rarity on this team.
The Angels were not going to get prospects for their pieces, so they might as well pray for that miracle.
This wasn’t like the Ohtani trade deadline where a five year old flipping coins would have done a better job than Minasian.
While I’m no Kevin Newman fan, Peraza seems like a downgrade, especially offensively, which isn’t a good thing.
.194 BABIP (yes I’m grasping at straws) suggests some bad luck hitting-wise?
Young enough (sort of) to still be a 3B prospect?
Can actually catch a baseball and throw a baseball? To the correct base?
Otherwise, this is a real head scratcher.
He doesn’t hit the ball hard enough. Angels are hoping he’ll be a cheap, useful piece over the next five seasons. It’s only a terrible trade because it occurred over the trade deadline.
Looks like my Periera/Peraza confusion was handled today.
From the article:
“…but her versatile glove has not been nearly enough to make up for his ineffective bat..”
Odd.
So far I’m relieved to see the Angels keeping their team intact. This team has made some incredibly clutch late inning comebacks. They are a lot of fun to watch. Jansen has been locking down the saves, all but 1. Neto is consistently amazing. I’ve come to like Schanuel a lot now that he’s getting some pop and has been very steady. Rengifo’s play at second has been impressive. The starters have almost always kept them in the game. Hovering just below .500 has been the most frustrating element.
I believe the Angels can keep in contention into September and maybe snag the 3rd wild card if they stick together and get in a groove. Regarding Trout, he’s still not 100% so I think we’ll see him get better in time to for a September run. If the Halos can get hot for a stretch, this team will be a lot of fun to watch. Let’s go Angels 👏👏👏.
@angelsws. Neto is a DH with 5 range. Luckily I dont care about statcast. I guess they didn’t want to rock the boat, and maybe it helps with free agency so we dont have to pay the loser tax. They didn’t buy much, but it didn’t cost anything besides intl money.
Rex, You should care about statcast. At the cost of millions of dollars, It’s the most sophisticated tracking defense metrics tool available to fans.
The people who dismiss it are either prideful, foolish or both.
That said, Neto may not have the range for short, but I think he can be a very good defensive player at other positions.
The A’s did something interesting. Wilson is a slightly better hitter and fielder than Neto. The A’s traded for a shortstop and keep drafting shortstops. I wish Minasian had that attitude.
Angels2WS: “I believe the Angels can keep in contention into September and maybe snag the 3rd wild card if they stick together and get in a groove.”
We are a .486 team with a -66 run differential. Fangraphs gives us under a 4% chance to earn a WC. There are only three other teams in the AL given a lesser chance. We don’t pitch or field well and our runs per game is middle-of-the-road. You and I have different idea of what constitutes “contention.”
Seal, in small sample sizes, anything can happen, but this is not a good team. It’s perhaps the worst defensive Angel team ever, and the worst up the middle defensive Angel team ever.
It’s possible they can catch lightning in a bottle, but any success they have this year is a mirage. The talent isn’t here.
After 109 games, the Angels are sitting at .486 and need to pass five teams to get that last WC spot. To match the current winning percentage of the last WC spots, the Angels would have to play out the remaining third of the season at a .600+ clip AND count other teams in front of them standing still percentage-wise. That’s one of the reasons Fangraphs only gives them a 3.3% chance.
Of course anything is possible right up until a team is eliminated. A 3.3% chance is better than no chance. But I wouldn’t confuse that with contention.
3.3 % is garbage and a lazy prediction. That or they just put way to much weight on the past, this current season that is. I guess young players can’t get better, and absolutely no average team can catch fire at that.. hahaha
Tigers 2.0 last year at that, the were sellers, Angels were just basically neutral.
Plugnplay: “3.3 % is garbage and a lazy prediction”
The funny things is, you made this comment and then you go on to admit you don’t know how they make their predictions. That seems like “garbage and lazy” commenting to me.
Not at all lazy by me, that 3% is a lazy computer generated number just by punching in a handful of numbers. Baseball is played on the field not the computer. 4 games back with 53 to go is nowhere near 3%. Maybe 4 games back with 10 to go would be 3%. 3% is almost zero, that’s why it’s a garbage number.
I wouldn’t call such mathematical calculations lazy.
This isn’t bad data, it just needs to interpreted correctly. The number of teams who have made the postseason with a negative 50+ run differential are zero. The Angels are negative 66.
There is no amount of number crunching that can be utilized to suggest this team can turn it around.
But it’s baseball, so stranger things have happened. But at a team level, not many.
Plugnplay: “4 games back with 53 to go is nowhere near 3%. Maybe 4 games back with 10 to go would be 3%. 3% is almost zero, that’s why it’s a garbage number”
They arrived at 3.3% by taking into account things like current record, current standings, depth, opponent factors, etc….and then running 20,000 simulations of the rest of the season…..and, currently, only 3.3% of those simulations saw the Angels make that last wild card. As opposed to the Tigers, where 98.4% of the simulations had them in at least a WC.
It is just a prediction based on just simulations. But it takes a whole lot of relevant information into account and it is much better than guesses, hunches, and fan wishes. My understanding is Fangraphs has a very good track record. But I also “get it” that any predictions should be taken with a grain of salt. I also “get” that our team only has a higher chance prediction than three other AL teams…..and we are not serious contenders this season.
I don’t think of the Angels as 4 games out of a Wild Card spot. I think of them as only 3 games in front of the Orioles. And they will catch them.
They seriously couldn’t get anything for Anderson or Rengifo?
The Angels lead the league in “he’s still only 25.” Or 26. Or twenty whatever.
I was reading a Howard Hughes bio and it reads like Artie Moreno. He always “put things up for sale” or “listening to offers” like they do for players. But he never sold. He just liked knowing how much people were willing to pay or give. That’s all.
Butter…if you can’t get a top 100 prospect, what the point? Teams don’t often trade top 100 prospects.
Bc the team is going nowhere? The slogan of this team should be “what’s the point”
Butter, i get what you are saying, But until this team gets rid of Minasian, it won’t have success, and if Moreno has not fired him by now, he never will.
So it won’t have success until Moreno sells the team.
We swept your team so I understand why you are still traumatized.
Basically what’s the point of trading for lotto ticket prospects, to only kick the curb the already lotto ticket guys you already have in the minors. The only expiring guy that could of even brought back anything was Jensen. Not enough there in the end game there, then u would punt the season for little return.
Seattle does. Padres do. The angels have no top 100 prospects bc if they did they get straight to the majors! With no experience necessary
The Angels have top 100 prospects, the problem is they don’t have much upside.
Moore and Dana are top-100 prospects and now Bremner was just rated in the top 100.
MLB, which doesn’t have the best track record, has Moore 46 and Ryan Johnson 98.
Dana dropped out.
I would expect Moore and Bremmer to make the next list, Jonson to drop out.
I would not expect a top 50 prospect which is remarkable with the second pick of the draft, and the lowest pick of the last five years being Neto.
Baseball America has Bremner at 78. And ranked nine other 2025 draftees ahead of Bremner.
Shocking to me who Minasian picked, and for the most part, who he has picked.
The Angels never have top 100 prospects bc they never draft high school players. It’s idiotic to draft based on immediate need constantly vs. talent. The angels have no talent. The Padres have drafted high school players in the 1st rd for the last several yrs.
The Angels have drafted Prep players after going underslot in the early rounds. The strategy has shown varied success and some haven’t taken off yet due to injury IE Barrett Kent. In this draft the Angels saved a boatload of money and drafted the most prep players of Perry’s tenure as GM. Perry’s bread and butter has been in the prep and international market. It’s a slow cook but you’re starting to see the cream rise slowly as the Angels we’re the 2024 DSL WS Runner ups and just won the ACL championship. A good amount of those guys are going to to make the jump to fullseason ball and be infused with the current draftees in Low A and High A. The main weakness for the Halos is the lack of positional prospects in the farm but have shown some really good developments on the pitching side of the farm.
I don’t know a single baseball publication who thinks our prospects are any good.
Do you know even one publication that puts the Angels in the top 20 of 30 teams. I’m not sure there is one that puts the Angels in top 25.
Was very enthused about the angels getting two veteran relievers. I figured it was all they would need. Ortiz and Chafin equals my Larry sherry dream. Therefore, since the general mgr, firmed up the bullpen, the angels will win the 2025 ring. If az can get to a World Series, so can the angels. Peraza will be good for the angels. I liked Newman, big home run the other day. The angels are in every game this year. Also this year, they are getting plenty of ball four calls, when it’s strike 3. This never happens. But this year, it is. Remember the 02 angels. They like to score with two outs, and they like to come from behind. They are in the perfect position. Like Neto said, before spring training, “ we are going to shock a lot of people”. Remember the titans.
For all of Perry’s faults (and shortcomings) at least he didn’t repeat the mess of 2023.
Plus, he sees the team gelling as a team, listening to his players and coaches (an unusual thing for him), and (perhaps) understood that trading some pieces (e.g., Ward, Jensen, etc.) would impact play. So he wanted play out the string with these guys and see where it goes.
Team play can’t be underestimated (that was the essence of 2002, though not comparing this team with them). This is especially so with the youngsters that are making an impact now.
And who knows what he could have gotten for the rentals (some semi promising AA players).
Let’s see than how this year ends.
The next Jeter ( circa 2022 ).
I wonder how Brandon Drury is dong.
In 7 games at triple-A he’s batting .276 with 0 home runs.