The Los Angeles Angels are cooked. Last place in the American League West, sitting under .500 as the July 31 trade deadline bears down on them, and holding a pair of starting pitchers that half the league would mortgage its farm system to acquire. The question isn’t whether Reid Detmers and Jose Soriano have value. The question is whether owner Arte Moreno will let anyone pick up the phone.
Detmers carries a 4.16 ERA that won’t make anyone drool on its own, but the underlying numbers tell a different story — 10.2 strikeouts per nine innings, a 1.116 WHIP, and a 100 ERA+ that places him right at league average. In a deadline market starved for controllable starting pitching, league average with strikeout stuff and years of team control is filet mignon at a hot dog stand. Soriano is the juicier cut: he opened the season with a 0.84 ERA across his first seven starts, and even after regression dragged him to a 3.49 ERA, his 120 ERA+ still sits comfortably above the league mean. Both pitchers rank inside the top 20 of ESPN’s deadline trade-value rankings, and both carry multiple seasons of remaining team control — the single most coveted asset in modern deadline dealing.
Jim Bowden of The Athletic pointed to the Garrett Crochet trade as the blueprint. Last offseason the Chicago White Sox shipped Crochet to the Boston Red Sox for four prospects, a haul that helped catapult Chicago to the top of the American League Central this year. The Angels could command a similar package for either arm, and the thin pitching market only inflates the asking price. Contenders who swing and miss on Detroit’s Tarik Skubal would find Detmers a sturdy Plan B. Teams that lose out on Joe Ryan could pivot to Soriano. Supply and demand — the oldest economics lesson in the book, and the one baseball front offices never stop relearning.
The roadblock isn’t the market. It’s the man in the owner’s box. USA Today’s Bob Nightengale reported in June that Moreno does not want to sell at the deadline, despite the team’s trajectory pointing straight into the ground. This is the same owner who refused to trade Shohei Ohtani ahead of free agency, watching the two-way superstar walk to the Dodgers for nothing but a compensatory draft pick. Interim general manager John Mozeliak now faces the task of convincing Moreno that holding Detmers and Soriano through a window the Angels are unlikely to compete in during their remaining control years would be a waste — the baseball equivalent of letting a prime rib age until it rots.
The organization is unlikely to be competitive in the next two seasons, which roughly covers the remaining team control on both starters. If the Angels aren’t going to extend either pitcher, dealing them now — when the market is thin, the demand is high, and the return could restock a barren farm system — represents the clearest path out of the basement. Pitching always costs a premium at the deadline. A weak crop of available arms turns that premium into a surcharge.
Whether Moreno authorizes the sale is another matter entirely. History says no. The math says yes. And the calendar says the Angels have about two weeks to figure out which one they’re listening to.