Los Angeles Angels: 3 reasons to trade for Francisco Lindor

Superstardom

The first reason is that Francisco Lindor is downright amazing at the game of baseball. While he only holds a career 118 wRC+, he has already posted 28.9 WAR in his first six seasons in the major leagues, counting a shortened rookie season and a shortened 2020 season. Since 2016, Lindor ranks sixth in all of baseball in wins above replacement. The list of men he is behind is as follows: Mike Trout, Mookie Betts, Christian Yelich, Anthony Rendon, and Jose Ramirez. Yes, Lindor would give the Angels three of the best six players in the entire sport since 2016.

The Angels can make this move for a variety of reasons. While they are likely just a dark horse candidate in the media, they might internally be weighing this option. Lindor fits the team extremely well — he fits any team well — given both his offensive and defensive prowess.

Lindor would likely bat leadoff for the Angels in front of Mike Trout, Anthony Rendon, and Shohei Ohtani. He could provide the Angels’ lineup with a similar jolt to the one Mookie Betts provided to the Dodgers’ already star studded lineup.

Yes, the Angels need pitching, but you don’t find generational talents like Lindor growing on trees.

Personality and Marketability

Francisco Lindor can be best characterized by his electric, white smile that all Major League Baseball fans can recognize. MLB continues to market Lindor in an excellent fashion. Not only is he one of the best players in the entire sport, he also happens to be one of the most exciting and cordial. Lindor’s background has always been one to root for. This type of dynamic athlete who can also grab headlines in a good way could be a welcome addition to an Angels clubhouse that is currently on the more boring side.

Having Mike Trout and Anthony Rendon on your roster are excellent from a baseball perspective, but they are more of the silent leader types. Lindor is a leader in a very different way, demonstrating that across his team with the Cleveland Indians. While Trout is inarguably the best player in baseball, Lindor has his own argument as the actual face of the entire sport.

The Angels would be creating a bigger draw for ticket sales in the future with Lindor in tow and it might even convince Arte Moreno to spend more in future off-seasons if he were to make up the revenue.

Leverage

The Angels would hold almost the entirety of the leverage in negotiations with the Cleveland Indians. This applies to almost any team that would be looking to trade for the All-Star shortstop. It appears in the media that Lindor and the Cleveland Indians brass have begun to witness their own relationship deteriorate at a rapid pace. It appears to be a virtual lock that Lindor gets dealt somewhere this off-season. With that announcement alone, this eliminates a large portion of the leverage that the Indians had to begin with.

The Los Angeles Dodgers almost traded for Francisco Lindor last winter, but opted to go in a different direction with Mookie Betts, a direction that granted them a World Series title. If the Angels went a similar route by making Lindor their version of Mookie Betts, they could meet the same optimistic fate in the coming seasons.

The starting point in the Dodgers and Indians talks last winter was top prospects second baseman Gavin Lux and right-handed pitcher Dustin May. This was too much to give up at the time even when factoring in that Lindor had two years remaining on his contract. Now that Lindor is only a rental, the price would likely be one solid major league piece and a pair of top-10 prospects in the system. This could mean that men like Jared Walsh, Jeremiah Jackson, Kyren Paris, and Reid Detmers could be on the move in a potential deal. The Angels might not have the depth in their system, but they have some bonafide prospects in terms of upside.