LA Angels: These 2 players are most likely to be traded this offseason

The LA Angels don’t necessarily have a ton of trade bait.

They have players that would return plenty of value–there are talented players on this team. The Halos, however, haven’t been entertaining a lot of trade talks and speculation lately.

There are a couple players who fans and media have been discussing as potential trade options. There have been no trade rumors just yet, but these two would be the most likely trade candidates for the Halos.

Justin Upton and Jo Adell are the two LA Angels most likely to be traded this offseason.

The LA Angels would hope to acquire pitching in return for Justin Upton and Jo Adell. The Angels lack in not only starting pitching but also in the bullpen. Upton and Adell play in the outfield of course, where the Halos actually project to be pretty strong next year.

The issue with Upton is that injuries have truly defined his career these last three years. He hits home runs when he’s out there, but he hasn’t been out there all too much.

Out of a possible 384 games in these past three years, he’s played in just 194 of them. Again, his 38 home runs is nice, but the Angels haven’t been able to rely on him staying available.

Last year, he was raking once he moved to the leadoff spot for a month, got hurt, and then was never the same when he came back. He had to eventually be shut down because the injuries got so bad. It goes to show that Upton’s play post-payday probably would have gone a lot differently if injuries weren’t constantly hindering him.

The reality, however, is that he’s making $28 million this year, and he’s hard to rely on. If the Angels could get a deal done with him in the offer, they may do it to try to acquire pitching.

As far as Adell goes, he’s got so much talent that many teams all over the league would be very interested in him. And again, the Angels could afford to trade Adell because they’ll have already invested a lot of money in Mike Trout and Upton in the outfield, and Brandon Marsh will likely be up in the Big Leagues again next year. Their backup outfield situation will also be solid with Taylor Ward in the fold, and they may re-sign a great glove in Juan Lagares.

As an Angels fan, I do not want the team to trade Adell. I get that we need pitching, but we can prioritize pitching in free agency. If we can keep Adell, who’s already shown tremendous promise with his 26 RBI in 35 games this past season, we should keep him.

I’m not calling for either of these guys to be traded. However if anyone’s going to be on the block, these two would be the two most likely to be.