Angels are quite possibly playing their way into being buyers at MLB trade deadline

Less than a month ago, major publications were lumping the Angels in a tier with teams like the friggin' Colorado Rockies, Miami Marlins, Chicago White Sox, Washington Nationals, Pittsburgh Pirates, Baltimore Orioles and Athletics when discussing which teams were sure-fire sellers at the deadline. In Jeff Passan and Kiley McDaniel's recent piece on ESPN.com that discussed the top 50 players that are trade candidates and which teams would try to acquire them, but they did not include the Angels as a best fit team for any potentially available asset.

Well, how you like us now?

The Great Angels Debate: Should LAA buy or sell at the trade deadline?

The Angels stand at .500 and have a lot of things working in their favor. Namely, they own the Red Sox. However, they are also the most clutch team in baseball, which was best exemplified by what Christian Moore did in just his 12th MLB game against those Red Sox. Mike Trout is playing every day again, Zach Neto avoided major injury and should return to the lineup soon, Nolan Schanuel looks like a 10-year veteran at the plate, Jo Adell is having a historic month, Taylor Ward just keeps doing Taylor Ward things and Logan O'Hoppe pops off when he is on.

On the pitching side, the bullpen has been absolutely lights out the last two months. The eight-man unit of Kenley Jansen (who has yet to blow a save), Reid Detmers (who has never looked better), Hunter Strickland (who looks human again but is still clicking), Ryan Zeferjahn, Brock Burke, Sam Bachman (the stuff has always been electric when he's healthy), Connor Brogdon and Héctor Neris meshes incredibly well together. Yusei Kikuchi and José Soriano have been near-flawless and both look like bona fide aces right now in the rotation.

How can the Angels get better? The Angels hit a lot of home runs -- their 41 home runs are tied for the 4th most in baseball. However, they are not winning nearly enough of those games. Of late, the lineup is playing much more effective small-ball, and their infield and outfield defense are still not amazing...but they are improving overall.

The most interesting thing to monitor will be if their HR% and bullpen drop off the next month. If either get worse and the team is still eking out wins, then buying at the deadline is all but guaranteed. The Angels need to show they can win in a variety of ways, as hitting home runs in bulk does not feel sustainable.

The Angels have a clear area to upgrade if they do want to buy: the back-end of their rotation. It's ironic because Tyler Anderson is the team's no. 3 starter and a trade candidate himself. Anderson and Jack Kochanowicz's recent struggles, coupled with Kyle Hendricks' limitations given his age and skill-set, mean the Angels could try to go out and fortify their rotation with a Luis Severino, Tyler Mahle, Zach Eflin, Nick Martinez, Erick Fedde, Edward Cabrera, Zack Littell or Tomoyuki Sugano. Perhaps they could add Anderson's expiring contract into a trade in which they acquire a starter to help off-set the incoming salary?

The Angels have series against the 33-48 Nationals, 37-42 Braves, 43-37 Blue Jays, 40-41 Rangers and 41-39 Diamondbacks to close out the first half of their season. They currently have a much better record than the Braves, are a half game up on the Rangers, and are one game back of the Diamondbacks...but their playoff odds are much, much worse than those three teams. Sure, the Angels need to take care of business against the Nationals this weekend, but how they do in their series vs. Atlanta, Texas and Arizona might define their organizational strategy coming out of the All-Star break. Assuming they have not already decided they want to buy.

More LA Angels Rumors from Halo Hangout