3 hitters the Angels could've gotten instead of C.J. Cron and Randal Grichuk

Sunday evening the Los Angeles Angels made a trade with the Colorado Rockies to acquire former Angel, C.J. Cron, and former Angels draft pick Randal Grichuk. As the Angels continue to gear up for a postseason run in the coming months, they still have some room to improve before the trade deadline on August 1st. Since a lot of rumors have been circulating around the league about a lot of players, it seems like any player is available for the right price.

With the Angels clearly indicating they are in win-now mode after trading for Lucas Giolito and then following that up with the Cron and Grichuk trade, I couldn't help but look at the trade market and identify some players who I think could've made a case for a better trade than C.J. Cron and Randal Grichuk.

There are a few things that need to be considered, however. Trades at the deadline need to be evaluated by the value the team is looking to receive from the trade in order to put their team in the best position possible to win this season but still set themselves up for the future. Typically, this comes at a tradeoff since teams are willing to desperately reach for players who they would believe would help aid their team in getting to the position in the standings they were hoping for by the end of the season. That is why the Angels trade deadline position is interesting.

The Angels are in a reasonable position to buy at the trade deadline considering they are within 3 games of a wild card position, but they don't want to give up too much for a run this season and ruin possible chances in the subsequent years to follow. On the other side of that, they are trying to demonstrate that they are willing to do whatever it takes to bolster this team and show Shohei Ohtani that he can win with the Angels enough that he re-signs with them this off-season.

The 3 players I'm going to list will vary in value, but all have very reasonable cases as to why the Angels should have tried to acquire them.