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

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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.

Tommy Pham, OF, Mets

Yes, Tommy Pham isn't as good statistically as other outfielders on the market, but I do think that he could've provided some good depth on the roster for not as steep of an asking price. Considering the Mets are having a serious letdown of a season, they seem to be pretty open about listening to trade offers for some of their more available players.

Already trading a disappointed Scherzer to the Rangers and currently shopping Justin Verlander to various teams around the league, they clearly are in a selling position and would be definitely open to trading Pham.

Also considering he's 35 years old it will be a lot more difficult for the Mets to argue for a higher asking price for his services. Even at that age he has played in 79 games for the Mets and has been having one of his best seasons at the plate batting .268 with 10 HR's.

The Angels would've only had to give up an average prospect in their organization to add a player who could fill in well on the roster.

Tim Anderson, SS, White Sox

Tim Anderson is having his worst season since 2018 where he batted .240. This season he's batting .245. Nobody saw this coming because Anderson has consistently been one of the most consistent hitters in all of baseball for the last few seasons, dating back to him winning the batting title in 2019. When he started the season off slow, everyone expected him to pick it up, but it never came.

Meanwhile, the White Sox have also underperformed their expectations falling completely out of the race for the playoffs and finding themselves in a position to get rid of some of the expiring contracts on their team. Anderson, who has a team-controlled option at the end of this season, could very well be traded for some serious pieces barring a resurgence at the end of this year into next year.

If the Angels were willing to take a gamble, they could trade the White Sox some serious minor league pieces in exchange for Anderson. He would add some depth to the middle infield that has already become pretty thin of late and would give Anderson a change of scenery to a contending team. Additionally, the team option would give the Angels flexibility into next season where they could choose to move on, or even keep him for another season hoping he returns completely to form.

Cody Bellinger, OF/1B, Cubs

I am aware that Cody Bellinger has been pulled off of the trade market by the Cubs because they've won 8 of their last 10 and find them in the wild card race and five games back in the NL Central all of a sudden.

Bellinger has been having a huge return to form this season where he's batting .315 with 15 home runs in 74 games. Obviously, not the same Bellinger we saw with the Dodgers, but definitely showing that he can still be a great player in this league.

Bellinger would've been the perfect player for the Angels to add to their lineup if they could've put together a trade package interesting enough for the Cubs. With the Angels wanting both a first baseman and an outfielder from this trade deadline they could've solved both of those problems with one player. If the Angels were serious about making a run this season, they would've been way more aggressive with this move before the Cubs indicated that they were buying instead of selling

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