3 players the Angels should trade to kickstart the post-Ohtani rebuild

2) Tyler Anderson is looking like the odd man out in the Angels rotation

Now that Ohtani has left, the Angels have professed a desire to return to a five-man rotation. Patrick Sandoval, Griffin Canning, Reid Detmers, and Chase Silseth are all 28 or younger, but Tyler Anderson, who was signed last year after putting up a career-best year with the Dodgers in 2022, is a player that no longer fits the team's future plans.

Anderson regressed in a big way last year, more than doubling his ERA from 2.57 with the Dodgers to 5.43 with the Angels. That's a difficult pill to swallow, especially when you consider that Anderson is behind only Trout and Anthony Rendon as the third-highest paid player on the team.

Despite his down year, there figures to be a decent market for Anderson. He's 31, and many teams could easily convince themselves that he is due to bounce back towards the player he was two years ago. Starting pitching is always at a premium, after all.

It wouldn't kill the Angels to see if Anderson can have that bounce back for them, but trading him now, while he still has two years of team control, would net the best return. As for that fifth rotation spot, the Angels could easily get a cheaper option on the free agent market to buy a couple years of time until some of their talented but extremely young minor league arms, such as Caden Dana or Barrett Kent, are ready to step up.