Expert grades and reactions to LA Angels' trade deadline feel ludicrously optimistic

To most sane people, the Los Angeles Angels' lack of moves at the trade deadline was a mistake. It was a seller's market and the Angels had trade chips on both sides of the ball that contenders were clamoring for.

Instead, they simply traded a pair of expiring contracts and called it a day. Sure, the return for the Carlos Estevez trade was objectively good and the Luis Garcia trade has real upside, but that is still pretty disappointing overall.

A lot of experts seem to agree with that assessment. Many of the instant reactions after the deadline expressed confusion over Tyler Anderson or Luis Rengifo not being traded. And the fine folks over at ESPN continued their criticism of the Angels' completely unwillingness to do a reset to make future contention possible.

However, that is somehow not a unanimous opinion. In fact, two articles written by The Athletic (but from different authors) actually gave LA positive reviews for their work at the deadline. How is this possible? Well, the devil is in the details.

The Athletic liking the Angels' trade deadline moves is baffling

In the aftermath of the trade deadline, The Athletic did two sort-of comprehensive artlcles to summarize everything. The first was a round-up of the winners and losers from the trade deadline with the Angels' section written by Grant Brisbee, and then an actual trade deadline grades piece written by Jim Bowden. The Angels received high marks by Brisbee and Bowden.

Brisbee hilariously pointed out that he wasn't used to the Angels making a good move when discussing the Estevez trade, and gave LA props for the number of prospects they got back for Garcia. Meanwhile, Bowden lauded them similarly for the two trades while at least noting that they didn't make other moves that would have landed them a nice return. Still, he gave the Angels a "B", which feels pretty generous.

The problem is that these sorts of grades are incentivized to talk about the moves and whether or not they accomplished their goal instead of focusing on the entire picture. The Angels still have one of the worst farm systems in baseball after the trade deadline. Even worse, they held onto assets that are only going to depreciate in value and aren't likely to move the needle enough in 2025 to help LA contend.

Does that sound like a good strategy to you? We didn't think so, either.

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