Grading the LA Angels' 2024 trade deadline deals: Perry Minasian's time to go

It takes a special kind of organizational incompetence to screw up being a seller at the trade deadline in a seller's market. All you have to do is just wait for the market to come to you and then say "yes" to the best offer. Unfortunately for the Los Angeles Angels, it appears as though that they did, in fact, manage to screw the trade deadline up royally.

To better understand how badly things went wrong for the Angels on Tuesday, let's take a look at what they did (and didn't) do at the deadline.

Grading the LA Angels' moves at the 2024 MLB trade deadline

The Angels' only agenda at the trade deadline was to rebuild their farm system with pitching prospects as the preference. While the moves that the Angels did make helped on that front, it is what the team didn't do that will define the franchise for years to come.

Angels Trade Deadline Additions

• RHP George Klassen
• LHP Samuel Aldegheri
• SS Matthew Lugo
• 1B Niko Kavadas
• RHP Ryan Zeferjahn
• RHP Yeferson Vargas

Angels Trade Deadline Departures

• RHP Carlos Estevez
• RHP Luis Garcia
• RHP Mike Baumann

Objectively, the moves that the Angels made were good. The Estevez trade was widely lauded as few expected Anaheim to be able to get two very legitimate pitching prospects in Klassen and Aldegheri for a rental, even as good as Estevez has been. The last-minute deal that sent Luis Garcia to Boston wasn't quite as good, but still yielded four prospects that give the Angels more to work with long-term. All of these things are positive.

However, what matters more here is that the Angels fumbled the bag by not selling more at the trade deadline. It would be defensible if they didn't trade all of their team-controlled guys in Luis Rengifo, Taylor Ward, and Tyler Anderson. However, not only did they not trade any of them, which is bad enough, but they didn't even trade all of their pending free agents like Hunter Strickland and Kevin Pillar. The Angels are going nowhere this year and these guys are going to leave after the season with the Angels getting nothing to show for it. Sounds an awful lot like when Ohtani left, doesn't it?

LA Angels Trade Deadline Grade: D-

A lot of people are giving the Angels an F for their work at the deadline and, frankly, we get it because they truly stunk it up. However, we'll give some credit for getting a higher-than-expected return for Estevez and getting a pretty decent haul for Garcia.

However, that is still only good enough for half-letter grade here. This was the seller's market to end all seller's markets and the Angels knew that, especially after trading Estevez. Maybe Anderson's metrics and/or Ward's slump limited their markets, but there is no world where they didn't get decent offers for some of their more team-controlled players. Also, not trading their pending free agents is incompetence of the highest order.

The Angels' embarrassment at the deadline is bad enough that it's fair to wonder if general manager Perry Minasian is the one that was pulling the strings here. Minasian was a good company man when talking to the media and saying that he was empowered to make the decisions, but this feels an awful lot like owner Arte Moreno not wanting to look like a rebuilding team and hoping fans would keep coming to the ballpark this season. He clearly hasn't been paying attention because not only is this team not good enough to attract fans in 2024, but failing to cash in on this opportunity may keep them from coming in the future as well.

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