LA Angels News: Luis Rengifo injury, Kevin Pillar trade deadline, Christian Moore

The Los Angeles Angels are entering the home stretch of the 2024 season with a number of questions. After what was a decidedly disappointing trade deadline, it is unclear what the Angels' long-term plans actually are. With Mike Trout out for the rest of the season, it is abundantly clear that the Angels are going to have to look ahead to 2025 (or, more realistically, further out than that) in terms of how they handle their roster the rest of the way.

However, there have been a couple of developments lately that could complicate those plans. Not only do they have yet another first-round pick seemingly on the fast track to the big leagues, but the team is also dealing with yet another injury as well as the prospect of giving a veteran more playing time than expected.

Angels News: Luis Rengifo's wrist problems continues as he lands on IL again

One of the biggest surprises from the trade deadline was that the Angels did not trade Luis Rengifo. While Rengifo is under team control through 2025, the level of interest in him was such that it felt like a deal was inevitable. However, a wrist injury right before the deadline seemed to blunt the momentum towards a trade and the Angels ultimately decided to keep him.

Sadly, the news hasn't improved after the deadline as Rengifo landed on the IL after his wrist flared up on him against the Mets on Friday. While it is unclear what Rengifo's injury actually is, it feels likely that he will be on the injured list a bit longer this time because this is the second time the issue has popped up in the last month or so.

Angels News: Kevin Pillar staying in LA at trade deadline was no accident

Many fans put the Angels on blast for failing to even trade away all of their pending free agents at the deadline. While there are at least some (not great) arguments for hanging on to guys with team control, keeping guys who are about to hit free agency with the team going nowhere this season seemed objectively bad.

However, there is at least one such player where there was more to the situation than met the eye. Kevin Pillar is set to retire at the end of the season and it was rather weird that LA didn't find a contender that wanted his services instead of basically wasting his last year with the Angels. However, Pillar revealed that the decision to keep him was mutual and that he and the team wanted him to stay, especially since the expected return for him wasn't particularly earth-shattering.

Angels News: Christian Moore's promotion to Double-A hasn't slowed him down at all

As soon as the Angels picked Christian Moore in the first-round of the 2024 MLB Draft, fans started wondering how quickly he would be in the major leagues. Some of that is just the usual fan impatience that comes with the draft, but it is also a fair question given how aggressive LA has been recently with their first-round picks and how well Moore is playing in the minors.

After raking in the low minors for a handful of games after getting drafted, the Angels decided to immediately promote him to Double-A to give him more of a challenge. So far, it doesn't appear that the promotion is going to slow him down at all as he went 2-4 with a homer in his first game at Double-A.

It is probably fair to guess that Moore won't hit .500 the rest of the way, but his loud start to his pro career probably isn't going to lessen the expectation that he could make it to the big leagues in a hurry.

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