The Angels are just blatantly ignoring Christian Moore at this point

Not many teams are getting outstanding production from their second basemen this season, but the Angels truly are getting nothing out of that position. In terms of fWAR, Angels' second basemen are ranked fourth worst in all of baseball. That group's batting average, OBP, SLG, wOBA and wRC+ all rank as the second worst in MLB. If only they had a top prospect with an elite hit tool crushing it in the minor leagues who could completely solidify that position for them!

Chris Taylor recently fractured his hand, yet the Angels decided to not bring up Christian Moore even with yet another hole being opened at second base. Taylor played in three games at second this season, and was by far the team's best option to hold it down at the up-the-middle infield spot. Here are all the second basemen the Angels' have used this season: Luis Rengifo (.207/.242/.256), Kevin Newman (.175/.188/.206), Scott Kingery (.125/.176/.188), Kyren Paris and Tim Anderson. If Angels fans have to watch Rengifo pop up yet another bunt in a crucial situation, they might run him out of town themselves! How much more of this Rengifo season do we need to see?

The Angels are shifting the goalposts when it comes to Christian Moore -- look at what Zach Neto, Nolan Schanuel or even Jo Adell and Reid Detmers are accomplishing for them right now! Angels evaluators might point to his defense not being all the way there as a justification for keeping him in Triple-A, yet will happily run out horrible defenders daily in their quest to find the optimal lineup. The Angels' "defensive whiz" Kevin Newman has been bad defensively at second!

This lineup when Yoán Moncada gets activated would be great, with the corresponding moves being optioning Matthew Lugo and Scott Kingery back down to Triple-A (where they would not even need to lose an asset to promote Moore):

1. Neto—6
2. Schanuel*—3
3. Trout—DH
4. Ward—7
5. Soler—9
6. Moncada**—5
7. O’Hoppe—2
8. Adell—8
9. Moore—4
Bench: Wade*, Rengifo**, Newman, d’Arnaud

These marquee prospects were recently promoted: Boston's Roman Anthony and Marcelo Mayer, Milwaukee's Jacob Misiorowski and Kansas City's Jac Caglianone. That's not even mentioning guys like Houston's Cam Smith, Boston's Kristian Campbell, Arizona's Jordan Lawlar, LAD's Dalton Rushing or ATH's Nick Kurtz. From the 2023 draft class: Schanuel, ATH's Jacob Wilson, Pittsburgh's Paul Skenes, Washington's Dylan Crews, Texas' Wyatt Langford, Colorado's Chase Dollander, CHC's Matt Shaw, CWS' Kyle Teel and many, many more have debuted.

It's getting absurd that Moore is still in Triple-A, where he is slashing .342/.414/.539/.953. In 19 games, Moore has three home runs and 41 total bases. Just stash Newman and Rengifo on the bench (or just trade Rengifo and keep Kingery up), and sub them in late in games for defensive purposes if Moore's defense does wind up being problematic. It's not that hard. It's staring them in the face.

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