The Angels are reaching a breaking point with a once valuable trade asset

Back in 2020, there was a trade in place between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Los Angeles Angels that would have sent Joc Pederson, a recently retired Ross Stripling and Andy Pages, the owner of the 37th best fWAR this season, to Anaheim. Unfortunately for the Angels, then general manager Billy Eppler called the deal off shortly after the original Mookie Betts to LAD trade fell through due to Brusdar Graterol's medicals. As it was reported, the Angels would have only needed to send one player to the Dodgers for Pederson, Stripling and Pages...and he is now a complete liability on the 2025 squad.

Not only could the Angels have dealt a then 22-year-old Rengifo to the Dodgers, but they've had ample opportunities to deal the utility player since. Due to his bat-to-ball skills and positional versatility, myriad teams have tried to acquire Rengifo given his skill-set and the Angels' frequent inability to roster a winning ball club around the time non-contenders off-load major league assets. Jon Heyman of The New York Post reported that the Yankees called Perry Minasian about Rengifo last year, and Chris Cotillo of MassLive accounted that the Red Sox also kicked the tires on a Rengifo deal as well. It's fair to assume there were many other calls made on Rengifo throughout his career.

Well, for some reason Minasian held onto the switch-hitter (as well as Tyler Anderson and Taylor Ward) last year, and he subsequently got injured immediately after the deadline passed. He played his final game of the 2024 season on August 2nd, three days after the deadline.

The Angels are reaching a breaking point with a once valuable trade asset

To say Luis Rengifo has been struggling both offensively and defensively is an understatement. He currently sports a -0.8 fWAR in his 47 games played so far this season, which is the 9th worst mark in the sport. Of 287 MLB hitters with at least 100 plate appearances this year, Rengifo's .533 OPS is 12th worst. For context, Jo Adell has a .603 OPS. In the field, Rengifo has an OAA (range) in the 5th percentile and a fielding run value in the 13th percentile. It's gotten so bad with Rengifo that Ron Washington did not start him against a left-handed starter (Ryan Yarbrough of NYY), even though he's been great against lefties throughout his career. He was benched in favor of Kevin Newman in the Angels' series opener against the Bronx Bombers.

That makes one believe that the teams greatly values the player, right? Wrong. Rengifo is entering the last year of his contract, and there are zero indications that they looked to extend his deal. The Angels entered arbitration with only Rengifo and Mickey Moniak, as they avoided those proceedings with every other eligible player during the offseason. Fans know how the organization viewed Moniak now, given that he was released during spring training.

The writing is on the wall for Rengifo, he is dangerously close to receiving the Moniak treatment. The Angels have several different avenues to replace Rengifo. They could obviously play Kevin Newman, Tim Anderson and newly acquired Chris Taylor more, but they also have Christian Moore, Scott Kingery and Carter Kieboom all waiting in the wings at Triple-A.

Nothing's worse for a rebuilding team than squandering a potential opportunity to bolster your farm system in exchange for an average (at best) big league player, and that's appearing to be the case with regards to the Angels and Rengifo.

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