It has been discussed at great lengths, but the Los Angeles Angels are yet to make any decisions surrounding the MLB trade deadline. After witnessing the clubhouse reaction to the puzzling trade made by the Seattle Mariners on Tuesday, the Angels need to be wary of both buying and selling. However, Alex Cobb — among others — remain attractive trade pieces.
Cobb has been one of the Angels’ best starters all season long. The quality of the defense being played behind him has been one of his only hinderances towards having a sub-3.00 ERA. His ability to go deep into games and induce quick outs could be used by a number of contending teams.
However, Cobb still considers the Angels a contending team. So, while he monitors the trade deadline rumors that ultimately include his name, he feels that being buyers and getting healthy with the Angels is the best way to push towards a playoff berth, according to J.P. Hoornstra of The O.C. Register:
“I’ve been in this position quite a bit,” he said. “When you come up in Tampa Bay, every year you think you could potentially get traded. It’s a learning process. You get wrapped up in it, try to hear the rumors, have your agent weed out the stuff you’re reading, what he’s hearing. Do that on your own time. Once you show up to the ballpark, it’s this group of guys trying to win a ballgame.
“We’re five games out of the wild card. It’s an attainable task. We have the best player in the world coming back. We have the other best player in the world. I’ll sign up for that every day.”
The Angels have every reason to be confident. They sit five games out of the Wild Card race, as Cobb said. However, they play every team ahead of them in at least one series the rest of the year. They also are bound to get healthy at a certain point, with the returns of Mike Trout and Anthony Rendon happening sometime soon.
In addition, selling just sends the wrong message to a clubhouse. The Mariners are a perfect example of this given their big move on Tuesday. Buying shows a commitment to winning for a team that, frankly, has earned the benefit of the doubt. No one should have expected .500 baseball from a team missing two of their best players for almost the entire season.
It will be interesting to see exactly how the Angels approach things over the next 48 or so hours.
Joe Maddon wants to figure out the bullpen
If it were up to Joe Maddon alone, it seems as though the Angels would be buyers. Maybe this will carry some weight within the organization, as there’s reason to believe that a stronger bullpen — and health — are the two things separating the Angels from playoff contention.