Angels mailbag: What’s next since the trade deadline has passed?

What is up, Angels fans? The trade deadline has passed, and your favorite team did not do too much. They traded only Hector Santiago and Joe Smith and received one journeyman starter, some salary relief and two pitching prospects in return, one of whom comes with a pedigree: Alex Meyer.

They did not trade Yunel Escobar or Matt Shoemaker or Huston Street or Geovany Soto. It’s not inconceivable to think that one of those could be traded this month in the waiver trade period, but any returns will not be huge, and we can pretty much assume this is the group the Angels will have entering the off-season.

As always, this is the place to ask anything you want about the Angels, with questions submitted through my email (pedro.moura@latimes.com) and Twitter account (@pedromoura).

Cam Bedrosian was drafted as a starter, as most pitchers are. He started four games in rookie ball the year he was selected, 2010, and suffered an elbow strain near the end of that season. The next May, he underwent Tommy John surgery. When he returned 12 months later, the Angels again used him as a starter all season for Class-A Cedar Rapids. He did not succeed. He received two more starts the next year, 2013, for Class-A Burlington after the affiliates switched and did not succeed in those either.

In all, he had a 7.39 earned-run average in 87 2/3 innings as a starter. So the organization moved him to the bullpen, and he has not left since. He walked way too many hitters when he made it up to the majors in 2014 and 2015, but, this season he has demonstrated better control.

He has a 0.92 ERA. He has not allowed a run since May 31, which was an exceptionally long time ago. He has traversed a third of the major league season without messing up. That is hard to do.

Remember, he has wild tendencies, and wildness tends to play better out of the bullpen. I don’t think a move back to the rotation is a possibility. The Angels have enough to worry about without tinkering with something that actually functions quite well.

Pedro, every day at first at-bat, my wife says "what does Escobar do before the game to get his pant leg so dirty?"  Dumb question maybe, but she's GOT to have an answer! 

Thanks,

Mark Keller

I am grouping these two questions together because their answers share a commonality. Escobar has declined to speak to reporters since April, so he is not available to provide insight in either instance. Hopefully, I can!

As far as playing with Trout and Harper, retired starter Dan Haren also did so, and he is better at incisive commentary than most major leaguers, so I am going to let him take this away.

From the Washington Post in 2013: “They both are on the borderline of confident and arrogant, you know? But I think that’s what takes them to the next level. They think that they’re better than everybody else. That’s probably a good way to think. Skills-wise, they have different skill sets. Bryce might have more power. Trout has more speed. I don’t think they’ve even reached their potentials.”

About the dirt on Escobar’s pant leg, I believe it to be a means of drying his hands that he employs when he is playing the infield, but I am not totally certain. Ballplayers use all kinds of things to keep their hands dry. Ji-Man Choi likes to grab the rosin bag when he runs off the field at the end of innings, which is unusual.

That is only four men, but, sure, those four men should be part of the Angels’ next successful starting rotation. You’d think Nick Tropeano could be part of it too, in 2018. Meyer, the new acquisition from Minnesota, might figure as part of that as well, depending of course on how he looks over the next year.

Probably the Earl Weaver-Bill Haller confrontation in the first inning of a 1980 ballgame. I don’t think I can link it here because it is exceptionally explicit, but it is a gem. It is wonderful, too, that it happened during the second at-bat of the game. Weaver got riled up quickly.

It’s unclear what to make of Angels owner Arte Moreno’s moves around the luxury-tax threshold, and of course he has refused comment to The Times in 2016, so we cannot say with certainty. But in the past he has used that threshold as a de facto salary cap, and when the Angels went over it with the Tim Lincecum signing, it was only by a little. Like, they were going to have to pay way less than $1 million. And, again, the usual downsides of paying the tax were lessened this year, because the number is going to go up next year and it will be easy to stay under it. The real trouble comes in paying the compounding tax year after year.

Anyway, the Angels seem to be back under the threshold after shedding the $1.8 million due to Joe Smith the rest of the season. Angels General Manager Billy Eppler said yesterday that the tax was not a primary consideration within his deadline machinations.

Let’s see where we are at season’s end.

Now, this is the kind of question I can get behind. They didn’t trade Escobar because there wasn’t an obvious fit for him. He would’ve filled a specific need, since he can’t play shortstop anymore and has never successfully manned second. The teams who needed a third baseman were few: San Francisco and the New York Mets, pretty much. And indications are they had concerns about assimilating Escobar’s personality into their clubhouse. He is not well-liked around Major League Baseball.

Really, really, far. The Angels’ farm system is the consensus worst in the sport, and, many evaluators believe, one of the worst in recent history. The player with the most potential in the system is probably Jahmai Jones. He is 18 years old and has never played above rookie ball. We are talking, like, 2021, for his projected major league debut. The most interesting Angels minor leaguers are at the lower levels of the system, and even then they’re not as interesting as most teams’ prospects.

The Angels can resume signing high-priced international players next July 2. Orchestrating a talented class would help them ascend from the cellar.

It’s not beyond the realm of possibility, which is surprising, considering where Weaver was in the spring. He has been a replacement-level pitcher this year, and, reliable replacement-level performance actually has some value. Not very much or anything, but in combination with his value to the organization and its fanbase, I could see the man receiving a bit of money to pitch for the Angels next season.

Would he take it? It might depend on how he finishes this season. He has hinted that he would rather retire than abjectly struggle, but at points this year he has seemed to enjoy himself.

That concludes this week’s Angels mailbag. Send in your questions to the below addresses at any time, and check back each Monday for answers.

pedro.moura@latimes.com

Twitter: @pedromoura