The Amazing Incident of Angels/Watchmen Trading in the Night Time

I went into this week with a ton of trade deadline hype built up in my mind waiting to spill onto the page for the first time I had a deal to analyze. I had a clever turn of phrase, some bon mots (or “offensive puns,” if you’re not into it), and next week, you’ll hear those words. But they sit in the proverbial writer’s bag today, because the trade I analyze is more of a mystery than a blockbuster. Trade in question: The Rangers acquired Logan O’Hoppe and Chase Silseth from the Angels in exchange for Low-A pitcher Angel Arredondo, as Jeff Passan first reported.

The Rangers have moved into the AL West lead in recent weeks, holding off the A’s and even Mariners while trying to catch the surging (to a .500 record, to be fair) Astros. They have one of the worst catching conditions in the majors – the 0.2 WAR their catchers have accumulated ranks 27th in baseball. So, that’s the game here, I thought innocently as I watched this trade go down on tape. But that was a red herring, the first twist in the full deal for them.

O’Hoppe was a promising prospect of some note, a late-round pick by Philadelphia in 2018 who rose to Top 100 prospect status and was traded to Brandon Marsh in 2022. He hit well enough to make up for some defensive mistakes in his first few seasons of an interrupted career, but then put his 2202 contribution below the 22025 below the 220RC25 changeup rate. He’s hitting .209/.271/.295 this year, good for a 59 wRC+, and he’s below replacement level as well. In fact, the Angels have had a poor WAR in catching, so they are not where the Rangers should be looking to improve. And indeed, as I was trying to puzzle out how much O’Hoppe would be developed, the Rangers offered my opinion: They optioned O’Hoppe to Triple-A.

Honestly, that’s probably all you need to hear about him, but I thought I’d connect all the dots just to give you an understanding. The starting catcher pair for Texas was supposed to be Kyle Higashioka and Danny Jansen, but both are in IL. Elias Díaz, a depth signing from the spring, stepped into the starting role. Austin Wynns, who was actually an Angel earlier this year before being traded to the Braves for cash consideration, was held as a backup after Atlanta DFA’ed him. Players like them — veterans on minor deals who bounce between teams until they get big-league playing time — embody the idea of ​​a replacement level. But O’Hoppe hasn’t cleared that bar either, so now he’s another layer of depth, one that the Rangers may be hoping they won’t use.

My guess is that O’Hoppe was included in this deal for roster consideration and salary reasons, as strange as that may sound for someone making $2.6 million in his first year of arbitration. But in reality, the Rangers probably won’t need his services in the big leagues this year, and it doesn’t seem likely that they could offer him an arbitration contract. The minimum you can give someone in the arb is 80% of their last year’s salary, and if the Rangers pick two vets making less than what O’Hoppe combined now, I can’t imagine they learn enough in two months to change that.

At his best, O’Hoppe looked like he could be a jack-of-all-trades type – not a superstar but an everyday player. It’s hard for me to see that coming back; His plate discipline and contact quality have both regressed significantly over the past two years, and he was already hitting a low pitch in pursuit of more power. But if he’s going to turn things around, resetting the kids in a new organization seems like a logical enough way to start. And given the level of participation in Texas, you have a non-zero value as an emergency option; it doesn’t matter if you’re the fifth best catcher in your organization if the three guys ahead of you are out with injuries.

Either way, O’Hoppe may have been the biggest name involved in the deal, but he wasn’t the main target. That would be Silseth, a righty reliever currently riding a 4 pitch mix in his longest major league streak. Silseth attacks the rest with a seam/splitter combination, then pairs those two with a classic sinker/sweeper duo against righties. His stuff doesn’t jump off the page, either with pitch models (53 PitchingBot Stuff, 96 Stuff+ Stuff) or eye tests. But he mixes and matches effectively, his delivery seems to add a little illusion, and he’s not afraid to work for the plate (or maybe he can’t hit his target – in the eye of the beholder). He walks a bunch of guys in pursuit of lost at-bats, but he hits enough batters to make the rest of the pack work.

Silseth will step into the middle of the Texas bullpen, in a mix that currently includes Cole Winn, Tyler Alexander, Robby Ahlstrom, Ben Peoples, and Marco Gonzales. Silseth is out of minor league options, but that’s fine with Texas; he’s for bullpen development, and two of the other four center fielders have options left. He’s a little better, but an improvement, nonetheless, and one that came at a low cost, as in addition to taking on all of O’Hoppe’s salary, the Rangers sent Arredondo out west to complete the deal.

Arredondo is an infielder currently in A-ball, which would ruin my dream title for this article, “Angels (Angels) Back” — if he were still playing in a complicated league. He didn’t rate among our top 38 Rangers prospects this offseason — or in between American baseballor MLB Pipeline’s. But Brendan Gawlowski gave me a long overview of him, which I’ll repackage into some notes here.

Arredondo has a high bat technique that he uses to pull the ball in the air, but even though he has hit eight homers this year, it doesn’t look strong; his top exit velocity through June was 105 mph, and his EV90 never broke triple digits. Homers aren’t wall rot for the most part, and in the context of the offensive landscape for the kids this year, it’s hard to figure out who turns into the league’s strongest pop. Defensively, Brendan has him as a third baseman/second baseman, with good projections for the rest. That helps, because when he makes the majors, a relief role seems like the most likely way he’ll make an impact.

Angels interim GM John Mozeliak took a shot at Arredondo in the post-trade interview, calling him “about a top 10 prospect. [in the Angels system].” Brendan and I had a great discussion about that assertion yesterday. (What did you do on your Wednesday night?) You can kind of see where Mozeliak is coming from. Arredondo is moving at a double-digit clip and lofting the ball to the pull side. Tampa Bay is already salivating to hear those words. But a player’s walk rate in A-ball is often about not swinging, and that’s the case here. Combine that with below-average raw power (Brendan put 30 on it as an estimate), and you better believe that his walk rate will drop if he faces advanced lifting.

Another way to look at it is that Arredondo has many of the skills associated with successful young players, but he approaches those skills in a way that makes us doubt they will translate up the ladder. Going high and hitting hard because you swing hard and don’t get fooled is good. Going too fast because you never turn and hitting power because you’re aiming for a dirty pole? It’s never the same, even if the numbers look the same on the back of a baseball card (or the FanGraphs dot com interface).

I won’t begrudge the GM that his players are good (although if I were one of the Angels hoping for our team to be ranked this year, I might be upset). Arredondo is mildly likable even if he’s not a can’t-miss, capital-D Dude. Some skills that hold prospects back are already covered here. He has a good sense of how to get the ball in the air, and whether his pace is due to a great batting eye or great patience, he is unlikely to get his work done by swinging over slides in the dirt; he’s running an 18% chase rate right now, for example. If he takes a big step forward physically — more bat speed and raw power, basically — his approach remains sustainable. He is 19! This is his first full season in A-ball. He’s still a mystery box, and that’s a good thing given the state of the Angel farm system.

But despite the high-level interest in this trade – O’Hoppe was a promising prospect! Arredondo’s first name is Angel! – often shuffles the deck chairs. The Rangers turned a lottery ticket prospect into a mid-leverage reliever out of minor league options. They took about $800,000 in salary commitments to do so, allowing Arte Moreno to buy a bunch of beautiful flowers or something. It’s business as usual for small traders on deadline – after some investigation.