The Angels and Rangers announced the mid-season trade Wednesday evening. Texas got a reliever Chase Silseth and the hunter Logan O’Hoppe in exchange for an infield prospect Angel Arredondo.
Texas cleared a needed spot on the 40-man roster by transferring a catcher Danny Jansen and rookie reliever Jose Corniel on the 60-day injured list. Halos are active Travis d’Arnaud from the 60-day IL just before the start of tonight’s game against the Astros. He will mate with her Tyler Heineman behind the plate. They haven’t announced a matching move yet, so they’ll be playing seven bulls tonight.
O’Hoppe is the bigger name of the two players heading to Arlington, but the 26-year-old Silseth may be the biggest influence in Texas. Rangers have a very small bull that shines in strong arms and swing and miss stuff. Silseth delivers that in the middle innings, albeit with a few more free passes.
A former 11th round pick, Silseth broke out as a rookie in 2022. He bounced up and down from Triple-A and battled injuries over the next few seasons. Silseth missed a month with a concussion in ’23 and had an elbow problem that required season-ending arthroscopic surgery the following year. Silseth moved to the bullpen last year and is in his first full season as a major league contributor.
The Arizona product made 47 appearances, working to a 2.72 earned run average over 39 2/3 innings. Silseth has struck out 27.6% of opponents behind an excellent 14.1% swinging strikeout rate, missing bats with a 96 mph fastball and a plus splitter. He’s had below-average command and has walked about 13% of the batters he’s faced this year, struggling against left-handed hitters in particular. The Halos used him more on center rest, though he was tied for second on the team with nine catches.
Silseth should play a similar role in Texas. He is under team control for four-plus seasons and is playing at a pre-arbitration salary. That’s important for a club that is reportedly operating without much cap space but is looking to extend its 1.5 game lead in the AL West. (MLBTR listed Silseth as a handful of relievers who could be surprise trade candidates based on affordability and his hitting stuff.) He’s run out of minor league options and needs to stick with the MLB roster.
O’Hoppe won’t jump straight to the big league club. Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News reports that Texas will option him to Triple-A Round Rock. They will stay with Elias Díaz again Austin Wynns pairing at the moment. Texas has been without Jansen since early June because of an arm strain. The transfer of players today is a process that is followed but the veteran player said last week that he may need surgery to end the season. The guards also put them Kyle Higashioka on the injured list last week with a flexor strain; his recovery time is unclear.
Texas had no other deep catchers on the 40-man roster. They will look to O’Hoppe, a former star player who looked like a long-term holder for the Halos when they reached the mid-league level between 2023-24. His production on both sides of the ball has dropped significantly over the past year and a half. O’Hoppe had a .629 OPS last season and had a rough ’26 campaign. He is hitting .209/.271/.295 with four home runs in 256 trips to the plate.
O’Hoppe missed time with a concussion last year and broke his left wrist on a bad punt this April. He only missed three weeks but has already seen his batted ball metrics drop. O’Hoppe is averaging 86.9 mph at bats this season, four ticks below where he has been in each season from 2023-25. He is hitting .212/.241/.314 in 46 games since the injury.
Although it is clear that he is fit enough to be on the field, it would not be surprising if the wrist affected his ability. He needs to hit the ball with authority, as he has always been an aggressive batsman who hits a fair amount.
O’Hoppe also hasn’t improved as much as the Angels hoped defensively. He rates as a below-average pitch frame and really struggles as a blocker. O’Hoppe is tied for seventh in walks over the past two seasons and has been behind the plate 75 wild pitches in that span — 20 more than any other catcher. The quality of the Angels’ pitching staff certainly plays a part in that, but Statcast ranks O’Hoppe as the least successful defensive catcher in the league this year. He is in the middle of the pack in average pop time and is actually the league average in throwing out baserunners.
The Halos were clearly ready to move on. They are reportedly looking to add a young angler to the commercial scene, a sign of O’Hoppe’s fall from grace. They took out about $846K left over from his $2.625MM arbitration salary. O’Hoppe will be eligible for compensation at least two more times. That will triple if he spends all of August in Triple-A, as he needs to spend another 39 days on the MLB roster or the injured list to cross the four-year service limit before the end of the season.
The first trade for Angels interim general manager John Mozeliak, who could oversee significant changes if the Halos move anywhere or at all Reid Detmers, Jose Soriano again Zach Neto. They are reportedly more open than in previous years to discuss manageable pieces. This doesn’t indicate much about their trajectory to high-impact names but it could be the start of a busy week for the front office.
The aptly named Arredondo is a 19-year-old who plays mostly third base in Low-A. He is hitting .243/.371/.392 with eight home runs in 357 plate appearances. The righty hitter has walked at a solid 14.3% clip against a lower than average 18.2% strikeout rate. It’s a respectable but unusual statistical profile, and Arrendondo hasn’t done much for public scouts.
Neither MLB Pipeline, Baseball America nor FanGraphs ranks Arredondo among the top 30 prospects in Texas’ weak system. Mozeliak tells MLB.com’s Rhett Bollinger that he thinks Arredondo is publicly underrated and should quickly move into the top 10 in the Halos pipeline. It’s worth saying more — he’s not going to blow up the player they just acquired — but it’s also likely true that the Angels like Arredondo more than consensus. Otherwise they wouldn’t make the trade-off, as this doesn’t come with significant financial savings or a compelling service time incentive.
That doesn’t mean the Halos are correct in their analysis, of course. That will be determined later, and Arredondo is a lottery ticket in the minors at least three years away from the big leagues. Mozeliak’s comments are a good reminder that teams can weigh odds (their own and those in opposing programs) very differently, especially those at lower levels with little statistical track record to base decisions on.
Jeff Passan of ESPN first reported that the Rangers acquired Silseth and O’Hoppe. Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News started with Arredondo. The following images are courtesy of Kirby Lee/William Liang, Imagn Images.
