ANAHEIM — Although the major league season is only three weeks old, it is suddenly just a little more than two weeks from the Aug. 31 trading deadline.
And no one is quite sure how that’s going to look.
“I think it could create a shortened supply of players out there, and because of the quick nature of the season in general, I think you’re going to have a lot of teams waiting till the last minute,” Angels general manager Billy Eppler said. “It feels like it’s gone that way over the last decade anyway, and that’s after you’ve played four months of baseball.”
The playoffs have been expanded for this season from 10 to 16 teams, and with so few games overall, it is hard to imagine that there would be too many teams ready to sell.
If the Angels were going to upgrade, obviously they’d want to target pitching, both starting and relief. It’s too early to know which players would be available, but it’s reasonable to think the prices may be high just because of supply and demand.
As for the current state of the Angels, Eppler said he still believes the Angels have a team to contend, despite the slow start.
“This is a very talented roster, with very talented players,” he said. “If you look at the different units — position players, starters and relievers — there have been times where each unit has carried the club and some other times where some units have not had a good couple games. We are waiting for all those to sync at the right time. I think we saw that this week (winning two of three against the first-place Oakland A’s). Our expectation is that gets more commonplace.”
Manager Joe Maddon said before Friday’s game that he is hoping for improvement in pitching and defense.
“Those are the two areas that I’m into,” he said. “I think the offense will take care of itself. I’d like to see the pitching and defense trending in the right direction and I think the offense will remain in the status quo, which would be perfect.”
SIMMONS UPDATE
It will be at least a few more days before the Angels finally can see the left side of the infield they planned on having.
The Angels had hoped Andrelton Simmons would be back at shortstop this weekend, but his sprained ankle is still sore, Maddon said.
New third baseman Anthony Rendon missed the first four games with tightness in his oblique, and when he returned Simmons was out. They have not played together through the first 19 games of the regular season, and it seems they won’t through at least the first 22.
“We were hoping that it would be not as sore right now,” Maddon said of Simmons’ ankle. “We just have to deal with that. This pushes him back a little bit further. I don’t think he’ll be ready this weekend. So we’ll see how it works in the next week, but he’s still sore which you would have expected from the injury that he had.”
Simmons sprained his ankle lunging for first base as he tried to leg out a hit on July 27.
He began doing baseball activity on the field on Monday. He’s had live at-bats and did some baserunning at least twice this week at the Long Beach facility with the Angels reserves.
ALSO
Cam Bedrosian (adductor strain) played catch before Friday’s game. Maddon said Bedrosian continues to improve but he has no timetable for his return…
This weekend marks the Angels’ first interleague games of the season, leaving the Padres as the only team in the majors that has not played an interleague game.
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