Why Are the Angels and Other MLB Teams Giving Good Players Away?

Watch out, John Fisher—Arte Moreno is coming for your title of most embarrassing owner of an AL West franchise.

Less than a month after the Los Angeles Angels made the bold decision to go all in for a 2023 wild-card berth in Shohei Ohtani’s final season with the club before reaching free agency, Moreno’s front office is scrambling in the other direction. On Tuesday, ESPN’s Jeff Passan reported that the Angels placed five players on waivers, meaning the other 29 MLB teams have the opportunity to add starter Lucas Giolito, relievers Matt Moore and Reynaldo López, and outfielders Hunter Renfroe and Randal Grichuk for the small cost of their remaining 2023 salaries.

What exactly is going on? Why are the Angels doing this? And what does this move say about the woebegone franchise? Let’s answer 10 quick questions about this stunning news.

OK, let’s start with a basic question: Is this allowed?

Indeed, it is. Teams place players on waivers all the time. But the Angels’ actions are more brazen and extreme than is remotely typical at this time of year.

According to an analysis of MLB.com transactions logs, five players changed teams because of waiver claims in the final week of August last year:

• Austin Davis (Red Sox to Twins)
• Jesse Chavez (Angels to Atlanta)
• Bradley Zimmer (Phillies to Blue Jays)
• Rob Zastryzny (Mets to Angels)
• Tommy Romero (Rays to Nationals)

You probably don’t remember any of those deals because they were all minor, involving players who made little impact for either their old or new teams. Only Chavez, who took a circular journey from Atlanta to the Angels in the Raisel Iglesias trade back to Atlanta, appeared in the postseason.

But this class of potential waiver transfers is different. The Angels are making actually valuable MLB veterans available for playoff hopefuls to claim. This is a new, more cynical strategy.

Has this happened before?

Not nearly to this extent. Until recently, so-called August waiver trades used to be allowed, with an August 31 deadline that was separate from the standard July 31 trade deadline. Most famously, that second trade period facilitated Justin Verlander’s move to the Astros in 2017, when Houston took on his salary—which was large enough that the future Hall of Famer had passed through waivers unclaimed—in exchange for three prospects.

Now, though, there is only one unified trade deadline—so the Angels’ choice to waive this handful of players means they can’t receive any players in return. Instead, they’re angling for a mass salary dump and hoping that other teams choose to pay this quintet their remaining $8 million or so, so the Angels don’t have to.

Is that the Angels’ motive? Just money?

To be fair, they won’t make the playoffs now, despite holding on to Ohtani at the trade deadline and ravaging their already downtrodden farm system for deadline upgrades. Because their deadline acquisitions have largely underperformed, and because Ohtani tore his UCL, and because Mike Trout is once again injured, the Angels entered Tuesday’s schedule with a 7-18 record in August, tied for the worst mark in the majors this month. And all five players they’re waiving will be free agents after this season, so it’s not as if they’re worth much to the Angels for the brief remainder of their contracts.

That those acquisitions included Giolito, López, and Grichuk symbolizes the complete about-face the franchise has now undertaken. But in a cold, hard business sense, this is a logical move for Moreno: His team peeked its head above the luxury tax line at the deadline. Now, it’s trying to reverse course and duck back under that threshold before season’s end, when the actual luxury tax figures are calculated.

Why does that maneuver matter?

Well, it matters to Moreno’s pocketbook—which we know he guards zealously, given such examples as the Angels’ remote radio broadcasts, pandemic furloughs, and treatment of minor leaguers.

Moreover, it matters in a baseball sense, if only obliquely. If a team tenders a free agent a qualifying offer but that player signs elsewhere—say, a two-way star who will assuredly receive a QO after he assuredly receives his second MVP trophy—that team receives a worse draft pick as compensation if it’s over the tax threshold.

Are the Angels alone in employing this tactic?

Not entirely. The Yankees are reportedly placing Harrison Bader—a defensive wizard in center field who’s slumped to a 78 wRC+ at the plate this season—on waivers. (Brian Cashman’s whiffed a lot lately, and the 2022 swap of Bader for Jordan Montgomery is near the top of that list.) The Mets are doing the same with Carlos Carrasco (though he isn’t especially attractive with a 6.80 ERA), and the White Sox with Mike Clevinger, who could entice more prospective suitors with a 3.32 ERA, albeit worse peripherals.

But the Angels are in a class of their own with five such players, representing nearly one-fifth of their active roster and the bulk of their trade deadline shopping spree. One wonders if other team owners in future seasons will be inspired by Moreno’s example and seek more aggressively to waive their teams’ impending free agents, if the playoffs are no longer within reach.

So what happens to those five players now?

The other 29 teams can all place claims between now and Thursday, at which point the players will either be assigned to a new team or—if unclaimed by another club—clear waivers and remain with the Angels. Quoting from the MLB.com glossary: “Claiming priority is based on reverse winning percentage. So, if a player is placed on outright waivers by a club, the 29 other teams will each get a chance to claim a player, starting with the MLB team with the worst record.”

So come on down, Oakland: Giolito and Co. can be yours!

Of course, it’s unlikely that the teams with the actual worst records in the majors would bother making any claims—what’s the point, when those players are all destined for free agency and Oakland, Kansas City, and such have no chance to make the 2023 postseason?

But for the fleet of fringier contenders fighting for playoff berths, this surprise market represents one final chance to improve the roster for a postseason push. Notably, it’s still August, and players only need to be on their teams’ rosters by September 1 to be eligible for the playoffs.

Which of the five players should contenders claim?

All of them are theoretically valuable given the right fit, but the two relievers should draw the most attention, not least because of the maxim that no team can ever have enough pitching. The left-handed Moore had a 1.95 ERA last year and owns a 2.30 mark this season, and he’s allowing less than a runner per inning in 2023; among 167 relievers with at least 40 innings pitched this season, he has the 17th-lowest ERA and 15th-lowest WHIP.

López, meanwhile, has worse surface stats over the whole season but has been spectacular of late. In his brief time with the Angels, he tallied 14.7 strikeouts per nine innings to go along with a 2.31 ERA and 1.82 FIP.

Next up is Giolito, who’s traveled in the opposite direction from López since they both moved from Chicago to Los Angeles. Giolito’s ERA (6.89) and FIP (6.82) were ugly in his six starts for the Angels, thanks to a bushel of walks and home runs. Still, he’s been sufficiently effective in the recent past, so a team with an advanced pitch-design program might salivate at the chance to tweak him back to greatness in short order.

Neither Renfroe nor Grichuk has hit well during the Angels’ August swoon, but both still might be valuable as platoon outfielders for teams in need of some right-handed thump.

OK, let’s stick with those pitchers for a moment. Where would they fit best?

None of the bottom nine teams in FanGraphs’ projections for rest-of-season reliever WAR have a playoff prayer. The Orioles are next from the bottom of the rankings, and the AL’s top team is in desperate need of relief help with star closer Félix Bautista injured—but because the Orioles have the second-best winning percentage in the majors, they’re far down the priority order for waiver claims.

But the Diamondbacks (20th in projected reliever WAR), Cubs (18th), Reds (17th), Giants (15th), and Marlins (11th) are all fighting for the same playoff spots, with similar middling records, and they could all use bullpen help the rest of the way. Miami’s bullpen projection is the best of that bunch, but the figures are all extremely close with only a month left, and the Marlins just removed trade deadline acquisition David Robertson from the closer role after a series of blown saves.

Incidentally, those teams need more starting pitching, too—there’s a reason they’re all in the neighborhood of .500, aiming for the new slots in the expanded playoff field. In particular, the Reds, Giants, and Diamondbacks are holding the backs of their rotations together with spit and a wad of gum, and any capable arm would represent a massive improvement.

So who benefits most from this unexpected bit of late-August excitement?

The players might benefit, if they’d prefer to move to a team with extant playoff aspirations. The teams that acquire them would benefit even more—especially if they, like the Reds, weren’t especially active at the July trade deadline but now have an unexpected chance for real talent to drop into their laps.

Let’s end with the flip side to that question: Who suffers?

Here’s where the intricacies of the waiver process matter. In a general trade market, prospective buyers could compete to make the best offer for a player they’re both targeting—but with waivers, the Angels have ceded that bargaining right to a straight order by winning percentage. Now, even if, say, the Cubs might hypothetically pay more for Giolito and Moore than the Giants might, the Giants would get first dibs because they’re a game worse in the standings. (Through Monday’s schedule, at least—the actual waiver order will reflect Thursday’s standings.) Imagine how annoyed Chicago might be if a rival in the playoff race managed to add a useful starter and reliever for nothing more than a month of salary.

It could be worse: It’s not as if any of the five players, by themselves, will swing a pennant race. (On that note, the Angels could have theoretically waived Ohtani, also a free-agent-to-be whose September salary Moreno could want to shed. That would have sent a shockwave throughout the league, even if it would have been even more unfathomable because Ohtani will still help the Angels sell tickets through September, and because the Angels hope to re-sign him this winter. This cheap tactic can’t possibly help their sales pitch, though.)

But the whole enterprise still seems seedy and lacks integrity, allowing some lucky club(s) to gain an advantage in a competitive playoff race just because Angels ownership wants to save some dollars. As Ringer colleague Daniel Comer noted when the news broke, “Something similar just happened in one of my fantasy leagues. The manager who did it got kicked out.”

Unfortunately for Angels fans, when Moreno explored a sale of the franchise over the winter, he ultimately reversed course there, too. He’s not getting kicked out anytime soon.