Grading Los Angeles Angels' Trade Deadline Performance

The MLB non-waiver trade deadline has come and gone, and some teams made major improvements to their rosters and their 2015 playoff chances. Unfortunately, the Los Angeles Angels were not one of those teams.

In the midst of a heated battle with the Houston Astros for first place in the American League West, the Angels had a couple of glaring holes that needed to be filled.

The team needed to add an impact bat to help Mike Trout, a resurgent Kole Calhoun and Albert Pujols in this otherwise punchless lineup. That bat needed to be able to play the field, ideally left field, to leave the designated hitter position open for C.J. Cron and rotations of the rest of the regulars.

Los Angeles also needed help in the bullpen, a unit that has been rather mediocre. Closer Huston Street is a serviceable option in the late innings, but he is the only reliever on the roster with an ERA under 3.00 and a WHIP under 1.20 who has thrown more than once out of the pen.

In a perfect world, the Angels would have also been able to acquire a utility infielder to spell any or all of second base, third base and shortstop. The team has gotten adequate yet underwhelming performances all year from Johnny Giavotella at second and Erick Aybar at short, respectively. And with the injury to David Freese, third is especially thin moving forward.

With all those moves to make to give this team the best chance to advance to the playoffs, fill-in general manager Bill Stoneman essentially accomplished none of them.

Pat Sullivan/Associated Press

The team did, in fact, add bats who can play left field. However, none of the bats will have the type of impact that will make a difference with just two months remaining in the season.

Even an MVP-caliber batter would be worth little more than three wins above replacement down the stretch of a season. The performance of the L.A. left fielder in the aggregate has certainly been below replacement-level to this point, but getting one WAR out of the pupu platter of Shane Victorino, David Murphy and David DeJesus will be a moral victory. There simply isn't enough time left for these guys to do much more.

Besides grabbing stand-in third baseman Conor Gillaspie—who has admittedly had a nice start to his Angels career—L.A. was otherwise silent at the deadline. That isn't going to cut it—especially when put up against what the Astros accomplished.

It looked like the Angels may have grabbed the upper hand on Houston near the end of July. The two teams were trending in opposite directions. Just a week or so later, momentum has flipped back.

The Astros are hot and were busy dealing, adding starting pitchers Scott Kazmir and Mike Fiers and center fielder Carlos Gomez. Gomez, one of the best all-around center fielders in the entire sport, completely fills what was one of the weakest spots on the Astros roster—just the type of powerful move L.A. fans were hoping for in their outfield.

Instead, it is their rival who got the job done at the trade deadline.

Grade: D