Los Angeles Angels left-hander Reid Detmers has quietly become one of the most attractive pieces on the MLB trade market, and he might be the only Angels player that actually gets moved before Aug. 3.
ESPN’s trade deadline rankings have Detmers in the top 10 trade candidates around the league. That is a real endorsement of what he has done this year and what he offers for teams thinking about October rotations.
Detmers turned 27 on July 8 the day before this story broke, which means every contending team looking at him is looking at a young lefty with real years of team control. He is not a rental. He is under club control through 2028, which is the biggest reason his price tag is so high.
The season stat line is not eye-popping but the underlying stuff is. Detmers throws in the mid-90s from the left side, has three legitimate secondary pitches, and has shown flashes of dominance when everything is clicking. He threw a no-hitter in 2022 as a 22-year-old. He has spent the last three years trying to become the kind of consistent front-of-the-rotation piece the Angels have wanted him to be.
For the Angels, the trade math is complicated. They are 37-56 and going nowhere. But they also do not have a lot of movable pieces beyond Detmers. Trout is not going anywhere because of the contract. Rendon is not tradeable because nobody wants that deal. The rest of the roster is a mix of young players still developing and role players.
Detmers is the one asset with real trade value. Moving him means acknowledging that 2027 is a rebuild year too. That is a hard conversation for owner Arte Moreno to have publicly, and Moreno is famously resistant to public acknowledgment of what everyone around baseball already knows.
The teams in on Detmers are the usual suspects. The Dodgers would love a controllable lefty. The Astros need rotation help. The Braves are chasing arms because of their injury issues. The Yankees always want another starter for October.
The Angels want a package that includes at least one top-100 prospect and some depth. That is a fair ask for a starting pitcher with three years of team control and legitimate front-line potential. The teams asking about him know that.
What is interesting is how quiet the Detmers rumors have been publicly compared to Skubal, Sonny Gray, or Sandy Alcantara. He does not have the ace resume of those guys. What he does have is age, control, and upside, which is often what actually gets deals done at the deadline.
The comparison scouts are making privately is to when the Padres traded for Yu Darvish. A team gets a lefty with strikeout stuff and multiple years of control. The upside if he clicks is a real playoff difference-maker. The floor is a mid-rotation innings-eater who provides value even if he does not develop into the ace some scouts still think is in there.
The Angels will likely trade Detmers before Aug. 3. Whether they get the return that Angels fans hope for depends on how aggressive Perry Minasian is willing to be at reading the market and picking the right buyer. Given the way the Angels have handled recent deadlines, that is not a bet many fans would want to place.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
