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By Jon Paul Hoornstra
Contributing Sports Writer
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In recent years, the Los Angeles Angels trade deadlines have been defined as much by who they didn't trade as who they did.
The Angels own baseball's longest postseason drought. Not since they were swept by the Kansas City Royals in a 2014 Wild Card series have the Angels treated their fans to playoff baseball.
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Yet, in that time, they have resisted offers to trade Shohei Ohtani, Kenley Jansen, Mike Trout — among other talented players who could have made the Angels a more competitive team at some point in the last decade in a trade for talented prospects.
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This year could be different. The Angels fired general manager Perry Minasian in June and replaced him on an interim basis with John Mozeliak. Already, Mozeliak is being confronted with multiple offers for a talented, team-controlled player who could fetch a number of talented prospects in return.
“I can confidently say Zach Neto has a very strong market where a lot of teams are interested," FanSided's Robert Murray said in the latest episode of The Baseball Insiders. "Do I think he's going to get traded? I would put it in the very possible category."
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Neto, 25, is slashing .234/.325/.437 with 19 home runs. He's a lock to hit at least 20 home runs for the third consecutive season — a rare quality for a shortstop. Neto also has three more years of team control and an affordable $4.15 million salary for 2026.
In a seller's market, with few talented hitters available, Neto stands out. The Tampa Bay Rays and Boston Red Sox were previously linked to Neto in published reports.
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The possibility of a Neto trade raises an obvious question: will the Angels do more? Veteran reliever Kirby Yates has looked like a lock to be traded for weeks. The more intriguing trade candidates are left-hander Reid Detmers and right-hander Jose Soriano.
The two starters are the kind of team-controlled, affordable pitchers who the Angels have been hesitant to trade in years past. This season, they're one of six teams who were more than six games out of Wild Card position with less than a week remaining before the trade deadline. It's a seller's market.
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What could the Angels get for Soriano, Detmers or Neto? The short answer: a haul of prospects that could be the best coming to any team before the deadline.
The particulars will be there for Mozeliak to sort out in trade offers. For Angels fans hoping for better seasons in the team's future, it's at least possible that one or more deals will come to fruition.
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