Earlier today, there was an extravagant trade proposal making the rounds, which led to all kinds of lulz out there (even as I would argue that the Angels would be crazy NOT to do this deal because it’s way over the top):
That trade is, of course, not happening.
But it turns out part of it is! The Angels need an infielder after the Gio Urshela injury, and they’re getting Eduardo Escobar from the Mets:
Escobar, 34, is a league-average-ish bat capable of playing average-ish defense at multiple positions, and is a nice player for most teams to have available. The Angels were in urgent need of some infield depth and the Mets had more players than they could rightly use, so the fit just made sense. Usually, you don’t see trades like this in June, but that’s just how obvious this one was.
As for the return to the Mets, Crow is particularly interesting, having dominated in a very small sample at Double-A this year. You’re never going to get a ton for a rental like Escobar, but if you pay down his full salary – as the Mets reportedly did – you can get some interesting pieces. This feels like a tremendous, albeit small scale, deal for the Mets.
Certainly better than the proposal that was being floated, in my opinion …