Outside the home-plate entrance to Angel Stadium are six billboards showcasing their six best and most marketable players.
For so many years, players like that — the ones who get bobblehead giveaways and whose jerseys are sold in the team store — were off-limits in trades.
That is, until Monday, a trade deadline day that marked a significant shift in how the Angels operate.
Interim general manager John Mozeliak shipped out seven big-league players before the 3 p.m PT buzzer — including starting pitcher José Soriano — and brought back a haul of nine prospects, many of whom will slot in among the best the organization has to offer.
Which MLB teams did the most?
Levi Weaver and Madison Eades
“The direction of where the franchise was going needed to change,” Mozeliak said. “This is an opportunity during the trading deadline to do just that.”
Last season, when the Angels were out of the playoff race, they added relievers instead of trading them away. In 2024, they shipped out only two relievers on expiring contracts. In 2023, they added despite being out of the playoff picture. Every year, a different version of the same story.
This time around, the club added a top 50 prospect in Toronto Blue Jays minor-league shortstop Arjun Nimmala, as well as Chicago Cubs catcher Moisés Ballesteros, who only recently graduated from top-prospect status.
Mozeliak said he felt he had full support from owner Arte Moreno, whose over-involvement has historically been the chief complaint.
Credit is also due to team president Molly Jolly, who took over for John Carpino in March and has been the consistent through line of a baseball operations department with more autonomy.
“Those guys have been uber-supportive of me,” Mozeliak said. “I sent them a quick text when this all ended. I was just grateful.”
The Angels held on to shortstop Zach Neto and pitcher Reid Detmers, both of whom they listened to offers for over the past few days. Mozeliak said he didn’t think those offers were adequate enough to move the players, who each have years of contract control remaining before they hit free agency.
Mozeliak also said the club did not entertain offers on superstar Mike Trout. The two had a conversation several weeks ago, Mozeliak said, and there was mutual agreement not to contemplate going down that road.
“He’s the face of this franchise,” Mozeliak said. “We want to get this better for him.”
Mozeliak said being competitive in 2027 will be dependent on what the club does in the offseason, but he was hesitant to put a timeline on the Angels’ return to being competitive.
The interim GM, whose contract runs out in December after joining the team in late June, indicated an increased willingness to stay with the Angels long-term. He didn’t commit to that and noted it’s not fully up to him, but he was noncommittal when asked whether he still planned to hire a new general manager.
“I am going to have to address my future at some point,” Mozeliak said. “Over the next few weeks, I need to get with Mr. Moreno and Molly to really kind of map out how we want to see the future really look like. … What do we really want leadership to look like moving forward?”
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Though many considered Tarik Skubal’s arrival to Los Angeles as part of a deadline deal between the Dodgers and Detroit Tigers a foregone conclusion, the Milwaukee Brewers were involved at some point. So much so that manager Pat Murphy affirmed that any notion his club didn’t try is “simply incorrect.”
“It isn’t as simple as, ‘That’s a better package.’ It’s not as simple as that,” Murphy told reporters. “There’s a lot more, a lot more layers to it. To say the Brewers didn’t try is simply incorrect.”
On Saturday, the Dodgers ultimately won the Skubal sweepstakes, dealing outfield prospect Zyhir Hope and right-handed pitching prospects River Ryan and Brady Smith to the Tigers. In the lead-up to the deal, The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal reported that the Brewers, alongside the Tampa Bay Rays, New York Yankees and Atlanta Braves, were expected to be among the clubs in the mix for the left-hander.
A small-market team with an estimated payroll of $136.6 million (19th in MLB), per Cot’s Contracts, Milwaukee was willing to absorb the remainder of Skubal’s 2026 contract ($9.6 million), per Rosenthal.
In the end, the Dodgers dealt from their top-rated farm system, including two players in Keith Law’s Top 70 list.
“There’s nothing that we did that no one else couldn’t have done,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said Sunday.
It’s a tone that Skubal also struck in his first comments with reporters on Monday.
“Every team could trade for me,” Skubal said. “I don’t sympathize with people that blame the Dodgers for anything they’ve done. It’s a winning org.”
Murphy, however, believes it’s not as cut and dried as that.
Historically, the Brewers have been loath to deal prospect capital in the way that other clubs like the Dodgers, Yankees and Red Sox have. The 2008 deadline acquisition of CC Sabathia and 2018 offseason deal for Christian Yelich were mere aberrations in the status quo.
For its part, Milwaukee upgraded in other ways at the deadline. On Monday, the Brewers matched up with the St. Louis Cardinals for pitchers Dustin May and JoJo Romero, and executed a separate deal with the Colorado Rockies for righty Antonio Senzatela. Previously, Milwaukee acquired catcher Bo Naylor and right-hander Codi Heuer from the Cleveland Guardians, though both players were optioned to Triple A.
In all of those deals, the Brewers did not trade from any of their Top 20 prospects, as ranked by Law. Class-A outfielder Alexander Frías and Double-A outfielder Josiah Ragsdale, the return for May and Romero, are considered top 30 prospects by other outlets. Similarly, lefty Mark Manfredi and shortstop Juan Martinez were not on any major lists.
Entering play on Monday, the Brewers, at 69-42, had MLB’s best record, sitting a half-game over the Dodgers (69-43). It’s a familiar place for Milwaukee, which finished last season with the league’s best record before bowing out to Los Angeles in the National League Championship Series.
Provided all things are equal, the Brewers and Dodgers are on a collision course for an October rematch, their third meeting since 2018.
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Miami is 35-19 in four seasons under Mario Cristobal. Megan Briggs / Getty Images
The University of Miami and head football coach Mario Cristobal have agreed to a long-term contract extension, a source with knowledge of negotiations confirmed Monday. The source spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a deal that had not been finalized.
The length of the extension and the money involved were not disclosed. As a private school, Miami will not have to make Cristobal’s contract public. On3 was first to report the agreement.
This story will be updated.
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Troy Wayrynen / Imagn Images
The LA Galaxy are in advanced talks to sign out-of-favor Mexican winger Hirving “Chucky” Lozano on loan from San Diego FC, multiple sources briefed on the situation tell The Athletic.
Lozano is likely to be a designated player for the Galaxy if a deal is completed, and while San Diego gave permission to Lozano to negotiate with the Galaxy, it would still be on the hook for a portion of his salary, sources add. ESPN Mexico first reported the talks.
Lozano hasn’t featured for San Diego in 2026 and has been training alone all season after the club decided he wasn’t part of its plans, just a year after making Lozano the face of its expansion season. According to the most recent MLS Players Association figures, his $9.33 million in guaranteed compensation in 2026 makes him the fourth-highest-paid player in MLS. He trails only Lionel Messi, Son Heung-min and Rodrigo De Paul in that department.
For Lozano, a potential move to the Galaxy represents a chance at a fresh start. The 31-year-old winger has been productive in his MLS minutes, with nine goals and 10 assists in 27 regular-season matches last season (1,833 minutes) and another two goals and an assist in four playoff games off the bench. He would join a remade Galaxy attack, which has included the club selling Gabriel Pec for a record fee to Cruzeiro, while Japanese forward Kyōgo Furuhashi has joined from Birmingham.
Lozano’s time in San Diego has been effectively over since the offseason. San Diego sporting director Tyler Heaps said in January that Lozano “wasn’t part of the team’s plans,” and he has been separated from the group since. First public signs of discontent emerged last October, when Lozano was omitted from the club’s squad for its season finale vs. Portland. The Athletic reported that the decision stemmed from a locker-room altercation earlier in the month following a halftime substitution that angered the player.
Earlier this summer, San Diego signed Tunisian winger Elias Achouri to a DP deal, and Heaps was asked again about Lozano.
“Nothing has changed from our side,” Heaps said. “A lot of it depends on him and his decision, if he wants to continue to play football.”
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