The Red Sox are interested in Angels shortstop Zach Neto, report Ken Rosenthal and Will Sammon of The Athletic. They report that Boston also checked in with the Angels about Neto last offseason, though those preliminary conversations didn’t progress to the point where the sides actually discussed trade frameworks.
There was no indication that Neto was really available over the winter. It’s not clear if that’ll change this summer, but the Angels are preparing for a deadline sale and might be more inclined to hear teams out on their top trade assets. Interim general manager John Mozeliak said this week the Halos could “possibly” consider moving controllable players for the right returns.
Reports from ESPN and The New York Post suggested the Angels were broadly more willing to listen on the likes of Neto, Reid Detmers and José Soriano than they would have been in the past. None of that means trades are likely, but the Angels appear to be more open-minded about ways to invigorate a mediocre farm system and one of the league’s worst rosters.
Boston’s interest in Neto isn’t exactly a shock. It’d be a lot more surprising if they weren’t looking into an above-average shortstop who is under arbitration control for three and a half seasons. It nevertheless highlights how quickly the approach has changed. Three weeks ago, the Sox were a lot closer in the standings to the Angels than they were to a Wild Card spot. Aroldis Chapman and Sonny Gray were expected to be available.
A 15-game win streak changes things in a hurry. Boston now occupies the third Wild Card spot in the American League. They’re 6.5 back of the Rays in the division. They could suddenly be one of the more aggressive buyers. As MLBTR’s Darragh McDonald noted in the Sox’s outlook for Front Office subscribers, the middle infield is the obvious place to start.
Boston has been without Trevor Story (sports hernia surgery) and Marcelo Mayer (stress reaction in left leg) for weeks. They’re both expected back this season, but they’d each been replacement level players before their respective injuries. Utilityman Isiah Kiner-Falefa was having a better season, but he’s been out since mid-June with a stress reaction in his left arm. They’re using a shortstop platoon of Tsung-Che Cheng and Andruw Monasterio while playing Anthony Seigler and Romy Gonzalez at second base.
That might be the worst middle infield in the league, much less among postseason contenders. Neto would obviously be an upgrade. He has been an above-average hitter three years running, including this season’s .238/.326/.446 slash through 448 plate appearances. He has a propensity to expand the strike zone and mixed defensive grades, which can make him a frustrating player, but he seems on his way to a third straight 20-20 season.
Neto already has 19 homers and could top last year’s career-high mark of 26 longballs. He trails only Colson Montgomery and CJ Abrams among shortstops this year. He’s tied with Bobby Witt Jr. for fourth at the position — behind Willy Adames, Gunnar Henderson and Francisco Lindor — with 68 homers over the past three seasons.
The righty-swinging Neto doesn’t have huge bat speed but excels at hitting the ball in the air to the pull side. That’d presumably play well at Fenway Park and should appeal to chief baseball officer Craig Breslow, who cited a similar ability as one of the reasons the Sox traded for Caleb Durbin over the offseason. Durbin was coming off a rookie season in which 20% of his batted balls were in the air to left field; Neto is above 28% this year and at 23.3% for his career.
If the Sox could pull off a Neto trade, that’d probably push Story to second base. He’s a better fit there at this stage of his career, as his defensive metrics have dropped over the past season and a half. Story, who is signed through 2027, will need to perform better than he was early this year to remain an everyday player in either case.
Mayer still has a full slate of minor league options and could be demoted back to Triple-A Worcester or traded. His stock has dropped to the point that he’d no longer be the centerpiece of a Neto return, but he could be the second or third player in a deal (or flipped elsewhere as a change of scenery candidate).
In a separate column, Rosenthal and Sammon report that the Angels are also on the lookout for young catching given their struggles at the position and a dearth of talent in the farm system. Neither Connor Wong nor Carlos Narváez is going to move the needle much. Baseball America recently ranked Low-A catching prospect Franklin Primera as Boston’s #6 minor league talent and a rapid riser in their system. Speculatively speaking, he could be of interest to the Angels as a secondary piece as well.
Boston’s top prospect figures to be off limits in all trade scenarios. Middle infielder Franklin Arias ranks as the sport’s #3 overall prospect at BA; Eric Longenhagen and Brendan Gawlowski of FanGraphs just ranked him second (behind Milwaukee’s Jesús Made) in this afternoon’s refresh of their top 100 list. The 20-year-old Arias has tattooed Double-A pitching at a .319/.407/.581 clip with 18 home runs in 74 games. Tommy Cassell of The Worcester Telegram and Gazette reports that the touted young infielder is being promoted to Triple-A.
That leaves open the possibility of Arias making it to Fenway before the end of the season. The Sox’s weakness at both middle infield spots means they wouldn’t be blocking him if they trade for a shortstop. Arias could break in as a second baseman or push a trade acquisition to the other side of the bag and bump Story from the lineup.
Neto is playing on a $4.15MM salary as a Super Two player. He’ll go through arbitration three more times (assuming no changes to the service structure in the collective bargaining agreement) and reach free agency before his age-29 season. The Angels may simply hold him as a foundational piece for their retool. He should be tougher to pry away than Soriano or Detmers, each of whom is controllable for two-plus seasons. If they do make him available, the Braves, Yankees, Rays and Twins are a few other teams who could be in the mix.
