Division-by-division Dodgers trade targets: AL West

The AL West is owned by the Houston Astros, whose prospect and active roster depth is unrivaled by any team, even the Dodgers.

But outside of Houston, plenty of other AL West teams promise to be active this offseason. The Angels are reportedly a favorite to sign Gerrit Cole; the Athletics were a Wild Card team in the American League along with the Rays; the Texas Rangers were somewhere in between buying and selling at the midway point of the season, and they are moving into a new stadium; and the Mariners always promise to be active after October thanks to GM Jerry Dipoto.

As the offseason grinds to a slowdown preceding the Winter Meetings, I’ll be going through each division in the MLB and determining potential trade targets (and discounting some along the way) and creating potential trades for them that the Dodgers front office could do.

In the AL West, the Mariners and Astros really do not match up well with the Dodgers, mostly because the Mariners are devoid of usable talent (outside of Mitch Haniger whose value is at a three-year low) and because the Astros are competing fairly directly with the Dodgers. The Angels, newly managed by Joe Maddon, are also interesting, as they expect to compete for the playoffs in 2020. though they may not fit the mold of trade partner with another LA team. The other two teams all could fit with the Dodgers. Both have either a decent starting rotation, at the top certainly, or decent bullpen, at least in the late innings.

Oakland’s case is interesting, mostly because they are a team competing for the playoffs, but also team with a very low budget and a few expensive pieces that have the potential to be moved, just as the team moved a prime Josh Donaldson or Gio Gonzalez previously. The Rangers are the only clear sellers, and even they have made it clear they want to at least give off the appearance of wanting MLB-ready talent according to MLBTR.

Let’s get into each of these three teams, and viable targets from each.