Dodgers fans have to thank Arte Moreno, Angels incompetence for Andy Pages’ rise

Despite a slow start to the season, Andy Pages is now the Dodgers' third most valuable player by both fWAR and bWAR, over MVPs Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman and veterans Max Muncy and Tommy Edman. He just keeps getting better and better, too; over his last seven games (through June 23), he's batting .400 with a 1.269 OPS, three homers, and six RBI.

But, while it's probably faded far from memory by this point, there's a not-so-distant alternate universe in which Pages is currently playing down the road in Anaheim.

Back in 2020, the Dodgers were completely prepared to ship Pages down the road -alongside Joc Pederson and Ross Stripling - as part of a deal with the Angels for Luis Rengifo and a prospect. There are a lot of reasons to be thankful that didn't happen, including that Rengifo had three okay-ish seasons for the Angels before turning into a pumpkin, but it's slightly horrifying to wonder what the 2025 Dodgers would look like now without Pages.

The deal eventually fell through after Angels owner Arte Moreno stepped in to nix it. Moreno was vague about why he made the decision, but there's reason to believe he just got impatient when closing the deal stalled, as the Dodgers were also engaged in trade talks for their franchise-changing Mookie Betts blockbuster.

Ah, well. It's the Angels' loss.

Remembering the failed Joc Pederson-Luis Rengifo trade that would've sent Dodgers standout Andy Pages to Angels

At the time, Pages was coming off of an outstanding season with the Ogden Raptors, at the time the Dodgers' Rookie level affiliate. He batted .298 with a 1.049 OPS in 63 games, received an invitation to spring training in 2020, and crept onto the Dodgers' top 30 prospects list at No. 14.

Pederson went on to have a bad regular season in 2020, followed by an incredible postseason that helped the Dodgers win the World Series. It took Rengifo until 2022 to turn in an above-replacement level season. Pages is now doing what he's doing for the Dodgers. So while Arte Moreno and the Angels are pretty much always giving Dodgers fans reasons to clown them, this one is especially funny.

Per MLB's latest update, Pages is currently seventh in All-Star voting for National League outfielders, but the least he deserves is to get to the second round of voting, if not a starting job altogether. Eat your heart out, Arte.