The Angels and Braves wasted little time hammering out the first significant trade of the offseason, as the teams announced Thursday that they’ve agreed on a swap sending designated hitter Jorge Soler to Anaheim in exchange for righty Griffin Canning. There’s reportedly no money changing hands in the deal. The Angels will take on the entirety of the remaining two years and $26MM on Soler’s contract. Atlanta, meanwhile, will be on the hook for Canning’s salary in his final season of arbitration. MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz projects a $5.1MM salary for Canning, who’ll be a free agent next winter.
Soler stood as one of the most obvious trade candidates in all of baseball this offseason, given his defensive limitations and the presence of Marcell Ozuna in Atlanta. The Braves acquired him as something of a desperation move at the deadline, needing help for an injury-ravaged lineup. The plan always seemed to be stomaching Soler in the outfield for a couple of months and pursuing a trade in the offseason (hence Soler ranking prominently on our list of the top 35 trade candidates of the 2024-25 offseason).
The 32-year-old Soler (33 in February) will add a thunderous bat and defensively limited skill set to the Angels’ roster. He inked a three-year, $42MM deal with the Giants last winter on the heels of a 36-homer campaign in Miami and has now been traded twice in the first year of the contract. That isn’t for lack of production, however. To the contrary, Soler enjoyed a solid season at the plate, slashing .241/.338/.442 in 142 games. He was particularly productive from June onward, catching fire with a .263/.366/.489 batting line and clubbing 15 of his 21 homers in that span of 386 plate appearances.
Soler simply wasn’t a good long-term fit on Atlanta’s roster with Ozuna a lock to be retained on a $16MM club option. Both players offer huge power but bottom-of-the-scale defense in the outfield corners. The Braves, as a luxury tax payor, would’ve been on the hook for overage penalties in addition to the $13MM annually owed to Soler.
With the Angels, it’s a more straightforward match. He’ll slot in as the everyday designated hitter on a Halos club that used journeyman Willie Calhoun as its primary option at the DH position in 2024. Eighteen players saw time at DH for the Angels last year, and their collective output (.222/.299/.328) was the fifth-worst in the sport, by measure of wRC+ (80). Even if Soler doesn’t bounce all the way back to his standout 2023 production, his 2024 output represents a monumental upgrade over what the Angels received out of last year’s committee approach to the DH spot in their lineup.
Soler is now one of five Angels under a guaranteed contract for the 2025 season, joining Mike Trout, Anthony Rendon, Tyler Anderson and Robert Stephenson. Add in an arbitration class that could cost upwards of $31-32MM before any potential non-tenders (via Swartz’s previously referenced projections), and the Halos are looking at a projected payroll around $168MM (via RosterResource) with the entire offseason ahead of them. They’re presently about $58MM beneath the first luxury tax threshold.
More to come.
Mike Rodriguez first reported Soler was being traded to the Angels. ESPN’s Jeff Passan reported that Canning was headed back to Atlanta. David O’Brien of The Athletic reported that no money was changing hands in the trade.