The Angels and Rangers announced an intra-division trade on Wednesday evening. Texas acquired reliever Chase Silseth and catcher Logan O’Hoppe in exchange for infield prospect Angel Arredondo. ESPN’s Jeff Passan first reported the Silseth/O’Hoppe deal, while Evan Grant of The Dallas Morning News was first on Arredondo.
Texas opened the necessary space on the 40-man roster by transferring catcher Danny Jansen and rookie reliever Jose Corniell to the 60-day injured list. The Halos activated Travis d’Arnaud from the 60-day IL just before the start of tonight’s game with the Astros. He’ll pair with Tyler Heineman behind the plate. They haven’t announced a corresponding pitching move, so perhaps they’ll play with a seven-man bullpen tonight.
O’Hoppe is the bigger name of the two players heading to Arlington, but the 26-year-old Silseth is probably the more impactful get for Texas. The Rangers have a very young bullpen that’s light on power arms and swing-and-miss stuff. Silseth brings that to the middle innings, albeit with a few too many free passes.
A former 11th round pick, Silseth broke into the majors as a starter in 2022. He was up and down from Triple-A and battled injuries for the next few seasons. Silseth missed a month with a concussion in ’23 and had an elbow issue that required season-ending arthroscopic surgery a year later. Silseth moved to the bullpen last year and is in his first full season as a big league contributor.
The Arizona product has made 47 appearances, working to a 2.72 earned run average over 39 2/3 innings. Silseth has fanned 27.6% of opponents behind an excellent 14.1% swinging strike rate, missing bats with both a 96 mph fastball and a plus splitter. He has always had below-average command and has walked nearly 13% of batters faced this year, struggling with left-handed hitters in particular. The Halos have used him mostly in middle relief, though he was tied for second on the team with nine holds.
Silseth should play a similar role in Texas. He’s under team control for four-plus seasons and is playing on a pre-arbitration salary. That’s crucial for a club reportedly operating without much payroll space but looking to extend their 1.5-game lead in the AL West. (MLBTR listed Silseth among a handful of controllable relievers who could be surprise trade candidates based on that affordability and his strikeout stuff.) He’s out of minor league options and needs to stick on the MLB roster.
More to come.
