ANAHEIM, Calif. — Not so long ago, Jorge Soler was the surprise star of the 2021 World Series for the Atlanta Braves.
On Thursday, when Major League Baseball’s offseason began and his second stint with the team ended, it was Soler who seemed surprised to be suddenly moving on.
The Los Angeles Angels have acquired Soler, a 32-year-old outfielder and designated hitter, from the Braves. Atlanta received 28-year-old pitcher Griffin Canning, a right-hander, in the trade.
Soler has been a productive power hitter for five franchises in a Major League Baseball career that began when he debuted for the Chicago Cubs in August 2014. Five years before helping Atlanta win its first World Series championship since 1995, he won a ring with the Cubs while ending an even longer title drought for that club at 107 seasons.
Soler said he wasn’t expecting to be traded by the Braves, who acquired him from the San Francisco Giants three months ago. He has two years left on the three-year, $42 million contract he signed with the Giants in February.
“I was working out, and I got a call from the GM telling me I was getting traded,” Soler said through an interpreter. “It’s amazing how fast everything happened, but I’m grateful for the Angels for giving me the opportunity.”
The Braves reacquired Soler to provide offense for their injury-depleted lineup on the way to a wild-card berth in the National League playoffs — the Philadelphia Phillies ended their six-year reign as NL East Division champions — but he apparently wasn’t a long-term fit in Atlanta. Marcell Ozuna, 33 and coming off the third MLB All-Star season of his career, is locked in at designated hitter for the Braves, while 2023 NL MVP Ronald Acuña Jr. is set to return to right field next year as the 26-year-old speedy slugger recovers from a torn right knee ligament that ended his 2024 season in late May.
While the Braves offloaded the $26 million still owed to Soler, the Angels were eager to add an established power hitter to their frequently punchless lineup. Soler also developed a solid relationship with Angels manager Ron Washington and third base coach Eric Young when both were coaches for the Braves in 2021.
“It’s somebody that can change a game in one swing of the bat,” Angels general manager Perry Minasian said. “Can go play the outfield if you need him to. Great human being, A-plus clubhouse guy, somebody that our manager has familiarity with. Just felt like it was a really clean fit, really good fit for us, and somebody that could help change our lineup.”
Soler is most famous for his 2021 World Series MVP performance for Atlanta after joining the Braves as part of an outfield rebuilt by Braves GM Alex Anthopoulos at the trade deadline in late July that year. After becoming the first player ever to homer as a leadoff hitter in the top half of the first inning of Game 1 in a World Series, he hit a memorable three-run, 446-foot shot that went all the way out of Minute Maid Park in the Braves’ clinching Game 6 victory over the Houston Astros.
Traded by the NL’s Cubs to the Kansas City Royals a little more than a month after the 2016 World Series, he spent four-plus seasons with that club and led the American League in homers in 2019, when he hit a career-high 48. However, he struggled during the pandemic-shortened 2020 season and during the first half of 2021 before being traded to Atlanta.
He earned his first MLB All-Star selection and hit 36 homers in 2023 with the Miami Marlins, who signed him as a free agent after his World Series heroics for Atlanta.
Soler struggled in his 93-game tenure with the Giants, attributing it to trouble with his timing and swing. His production rebounded after he joined the Braves on July 29, finishing the season with 21 homers, 64 RBIs and a .780 on-base plus slugging percentage for both teams.
Minasian, who took over as GM for the Angels in 2020 after a four-year run as assistant GM for the Braves, made the deal with Anthopoulos, his former longtime boss in Atlanta and with the Toronto Blue Jays before that. Minasian said Soler ideally would be a designated hitter but likely get playing time in the outfield as the Angels manage a roster that includes injury-prone veterans Mike Trout and Anthony Rendon.
Soler was solely a DH for the Giants but has played the corner outfield spots at every other stop in his peripatetic career, even though defense isn’t considered a strength of his game.
“I have no issue at all wherever they put me,” Soler said.
AP photo by John McDonnell / Griffin Canning pitches for the Los Angeles Angels during a game against the host Washington Nationals on Aug. 10.Canning is an Orange County native and a former second-round draft pick who has been part of the Angels’ starting rotation for the past six years when healthy. He won a Gold Glove in 2020 but missed the entire 2022 season with a back injury.
Canning went 6-13 with a 5.19 ERA while making a career-high 32 starts this year for the Angels, who finished with the worst record in franchise history (63-99).
“It’s tough,” Minasian said. “It’s someone who took the ball every single time last year, in a year where we had a ton of injuries. He’s one of the reliable guys that was right there, ready to go. Even when he was struggling, and he had struggles, he did take the ball and give everything he had.”
The Angels added a significant amount of payroll in acquiring Soler, but Minasian said he expects to be aggressive in free agency after the team collapsed in its first year without Shohei Ohtani. The Japanese two-way star won the AL MVP award twice while spending his first six MLB seasons with the Angels, then signed a record-setting $700 million, 10-year contract with the NL’s Los Angeles Dodgers last December.
The Dodgers wrapped up the 2024 World Series with a Game 5 victory over the New York Yankees on Wednesday night, their eighth title overall and second in five years.
The Angels, who debuted in 1961, won the 2002 title in their lone World Series appearance. They have six postseason appearances since then but none since being swept in an AL Division Series in 2014.
“This is move number one,” Minasian said of the trade for Soler. “We expect there to be more moves. I expect to improve this club in a lot of different areas.”