Just days before the start of the season, the Los Angeles Angels and Atlanta Braves made a trade. It was their seventh deal in the last 11 months.

It was a swap of two once-promising, now-struggling pitchers. Ian Anderson to the Angels. José Suarez to Atlanta. Both joined the big league clubs to get their shot at a fresh start.

Neither one was very good.

Today, the pair are in the bullpen of the Gwinnett Stripers, Atlanta’s Triple-A affiliate. The Braves re-claimed Anderson on waivers after the Angels DFA’d him.

Their teammates in Gwinnett include nine other players who have been in the Angels organization in the last four years, including seven who made the Angels’ major league roster. Gwinnett is a who’s who of names that didn’t work out in Anaheim.

That isn’t just some weird coincidence. It’s emblematic of a unique dynamic between the two clubs, one that’s grown even more notably over the last calendar year. And a relationship that appears rooted in the Angels’ attempt to emulate Atlanta’s sustained success.

The Angels’ front office, coaching staff and roster are populated with former Braves. The roots of their comfortable dynamic stem from the history of Angels GM Perry Minasian, who took over in 2020 after spending four years as an assistant GM under Braves president of baseball operations Alex Anthopoulos in Atlanta; the pair also worked together for seven years in Toronto.

There is no effort in place to consciously acquire players or staff from the Braves, Minasian said; he and Anthopoulos know each other well, of course, but anything beyond that is circumstantial.

“Me personally, I don’t see any type of connection, outside of familiarity with the person who runs the team,” Minasian said. Anthopoulos declined an interview request.

Some others see it differently. Joe Maddon managed the Angels from 2020 to 2022. The club fired him in June of 2022, after a 12-game losing streak. That October, he released a book, “The Book of Joe: Trying Not to Suck at Baseball and Life,” that offered a firsthand account of his experience with the early years of the Minasian front office:

“A lot of things were related to ‘We did it this way with the Braves,’” Maddon wrote.

If that were the case, it’s easy to see why they’d look to Atlanta. The Angels haven’t had a winning record in a decade. The Braves, on the other hand, have been to the playoffs the last seven seasons and won a championship in 2021. And by now the list of hires, trades, and signings is so extensive that Braves lineage — and by extension Braves ideas, methods and culture — run deeply through the Angels organization.

The Angels’ coaching staff is led by manager Ron Washington, who spent seven years as the Braves’ third base coach, leaving only when he was hired to manage the Angels. Additionally, base running coach Eric Young Sr., infield coach Ryan Goins and assistant pitching coach Sal Fasano all come from the Braves.

Head athletic trainer Mike Frostad has Atlanta roots. So do senior director of research and development Michael Lord, assistant field coordinator Sean Kazmar Jr, pitching coordinator Dom Chiti, and since-fired Angels assistant GM Alex Tamin.

The Angels have routinely signed players with ties to the Braves. It’s a practice that dates to Kurt Suzuki, Minasian’s second big league signing as Angels GM. He came as a backup catcher, two years removed from two great seasons with the Braves. He remains with the Angels, currently as a front office advisor.

Just this offseason, the Angels traded for Jorge Soler, signed Travis d’Arnaud, traded away Davis Daniel, traded away Michael Peterson, traded for Angel Perdomo and made the aforementioned Suarez-Anderson swap. They recently signed reliever Hector Neris, who started the season in Atlanta.

Some big trades, more small trades, but always a high volume of deal-making. The two teams have even engaged in significant salary dump trades, with the Angels unloading Raisel Iglesias’ contract in 2022, as well as David Fletcher and Max Stassi the year after.

One could argue that the Angels’ most consequential trades of the Minasian era have been with the Phillies. But at just four trades in five years, their volume of transactions pales by comparison.

Since May of last year, the Angels have made 14 trades; seven of them have been with the Braves. Since Minasian’s tenure began in November of 2020, 11 of the 46 total swaps have come with Atlanta.

Despite the extreme volume, it’s not as though the Angels are attempting to be an exact replica of the Braves. They do employ people all across the organization who came from different franchises. Some with Atlanta ties were known to Minasian in previous stops.

And quite clearly, the results have been different.

The Angels have yet to win more than 77 games under the current front office. That continues a streak of losing seasons that started under Minasian’s predecessor, Billy Eppler, who ran the team over the 2016 to 2020 seasons without posting a winning record. Last year, the Angels finished with a franchise-record 99 losses. They’re on pace to finish 72-90 in 2025, following a weekend sweep of the Dodgers.

“Invest,” Angels DH Jorge Soler said flatly when asked how the Angels reach the Braves’ level. Soler was the World Series MVP in 2021 for Atlanta. “You see the Braves, they have a lot of money for contracts.”

“You need players,” Washington said, when posed the same question as Soler. “… It takes time. It’ll take about three years before you start seeing big-time improvement.

“These past couple years, I think we’ve been trying to get it right.”

The question surrounding the Angels is if they are actually building anything similar, as Washington suggests. Atlanta’s history offers at least a sliver of hope: Before the Braves’ run of playoff appearances, they weren’t good, either. Four straight years of sub-.500 records. But they were rebuilding successfully, and their young core all came up around the same time.

“How were the Braves before the sustained success?” said Angels catcher d’Arnaud, who spent the previous five years in Atlanta. “There’s a little period where they were struggling for a handful of years. Trying to develop and build a culture.

“That’s what I think is happening. Trying to build a culture here that creates winning. The people you surround yourself with is ultimately who you become,” d’Arnaud continued.

There are other voices with other organizational roots in the room, who are trying to make it happen. AGM and player development director Joey Prebynski, for example, came from the St. Louis Cardinals. Scouting director Tim McIlvaine was with the Milwaukee Brewers.

But still, the most consistent through line has been the Braves, felt throughout every facet of their operation. From the GM, to the manager, to even bench veterans over the years like Kevin Pillar or Phil Gosselin.

“They want to help everybody actually become a better player, and aren’t scared to pass along information, which I think is very important,” d’Arnaud said of Angels people with Braves ties. “To have that familiarity for me is huge.”

When Washington started as manager, he wanted to build a culture like Atlanta’s. He wanted guys that could post, a core of players who would play every day. In his final year as a Braves coach, in 2023, Atlanta’s starting lineup averaged 144.3 games played. The Angels averaged just 101.4.

That’s what the Angels are in search of: stability. A reliable core. A pipeline of talent. And a system of player development that can be consistently good. The Angels’ brass has sold their current plight as a growth period. What’s less clear is if this rebuild is actually working.

To Soler’s point, the Braves have spent more money on payroll, though not dramatically so. They’re at $211 million, according to FanGraphs. The Angels’ payroll is $203 million. However, Atlanta’s is balanced throughout their roster. They’ve locked up their young players, while the Angels haven’t.

What they’ve done is create something that looks similar to the Braves, with many of the same architects around it.

Only time will tell if they can ever come close to matching Atlanta’s success.

— With contributions from The Athletic‘s David O’Brien.

(Top photo of Travis d’Arnaud with Atlanta and Nolan Schanuel during a 2024 Braves-Angels game: Orlando Ramirez / Getty Images)