Mike Trout was 23 years old the last time the Angels made the playoffs. He’ll turn 35 this August. It seems extremely unlikely that he’ll get a chance to play postseason baseball this year, either on his own accord or on the team’s. He did manage to play 130 games last season and cracked 500 plate appearances for the first time since 2019, but he’s clearly not the player he once was. Unfortunately, the organization is still the one it has been for a while now.
The Angels hired Kurt Suzuki as the manager and he’s on a one-year deal that coincides with the one guaranteed year left on GM Perry Minasian’s pact. Suzuki, who has been a special assistant to Minasian the last two seasons, just retired in 2022. Perhaps the hope is that the Angels can find the same magic that the Guardians have had with Stephen Vogt, who also retired that year. Regardless, it is another catcher finding a managerial position, but one who has zero job security and a pretty poor roster to work with. While the Angels were aggressive in their pursuits for bullpen arms, that’s the only part of the team that looked markedly different and possibly better.
For a team that got outscored by 163 runs last season and 162 runs the season before while narrowly avoiding 100 losses, it’s a bold strategy.
Adam Burke’s “Nerdy” Take
HITTING
The Angels finished fourth in home runs last season, which was a pretty good accomplishment all things considered. Just imagine what they could have done if they didn’t also lead the league in strikeouts by a significant margin. With 226 homers, the Halos still finished 25th in runs scored. As it turns out, hitting home runs is valuable, but hitting them with people on base is more valuable. LA was third in solo homers and 14th in homers with men on base, a byproduct of their 27.1% K%, and scored the third-fewest runs on multi-run HR. The Rockies were the only other team over 25% and they have a pretty good built-in excuse with the Coors Field Effect. The Angels have no such excuse.
How did the Angels try to use their home run prowess to their advantage this offseason? Well, they didn’t. They traded Taylor Ward and his 36 homers, one behind team leader Jo Adell, whose name was also bandied about in trade talks. Ward was second to Zach Neto in fWAR and one of the few regulars who actually drew some walks. He also had wildly bad luck on batted balls with just a .257 BABIP. They’ll look to replace Ward with Josh Lowe, who was 21% below league average offensively and was acquired in a three-team trade. Maybe Minasian wants to get fired.
PITCHING
The most talented player on the roster is a reliever. That’s just such a depressing statement, but it’s true, as the aging curve and health problems have derailed Trout. I guess Neto has a case, but the most exciting player is Ben Joyce, who unfortunately blew his shoulder out last season and only made five appearances. Joyce threw the hardest fastball in the league last season with an average of 102.1 mph. We’ll see how Joyce comes back from injury, but the Angels stocked up on tradeable relievers in Drew Pomeranz, Kirby Yates, and Jordan Romano for when they’re inevitably out of it by June. I actually like the bullpen a lot, but they won’t have leads to protect.
I am very curious to see what new pitching coach Mike Maddux can get out of this rotation. The Angels got Grayson Rodriguez from Baltimore in the Ward deal, so they got a high-upside arm with a high risk profile. Speaking of dice rolls, Alek Manoah is one. Yusei Kikuchi’s SwStr% dropped to 10.4% and he saw a BB% spike in his age-34 season that is super worrisome. Extreme worm killer Jose Soriano had a 65.3% GB% with a high walk rate. I’ll never give up on Reid Detmers, who was used as a reliever 61 times last season and had a 3.96 ERA with a 3.12 FIP, but he moves back to the rotation. Maddux has been around a long time, so I’m cautiously optimistic this group can improve.
PROSPECT WATCH
This is a very poor minor league system. The best prospect is easily Tyler Bremner, who the Angels just took second overall out of UC Santa Barbara this past June. I’m going in a different direction and looking at a non-prospect in Vaughn Grissom. In some respects, the 25-year-old, who debuted at 21, is a prospect because he only has 350 plate appearances to his name. The Braves fast-tracked him and maybe it was too much too soon, but he raked at every minor league level at a young age for that level. This is the kind of team that can give a career .303/.392/.458 minor leaguer a chance, especially with improved contact quality metrics last season for the Red Sox AAA team.
2026 OUTLOOK
There was a lot of dead weight on this roster that included guys with some track records like Logan O’Hoppe and Jorge Soler. The Angels also moved 2024 first-round pick Christian Moore up the ranks quickly. This won’t be a good team, but there will be reasons to be interested in them, if for nothing else to see how the soap opera of a one-year manager and GM joined at the hip plays out. Maddux, Suzuki, and some new ideas can’t hurt, but a high K% lineup and a low K% pitching staff are not a good pairing.
BOLD TAKE: Yusei Kikuchi and Jo Adell are traded together to a contender at the Trade Deadline
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Jensen Lewis’ “Player” Take
HITTING
Light up the Halo! Breakout campaigns from Zach Neto and Jo Adell produced some of the highlights for a lineup that actually crushed homers (fourth in MLB), but somehow still finished 25th in runs scored. A surprising trade of OF Taylor Ward to Baltimore, in exchange for oft-injured SP Grayson Rodriguez, leaves a lot of uncertainty for production in the middle of the order. It’s a mixed bag entering 2026: returning veterans Mike Trout and Jorge Soler will team with youngsters Nolan Schanuel and Logan O’Hoppe, along with newcomers OF Josh Lowe and 2B Vaughn Grissom. Is 2026 the year that 3B Christian Moore puts it all together? Can the overall lineup avoid major injuries that plagued them the last couple seasons? There’s plenty of power, but this offense provides more free air conditioning than the Southern California breezes, leading MLB by a mile in strikeouts last season. If you want to be bullish on one player in particular, Neto has a legit shot for 30+ HR and 30+ stolen bases this season.
PITCHING
This unit represents one of the truest “it could go either way” scenarios of any team entering 2026. Things they got right: bringing in Yusei Kikuchi last year to team with Jose Soriano for a much more respectable 1-2 punch atop the rotation. The acquisition of Rodriguez is a serious roll of the dice; if it comes out right, GM Perry Minasian stole a potential top of the rotation arm for years to come. Veteran lefty Reid Detmers slots somewhere in the middle or bottom of the rotation and the Angels will give reclamation project Alek Manoah a chance to earn a spot. The bullpen might actually be a great risk-reward asset in 2026, adding proven arms in Drew Pomeranz, Kirby Yates and Jordan Romano. Robert Stephenson probably gets to start the season as the closer, but plenty of former stoppers now are in the fold in case he falters. Shortening the game is definitely the buy-low strategy that just might work out for this group.
PROSPECT WATCH
Perhaps the shock of the 2025 MLB Draft came when Los Angeles made the No. 2 overall pick for RHP Tyler Bremner from UC Santa Barbara. Armed with a heater that touches 98 mph and a gyro-type slider in the mid-to-high 80s, he’s the latest in a recent line of college starters that will be fast-tracked through the Angels system (Ryan Johnson is a perfect comp from draft in 2024 to call-up in 2025). A debut in 2026 is definitely in the cards. Add in fellow phenom SP George Klassen, who may have the highest ceiling of any Halos pitching prospect and you’ve got the window into LA’s rotation future. OF Nelson Rada is considered one of the best signings out of the 2022 international class and really turned heads to finish the 2024 season. He’s only 20 years old, so a little seasoning at Triple-A will do him good.
2026 OUTLOOK
Newly-hired manager Kurt Suzuki only received only a one-year deal (incredibly odd) so the urgency will be high when everyone descends on camp in Tempe, Arizona. He’s surrounded himself with pitching coach and guru Mike Maddox, hitting coach Brady Anderson and bench coach John Gibbons. The Halos face an absolute gauntlet to start the regular season: road trips to face the Astros, Cubs, Reds and Yankees with homestands against the Mariners, Braves, Padres and Blue Jays. Yikes. The rotation will need to find a way to keep those offenses at bay and pray the offense can hit with runners in scoring position right from the jump. So many facets of this team need to break the right way to achieve even a .500 season.
BOLD TAKE: Zach Neto becomes a Top-10 shortstop in MLB
For Adam and Jensen’s Season Win Total Picks, get our 2026 MLB Betting Guide.
