Expectations were that the Angels would make a splashy addition to their rotation during the offseason. That didn’t happen. They did, however, reel in premier position player Anthony Rendon and one of the game’s most respected managers in Joe Maddon. A decades-long Angels employee before he went on to manage the Rays and Cubs to great success, Maddon’s taking over for Brad Ausmus, who lasted just one season as the club’s skipper.
Major League Signings
- Anthony Rendon, 3B: Seven years, $245MM
- Julio Teheran, RHP: One year, $9MM
- Jason Castro, C: One year, $6.85MM
- Total spend: $260.85MM
Trades and Claims
- Acquired RHP Dylan Bundy from Orioles for RHPs Isaac Mattson, Zach Peek, Kyle Bradish and Kyle Brnovich
- Acquired LHP Garrett Williams and cash considerations from Giants for INF Zack Cozart and SS Will Wilson
- Acquired RHP Matt Andriese from Diamondbacks for RHP Jeremy Beasley
- Acquired RHP Kyle Keller from Marlins for C Jose Estrada
- Acquired RHP Parker Markel from Pirates for cash considerations
- Claimed RHP Mike Mayers from Cardinals
- Claimed LHP Jose Quijada from Marlins
Notable Minor League Signings
Notable Losses
- Cozart, Wilson, Kole Calhoun, Trevor Cahill, Justin Bour, Luis Garcia, Kevan Smith, Nick Tropeano, Adalberto Mejia, Kaleb Cowart, Miguel Del Pozo, Kean Wong, Jake Jewell, Luis Madero
Few teams possessed worse starting staffs than the Angels in 2019. They ranked dead last in fWAR (3.2) and second from the bottom in both ERA (5.64) and FIP (5.41). None of their starters even touched the 100-inning mark. The team endured an unthinkable tragedy when left-hander Tyler Skaggs passed away last July.
The Angels had no choice but to carry on without Skaggs, which meant trying to upgrade their rotation over the winter. They were connected to the top free-agent arms available (Gerrit Cole, Stephen Strasburg and Zack Wheeler) and high-end trade targets such as the Indians’ Corey Kluber and Carlos Carrasco. Ultimately, despite a reported $300MM offer to Cole, the Angels did not emerge with him or any of the other aforementioned starters. But they at least came away with a couple durable back-end types, trading for Dylan Bundy of the Orioles and signing ex-Brave Julio Teheran. They’re not flashy, but the two have shown an ability to competently chew up innings, which matters for a team that couldn’t find anyone to do that a season ago. Bundy has thrown 160-plus innings three seasons in a row, while Teheran has seven straight seasons of 170-plus frames under his belt.
Although Bundy and Teheran make for welcome additions, the Angels could still open the season with an underwhelming group of starters. Part of that depends on when the season actually begins, though, with the coronavirus perhaps delaying it until June or later. Had the year begun on time, the Angels would not have had either Shohei Ohtani or Griffin Canning among their starting options. As of early February, Ohtani – continuing to work back from the Tommy John surgery he underwent in October 2018 – was targeting a mid-May return to pitching. Canning received “biological injections” in his elbow two weeks ago, and his 2020 outlook isn’t clear at this point.
Even having just one of Ohtan or Canning (especially Ohtani) available when the season commences would change the complexion of the Angels’ rotation. Otherwise, they may not field a particularly appealing or deep unit after Bundy, Teheran and Andrew Heaney. The rest of their healthy 40-man possibilities include Matt Andriese, Jaime Barria, Patrick Sandoval, Dillon Peters and Jose Suarez. Andriese spent all of last season as a reliever in Arizona, where he struggled; Barria and Sandoval have promise, but neither had success in the majors in 2019; and Peters and Suarez posted brutal numbers.
Luckily for the Halos, their lineup has the potential to terrorize opposing pitchers. The floor was already reasonably high with the best player in the world, center fielder Mike Trout, as well as Ohtani leading the way. They’ll now be joined by Rendon, a superstar third baseman whom the Angels signed to a seven-year, $245MM contract after he helped the Nationals to a World Series title last season.
The Rendon acquisition came after the Angels rid themselves of pricey, oft-injured infielder Zack Cozart, whom they essentially had to bribe the Giants to take. Getting his $12MM-plus salary for this season off the books cost the Angels a quality prospect in shortstop Will Wilson, a first-round pick from last June whom the Halos had to send to San Francisco in order to convince the Giants to take Cozart.
The Cozart gamble didn’t work out for the Angels in the two years he was on the team, though there’s little reason to believe they won’t get at least some high-end seasons out of Rendon. The soon-to-be 30-year-old, by far the foremost position player on the winter’s open market, has consistently been among the elite performers in baseball since his first full season in 2014. Rendon’s the owner of four seasons of at least 6.0 fWAR, including a career-high 7.0 last year. He’ll now displace David Fletcher at third in Anaheim. While Fletcher held his own at the hot corner last season, he’s capable of playing all over the diamond (he can also handle second, short and both corner outfield positions). That versatility should continue to make Fletcher a valuable piece of the team’s roster.
The Angels received little value out of the catcher position last year, when Jonathan Lucroy, Kevan Smith, Dustin Garneau, Max Stassi and Anthony Bemboom combined for a dismal minus-0.6 fWAR. Stassi and Bemboom are still with the organization, but they’ll take a backseat to new starter Jason Castro. The $6.85MM deal the Angels handed Castro, a former Astro and Twin, looks eminently reasonable when you consider what he brings to the table. The 32-year-old Castro is an enormous asset in the pitch-framing department who, throughout his career, has thrown out a roughly average number of would-be base stealers and offered passable production for his position on the offensive side. Castro’s track record suggests that he’ll be a major upgrade over the backstops the Angels relied on a year ago.
Trout, Ohtani, Rendon, Fletcher and Castro make for over half of a promising core of regulars. There are some questions elsewhere, though. For instance, can normally big-hitting left fielder Justin Upton bounce back from an injury-marred season? The same applies to defensively brilliant shortstop Andrelton Simmons, who’s entering the last year of his contract. Meanwhile, it’s fair to wonder if first baseman Albert Pujols has anything at all left in the tank, and whether infielder Tommy La Stella and right fielder Brian Goodwin can follow up on their surprising showings from 2019. Goodwin may not be long for a starting job unless he absolutely tears it up, as the Angels have a stud prospect in soon-to-be 21-year-old Jo Adell breathing down his neck. The fact that Adell is charging toward the bigs is among the reasons the Angels bid goodbye to longtime starting right fielder Kole Calhoun over the winter, buying him out for $1MM in lieu of exercising a $14MM option. If the coronavirus doesn’t rob us of a 2020 season, Adell figures to make his much-anticipated debut this year.
Along with some iffiness in their position player cast, the Angels are facing a bit of uncertainty in their bullpen. Their relief corps last year was only a middle-of-the-pack bunch – albeit one with some intriguing choices in Hansel Robles, Ty Buttrey, Cam Bedrosian, Noe Ramirez and Keynan Middleton – and the team didn’t make any obvious improvements during the offseason. The Angels instead just made small moves such as claiming righty Mike Mayers from the Cardinals and grabbing lefty Ryan Buchter on a non-guaranteed deal. At the very least, Buchter could end up as a sneaky good signing. He has a history of strong run prevention, though the fact that he walked more hitters and yielded more home runs than ever last season forced him to settle for a minors pact.
2020 Season Outlook
On paper, it’s fair to say this is a better Angels roster than the 2019 version that spiraled to a 72-90 record and extended the franchise’s playoff drought to five years. Whether the Angels will turn into real playoff contenders this season is another matter, though, largely because it’s once again tough to bank on their rotation operating at a high level. Moreover, the Angels find themselves in a division with at least two likely playoff contenders (the Astros and Athletics) and a Rangers club that seemingly bettered itself over the winter. However, at a minimum, it would be a disappointment for the Angels not to surpass the .500 mark for the first time since 2015.
How would you grade the Angels’ offseason? (Poll link for app users)
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
Despite my immense hatred of the Angels and anything to do with them… They had a productive off-season… Rendon and Trout is a lock to be the scariest lineup duo in the league. And getting some average starters in Teheran and Bundy is going to make it easier for them to win some games. Overall they had a B off-season. I just would’ve liked to see them get an above-average starter with some great ceiling like Ryu. But maybe getting Callaway will bring that above-average starter from within (like maybe Heaney).
Rendon still would’ve looked good in baby blue… (me being butt-hurt).
Whenever you add a top 10 player in baseball to your team, you had an good offseason. I give it a B. They upgraded the starting rotation, albeit not as much as I had hope for. They upgraded the lineup by adding one of the best clutch hitters in the game. Castro is also an upgrade to the Angels since catching was a bit of a black hole last year. All in all, a goo off season.
Has to be an A when you sign someone like Rendon and dont lose anyone major.
Looking at the offseason with blinders on if you think any differently.
Name even 1 SP, who for the longterm price would’ve been worth it?
Bundy & Julio both improve the rotation without handcuffing the payroll.
Let alone that Bundy really has a chance to be something special now that hes left the O’s
And let’s not forget the impact of Castro for whom the Angel’s have always lacked consistency behind the plate.
The Angels missed out on getting the TOR starting pitcher that they needed but got a great player in Rendon instead which will help both defensively as well as offensively. That trade with the Dodgers would have helped them immensely given the injury to Canning but unfortunately it fell through and we will never know all of the details as to why. The Angels really need Ohtani to be an ace this season and carry that rotation but it has been stated that he will only pitch once a week this season which will limit his value. I think him being a two-way player actually hurts the Angels more than it helps. I give the Angels a B+ for the offseason but it is difficult to project them to finish any better than third place. The Astros and the A’s are both 90 win teams and the Rangers are no slouch with that starting rotation. Looking long term the Angels are in a bit of a tough spot as both the Astros and A’s are currently better with younger rosters. It may be a 2-3 years from now when the contracts of both Pujols and Upton are off the books that the Angels will be in a better position to contend. But by that time the careers of both Trout and Rendon will likely be in decline and the Angels farm system offers little hope for the future outside of Joe Adell. This website just recently ranked it 26th and that ranking will get worse once Adell departs for the majors. So although I think the Angels had a good offseason I don’t know if it will result in any playoff wins anytime soon.
They missed out on Ryu? Remember you said that.
How do you hate a team that hasn’t been good for many years?
With the season shorted the odds of the Angels making the playoffs went from 18% to 33% in Las Vegas! Starting pitching is our big issue and the Angels will pick up someone before the trade deadline if they are contending.
Pitching is risky with injuries and poor performance from year to year. Putting your big money on players who play daily is the smarter move! Now Sale is out with TJ surgery and Dombrouski burried the Redsox with all his long-term pitching contracts! Eplier’s saving grace is our contracts last year were all one year deals so it didn’t hand tie the Angel’s ability to find repacements this year! Go Angels!
RottenBoyfriend.
I think you are right. No one knows how many innings pitchers need to throw, therefore no on knows who has enough pitching.
Every good or promising pitcher coming off injury has just gotten a lot better. There is a huge difference between a pitcher expected to pitch 100 innings than a pitcher expected to pitch 150.
No better than a C for me. Number one need in the off-season was to come away with a top tier starter and that didn’t happen. We can all say the market was too strong for them but at the end of the day they didn’t address it and other teams did. Rendon is a solid signing but again he can’t start
Seth… What starting pitcher in this division would you take over Ohtani?
Now that it looks like 100 IP will be what a starter will throw, I would not take a single pitcher of Ohtani.
The only reason they Angels were holding him back was to limit his innings. That looks like it’s no longer an issue.
This virus also makes Puk, Luzardo, Manea, Heaney, McCullers, Kluber all much better than they were two weeks ago.
Seriously I’m an Angel fan but I know better than to believe Ohtani is an ace with only 10 lifetime starts! To answer your question Verlander and Grienki would qualify as aces over Ohtani! We don’t even know if his velocity will be the same? More than 50% of the pitchers who have Tommy John surgery are never as good as they were prior? I appreciate your optimism but Ohtani may never be what he was for those first three months off 2018!
“More than 50% of the pitchers who have Tommy John surgery are never as good as they were prior?”
Besides being a made up statistic, it’s also a useless one in a vacuum.
Verlander just had core surgery. If you want to take Greinke, I won’t argue with that, I’ll take Ohtani.
So you think he’s second.
It’s too early to know what we have with Ohtani., The 12 games he did start that was the other teams first time seeing him. A lot of pitchers start out being able to fool the hitters but then they figure out what you throw and it gets more difficult getting them out! Believe me I would love for Ohtani to be the Mike Trout of pitching but it is just too soon to really know one way or the other! This is exactly what happened with Canning he was dominant at first but they caught up with him and he hurt his elbow trying to get more movement on the ball. My bet is he ends up needing the Tommy John surgery before the year is out too!
The GM Daniels in Texas did a nice job of fortifying his rotation without really having to give up much! So far Eppler has struck out in his 4 years of finding pitching. as Weaver got old and Richards got hurt via Tommy John and we have been unable to replace them so far! Not getting Cole will end up being a blessing as he will never be dominant for the next 8 years!
rottenboyfriend
It is too early. But I’ll take him over Greinke. I have no problem with you taking Greinke over him. But as for the rest, I’ll take Ohtani.
People make it sound like teams have Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling. By the way, the Angels didn’t do all that well when half their staff was Ryan and Tanana.
The teams in our division with the best pitching are Oakland and Texas at this point especially if Verlander missed significant time! If La Stella hits like he did last year we are gonna score plenty of runs! If Canning is healthy and if Ohtani comes back with the same stuff he had in 2018 and if Heaney can perform like he did in 2017 then our pitching could get us a playoff slot but we are willfully short of what would be needed to win the Pennant or World Series! Our bullpen would need to be exceptional and everything would need to fall our way starting pitching wise just to make the playoffs!
Everyone says Oakland has the best pitching. OK, so they have four pitchers coming back who didn’t pitch 100 innings last year and three are coming off significant injuries and one off a PED suspension.
The Rangers. I like Lance Lynn. But not more than Ohtani. Kluber who knows? And Minor is not going to do this again. Where Teheran shows the ability to pitch beyond his peripherals, minor does not.
Just so you know we didn’t have anyone pitch 100 innings last year! LOL
That 8 year contract for Gerrett Cole will come back to bit the Yankees! At 30 he will start to decline in a few years just like Jake Arrieta! They will get at most 3 good years out of Cole if they are lucky and then they will end up with an average to below average pitcher over the last 5 if he doesn’t end up with arm issues! Kershaw at 32 is on the decline and the Dodgers only are committed to him for 2 more years! Long term pitching contracts at huge dollars are the kiss of death most of the time with the exception of Schureer and the lefty with the Cubs! For every pitcher that lived up to his free agent contract I will name 10 that didn’t!!
Develop them and after the 6 years of control let them go if they demand a contract length that puts the team in financial straights if they end up not able to perform. Their are so many Tommy John surgeries now days that only a fool signs a pitcher for more than 4 years! Position players are always the safer bet to put your big bucks on!
How was Fletcher worth almost 5 WAR last year?
It was a decent offseason. Teheran and Bundy aren’t enough but you can’t ignore Rendon. I’d give it a C+ or B- if I could.
I am not an angels fan and don’t know too many of their players well, fletcher is a pest for pitchers. Takes a lot of pitches, fouls pitches, and never strikes out so idk if that’s why he’s 5 WAR and also I’m not sure about his defense
he is a future gold glove winner if the team lets him play second most of the times.
Rendon is a great player, but the Angels still failed to address their biggest need, pitching. Teheran & Bundy aren’t top of the rotation arms and don’t push them over the top. The Angels still don’t have enough pitching to be a playoff team.
Thank you Capt. Obvious Too bad the Flu thats invading the U.S. will restrict traveling for awhile. But the good news is we won’t be seeing you in those incredibly inane TV ads. With that beard maybe can get a role on ” Duck Hunters”
Vitriol award goes to you my friend
So you’re saying Eric Lord is correct? That’s what I got out of it. Prepare to score 7 runs per game to win.
Seven runs. Talk about hyperbole.
The Angels, like the A’s got a lot better. Ohtani is now an ace. The players who are coming off injured seasons now don’t have to worry about pitching 150 innings.
Canning, Othani and Heaney can throw 100 innings.
The entire season has changed.
I don’t know about Canning throwing a 100.
HaloHonk, regardless, For teams with pitchers who are coming off injuries, pitching is a new ballgame. My guess is when this season begins, you are looking at pitchers to throw 100 innings.
The Angels pitchers, and the A’s pitchers look a lot better within that context.
Hyperbole? Ok fine. 8 runs.
And you double down? I know you’re smarter than that.
You’re right. That is why I cannot understand why you and other Angels fans are not realizing just how bad your pitching is. Nobody cares about the potential. Lots of teams have potential. Unless you go out and actually perform, it doesn’t matter. All you have is a promise and a prayer. In fact, if you traded your starting 5 pitchers, what would you get in-return? Better yet, that’s a question to ask non-Angel fans.
A) Do you want any Angels starting pitcher? If yes….
B) What would you give up for that pitcher?
You will be disappointed with the answers.
Again, not here to say the Angels pitchers aren’t capable of performing up to playoff levels. Asking them to do so with their track records is a HUGE ask. So yes, I doubled down. I stand by that as I stand by the fact I think Rendon is the best 3B in baseball. I also stand by the Jason Castro signing being awful. I might be right, I might be wrong. But I have no bias, and I think the Angels will need to score and score often to reach the playoffs.
Ohtani is now an ace. He’s no longer going to need to pitch over a hundred innings. I look at Heaney and I see elite swing and miss stuff. If you looked at fangraphs you’d see it too.
Bundy has two elite pitches. Teheran will be fine. All he needs is an ERA around four. I have no idea why you think he’s going to blow up.
The delay of the season is a game changer. I wish it wasn’t so, but it makes the Angels and A’s innings issues much less of a worry.
You do realize our win loss record was 72-90 last season and the A’s went 96-66 and Houston 101-61.. So you think two average starters and Rendon will get us past Houston or Oakland? Don’t forget the loss of Skaggs too? I hope you are right however we haven’t made the payoffs in 5 years! We still need one more quality starter and another proven reliever to really be a serious contender for the division!
Eric? Well placed words.
If Ohtani comes back strong, I’d argue that they’d have more than enough SP to win a title
While they didn’t fully solve the starting pitching problem, I imagine every Angels fan is pretty excited to see this team hit. Solid B for me. They got the best 3rd basemen in the game.
Nolan Arenado has entered the chat.
considering where arenado plays i still think rendon is the better one.
I think Rendon is better, but if it makes you happy I’ll amend my statement to say one of the best active third basemen in baseball.
Arenado isn’t Top 5 when taken outside of Coors.
Arenado isn’t close. Do you see what he does on the road?
Bregman is the guy who is likely #1. But then again, he put up those number while cheating. So who knows?
And Maddon as manager.
Still see Joc in RF. Oh well.
joe addel will be many times better than joc.
Joc is terrible.
No clue what the Angel’s were thinking
Could just sign Puig at that point.
Probably thinking that 36HR ,920 OPS against righties would come in handy until Adell arrives/adjusts to the bigs.
I agree that a B is their best rating. It all like always comes down to pitching. What they got will help and be better but not enough to win a division. Still no true number 1 or Ace and it shows during the season. I feel that unless they trade for TOR arms then a wild card is best case scenario. I would like for Arte and the club put some money and focus on some real quality pitching. Either way…should be fun to see Trout and Rendon and Adell soon for years to come! Hope all blows over and we can start the season soon…be safe out there everyone
the team was in on every freeagent ‘tor’ pitchers. one had to stay close to wife’s family. one took one year deal thinking it was 2018., we’ didn’t plan to chase ryu but he was the only one left. besides, i think epp was smart not to offer 4 year deal to him.
Grade C. If they had completed the Joc Pederson/Ross Stripling then solid B to possible A.
Arte Moreno needs to let the baseball people do their thing and stop interfering.
you don’t even know what additional prospects dodgers wanted. angels initially took the deal for stripling knowing they would soon have to get rid of joc not to block highly considered prospects.
At first I thought the exact same thing about Arte but if it were up to Eppler we wouldn’t have Joe Madden so give Arte some credit for making that happen! We saved the 10 million on Peterson and Stripling and can use those funds to make a trade before the August 1st deadline. I have a hunch the Dodgers were getting back Regifo and Marsh who are two of our best prospects! We had enough hitting so we didn’t need Peterson so Arte probably saved us from Billy but If the trade didn’t include Marsh then we should have made it!
I like the pitching additions however this is the Angels and pitching is NEVER good. Maybe the offense can carry them
C Castro
1B Rengifo/Pujols
2B La Stella/Fletcher
SS Simmons
3B Rendon
RF Goodwin/Adell
CF Trout
LF Upton
DH/Ace Ohtani/Pujols
True quality starting pitchers cost a fortune on the free agent market. The Angels need to trade for some top pitching prospects who are close to the majors. The Angels already have a very good lineup. Trout and Rendon are scary. They have a bad rotation. They should trade Adell and Marsh for some pitching. Would the Angels be better off with Adell or someone like Casey Mize? Marsh or Brailyn Marquez?
These are just names of pitchers who have similar prospect rankings. I am not suggesting that those trades could actually happen. But something similar could be done.
We need to put Adell in right as soon as he is ready and get Marsh ready to play left when Upton’s contract is up! Need to develop some young inexpensive talent so we have money for Ohtani and some proven starting pitchers!
I don’t know how well they did this offseason but it’s crazy how difficult pitching prospects are to properly project. The three for sure guys in their rotation mentioned are Dylan Bundy, Julio Tehran and Andrew Heaney all of whom were, during their prospect days, considered to have high end front of the rotation ceilings.
They didn’t improve their pitching as in no top of the rotation and added a bad contract in contract year/juiced ball wonder Rendon. F.
must be a gnats fan!
Rendon has been great EVERY year. Plus they replaced a crew of scrubs for Julio and Bundy. None of them are aces but Julio consistently outperforms his FIP and will keep that dangerous lineup in the game. Bundy is still better then most of the pitchers they trotted out last year and will benefit from being of the Orioles and possibly a change of scenery. They have improved, they could of probably made some more pitching moves but they should be quite a bit better.
The truth? Here is the truth, you don’t know too much about baseball.
This virus gave the Angels an ace. Aces are now going to throw 100 innings.. if that, and Ohtani can easily do that.
Gotta love the Cozart signing. Take a decent glove SS, but a hitter who had a OPS+ of only 82 in his five years prior to his walk year. Sign the guy, then someone in the FO realizes that you already have an excellent glove at SS. So now you have nowhere to play the guy.
Oh, and you pay the guy for ages 32-34.
So you get a solid -0.6 WAR for two years and $25M+, and then lose your #1 pick from 2019.
The lessons are always the same.
1-Don’t sign a guy and not have a position for him.
2-Don’t sign a guy based on nothing else but his walk-year stats.
3-Don’t sign older players.
I’m a Reds fan, and I criticized the FO for essentially letting Cozart walk after the 2017 season without having anything to show for it. In hindsight CIN played that just right, and they made no effort whatsoever to keep him. Cozart ultimately proved to be the right-handed Lonnie Chisenhall – truckloads of talent and production unrealized because he can’t stay healthy long enough to even put on a uni.
You are spot on man! Eppler’s achilles heal is he is batting zero with all the free agents he has signed so far! Genius on the waver wire but we are yet to get anywhere close to our money’s worth in free agency! I sure hope Rendon becomes our first free agent success story!
Everyday lineup will be tough offensively and defensively. Would prefer to see Fletcher at 2B fulltime and LaStella platoon with Albert at 1B but that’s not going to happen based on Spring Training lineups.
Maddon a great addition that makes everyone better.
Calloway makes all the pitchers better.
The following comments assume a 162 game season, which will not happen, and that Canning is out for the season:
-Heaney, Terhan and Bundy need to put up sub 4.50 ERAs with 160+ innings apiece
-young pitchers need to take a step forward.
-Ohtani needs to deliver 100ish solid innings
-Eppler needs to acquire at least one solid starter at trade deadline or before.
I am a big Angels fan but that’s a lot of “needs”.
You really think anyone is gong to throw 160 innings? If this season starts up in by July 4th, it will be a major surprise.
I just don’t see how the Angels will be anything but a financial disaster. It doesn’t matter if you spend a billion dollars on offense, you can’t win without pitching and they don’t have pitching.
Stop giving yourself a thumbs up.
Pitching varies from year to year especially with relievers! They have three average starting pitchers plus Ohtani! Pen is fairly sound but without another solid starter they will probably be on the outside looking in for the 5th year in a row! One more proven starter and I think they have a 50/50 chance of making the playoffs!
Angel will finish about 500 with Rendon the same without Rendon. Rendon might have sold more tickets but not now do to the coronavirus.