Offseason In Review: Los Angeles Angels

As Shohei Ohtani reached free agency, the Angels declared that they would not rebuild. But after Ohtani moved across town to the Dodgers, the Angels kept things pretty quiet, ignoring the pleas of Mike Trout.

Major League Signings

• RHP Robert Stephenson: Three years, $33MM
• LHP Matt Moore: One year, $9MM
• RHP Luis Garcia: One year, $4.25MM
• RHP Jose Cisnero: One year, $1.75MM
• RHP Adam Cimber: One year, $1.65MM
• RHP Zach Plesac: One year, $1MM
• LHP Adam Kolarek: One year, $900K (later outrighted off roster)
• OF Aaron Hicks: One year, prorated league minimum with Yankees still paying majority of contract

2024 spending: $29.55MM
Total spending: $51.55MM

Option Decisions

• Declined $7.5MM option on LHP Aaron Loup in favor or $2.5MM buyout
• Declined $9MM option on IF Eduardo Escobar in favor of $900K buyout

Trades and Claims

• Traded C Max Stassi and IF David Fletcher to Braves for 1B Evan White and LHP Tyler Thomas
• Claimed 1B Alfonso Rivas off waivers from Guardians (later lost off waivers to Cardinals)
• Traded IF/OF Trey Cabbage to Astros for RHP Carlos Espinoza
• Acquired RHP Guillermo Zuniga from Cardinals for cash

Notable Minor League Signings

• Miguel Sano (later selected to roster), Charles Leblanc, Jose Marte, Willie Calhoun, Tayron Guerrero, Jake Marisnick, Chad Wallach, Hunter Dozier, Caleb Hamilton, Jason Martin, Carson Fulmer, Amir Garrett

Extensions

• None.

Notable Losses

• Ohtani, Loup, Escobar, Gio Urshela, Randal Grichuk, Brett Phillips, Jake Lamb, Mike Moustakas, C.J. Cron, Jaime Barria, Jared Walsh, Chris Rodriguez, Cabbage, Kolton Ingram, Ehire Adrianza, Hunter Strickland

Many people in the baseball world have been looking forward to this offseason for a long time. Shohei Ohtani has spent the past few years achieving things that were never achieved before nor even considered possible. But despite his best efforts, the Angels never made the postseason or even posted a winning record during his time with the club. As the Halos continually disappointed, eyes turned toward the calendar and his impending free agency, with fans dreaming of bringing Ohtani to their own club or perhaps just the idea of watching him playing meaningful games for anyone.

It wasn’t a foregone conclusion that Ohtani would leave, but they were certainly not the favorite. That led to questions about how the club would proceed if Ohtani did end up changing jerseys. As many argued, if the Angels weren’t good enough to win with Ohtani, they certainly wouldn’t be good enough without him. That led to speculation that the club would have to consider blowing up the entire roster and kicking off a massive rebuild.

But that line of thinking was quickly dispelled when general manager Perry Minasian came right out and made it clear. Just a couple of weeks after the World Series ended, he stated that the club would not be rebuilding and would in fact have an “aggressive” offseason.

Before getting to the roster moves, the club had to look for a new manager. Skipper Phil Nevin was sort of a placeholder, as he took over when Joe Maddon was fired in the middle of the 2022 season. Nevin was given a one-year deal to stick around for 2023 but never made it beyond lame duck status. The Halos settled on veteran manager and coach Ron Washington as their new bench boss, and it was at his introductory press conference that Minasian made his aforementioned comments about the club’s plans.

For the early parts of the offseason, a lot of attention was focused on Ohtani, not just from Angels’ fans but from all around the world. Though it played out in somewhat interesting fashion, with Ohtani and his reps seeming to prefer secrecy over any kind of public relations dance, the result ended up being fairly predictable. He took the I-5 from Anaheim to Los Angeles and will be playing with the Dodgers for the next decade.

Although that end result wasn’t surprising, it was a bit eyebrow-raising when it was reported that the Angels had a chance to match the Dodgers’ offer but chose not to. The $700MM price tag is obviously massive but the deal is heavily deferred, with Ohtani only making $2MM per year during the deal and $68MM annually in deferred payments for the following decade. That sort of structure was clearly appealing to clubs, who could bank profits of the marketability of Ohtani and collect interest on it until paying him down the line. The Giants and Blue Jays were reportedly willing to match the same deal that Ohtani signed with the Dodgers, but the Angels said no thanks. Perhaps they got the sense they were just being used to drive up the bidding, but that’s just a guess. Owner Arte Moreno later confirmed that the club did not match Ohtani’s deal but didn’t go into detail about why.

While losing Ohtani cast a shadow over the franchise, there was one small silver lining. Ohtani had rejected a qualifying offer from the Angels, meaning they will receive compensation for him signing elsewhere. The kind of compensation they would receive was up in the air for a while, given the club’s uncertain luxury tax status. They had gone over the competitive balance tax line in 2023 but tried to duck under after falling out of contention and placing several players on waivers in late August. It was eventually reported in early December that the club was successfully in avoiding the tax, which means their compensation pick for Ohtani’s departure will be after the second round of the upcoming draft as opposed to after the fourth.

With Ohtani officially gone and the club planning to be aggressive, as Minasian said, they seemed to cast a wide net in their search for upgrades. They were connected to an eclectic group of free agents including Jeimer Candelario, Blake Snell, Jordan Montgomery, Shota Imanaga, Jordan Hicks, Teoscar Hernandez, J.D. Martinez, Kevin Kiermaier, Harrison Bader, Michael A. Taylor, Tim Anderson, Martin Maldonado and others, as well as trade candidates like Shane Bieber, Corbin Burnes and Tyler Glasnow.

In the end, they didn’t get anything done with anyone from that group, which raises the question of how serious the interest was and of how “aggressive” the Angels truly were. Some of those players lingered on the open market for months and eventually signed deals well below the expectations from the outset of the winter. The Halos had plenty of chances to swoop in and snag a player at a bargain price but didn’t.

The later parts of the offseason were highlighted by the so-called “Boras Four:” Snell, Montgomery, Matt Chapman and Cody Bellinger. Trout was lobbying the club to take advantage of the soft market and was open to the media about his efforts, but the Halos didn’t grant his wishes, even as those players all pivoted to short-term deals with opt-outs.

The Angels certainly could have done so, even without incurring tax penalties. RosterResource currently estimates their CBT number to be $189MM, or $48MM below the lowest CBT threshold. That means the club could have given out a deal with an average annual value of $30MM and still had wiggle room for midseason trade additions, but Moreno said that the club was planning to lower the budget for the start of the post-Ohtani era and that seems to have prevented them from making any big splashes.

In the end, despite the claims that the club would be aggressive, their offseason amounted to making a few bullpen additions. The most notable of those was signing Robert Stephenson to a three-year, $33MM deal. It’s a bit of a risk since he’s been inconsistent in his career, but there’s also a chance he becomes one of the most dominant pitchers in the league.

He certainly looked to be on that path late last year, as he posted a 2.35 earned run average in 42 appearances with the Rays, striking out 42.9% of batters faced while walking just 5.7% of them. But his overall body of work is less impressive, as his career ERA currently sits at 4.64. He’s also dealt with a number of injuries over the years and is on the IL right now, not yet having made his debut as an Angel.

In addition to Stephenson, the Halos also brought back Matt Moore and signed Luis Garcia, Jose Cisnero and Adam Cimber on one-year deals. No one in that group is super exciting as an individual, but they collectively improve the depth in a bullpen that has been a problem for the Halos in the past.

On the position player side of things, the most significant additions came with no real cost at all. Aaron Hicks is still being paid by the Yankees as part of the extension he signed with that club many years ago, since they released him last year. That means the Angels will only have to pay him the prorated league minimum for any time he spends on the roster. He seemed to bounce back in a part-time role with the Orioles last year, so he’s a fine pickup for the Angels. If he’s productive at all, it’s a big win, and he can be jettisoned for no real cost if he struggles.

The same is largely true for Miguel Sano, who settled for a minor league deal over the winter. He spent an up-and-down seven years as a middle-of-the-order presence in Minnesota, but knee injuries wiped out most of his 2022 season and he didn’t play anywhere last year. He lost a bunch of weight and is now healthy enough to have cracked the Opening Day roster for the Angels, so he will also be a nice pickup for the club if he can carve out any kind of useful role this year.

While each move the Angels made may seem fairly sensible in a vacuum, the sum total of the moves is something of a confusing muddle. The club has spent decade in a middling zone of not being good enough to win but also having too much talent to rebuild. The loss of Ohtani arguably could have pushed them towards the latter. They clearly did not want to lean that way, but they also didn’t really push themselves in the other direction either.

It seems they are now in a sort of wait-and-see season. Instead of going outside the organization for star players, they will give playing time to younger players like Reid Detmers, Nolan Schanuel, Logan O’Hoppe, Zach Neto, Mickey Moniak, Jo Adell, Chase Silseth and others as they see what they have. Sam Blum of The Athletic recently interviewed Minasian and the GM said that the reason they didn’t end up signing notable free agents was that they didn’t want to block some of these young players from opportunities. When asked if Moreno would ever want to sign a big free agent again, “That would be a question for him” was Minasian’s reply.

There’s some logic to giving playing time to younger players but it’s a bit hard to see a bright future in Anaheim. Of the farm system rankings at Baseball America, FanGraphs, ESPN, MLB Pipeline and The Athletic, none of them have the Angels higher than 28th out of 30.

Back in February, Trout said that he has not asked to be traded since that would be “the easy way out.” While his commitment to the franchise is admirable, it’s getting harder to see how he’ll get back to the playoffs as an Angel. The major league club hasn’t been good enough, just subtracted the best player in the world and added little. Based on the assessments of the farm system, there’s not a lot of help on the way in the future either.

Trout is off to a blazing hot start here in 2024 but he’s had notable injury problems in each of the past three years and will move past his 33rd birthday this year. With an unclear future, the club perhaps would have been wise to try to build a winning club around him while they still have time but didn’t really make much of an effort to do so this winter.