Author: Anthony Franco

The Angels made a managerial change and overhauled the coaching staff. They otherwise did little to improve a 90-loss roster and again enter the season as one of the American League’s worst teams on paper.

Major League Signings

• RHP Kirby Yates: One year, $5MM
• 3B Yoán Moncada: One year, $4MM
• LHP Drew Pomeranz: One year, $4MM
• RHP Jordan Romano: One year, $2MM
• RHP Alek Manoah: One year, $1.95MM
• LHP Brent Suter: One year, $1.25MM

2026 spending: $18.2MM
Total future spending: $18.2MM

Trades and Claims

• Traded OF Taylor Ward to Orioles for RHP Grayson Rodriguez
• Acquired OF Josh Lowe from Rays in three-team trade that sent LHP Brock Burke to Reds and minor league RHP Chris Clark to Tampa Bay
• Acquired 2B Vaughn Grissom from Red Sox for minor league OF Isaiah Jackson
• Claimed RHP Kaleb Ort off waivers from Yankees (later outrighted to Triple-A)
• Claimed OF Wade Meckler off waivers from Giants (later outrighted to Triple-A)
• Acquired LHP Jayvien Sandridge from Yankees for cash
• Claimed RHP Osvaldo Bido off waivers from Marlins (later lost on waivers to Rays)
• Claimed RHP Cody Laweryson off waivers from Twins (subsequently released)

Option Decisions

• None

Extensions

• None

Notable Minor League Signings

• Shaun Anderson, Gustavo Campero, Jeimer Candelario, Adam Frazier, Nick Madrigal, Trey Mancini, Omar Martinez, Sebastian Rivero, Angel Perdomo, Yolmer Sánchez, Nick Sandlin, Tayler Saucedo, Jose Siri, Hunter Strickland, Chris Taylor, Donovan Walton, Huascar Ynoa, Aneurys Zabala

Notable Losses

• Taylor Ward, Kenley Jansen, Brock Burke, Kyle Hendricks (retired), Tyler Anderson (still unsigned), Luis Rengifo, Luis García, José Ureña, Andrew Chafin, Sammy Peralta (lost on waivers), Carter Kieboom (outright), Logan Davidson (outright), Connor Brogdon (outright), Carson Fulmer (outright)

At the end of their 10th straight losing season, the Angels announced they were making a managerial change. Neither Ron Washington nor interim skipper Ray Montgomery — who took over in the second half while Washington recovered from bypass surgery — would be back. Montgomery remained in the organization in a front office role, while Washington would land in San Francisco as infield coach on Tony Vitello’s first MLB staff.

Albert Pujols was the early frontrunner. Talks fizzled out a couple weeks later, reportedly after Pujols and owner Arte Moreno couldn’t agree on coaches and financial terms. The Halos also interviewed longtime center fielder Torii Hunter before landing on former catcher Kurt Suzuki as their new manager. Suzuki was highly respected as a player and has spent three seasons with the organization in a special assistant role, though he has no prior coaching or managerial experience.

Suzuki signed a one-year contract, which is rare. Most teams tend to give their top front office personnel and their manager multi-year security. Suzuki evidently didn’t have that kind of bargaining power. There’s nothing inherently wrong with a one-year contract, but that didn’t lead to much optimism that Moreno would be willing to spend on a roster littered with holes — especially after talks had collapsed with the candidate whom they initially targeted.

General manager Perry Minasian is entering the final guaranteed year of his contract, which has a club option for 2027. Moreno may be keeping his options open for wholesale changes next winter. There’s also some thought that the owner may be averse to any kind of multi-year commitments when the ’27 season could be impacted by a lockout.

In the interim, the front office and coaching staff can only try to make the best of the situation. Suzuki made a handful of noteworthy coaching hires. He tabbed John Gibbons as bench coach. They hired well-respected pitching coach Mike Maddux away from the Rangers.

The boldest hire was to bring in three-time All-Star Brady Anderson as hitting coach. Anderson is a first-time hitting coach who hadn’t worked in affiliated ball since 2020, but he clearly has a wealth of playing experience from which to draw. Recently retired players Adam Eaton and Max Stassi also joined the staff as first base and catching coach, respectively.

They’re going to have their work cut out for them. The managerial process indeed foreshadowed a quiet offseason. Like many teams, the Angels found themselves with broadcast revenue uncertainty after their renegotiated TV deal with Main Street Sports collapsed. The Halos wound up creating their own network and streaming arrangement, but they’re no longer working with fixed rights payments. Their revenue will be tied to subscriptions.

That provided a simple justification to more or less eschew free agency. They spent a total of $18.2MM over six one-year contracts, none of which exceeded $5MM. That’s despite a pair of moves that created plenty of short-term cash savings.

The first, their most significant transaction of the winter, was the Taylor Ward trade. The Angels had one too many right-handed hitting corner outfielders. Playing Jo Adell as a regular center fielder isn’t viable. Mike Trout wanted to return to playing defense. Jorge Soler will get a rebound opportunity between DH and right field.

Trading one of Ward or Adell for starting pitching felt like a must. The Angels lined up a one-for-one swap sending Ward to the Orioles for righty Grayson Rodriguez. Once the top pitching prospect in MLB, Rodriguez pitched pretty well between 2023-24 before elbow and shoulder injuries threw his career off track.

The Angels control the 26-year-old Rodriguez for at least four seasons. He also has a pair of minor league options that give the team some flexibility if he struggles after a lost ’25 campaign. There’s risk given the health history, but this is the kind of upside play the Angels should be taking. They’ll need a lot of players to hit the higher end of their realistic range of outcomes to be competitive. Rodriguez has a ceiling that few of their internal arms possess. His command has understandably been erratic this spring, but he’s averaging 95 mph on the fastball and should open the season in the rotation.

It comes at a cost, of course. Ward hit 36 home runs a year ago. He has been an above-average offensive player in five consecutive seasons. Still, this was the one area of MLB depth the Angels could leverage in a trade. Ward’s general profile — a righty power bat with middling on-base marks — is also one the Angels had in abundance.

They ranked fourth in MLB last year in home runs and easily led the league with 188 homers from righty batters. No team struck out more often or had a lower batting average, while only the Rockies and Guardians had a worse on-base percentage. There’s something to be said for breaking up that redundancy, at least once the opportunity to acquire a talented starting pitcher with cost control presented itself.

They also cleared nearly $12MM between Ward’s final arbitration salary and Rodriguez’s pre-arbitration sum. They saved more money in the short term by closing the book on Anthony Rendon’s tenure. The Angels and Rendon negotiated a buyout to defer his $38MM salary at $7.6MM annually over the next five years. Rendon will still get paid in the long run, but the buyout reduces the net present value while shifting more than $30MM of the team’s commitments from this year to future seasons.

Tyler Anderson ($13MM), Kenley Jansen ($10MM), Evan White ($8MM), Luis Rengifo ($5.95MM) and Kyle Hendricks ($2.5MM) all came off the books as free agents. Some of those savings would be reallocated to raises among the arbitration class, but the Angels would have had a lot of spending capacity if ownership were willing to match last year’s level.

Instead, the rest of the offseason featured lower-ceiling moves. Alek Manoah’s third-place Cy Young finish in 2022 might make his signing seem like an upside play, but there’s not much reason for optimism he’ll get close to that level again.

Manoah’s stuff hasn’t returned since he battled elbow injuries that required Tommy John surgery in 2024. A fastball that once averaged around 94 mph is in the 91-92 range this spring. Pitching-starved clubs like the Rockies and Nationals passed on the chance to claim Manoah off waivers last fall. The Braves, whose lack of rotation depth decimated them last year and remains an issue, declined to tender him an arbitration contract in the $2-3MM range. Teams clearly don’t have much optimism.

The Angels signed Manoah for $1.95MM, so it’s not as if the deal itself is going to cripple them. The problem is the Angels didn’t make any other moves to add a clearer upgrade at the back of the rotation. Manoah entered camp as the projected fifth starter. A rough Spring Training (16 runs with 14 walks over 15 1/3 innings) might push him back to Triple-A.

Manoah as a seventh or eighth starter would be fine. It doesn’t work as well for a team that was counting on him to win a season-opening rotation spot. José Soriano and Yusei Kikuchi return as the team’s top two starters, with the former tabbed for his first career Opening Day assignment. Reid Detmers is moving back to the rotation after a strong season in relief. He’s the third starter, likely followed by Rodriguez.

If they send Manoah down, the last spot falls to one of Jack Kochanowicz, Sam Aldegheri or an aggressive promotion for a prospect like George Klassen or Ryan Johnson. Jeff Fletcher of The Orange County Register wrote yesterday that Kochanowicz and Johnson appear to have pulled ahead.

Kochanowicz had a near-7.00 ERA across 23 MLB starts a year ago. Johnson, a 2024 second-rounder, broke camp as a reliever last season without previously pitching in a minor league game. He struggled and was demoted all the way to High-A in May. He built back up as a starter and turned in a 2.05 ERA with a near-30% strikeout rate across 57 1/3 innings. He’s a good prospect who is having an impressive spring, but he hasn’t started a game above A-ball.

Shaky as the rotation depth seems, the bullpen might be in worse shape. None of last year’s three best relievers are returning to the late innings. Jansen signed an $11MM free agent deal with the Tigers. Detmers is back in the rotation. They traded Brock Burke to the Reds in a three-team deal to acquire outfielder Josh Lowe from Tampa Bay.

The Angels added four veteran relievers via cheap free agent contracts. Kirby Yates, Drew Pomeranz, Brent Suter and Jordan Romano all signed one-year deals. Yates and Romano are former All-Star closers who are reclamation projects. The soft-tossing Suter had a career-high 4.52 ERA over 67 2/3 innings with Cincinnati. Pomeranz was easily the best of this group last year, tossing 49 2/3 innings of 2.17 ERA ball with a 28% strikeout rate for the Cubs. He’s also 37 years old, has an extensive injury history, and didn’t pitch in MLB between 2022-24.

That magnified the importance of getting Ben Joyce and Robert Stephenson back in high-leverage situations. Joyce underwent shoulder surgery last May and will open the season on the injured list, but he’s throwing bullpen sessions and could be back a few weeks into the year.

Stephenson’s first two seasons with the Halos were ruined by elbow issues and a bout with thoracic outlet syndrome. He seemingly entered camp healthy but unfortunately suffered yet another elbow injury last week. The team hasn’t announced a diagnosis, but the right-hander acknowledged the brutal news that he’s dealing with more ligament damage. He’s evaluating his treatment options and another season-ending surgery seems possible.

Suzuki suggested the Angels will open the season with a closer committee between Yates, Romano and Pomeranz. It’s less than ideal. They’ll hope for the flamethrower Joyce to take the job midseason. The middle relief group is wide open. Minor league signees Hunter Strickland and Nick Sandlin are competing with holdovers Ryan Zeferjahn, Chase Silseth and Sam Bachman.

There wasn’t a ton of turnover on the position player side. Lowe replaces Ward in the outfield mix, adding some balance by bringing in a lefty bat. Lowe has fought oblique issues for a couple seasons and is coming off a tough year, hitting .220/.283/.366 over 435 plate appearances. He had a 20-30 campaign with the Rays back in 2023 and is under arbitration control for three seasons. The Angels parted with a solid middle reliever in Burke and a mid-tier pitching prospect (Chris Clark) to see if they can get Lowe back on track.

Although Minasian said the Halos were comfortable using Lowe in center field, he’s better served replacing Ward in left. It certainly looks like Trout will be back in center. The Angels moved the three-time MVP to right field last year, hoping it’d reduce the physical toll he has taken. Trout sustained a bone bruise in his left knee by the end of April anyway. He missed a month and was a full-time designated hitter for the rest of the season.

Trout said last month he wants to return to center field. The Angels are open to the idea and have started him in center seven times this spring. He has played four games as a DH and twice in left field — a position he hasn’t played in the regular season since 2013. It seems safe to assume Trout isn’t starting 140 games as a center fielder, but he’ll be out there more often than not for as long as he’s healthy. They’ll have a corner pairing of Lowe and Adell while occasionally starting Soler in a corner and using Trout as a DH.

Two spots on the infield were locked in. Nolan Schanuel and Zach Neto will play almost every day at first base and shortstop, respectively. The Halos opted for stability at the hot corner, re-signing Yoán Moncada to a $4MM deal. The switch-hitter hasn’t topped 104 games in a season since 2022. He was reasonably productive when healthy last year, though, batting .234/.336/.448 in around half a season of playing time.

Moncada will begin the season at third base. There’s a decent chance they’ll need players to fill in there throughout the year given his injury history. Second base was wide open with Rengifo hitting free agency and certainly not coming back after a tough season.

The Angels took a flier on Vaughn Grissom, who is out of options. Grissom is a former highly-regarded prospect whom the Red Sox acquired from the Braves for Chris Sale. It turned out to be one of the most lopsided trades in years, as Grissom hit .190 without a home run in 31 games in a Boston uniform. He didn’t appear in MLB last season, batting .270/.342/.441 across 418 Triple-A plate appearances.

It’s a fine change-of-scenery move that echoes last summer’s deadline trade for Oswald Peraza. The prospect cost was minimal. They sent last year’s eighth-round pick, Isaiah Jackson, to Boston. Grissom is in his mid-20s and battled injuries throughout his Red Sox tenure. He had a pair of hamstring strains in 2024 and missed the final month last year with plantar fasciitis. He has been banged up again this spring, recently receiving a cortisone shot for a left hand issue.

The Angels already optioned Christian Moore, taking him out of consideration for the season-opening second base job. Peraza and Grissom each need to be on the MLB roster or injured list if the Angels don’t want to expose them to waivers. Adam Frazier, Jeimer Candelario and Chris Taylor are all in camp on minor league contracts. Frazier seems likeliest to make the team, largely because he’s a left-handed contact bat in a lineup that doesn’t have many of those.

Behind the plate, it’ll be a Logan O’Hoppe/Travis d’Arnaud combination for a second straight year. O’Hoppe’s performance on both sides of the ball took a major step back last season. There’s not much to do but hope for a rebound from the 26-year-old catcher, whom the Halos control for another three seasons.

As Spring Training got underway, Moreno met with the media to attempt to justify the quiet offseason. He pointed to the TV revenue drop as necessitating the payroll cut while rhetorically asking whether “one or two players substantially (changes)” the team’s record. It’s almost certainly true that the Angels are more than one player away from being competitive, but that’s in large part because Moreno’s own impatience has kept the team from building the kind of minor league pipeline needed for consistent success.

Ironically, those were Moreno’s less irksome comments. He also claimed that “winning is not in (fans’) top five” priorities when attending a game. That’s clearly not true of the entire fanbase, even if there are surely some whose only concern is a fun day at the park. It wouldn’t be a surprise if some players or coaches privately bristled at the comment as well.

It leaves the Angels in a similar spot as they’re in almost every year. They have a few talented players but one of the thinnest rosters in the American League. FanGraphs projects them for 72 wins with roughly 5% playoff odds. Baseball Prospectus is even more bearish, with a 66-win forecast that has them as the worst projected team in the AL (better only than the Rockies overall). They don’t look any closer to snapping an 11-year playoff drought.