An All-Time Low in Anaheim: Why Can’t the Angels Figure It Out?

The Los Angeles Angels are amid one of the biggest downward spirals a playoff-hopeful team has ever been on. This is the story of how the team went from being on top of the baseball world by embarrassing the Rays with a blowout show-off no-hitter to getting embarrassed by the Orioles in a four-game sweep that perfectly symbolized the most disappointing two months in Angels history. What went wrong and how could this have been avoided? This one is gonna be a doozy…

Note: All stats covered include the full season up to 7/11/2022, the off day following the Orioles series sweep.

How Did We Get Here?

Less than 2 months ago, the Los Angeles Angels were one of the hottest teams in baseball with a 27-17 record and a roster that was firing on all cylinders. Angel fans were aware that the team was about to embark on their hardest stretch of the season, which featured series against the Yankees, Dodgers, Blue Jays, Phillies, Red Sox, Mets, and so on, but it felt like the team was up for the task, and at worst would still be solidly in the playoff picture with their toughest opponents behind them. This was not the case. The worst-case scenario unfolded: 18 losses in a 20-game stretch, a franchise record 14-game losing streak that featured 7 one-run losses and another walk-off loss, a fired manager, and a fanbase wishing to be put out of its misery. Every loss during this stretch felt more brutal than the last. So many games within reach, but the team that once felt like a playoff lock was pummeled from 1 game back in the division and atop the wildcard leaderboards to 10.5 GB in the division, 6 games below .500, and firmly outside the playoff picture. So many holes in the Angels roster were exposed during this stretch, but the high-end talent was clearly there, and despite the traumatizing stretch of baseball, it felt like there was still some hope on the horizon. The wildcard race was well within reach, a team decimated by injuries was starting to get its players back, and a very manageable portion of the schedule was coming up. Could this team, if they harness some of their mojo from the first month of the season, be back above .500 and flirt with a wildcard spot by the All-Star break? It seemed well within reason. But somehow, the worst was yet to come.

A convincing but ultimately inconsequential series win in Seattle gave false hope to a team that was about to go on another disastrous skid. This time it was a stretch of 13 losses in 18 games, which can be broken up into essentially two parts. First was a 4-5 record over a trio of home series against the likes of the Royals, Mariners, and White Sox. It was clear that this was an opportunity to make up ground, but instead, the Angels dug themselves even deeper. The emotional damage of this stretch was some of the worst of the season too: a 12-11 loss in a gut-wrenching 11 innings that featured late game heroics by Shohei Ohtani and his two home run effort that somehow was not enough, a huge brawl against a division rival that cost the Angels several games from several players and coaches via suspension and injury, and a crucial set of winnable games lost. But even still at this point, the Angels were 37-41. Not ideal, but no worse than the World Series winning 2021 Braves were at the same point of the season. The second part of the aforementioned 18-game stretch is where the wheels truly come off on this team’s season. Swept in four games to Houston, a 1-1 split in Miami, and another four-game sweep in Baltimore. A 38-49 record at the time of writing for a team that was given an 80% chance of making the playoffs by Fangraphs a month and a half ago. 11 games below .500 for a team that was 11 games above it. This most recent 10-game stretch was as demoralizing as any other: 1-9 record, two walk-off losses, three games lost by a single run, and a season that even the most optimistic fans are starting to consider a lost cause before the All-Star break. A team that had its right-handed batters hitting left-handed home runs in May now seemed unable to hit anything at all. The bullpen melts down when the starter tosses a gem, the pitching staff looks dominant when the offense throws up zero runs, and the starting pitcher can’t make it through four innings when the offense starts scoring early. Bad luck? Flawed roster construction? Plain underperformance from the team’s talent level? Probably all of that and more. But there is still a myriad of questions left unanswered. Why were the Angels unable to slow or stop this long and drawn-out skid? What about the Angels last offseason allowed them to end up in this position? The Angels have to figure out what they need to do as an organization to salvage not this season, but something of far more importance: the Mike Trout–Shohei Ohtani era.

How the Angels Tried and Failed to Fix This

Now that we understand the events that took place amid this 11-32 disaster, it begs the question of how the Angels attempted to respond to their various losing streaks. First off, the firing of manager Joe Maddon was a polarizing decision, but it should be clear that it did not affect the team’s trajectory. Maddon was a fan favorite to some as the bench coach of the 2002 World Series Angels team and a World Series manager with the 2016 Cubs, but his release was not unfounded. Maddon was not hired under the current front office and had failed to produce any winning seasons during his tenure. He also had fundamental disagreements with general manager Perry Minasian on the team’s approach as seen in Maddon’s open criticism of analytics and his decision to avoid assigning any blame during the record-breaking losing streak. Despite these reasons, the Angels continued losing following the managerial change so the problems with the team obviously went deeper.

Roster changes also took place in a handful of ways. Relievers changed roles or were demoted to Triple-A, Jo Adell and Reid Detmers were both sent down and brought up, minor league starting pitchers were brought up to fill in for the underperformers in the MLB starting rotation, and in a few cases, some players were brought into the organization to fill in depth. There are two main issues with all of this. First, most of these moves were simply made in order to fix issues that were created by the unsuccessful roster building in the last offseason. Second, the mid-season moves that the team made were completely insufficient at moving the needle on this team’s trajectory. The first issue is self-explanatory. The only reason these moves were made is because of the incomplete offseason the Angels had. Calling up minor leaguers to become back-end starters was only ever an option because the MLB team began the season with a rotation with obvious question marks. With Ohtani, the Angels exclusively employ a six-man rotation, and they entered the season with four of these slots being taken by: 1. a pitcher with two innings pitched in the last two seasons due to Tommy John surgery (Noah Syndergaard), 2. a pitcher who was primarily a reliever and hadn’t notched more than 83 innings pitched in one season since his rookie year (Michael Lorenzen), 3. a 22-year-old top prospect who had a 7.40 ERA in five career starts (Reid Detmers), and 4. a pitcher who found some success in long relief but had a 6.16 ERA in 31 career starts (Jose Suarez). Hindsight is 20/20, but it is not incredibly surprising that the bottom half of the rotation failed to consistently meet the expectations of a team aiming for the playoffs. Demotions for Suarez and Detmers in favor of replacement-level options and current injuries to Lorenzen after a sharp dip in his effectiveness have led to an inconsistent rotation that feels thin when the scheduled starter is anyone outside of Patrick Sandoval or, of course, the team’s ace Shohei Ohtani.

Starting pitching was not the only instance of poor depth entering the season. The fourth outfielder spot belonged to Jo Adell until he was demoted for defensive lapses and deficiencies in his swing decisions, and the Angels infield depth has performed far worse than expected when called upon following injuries to David Fletcher and Anthony Rendon, who were underachieving to begin with. Most of the games played at second base, third base, and shortstop this season for the Angels are spread amongst Andrew Velazquez, Tyler Wade, and Matt Duffy. The offseason approach to the infield was signing multiple cheap options to create an illusion of depth, but it is now obvious that these players in any combination were unable to produce at a competent level. Velazquez, Wade, and Duffy combined for -.9 fWAR and have posted OPS+ numbers of 32, 56, and 72, respectively. Injuries to Rendon, Fletcher, and eventually even Duffy likely forced the team to use these players more than intended, but these signings were meant to serve as infield depth and have shown to be a resounding failure. The team was pleased with the Angels starting outfielder situation and Adell needed consistent reps so he was sent back to Triple-A. He has certainly shown progress both in AAA and when he was briefly called up to cover for an injured Taylor Ward. Counting on Adell to contribute on day one of the season, despite not totally panning out, was not a major misstep. The bigger issue was how they tried to make up for it.

One of the team’s biggest incompetencies this season is how they have tried, and egregiously failed, to fill holes in the roster midseason. For a majority of the first half of the season, this Angels team could be viewed as a team either in a playoff spot or within reach of a playoff spot. Once clear weaknesses in the infield and rotation were exposed, the team failed to make any meaningful pursuits of MLB-caliber difference makers via trade that could have helped correct the downward spiral this past month plus. The team’s tailspin never ended because players that were readily available for cheap (in other words, unwanted by the other 29 teams in MLB) were predictably not difference makers like a couple of savvy trades for lucrative players could have been. Position players that the team has added this season to make up for poor depth include Juan Lagares, who slashed .183/.210/.250 for an abysmal 31 OPS+ and -.9 rWAR in just 20 games before getting cut, and Jonathan Villar, who was DFA’d by the Cubs earlier this year and with the Angels has posted a .208/.240/.208 slash line for an abysmal 30 OPS+ and -.2 rWAR in only 26 PAs. Both of these players have had objectively terrible production for the Angels this season and their additions did nothing to fix the issues with the roster. It is more likely that these additions have harmed the team more than they have helped as seen in their negative WAR numbers and the misconceptions about how they could be used to help the team. Both of these players were utilized as leadoff hitters this season, likely due to the organization’s affinity for scrappy veteran players despite their blatant statistical ineptitude. These additions echo the re-signing of Kurt Suzuki, who was the backup catcher in 2021 and posted a 74 OPS+ and a -.4 rWAR last season. He was given a pay raise up to $1.75M for 2022 at age 38 after a terrible season, and he is on pace to post an even lower OPS+ and rWAR this season as everyone expected. Some of the poor hitting performances across the team have called fans to question the approach of hitting Jeremy Reed, and pitching coach Matt Wise has never really won over the fans considering he was the bullpen coach who was quickly promoted from within due to the firing of Mickey Callaway for off-the-field sexual assault allegations from before he was hired as the Angels pitching coach. The poor production from the MLB team on all fronts has created the possibility for the coaching staff to be cleaned out this offseason in an attempt to reset under a new regime. Regardless, this noticeable trend of targeting veteran players who completely fail to produce is part of a larger problem that is systemic to the Angels organization, which points to the single common issue that succinctly ties all of the Angels’ issues together. Unfortunately, it is the type of problem that is the hardest to fix.

The Arte Moreno Illusion

The Angels have exhibited some organization-wide trends over the last decade plus. These trends have survived several front office regimes and coaching changes, and they directly tie into the identity of the team at this point. One of the main trends in question is the consistent failure to designate money consistently when creating the team’s roster in any given offseason. The Angels do spend money, that’s not in question. Mike Trout signed a deal for over $400M, Anthony Rendon’s contract just two offseasons ago was for nearly $250M, and Albert Pujols is finally off the books after a decade-long deal. The problem is the way that the money is spent. Some may claim that this is the job of the general manager, but the unwise spending of the Angels transcends any of the team’s recent general managers. The constant has been owner Arte Moreno. It was well established after the Pujols signing that he was Arte Moreno’s guy. It was a contract that was obviously not going to age well, as it took Pujols through his age 41 season despite already showing a decline as he entered his early 30s, but Moreno wanted the legendary player to be remembered as Angel, which was a pipe dream to begin with. Another example of a similar type of signing is the Anthony Rendon contract. Although he has not yet had the opportunity to play a fully healthy 162-game season with the Angels and he very well may have another great season in the tank, there is no question that this deal was paying an aging star player on past performance. Injuries aside, the value per dollar of giving a player the largest salary for an infielder in MLB history as they just are coming off their apex career year and World Series win is not an effective use of money. The fact that the team is willing to spend money is good, but the big deals that they’ve made under Arte Moreno’s ownership have consistently been decisions that feel like they’re more about rewarding past success, marketing the team, and having a bigger fan appeal rather than with the goal of delegating money most effectively. (A bonus fact: Once upon a time, Arte Moreno wanted to buy an MLB team, and eventually purchased the Angels a few months after they won the 2002 World Series. Just a continuation of the trend of wanting to buy something that was recently great rather than working to create future sustainable greatness.)

The next part of this is that the team has failed to secure a blue-chip free agent starting pitcher on a multiyear deal in a decade. There has been an unexplainable hesitance to dish out big money on pitching, which has been a problem for the Angels repeatedly. Again, why should this be pinned on ownership rather than general management? Well, here’s an interesting side note that makes this dilemma much clearer. The past two Angels GMs who were fired over the last decade are both with other MLB teams now. Jerry Dipoto signed reigning AL Cy Young Robbie Ray to a 5 year/$115M deal with the Mariners, and Billy Eppler signed reigning NL Cy Young finalist and future Hall of Famer Max Scherzer to a multiyear deal with the Mets that broke the annual salary record for an MLB player. Both of these deals were inked this last offseason, while the Angels failed to sign any starting pitchers to multiyear deals. It is also worth noting that both of the teams that made the financial investment in these big-ticket pitchers appear to be better because of it; the Mets and the Mariners would both be in the playoffs if the season ended today, while the Angels would finish with a bottom 10 record in MLB and a lot of tough conversations this coming offseason. The way that this unfolded should answer any questions about who in the Angels organization has the issue with signing top-tier pitching because past general managers seem to shake their fear of acquiring ace free agents once they aren’t governed by Arte Moreno.

Another readily apparent issue with the Angels at the organizational level is their minor league system. Their farm system has ranked near the bottom out of all MLB teams over the past several seasons, and the problem seems multifaceted. There has been somewhat of a lack of great homegrown talent through the Angels system. Some names stand out over the past few seasons like David Fletcher and Jared Walsh, who have had both good and bad stretches at the MLB level, as well as Brandon Marsh, Jo Adell, and Reid Detmers, who were more highly ranked prospects but are still very young and inconsistent in the big leagues. Taylor Ward put together a great first half of 2022, but the 28-year-old breakout needs to still prove that he can repeat this success. Outside of the small handful of pseudo-success stories, a majority of Angels farm system products have had a low impact at the MLB level over the past several seasons. As it stands the Angels have had a thin minor league system pretty consistently under their last few GMs, which can hopefully start to change considering the 2021 draft where the Angels famously selected 20 pitchers in all 20 rounds that features some interesting names that are climbing the minor leagues this season.

There are a few explanations as to why the Angels have lacked consistent player development from players in their minor league system. One component of the issue stems from being a step behind the smartest teams in baseball in regards to analytics in player development. Without getting too deep down the rabbit hole, it is just obvious which teams are really good at reworking a player’s approach and form in order to completely change their results in game and unleash a previously unfound potential. The Angels have not been one of these teams. They have not been known to revive a veteran player’s career with tweaks to their game and many of their prospects fail to make enough adjustments to firmly plant themselves as MLB mainstays. Perhaps an even greater hurdle that stifles the development of players in the Angels system is the poor conditions that many players have to endure. Without going too deep down another rabbit hole, the Angles minor league system consistently comes up in investigations as having some of the worst housing situations for minor leaguers, some of the lowest pay for the players in their system, and being one of a few teams who refuse to pay players that were invited to extended Spring Training. Investing in the young players that you employ who are trying to grow and provide value to your team seems like one of the easiest ways to improve the future of your team. Forcing minor leaguers to pile into shared living spaces, split groceries, and make below minimum wage while also trying to put all their time into grinding baseball in hopes of one day making the MLB team sounds like a surefire way to stunt the growth of the players that will become the depth of the big league team over the next several seasons.

The overarching issue here seems to be a lack of commitment. The organization feels like it is running the baseball operations with the goal of maximizing profit rather than winning baseball games. There has not been enough of an investment in winning, player development, or the low-ranked farm system to where ownership should feel content with their job running the business end of the baseball team. If you’re in the business of winning games and trying to win a World Series, the sacrifice of putting more money into the team in order to improve the quality and the depth of the on-field product feels like a no-brainer. The top three teams in payroll for 2022 (Mets, Dodgers, and Yankees) are all top 4 in terms of winning percentage this season. In all fairness, this is not the case every year, and the Angels typically spend more than the average team in a given year. It’s also true that there has been a lack of intelligent spending that maximizes value per dollar, an amount of total spending that does not compete with other big market teams that want to win now, and an insufficient level of investment throughout the organization. Angels fans have vocalized how unacceptable the organization has operated at nearly every level under Arte Moreno. No fan base deserves the ridicule of their organization dramatically failing the legacies of the two greatest players of the generation at the same time, and the two generational superstars on the Angels certainly don’t deserve this ridicule either. It begs the question of how bad things have to get for any real positive change to happen in the organization. Only time will tell.

Statistics and records courtesy of Baseball Reference and Fangraphs.