The Los Angeles Angels have been defined by a few things during their most recent era. The first is underperformance at the Major League level despite rostering the two best players in baseball for six years. The second has been a league-worst farm system that got progressively worse as the team traded assets in a fight to stay relevant in the standings.
The Angels have ranked toward the bottom of MLB Pipeline’s farm system rankings for years, at times not having a single player in the top 100. This was due both to a lack of depth and Arte Moreno’s proclivity to rushing players through the minor leagues.
But things have begun to turn around for the Angels in recent months. Caden Dana established himself as the best pitcher in the system, the Angels made a slew of good draft picks with Christian Moore (No. 2), Ryan Johnson (No. 5) and Chris Cortez (No. 10) and trades for George Klassen (No. 3), Sam Aldegheri (No. 8), Matthew Lugo (No. 12) and more have reshaped the farm system.
And as the Angels prepare for the 2024-25 offseason and assess what they already have in-house, Minasian is excited about what L.A. is building in the minor league system, via Rhett Bollinger of MLB.com:
“Continuing to add to that group is really, really important,” general manager Perry Minasian said. “We felt like we did that at the Deadline with the acquisitions we were able to make. We felt like we were able to do that with the Draft. But we’re really excited about our system and the depth of it moving forward.”
All odds point to Dana, Moore and maybe a few others making the regular season roster at some point in 2025. But for the first time in a few years, the Angels have a farm system with real top-end talent and a little bit of depth for when those players graduate to the big leagues.
And with the Angels planning to compete in 2025 — or at least spending with that goal in mind — they might be able to continue developing their depth in the minor leagues as the system intends.
Angels likely to bench Anthony Rendon
On Dec. 13, 2019, the Angels agreed to terms on a seven-year, $245 million contract to steal Anthony Rendon away from the world champion Washington Nationals.
In the years since, the contract has become easily the worst in baseball. He has completed five of the seven years of his deal, posting a league-average .717 OPS while playing only 257 of a possible 708 (36.3%) regular season games. And now, the Angels still owe the oft-injured and barely playable Rendon $77.1 million over the next two seasons.
Reportedly, though, the Angels are finally going to try a new path with Rendon. As it appears they are going to look for a replacement in free agency that would relegate Rendon to the bench.