The 2022 season was a disappointing one for the Los Angeles Angels despite a hot start where they looked like one of the best teams in Major League Baseball.
After their start, they went on a skid where nothing went right. This led to manager Joe Maddon being fired and replaced by interim manager Phil Nevin. The Angels liked what they saw out of the skipper and removed the interim tag by giving Nevin a one-year contract for 2023.
They have also made some changes to their coaching staff, which included hiring Marcus Thames as their new hitting coach to hopefully spark an offense that underperformed their talent in 2022.
On the roster side, general manager Perry Minasian has been aggressive in upgrading both the talent and depth of the squad.
All-Star pitcher Tyler Anderson was signed to bolster the rotation, and Carlos Estévez was added to the back end of the bullpen. They also remain in the market to add more upgrades to the pitching staff.
Offensively, slugging outfielder Hunter Renfroe was acquired to slot in next to Mike Trout and Taylor Ward, while utilitymen Brandon Drury and Gio Urshela were added to the infield mix.
All this was done in the hopes of getting the Angels back into the playoffs for the first time since 2014, and the new year provides a fresh opportunity for the team to right the ship. With 2023 now here, the Angels have some new year’s resolutions they should make.
Make the 2023 MLB Playoffs
The obvious resolution, and the one that will be the hardest to stick to is making the playoffs in 2023. The Angels have not played meaningful October games in eight seasons, which is a massive dissapointment for a large market club featuring two of the best athletes in sports history.
The path won’t be easy as the American League West is arguably the best and deepest division in baseball, but they need to prove they are capable of competing or else serious changes will need to be made.
To do this, the Angels will need more consistency throughout the season. They don’t need to play as well as they did at the start of the 2022 season, even though it would be ideal, but they can’t play as poorly as they did in the second half of the season.
Re-sign Shohei Ohtani
Shohei Ohtani is the most dynamic player in baseball history, and he is an international superstar in every sense of the word. He has become bigger than baseball, and he is the type of athlete that comes around once every century, if we are lucky. However, he is also set to reach the free agent market after the season.
The Angels need to do whatever it takes to re-sign him, but unless they start winning, there is a chance that no check is large enough to keep him around.
Losing Ohtani would be a disaster, and if they miss the playoffs again in 2023, it’s hard to see how they fix their issues without the two-way star in the mix.
Find a new owner
Arte Moreno has put the Angels up for sale, and there is hope a sale will be completed before the 2023 season. So much of the club’s future depends on the owner, such as where they will be playing in the long term, and the amount that Minasian has to spend to upgrade the roster.
With Ohtani’s negotiations, having a set owner will be imperative as no player will sign long-term without knowing who the owner is, and someone with a commitment to winning could go a long way to convince him to stay.
As the L.A. Dodgers and New York Mets have shown, a caring ownership group can make a world of difference for a team, and the Angels badly need that change at the top of the organization.
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