With a reported three-year deal for starting pitcher Tyler Anderson, the Los Angeles Angels have made their first step towards building a more well-rounded roster, which is a focus of general manager Perry Minasian.
The Angels saw their young core of starting pitchers aside from Shohei Ohtani rise to the occasion in a number of spots this past season, as Patrick Sandoval, Reid Detmers, and José Suarez contributed to their 3.67 team ERA. Minasian took a bonafide strength of his roster and once the team makes the Anderson deal official, his best asset gets even stronger.
Finishing near the bottom in major offensive categories, Minasian expressed his plan heading into the rest of a pivotal offseason, via Rhett Bollinger of MLB.com:
“We’re not one player away. We have a lot of holes to fill,” Minasian said. “I think filling that out, raising the floor to a certain extent — and not raising the floor with Minor League talent, but raising the floor with Major League talent — is really, really important.”
With Ohtani, Mike Trout, and Anthony Rendon coming back from an injury-plagued string of years, Minasian needs to fill the cracks in their roster that led them to a 73-89 season.
Considering their 2022 season was filled with enough drama to end even the best stretch of good fortune, it seems that Minasian is off to a solid start and has the Angels heading in the correct direction.
Perry Minasian telling teams that Angels’ two-way star isn’t available, doesn’t have them convinced
Following another season of production that included a run at a second consecutive Most Valuable Player Award, Ohtani cemented his presence in Major League Baseball. On the mound, he tossed 166 innings while posting a 2.33 ERA and led MLB with 11.9 strikeouts per nine innings. Minasian avoided a unique arbitration process by inking him to a one-year $30 million deal ahead of the bulk of the offseason.
But Minasian has remained entrenched in his stance that the Angels aren’t going to move their superstar two-way player and aside from outside chatter, the organization doesn’t plan to make that trade, a direction GMs around the league don’t buy into.
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