{"id":284464,"date":"2025-11-15T09:58:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-15T09:58:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/284464\/"},"modified":"2025-11-15T09:58:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-15T09:58:08","slug":"angels-seeking-multiple-starters-left-handed-bat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/284464\/","title":{"rendered":"Angels Seeking Multiple Starters, Left-Handed Bat"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Angels have quite a bit to achieve this offseason. Rhett Bollinger of MLB.com<\/a> writes that the club would like to add multiple starting pitchers and bullpen help. General manager Perry Minasian said from the GM Meetings that they\u2019re also looking for offense, with preference for a left-handed bat.<\/p>\n

\u201cIs (a lefty hitter) the No. 1 pressing need? Is that \u2018A\u2019 on the checklist of things to do? No,\u201d Minasian told reporters (link via Jeff Fletcher of The Orange County Register<\/a>). \u201cBut it is something we\u2019ve talked about a ton. We want to be a more balanced offense. \u2026 There are some really attractive right-handed hitters that I\u2019d love to have, that are just good hitters, that I don\u2019t necessarily think anyone cares if they\u2019re right-handed or left-handed. So does it have to be left-handed? No. Apples to apples? Of course, you choose left hand over right-handed.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Halos have three pitchers penciled into the Opening Day rotation:\u00a0Yusei Kikuchi<\/a>,\u00a0Jos\u00e9 Soriano<\/a> and\u00a0Reid Detmers<\/a>. They don\u2019t have much beyond that with none of\u00a0Caden Dana<\/a>,\u00a0Sam Aldegheri<\/a>,\u00a0Jack Kochanowicz<\/a> or\u00a0Mitch Farris<\/a> securing a rotation spot. They\u2019re likely to push 2025 second overall pick Tyler Bremner<\/a> quickly, but it\u2019d be surprising if the Angels were willing to carry him in the Opening Day rotation before he pitches in the minors at all. They skipped 2024 second-rounder Ryan Johnson<\/a> right to the big leagues as a reliever this past season, but he struggled and was optioned in early May. Johnson built back as a starter and pitched well in High-A but still has no starting experience in the upper levels.<\/p>\n

The bullpen could lose its two most reliable arms. Detmers, last season\u2019s top setup man, is moving back to the rotation. Closer\u00a0Kenley Jansen<\/a> is a free agent. The Angels presumably would like to bring Jansen back after an excellent season. The four-time All-Star went 29-30 in save chances. He turned in a 2.59 ERA across 59 innings. Even that was inflated by one nightmare appearance against the Tigers in which he gave up six of the 17 earned runs he allowed all season. Jansen is probably limited to one-year deals at this stage of his career, though he could match last winter\u2019s $10MM guarantee.<\/p>\n

Left-hander Brock Burke<\/a> enters the offseason as the Angels\u2019 only reliable reliever. Minasian provided a positive update on talented but oft-injured righty Robert Stephenson<\/a>, who finished the season on the shelf with elbow inflammation. Stephenson will not require surgery and is expected to be ready for Spring Training, Bollinger relays. Stephenson has the talent to pitch late in games, but his durability issues make him a wild card. The Angels clearly need to add multiple leverage arms.<\/p>\n

While pitching figures to be the priority, the Halos have a few questions in the lineup. They don\u2019t have an everyday center fielder or third baseman.\u00a0Christian Moore<\/a> projects as the starting second baseman, but he struggled as a rookie after being quickly pushed through the minors. There\u2019s arguably a corner outfield glut with\u00a0Taylor Ward<\/a>,\u00a0Mike Trout<\/a>,\u00a0Jorge Soler<\/a> and\u00a0Jo Adell<\/a> \u2014 who is miscast in center field and should stay in right, where he spent the final month of the \u201925 season. Ward and Adell have already come up in trade rumors. One of them could be swapped for a player at a position of greater need, but that\u2019d be nowhere close to all the work for the front office to accomplish.<\/p>\n

The club\u2019s preference would be to add a lefty hitter at one or two of those positions. No team gave fewer plate appearances to left-handed batters this year. Only the Astros leaned more heavily on pure righty bats. The Angels had an MLB-worst .224 batting average against righty pitching. They were 28th in on-base percentage (.299) and 24th in slugging (.394). Switch-hitters Luis Rengifo<\/a> and\u00a0Yo\u00e1n Moncada<\/a> hit free agency, leaving first baseman\u00a0Nolan Schanuel<\/a> as their only lefty hitter set for a significant role.<\/p>\n

If they go into free agency for that need, it\u2019d make most sense to focus on center field. Trent Grisham<\/a> and\u00a0Cody Bellinger<\/a> are available at the higher ends of the market.\u00a0Cedric Mullins<\/a> is a rebound candidate who\u2019ll probably sign for one year.<\/p>\n

There are far fewer lefty bats who could play second or third base. If neither Rengifo nor Moncada are retained, the best free agent options are Jorge Polanco<\/a>, Luis Arraez<\/a> and\u00a0Willi Castro<\/a>. Polanco can play either position but saw a lot of DH work with the Mariners this year because of knee issues. Arraez hasn\u2019t played second base regularly in two years because of limited range. Castro is a bat-first utility player who started the season well but went downhill after a deadline trade to the Cubs.<\/p>\n

Players like\u00a0CJ Abrams<\/a>,\u00a0Brendan Donovan<\/a> or\u00a0Brandon Lowe<\/a> could be available in trade. That\u2019d require the Angels to deal from an already bad farm system for short-term help on the heels of a 72-90 season. As Minasian noted, that could leave them to pursue a superior righty-hitting infielder even if it\u2019s not ideal for lineup balance. Bo Bichette<\/a>,\u00a0Alex Bregman<\/a>,\u00a0Eugenio Su\u00e1rez<\/a>, Kazuma Okamoto<\/a>,\u00a0Ha-Seong Kim<\/a> and\u00a0Gleyber Torres<\/a> are all right-handed hitting free agents who can play second and\/or third.<\/p>\n

Torres, who is weighing a qualifying offer from the Tigers, was apparently a target of the Angels last winter. Ken Rosenthal, Will Sammon and Katie Woo of The Athletic<\/a> report that Torres rejected a multi-year offer from the Halos during the 2024-25 offseason because he doubted the team could contend. He signed a one-year, $15MM contract with Detroit. The Tigers made the playoffs for a second consecutive season and the Angels still have one of the worst rosters in the American League on paper.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Angels have quite a bit to achieve this offseason. Rhett Bollinger of MLB.com writes that the club…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":284465,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,93099,462,44469,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-284464","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-gleyber-torres","11":"tag-mlb","12":"tag-robert-stephenson","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284464","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=284464"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284464\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/284465"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=284464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=284464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=284464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}