Year in and year out, the Los Angeles Angels have one of the more attractive baseball teams on paper. The problem is, the star-power in their lineup and pitching staff have not met expectations.
Coming off of their sixth consecutive season with a below .500 record, the Angels are once again taking an aggressive approach to the offseason and spending money. With two of the very best players in baseball in Mike Trout and Shohei Ohtani on the big league roster, every year under .500 and not in the postseason is a year wasted of their respective primes.
With Albert Pujols, Alex Cobb, Dexter Fowler and Dylan Bundy off the books, the Los Angeles Angels have money to spend.
So far in the 2021-22 offseason, the Angels front office has been busy, acquiring utilitymen Tyler Wade and Andrew Velazquez, signing starting pitchers Noah Syndergaard and Michael Lorenzen, re-signing Raisel Iglesias and bringing shutdown left-hander Aaron Loup aboard as well. Syndergaard and Lorenzen are of note here because the Angels have always seemed to lack one huge piece to their puzzle, and that is quality starting pitching.
While the early moves made by Perry Minasian and company are certainly encouraging, there is still more work to be done to shore up the big league roster and finally make a run at a deep postseason run.
Let’s take a look at a few items that should be on the Angels’ to-do list once the Major League Baseball lockout is lifted.