The Angels have heard and read what the baseball world thinks of their chances this season.
After winning 73 games and losing Shohei Ohtani, the Angels are widely expected to finish fourth in the American League West, missing the playoffs for the 10th consecutive season.
“No one in this clubhouse gives a (expletive) what they are saying,” left-hander Patrick Sandoval said. “No one cares what’s going on outside this clubhouse. Everyone has tunnel vision. I think that can only work in our favor. I don’t think we’re gonna give in to what the media, the fans, our fans, whatever they’re saying. We believe in what’s here. We believe in each other.”
Catcher Logan O’Hoppe summoned a line from the film “Moneyball,” in which the upstart Oakland A’s were also dismissed after losing key players.
“We’re like an ‘island of misfit toys’ that nobody knows about,” O’Hoppe said. “When we come together, we’re more powerful as a group. We can do more as a group. We’re coming together pretty well, and I’m really happy to be a part of that.”
Mike Trout, whose Hall of Fame career has been tainted by the Angels’ perpetual losing, also sees the skepticism as something of a rallying cry.
“We know what we have in here,” Trout said. “We use (the predictions) as motivation. The boys are hungry to get out there.”
Certainly, optimism in spring training is expected. Professional athletes don’t get to be professional athletes without overflowing confidence, even in the face of daunting facts.
Fact: The Angels did not add a player who produced more than 1.2 Wins Above Replacement, according to Baseball Reference, in 2023, while they lost Ohtani, whose WAR was 10.0.
Fact: The Angels’ best player, Trout, is now 32 and has not played more than 134 games in a season since 2016.
Fact: The Angels have penciled in four players for significant roles – shortstop Zach Neto, first baseman Nolan Schanuel, outfielder Mickey Moniak and O’Hoppe – who have never played 100 games in a major league season.
Fact: Tyler Anderson is the only Angels starting pitcher who has ever thrown 150 innings in a season.
Fact: Last season the Angels ranked 23rd in the majors in ERA and 12th in OPS, and Ohtani was both the best hitter and pitcher.
Fact: The Angels don’t care about any of that when it comes to 2024.
“I don’t view what people have to say on the outside because they don’t see what we’re doing on the inside,” said new manager Ron Washington, who is known for his unflinching optimism. “They speculate on the outside. And I guess from what they’ve seen in the past, they have a right to feel how they want to feel. But I don’t take that into account at all. …
“People can say what they want to say, but we will see what happens when we start to get between those white lines on a daily basis.”
The Angels are building their hopes on the expectation that the players returning from last year’s team will be better and/or play more games, and the sum of that improvement will lift the team into contention.
“We can do a lot,” Moniak said. “We’ve got a lot of young guys, and a lot of veterans who have been there, done that. We’ve got some young arms that can be pretty good. We can be one of the top, if not the top, staffs in the league. We’ve got speed. We’ve got power. We play defense. Our bullpen is solid. We’ve got a very well-rounded team.”
As for the pitching, the Angels need only look back to 2022 to see better performances from Sandoval, Anderson and Reid Detmers, as well as relievers Luis Garcia, Adam Cimber and José Cisnero.
The pitchers will now be working under a philosophy that emphasizes big-picture strategies of pitching, as opposed to focusing on how many inches of break or what type of spin they can get on their pitches.
New pitching coach Barry Enright said the front office instructed him to say no anytime the analytics team tried to introduce ideas that didn’t fit with what those in uniform were seeing.
“We know we need to step it up,” Sandoval said, “but we have the talent to do it. We’ve just got to put to together.”
Enright hammered the pitchers all spring to throw more strikes, even if that meant accepting that the ball was going to be put in play. That is partly a strategy to get pitchers working deeper in games, reducing the bullpen workload, but also a reflection of Washington’s belief that the defense will be better.
Offensively, the Angels clearly have plenty of room for improvement from the same personnel as they had last year.
That starts with what they hope will be a reduction in injuries.
Besides Trout, the Angels also played multiple months without third baseman Anthony Rendon, outfielder Taylor Ward, Neto and O’Hoppe.
“The biggest thing, like every year, is staying healthy,” Ward said. “We’ve got to give ourselves a chance to see what we can do. That’s been the biggest issue the last few years.”
Although it’s difficult to ascertain how much of the Angels’ injury woes were preventable, they have nonetheless replaced the top two staffers in the strength and conditioning department.
For now, though, the most significant injury question going into the season is right-handed reliever Robert Stephenson, who is out with a shoulder problem.
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The bullpen is perhaps the area where the Angels have the most depth, thanks to General Manager Perry Minasian’s acquisition of free agents like Garcia, Cimber and Cisnero and the presence of young pitchers like José Soriano, Ben Joyce and Guillo Zuñiga.
Injuries to the everyday lineup or the rotation could cripple the Angels, which would leave them floundering in exactly the way the baseball world – and even many hardened, cynical Angels fans – expects.
“At the end of the day, people are going to talk,” Moniak said. “Everyone is going to have their opinions, good or bad. As long the 26 guys in here and the minor leaguers have the same mentality of going out there and getting the job done and playing for one another and playing to win, the opinions on the outside are going to be what they’re going to be.”
Moniak was then asked if there’s a unifying feeling to prove the skeptics wrong.
“I would say more to prove us right.”
