Before the Angels swept the Dodgers over the weekend, no club had defeated them in a series this month. Good weekend for the Angels.
On the one hand, perhaps this marks the beginning of something significant. The Minnesota Twins have extended their winning run to 13 games. Why can’t the Angels?
However, the Angels are still in last position despite having recently swept the top team in the globe.
With two consecutive seasons with 100 losses and a melancholy last season in the Oakland Coliseum, no club had a more bleak outlook at this time last year than the Athletics. However, the A’s ended ahead of the Angels the previous season, and they are ahead of them this year as well.
The A’s rebuild all the time: build, win, lose the best players and lose lots of games, rebuild. For all of this century, A’s ownership has maintained it could not spend big without big revenue from a new stadium. When the A’s come to Las Vegas in three or four years, we’ll see.
The A’s never have spent $70 million on a deal, or $100 million on an annual team salary. However, they have outperformed the Angels in winning seasons and postseason berths this century.
The A’s concluded it would be too expensive to continue winning after the 2021 season, which saw them win for the fourth straight year and earn three postseason spots. That winter, the owners locked out the players, and as soon as the lockout was over, the wrecking ball struck.
Last week at Dodger Stadium, A’s manager Mark Kotsay stated, “We had traded Matt Olson within the first hour.”
To replace Freddie Freeman, the Atlanta Braves signed All-Star first baseman Olson. The A’s moved pitcher Chris Bassitt and third baseman Matt Chapman, two more All-Stars, by the end of the week. They also traded catcher Sean Murphy and pitcher Sean Manaea at the conclusion of the season.
General manager David Forst stated, “That made it very difficult to bounce back quickly without being able to use the free-agent market.”
Shea Langeliers, a cleanup batter and catcher, returned in the Olson trade. J.T. Ginn and Gunnar Hoglund, two back-end starting pitchers, were acquired in the Chapman and Bassitt deals.
“We need to make those kinds of trades in order to succeed,” Kotsay stated.
Additionally, the A’s had to find success with draft selections and waiver claims because they were unable to exploit the free-agent market.
Brent Rooker, an All-Star outfielder, stated, “I am an example of that.” I stepped in, took advantage of the waiver claim, and performed well enough to keep getting at-bats.
“My growth and success over the past few years have been greatly aided by the people here, who helped me transform from a 4-A, roster depth player into a productive big leaguer.”
Chris Taylor, Evan Phillips, and Max Muncy of the Dodgers frequently do it.
The Angels’ 2002 World Series-winning shortstop David Eckstein was a waiver claim. The Angels hoped that outfielder Mickey Moniak, a first-round pick of the Philadelphia Phillies, might blossom with opportunity and a change of scenery; he turned out to be what Rooker had been told he was.
Of the A’s top choices in the last five drafts, three play major roles now: outfielder Tyler Soderstrom and infielders Nick Kurtz and Jacob Wilson. A fourth, infielder Max Muncy (no connection to the Dodgers’ Max Muncy), has split time this season between triple A and the majors.
They are all in their twenties or thirties. Forst immediately gave praise to Eric Kubota, the A’s veteran scouting director.
“Looking at our team now, it’s evident how well Eric and his team have done in the draft over the past five years,” Forst stated.
The Angels can take a few bows in these regions. Shortstop Zach Neto, a first-round draft selection, is developing as one of the greatest performers in the American League. The only three Angels to play in at least half of the team’s games and perform better than the league average are Neto, catcher Logan O’Hoppe (traded), and first baseman Nolan Schanuel (first-round draft pick).
But on the night I went to see the A’s last week, Langeliers batted fourth and Rooker hit third, and neither the starting pitcher nor any of the other players were older than thirty.
That same night for the Angels, experienced stopgaps Yoán Moncada and Jorge Soler hit third and fourth, respectively. Of their 10 starters that night, including the pitcher, five were older than 30.
Additionally, the Angels drafted one player out of the ten starters on their triple-A team that evening. He was a 13th-round pick, batting eighth.
The Angels’ starting pitchers have been healthy, but on that front the team is a couple injuries from potential disaster.
The Angels tried to address an organizational weakness in the 2021 draft by selecting all 21 pitchers—all but one—from college rather than high school, bringing them closer to the major leagues. The two that made it to Anaheim had a total WAR of 0.6.
According to J.J. Cooper of Baseball America, the A’s organizational winning percentage—which is the total record of their minor league clubs—ranked fourth out of the 30 teams going into Sunday’s games, and they had a greater run differential than any other organization save the Milwaukee Brewers.
With a worse run differential than any other team save the Washington Nationals, the Angels’ organizational winning percentage came in at number 27. (The highest victory % for an organization? Naturally, the Dodgers and the Brewers were knotted.
High-end prospects, like Andy Pages of the Dodgers, whom the Angels had agreed to acquire in a 2020 deal that owner Arte Moreno vetoed, and those they could have acquired for Shohei Ohtani in 2022 or 2023, are what the team most desperately needs. High-end prospects would not be willing to trade for any of the Angels’ current team veterans.
Even though Ohtani had refused to talk about an extension in the year before to free agency, Moreno decided to try to win with him. Because he thinks that supporters would not want to endure a season with 100 losses, Moreno always decides to attempt to win.
The problem is that the Angels lost 99 games last season due to a lack of prospects and too many seasoned replacements, yet attendance still declined.
This season, the Angels are paying Anthony Rendon and Mike Trout, who are injured, almost the same as the A’s are paying their whole squad. According to Sunday’s fangraphs, the A’s chances of qualifying for the playoffs are 10.7% while the Angels’ are 0.8%.
Roki Sasaki, who selected the Dodgers, was a skilled and reasonably priced athlete who may have been lured to the A’s with their array of up-and-coming position players.
Sacramento was not on his list of cities he especially wanted to play, according to Forst.
The A’s haven’t reached the finish line yet, and rebuilds take time. Until Rendon’s contract ends in 2026, the year when Neto and O’Hoppe are eligible for salary arbitration, the Angels are waiting. It’s one thing to be active. Being proactive is a another matter.
