Wait... What are we doing?

The Angels’ offseason so far has been akin to a psychological experiment where unsuspecting subjects are led into a waiting room and told to wait indefinitely for something that will never come. One by one, they eventually lose patience and their temper. While a large portion of the fanbase shields itself from expectations with the logical assumption that nothing good will ever happen to us Angels fans, I personally feel like I’m getting close to my breaking point this week. In this article, I’m going to try to talk myself off the ledge by making sense of this offseason.

On paper, I’ve liked every move that the Angels have made. Picture the reaction if any of our moves had instead been made by a mid-market team in contention. If the Brewers had signed Drew Pomeranz, the MLB media would have showered them with A+ grades for signing a reliever with a top-25 ERA, supported by good peripherals, at what is effectively an 80% discount due to his age. Repeat the same process for Alek Manoah, Jordan Romano, Vaughn Grissom, and Grayson Rodriguez. If those transactions had been made by the Cleveland Guardians or the Detroit Tigers, then they would have been covered completely differently.

The issue is that when you zoom out to look at the bigger picture and the state of our roster, I’m not sure that any of it makes sense. With about a month left until pitchers and catchers report, I’m hoping that part of this uncertainty is due to the fact that I’m staring at an incomplete picture. However, it’s taking more and more of my imagination to come up with moves that push this franchise in a direction that makes sense.

There are a few FA targets out there, such as Eugenio Suarez and Aaron Civale, who I’ve mentioned before on this blog as potential fits at the right price. Plus, there are trade targets like Brendan Donovan and MacKenzie Gore. But fans are now rightly asking if those moves would even be enough to get us anywhere.

On paper, the lineup has taken a step back and is currently too reliant on names like Logan O’Hoppe and Christian Moore breaking out. The roster also needs to replace Matthew Lugo on the bench (as projected by FanGraphs) with a lefty platoon bat like Michael Conforto**, and it also needs to upgrade at either 2B or 3B (moving Grissom to the bench) to be taken seriously.

Projected Lineup:

1. Zach Neto - SS

2. Nolan Schanuel - 1B

3. Mike Trout - LF/DH

4. Jo Adell - RF

5. Yoan Moncada - 3B

6. Jorge Soler - DH/LF

7. Christian Moore - 2B

8. Logan O’Hoppe - C

9. Bryce Teodosio - CF

That lineup, with Grissom, Meckler, Conforto, and d’Arnaud on the bench, is starting to look like the most realistic scenario for this offseason. Maybe instead of Moncada, it’s Eugenio Suarez or Luis Arraez (playing 2B with Moore at 3B), but it’s basically last year’s lineup, except with a Teodosio and Meckler platoon replacing Taylor Ward, who was our third-best hitter last season per wRC+.

That’s obviously not a good sign, considering we ranked 26th in wRC+ last year. However, there are a few reasons to be optimistic:

1. Mike Trout: After getting over the mental hurdle of hitting his 400th home run, he really looked to have figured things out at the end of last year. He had an .869 OPS over his final 20 games, including a 1.512 OPS in the small sample size after reaching 400 HRs. That was a rare occurrence of Mike Trout looking like Mike Trout; if that carries into this season, then it completely changes the dynamic of this team.

2. Logan O’Hoppe: In July 2024, he was considered by some to be a better piece for this franchise than Zach Neto, but he has struggled since. I’m optimistic about how Kurt Suzuki can help O’Hoppe get back to his best; the kid has talent, and I’m not ready to give up on him.

3. Christian Moore: He had a .727 OPS after being recalled from AAA late in the season and should only keep improving with another offseason.

4. Jorge Soler: We may get the most out of him by having him platoon with a left-handed outfielder.

5. Bryce Teodosio: He could win a Gold Glove, if not a Platinum Glove, if he is our center fielder.

However, even if everything goes right, this still isn’t an above-average lineup by any stretch of the imagination. It would take at least another Mike Trout MVP year for this team to have a top-10 offense.

On the pitching side, we currently project to have the 18th-best rotation in baseball according to Steamer projections. And that’s with them accounting for Alek Manoah’s 0.7 fWAR as our fifth starter. If we were to sign a Zac Gallen or Framber Valdez (unlikely), or even someone like Aaron Civale (likelier), we’d have one of the better rotations in baseball. That’s a huge step up for a team that’s been bottom-three in starter ERA these past two seasons.

That said, those projections are hard to believe because who knows what we’re getting out of Grayson Rodriguez and Reid Detmers. Together they’re projected to produce about two fWAR each, but honestly, who knows? Either could be an All-Star, or they could be out of the rotation by May.

The elephant in the room this offseason has been the uncertainty of this team past 2026. We currently don’t have a TV deal, a potential franchise-altering assessment of Angel Stadium is expected to be completed this year, Perry Minasian and Kurt Suzuki are both on one-year deals, we’ve only handed out one contract extending past 2026 these past few offseasons, and we don’t even know if baseball is going to be played next year with the current CBA set to expire before the 2027 season.

The pessimistic theory is that Arte Moreno is trying to save money on a 2027 season that may be shortened, if not canceled altogether. It’s a stretch of the imagination to assume that Moreno has been carefully planning for years just to save some money during a potential lockout, but I get that most wouldn’t put it past him.

The optimistic theory is that Moreno is preparing to put the team back on the market. These rumors have been bubbling since he first took the team off the market in January 2023, and if he holds the desire to sell, a lot of signs point to it being very soon. With the Tyler Skaggs trial, CBA negotiations, TV-rights negotiations*, and the stadium assessment soon to be behind him, a lot of questions that could impact the valuation of the Angels are about to be answered.

Whatever theory you go with, it does appear that Arte Moreno just wants to kick the can down the road for 2026 and commit as few financial resources as possible to 2027 and beyond. From that perspective, it’s a positive that a lot of the bets that Perry Minasian has made, such as Grayson Rodriguez, Vaughn Grissom, and Alek Manoah, have the upside of helping the Angels past 2026.

I think Angels fans wouldn’t mind this being a rebuilding year if the organization were clear about what the expectations were. I don’t get as upset about Perry Minasian's press conferences as some fans and reporters do, but if we’re going to play the young kids, see Nelson Rada, George Klassen, and Tyler Bremner make their debuts, and go for another top draft pick, then that’s a playbook that I’d be happy to follow.

Instead, the messaging from the front office has been that the Angels are trying to compete, which so far hasn’t aligned with their actions. Competing teams don’t trade their most reliable offensive piece for a speculative young pitcher with four years of control left. For whatever reason, they’re reluctant to publicly dampen expectations for 2026. Part of me can accept that, but once you realize that this is yet another transition year, then this offseason starts to make a lot more sense.

So, once again, we’re looking at a roster that’s on track to win about 70 games, but with enough volatility baked in to allow for some fun stretches should everything click. If everything goes right, then they can absolutely make the playoffs, and from that perspective, it’s fine for the team to state that 80+ wins is the goal in January. However, as fans, we can admit that’s unlikely to happen and that we’re going to have to wait at least one more year for this team to pick a clear direction once the uncertainty of 2026 subsides.

It’s not ideal, but it still looks to be a fun year. Teodosio is a highlight reel in center field, every year with Mike Trout should be cherished, it’s a complete joy watching Zach Neto compete every day, the amount of reclamation projects we’ve signed has created some fun subplots for the season, and it’s going to be a lot of fun to watch our young players develop. Each season also gets us one year closer to Arte Moreno selling the team, and if he were to sell in the next 18 months, then he’d be handing over a near blank slate to our next owner.

*Reporting currently says that the Angels should have the option to renew with FanDuel Sports Network for an additional three years, subject to FanDuel receiving additional funding. I’d consider this the most likely option at this time.

**Right after publishing this article, the Angels traded for Josh Lowe, who fills the exact role that I envisioned for Conforto.

Happy New Year

Writer Jayson Stark recently shared the following quote on Twitter: “It's amazing how far away spring training feels on Dec. 31...And how close it feels on Jan. 1.” It’s a quote that rang true for me, as for the first time this offseason I’m beginning to feel like baseball is just around the corner.

We’re now roughly a month away from pitchers and catchers reporting, which for the Angels’ sake hopefully means that we’re about to see a slew of signings. Despite my blog’s four-week hiatus over the holiday season, there isn’t a whole lot for me to catch up on. Here I’ll attempt to write a few words on the few signings that I missed.

Jordan Romano

From 2020 to 2023, Jordan Romano was one of the best relievers in baseball. During those four years, his 2.29 ERA ranked as the 10th best over at least 100 innings. If you increase the innings limit to 200, then he is behind only Devin Williams, Emmanuel Clase, and Jacob deGrom.

In 2024, Romano struggled through 13.2 IP before being shut down due to arthroscopic surgery to repair an impingement in his throwing elbow. The following year, Romano was healthy but had an awful season, finishing with an 8.23 ERA. On the surface, that’s obviously an unfathomable number, but there are some underlying metrics that support the potential for him to bounce back this year.

Romano’s xERA, which uses Statcast data to figure out what a pitcher’s ERA should be, was a much better 3.99. A large reason for this was Romano’s proneness to giving up hits in bunches. Romano left only 49% of opposing batters on base, which effectively meant that half the opponents he allowed on base would eventually score a run. Romano’s xFIP of 4.33 tells a similar story.

These aren’t elite numbers, but they compare favorably to many Angels relievers; one example is Kenley Jansen, who posted a 3.75 and 4.60 xERA and xFIP, respectively.

As Romano recovers from injury and learns to trust his arm, there’s reason to have optimism that at worst he could hover around a 4.00 ERA, with upside to get closer to his old dominant self. For $2 million, that’s good value.

Drew Pomeranz

Drew Pomeranz has had an unorthodox MLB career. Pomeranz was a top-five draft pick turned top prospect who, as pitchers tend to do, struggled in Colorado after being called up. He then had a couple of successful years in relief for Oakland before breaking out as a starter, earning an All-Star nod in 2016 for the Padres.

He was dealt to the Red Sox and kept having success before the wheels fell off his career in 2018. From 2018 to 2021, he posted a 4.61 ERA and struggled to stay healthy. He was out of the major leagues from 2022 to 2024, and at age 36, most people would have assumed that his MLB career was over. Instead, last year Pomeranz signed with the Cubs and was miraculously one of the best relievers in baseball.

If you look at pitchers with a minimum of 40 IP, Pomeranz had a top-25 ERA last year, which all of his peripheral stats supported. At 36 years old, he still had his stuff, and his K-BB% was the best of his career if you ignore the 2020 season where he pitched only 18.2 innings.

The Cubs initially started him out in a low-leverage role, but he kept climbing their list of trusted relievers, and by the end of the year he was pitching important innings in the playoffs.

The Angels are taking a $4 million bet that at 37 years old, Pomeranz has at least one year left in the tank. Pomeranz has pitched only 94.0 major league innings this decade, which should be a good sign for his durability, but as a 37-year-old with a long injury history, there’s obviously a ton of risk here.

If the bet pays off, the Angels are getting a quality reliever who the Cubs trusted to hold close leads in the seventh inning during the playoffs.

Kirby Yates

To date, the theme of this offseason for the Angels has been reclamation projects, and in Kirby Yates, they’ve signed yet another.

The Dodgers' bullpen was a complete mess last year, with evidence suggesting an organizational failure in coaching and game planning. Here is how the top of their relief corps fared:

Name	2024 ERA	2025 ERA
Kirby Yates	1.17	5.23
Tanner Scott	1.75	4.74
Blake Treinen	1.93	5.40

Three top-tier relievers imploding in the same season is statistically improbable and suggests the Dodgers outsmarted themselves. To support this theory, look at a player familiar to Angels fans: Luis Garcia.

In 2024, Garcia was a reliable arm for the Angels before being dealt to the Red Sox. Boston tinkered with him, increasing his velocity and altering his mechanics; as a result, his ERA ballooned to 8.22. He then signed with the Dodgers and posted a 5.27 ERA before being released. Finally, he landed with the Nationals and finished the year with a dominant 1.60 ERA over 28 innings between Washington and Anaheim.

The Dodgers had limited Garcia’s sinker usage, but with the Nationals and Angels, he returned to throwing it roughly half the time. That adjustment essentially turned Garcia back into his old self overnight.

Regarding Kirby Yates, his profile shows similar small changes made by the Dodgers, most notably a three-degree shift in his arm angle. The Angels are betting $5 million that, like Garcia, Yates can rediscover his form by pitching like his old self. This bet is more realistic because the Angels are reuniting him with pitching coach Mike Maddux, who oversaw Yates’ 2024 campaign where he posted a 1.17 ERA and finished eighth in the AL Cy Young voting.

From 2017 to 2024, Yates posted a 2.52 ERA. If the Angels are getting that version of Kirby Yates, then they’ve just found their closer.

Wade Meckler

I initially wasn’t going to include Meckler in this article, but the more I consider this signing, the more likely I think it is that Meckler will be on our opening day roster.

Meckler is a left-handed bat who can play all three outfield positions. Given that the Angels currently don’t have a lefty outfielder, this makes Meckler a great fit. Most notably, it also gives the Angels the option to use a Teodosio/Meckler platoon in center field. Teodosio had a .755 OPS against lefty pitchers last year, while Meckler in Triple-A has had much more success against right-handers.

The biggest question is whether his offense from Triple-A can translate to the big leagues. Meckler only put up a .578 OPS during his short MLB stint back in 2023, but he has had much more success playing in Triple-A these past couple of years, albeit in the hitter-friendly PCL.

Meckler has Taylor Ward-esque patience, where he’ll take a lot of strikes looking for the right pitch. When he elects to swing, he has really good contact rates; however, this is paired with a below-average power profile. Given the Angels' lineup of high-slugging / high-strikeout hitters, I think with Meckler and Grissom the Angels have shown that they’re actively trying to get more contact hitters into their lineup. Across 2024 and 2025, Meckler’s contact rates in the minors have been around 80%, which is only bettered by Schanuel out of current Angels players.

It’s not the most exciting signing, but if it doesn’t pan out, then Meckler has the upside of having one minor league option remaining. I said at the start of the offseason that the Angels needed to sign a dirt-cheap fourth outfielder, and I’m fine with Meckler as that signing. If purely used as a platoon bat, he could be a nice piece.

Going cheap in the outfield now gives the Angels more freedom to spend on pitching and the infield. Between Trout, Adell, Soler, Teodosio, Meckler, Rada, Paris, and Lugo, the Angels have options in the outfield, whereas there are much bigger question marks left in the rotation and in the infield.

Winter Meetings Update

The best and worst part of the MLB Offseason is its pace. Most other sports begin their offseason with a flurry of activity and then a long quiet stretch where there’s not a lot to get excited by. In baseball, the offseason is a glacially slow drip feed of transactions. It’s a more memorable experience, as I enjoy the rush of a Passan-bomb dropping at any random moment, but there are a lot of times where your patience gets tested and you wish that things would move a lot quicker.

The Winter Meetings are MLB’s closest equivalent to the excitement of other sport’s opening days of free agency, but most years you’re typically left disappointed with a lot of major names left unsigned, and your favorite team left with holes all over their roster. While this year’s meetings are so far no exception, the Angels have made a few moves over the past week so I thought I’d use this chance to catch up on a few transactions.

Alek Manoah

The Angels signed Alek Manoah last Tuesday for $1.95m. This is a tough deal to judge presently, because for me, I need to see what other moves the Angels make before I can properly evaluate this deal.

My initial fear when this deal was announced was that Manoah was signed with the intention of being the fifth starter. All of the reporting since has confirmed that’s not likely to be the case and the Angels are still in the market for starting pitching, but until a transaction is made official I’ll remain a little skeptical. If the Angels go out and sign somebody like Tyler Mahle, and they use Manoah in the bullpen with an occasional spot start, then I love this move.

The biggest question is obviously whether Manoah's best days are behind him. Manoah had an incredible 2022, placing third in Cy Young voting, but in the seasons since, Manoah has dealt with a ton of injuries to his pitching arm. In 2023, Manoah pitched through discomfort in his right shoulder which ended his season early. In 2024, Manoah started the year on the IL for right shoulder inflammation, and then only made a handful of starts before suffering a UCL sprain that eventually led to surgery. This surgery wiped out most of his 2025, but he made some starts in the back half of the year.

You look at Manoah’s struggles when healthy from 2023 to 2025, and it’s fair to say that it was primarily because his stuff dropped off. I won’t go into all the examples, but his changeup from 2022 to 2024 lost three and a half inches of drop, which among other factors increased the xSLG on that pitch from .353 to .761. You look through his data and there’s a lot of little things like this all throughout his profile, which all came together to transform him from a Cy Young candidate to a below replacement-level player.

The Angels are betting that this drop in stuff is either correctable, or was due to structural issues in his pitching arm. Manoah is only 27, which means that he should still have his best days ahead of him. As a bullpen arm, Manoah will work closely with Mike Maddux to get back to his 2022 form, which if he does, the Angels will still have him under team control for 2027.

If Manoah struggles, there’s also the upside here that he has two options left. While I’m sure the Angels would love to keep Manoah around Mike Maddux, if he struggles it's nice to have the option to send him down to Salt Lake.

Alek Manoah was a Cy Young candidate, who for the past three years has struggled with health. That’s a profile that’s absolutely worth a $1.95m bet. If the rumors are true that Mike Maddux pushed for this, then I’m feeling even more confident that the Angels can turn Manoah’s career around. This is a B signing, that I’ll push up to an A should the Angels sign another starting pitcher.

Vaughn Grissom

Trading for Vaughn Grissom might be the most Perry Minasian transaction of all time. Perry can’t resist a former top prospect, and for the second year in a row we’ve brought in a player who was once the centerpiece of a Chris Sale trade. Grissom was also drafted by Perry Minasian in Atlanta, continuing the long list of former Braves who Perry has brought to Anaheim.

Despite the fact that it feels like both the former Braves and the former top prospects have never worked out for us, I still like the strategy here.

Grissom, after being traded to Boston in December 2023, never had a chance to prove himself in his new organization. In spring training, he suffered a hamstring injury which put him on the IL to start the season. During his rehab stint, he suffered from a pretty serious flu which saw him lose 14 pounds. Due to the rules surrounding rehab stints, the Red Sox were forced to activate Grissom sooner than they would have liked, which led to a .367 OPS in May while recovering.

This is important context for Grissom’s career, because if you exclude this stretch, his career OPS is .748.

When you look at Grissom’s profile, that production seems sustainable when you look at his great bat-to-ball skills (His 88.9% Zone Contact rate would have been second on the Angels behind Nolan Schanuel), which leads to him being great at avoiding strikeouts. Grissom is also a prospect who scouts always thought had some untapped power, and we saw glimpses of that this year in AAA, as he increased his average exit velocity from 85.5mph to 88.2mph.

Grissom was forced out of Boston due to their impressive depth of young talent, and I really like his fit in Anaheim. He’ll slot perfectly into the Rengifo role of being a depth infielder, who has experience playing both second and third base. Trading for Grissom also makes it more palatable to bring back Moncada, because, like Rengifo, you should be able to trust Grissom to step into Moncada’s role during his inevitable IL stints.

To acquire Grissom, the Angels traded Isaiah Jackson, who I had as our 21st ranked prospect. Jackson was a high-floor prospect in center field due to his great defensive instincts. He doesn’t have the typical speed of a glove-first outfielder, but the ability to make great reads made him a Pac-12 All-Defensive teamer for two straight years.

Jackson is a left-handed bat with a power-over-hit profile, and like most glove-first prospects it’s now a waiting game to see if his bat develops enough for his defensive skills to get him on the field. The Angels don’t have a lot of position player depth in their farm, so I would have preferred to see them move a pitcher, but Jackson is a reasonable price to pay here.

Overall, this is probably a B- transaction. If Grissom had options left, I’d have bumped this up to an A, but it’s still a low-risk move that should allow them to cheaply replace the hole left by Luis Rengifo. I really like Grissom’s contact profile, and emerging power, and the more I researched him for this article the more I started to like him. I don’t think we should be shocked if he contributes on offense this year.

Rule 5 Draft

The Rule 5 Draft was mostly uneventful for the Angels this year. The MLB phase saw the Angels pass with their pick, and also saw no Angels selected by other teams. As a net result for the Angels this was a win, as there were three key names available to other teams.

Jared Southard has quietly climbed through the Angels system after being a twelfth-round pick in 2022, and after spending half of 2025 in AAA, it’s possible that he makes his major league debut in 2026.

Samy Natera Jr was another name on the radar for the Rule 5 draft, who got a lot of prospect buzz after a strong showing in the 2024 Arizona Fall League. He couldn’t command the ball in 2025, but still showed some great stuff as the lefty struck out 34.3% of batters. If Mike Maddux and the Angels can get him to find the zone more consistently this spring, then he could be one of our more impactful relievers.

Joel Hurtado was the final name on the radar, who as a prospect has some similarities to Jack Kochanowicz. He primarily uses a sinker that at the moment shares a ton of traits with the one thrown by Kochanowicz, but I like Hurtado more as a prospect due to his velocity upside (his maximum recorded pitch velocity was 104.4mph), better secondary pitches, and better command. He doesn’t strike many guys out, but gets a lot of ground-ball outs, and had a good year in Double-A posting a 2.70 ERA.

Overall, I’m glad we kept all three players in the system.

The minor league phase was a lot busier, with the Angels picking up Eybersson Polanco from the Red Sox, and losing five players.

Polanco is a 22-year-old pitching prospect, who posted a 5.23 ERA in Low-A this year pitching in relief. The Angels likely took him because the righty can reach 98 mph with his four-seamer, and has encouraging whiff rates on his secondary pitches. His FIP and xFIP this year were 3.35 and 3.52 respectively.

The Angels lost the following players in this portion of the Rule 5 draft: Sandy Gaston, Sam Ryan, Jake Smith, Jorge Marcheco, and Yendy Gomez.

Gaston signed with the Angels this year as a free agent after being let go by the Rays. The Angels got him to improve his walk numbers pitching in relief in High-A, but he still has some work to do on that front. The Angels moved him to AAA at the end of the year, probably to get a final look at him to determine if he was worth protecting, but the Statcast data from those appearances doesn’t show much to get impressed by. His stuff graded poorly, and he was overmatched by the step up in competition.

Ryan was also signed this year, after being released by the Blue Jays and spending a year playing independent ball. He had a 3.58 FIP in half a season of relief in Double-A. At 27 years old, he is a low-ceiling prospect, but one who I can see reaching the majors as a low leverage reliever.

Smith has been in our system for a while after being drafted in the sixth round of the infamous all-pitchers draft back in 2021. He is a 26-year-old reliever who posted a 3.92 ERA this year across High-A and Double-A. He walked 18.8% of batters this year, and 2022 was the one season where he had a sub-5 FIP.

Marcheco was a 22-year-old starting pitching prospect who signed with the Angels as an international free agent. He spent the year in High-A, and had one of the better K-BB% ratios in our entire system. He gave up a ton of homers, but otherwise was moving through the system pretty nicely. He is the name I’m most upset to lose as a lottery ticket SP prospect.

Finally, Gomez at 21, has been in the Angels system since 2021, but has only 29.1 IP in full-season ball where he has struggled. He had some good numbers pitching in the Arizona Complex League, but has been stuck at that level for four years.

Arizona Fall League Review

I’m still undecided on exactly what direction I’ll take this blog, but it’s very likely that it’ll put a lot of focus on the Angels’ farm system. While I don’t claim to be the best prospect evaluator, I enjoy keeping track of the farm system, and hopefully I can occasionally offer some unique insight.

With the Salt River Rafters being eliminated, the Angels’ 2025 minor league season came to an end. I thought this would be a good opportunity to take a quick look at and grade the eight prospects for the Angels who featured in the Arizona Fall League (AFL).

The AFL isn’t as strong as it once was, especially among pitching talent where only one top 100 prospect made an appearance. Baseball America delivered a fascinating stat that showed that across their respective minor league seasons, AFL pitchers walked 15.2% of batters. Of the 339 pitchers in MLB to pitch at least 50 innings, only Toronto’s Brendon Little walked batters at a higher rate.

Very few of these pitchers will go on to make the big leagues, and as a result the AFL is an offensive league, which I’ve kept in mind when grading players. The best ERA posted by an Angels pitcher was an absurd 6.43, which is why I might be considered to be generous with my perspective on their performance; the curve here was set incredibly low.

Raudi Rodriguez - A+

Raudi Rodriguez built on his breakout 2025 season, posting an OPS of 1.164 and being, without a doubt, one of the AFL’s best players. He was rewarded for his performance by being named the Arizona Fall League Fall Stars Game MVP, and was also named as an outfielder on the All-Arizona Fall League Team. The OPS number here should be viewed with a grain of salt, due to the poor standard of pitching, but it’s impressive that by OPS Rodriguez was the fifth-best hitter in the entire league.

This performance was an encouraging sign. After a great year in Low-A, the biggest question for Rodriguez was if he could perform at a higher level. While it’s debatable if the pitching in the AFL constitutes a higher level than Low-A, and there are the obvious sample-size issues, the fact that Rodriguez outperformed just about every other prospect, including some top 100 names, offers hope for his future.

Looking at the advanced data, which the AFL provides access to for the first time, reveals a prospect who swings a ton, including a lot of chases and whiffs, but makes enough contact to avoid striking out at a concerning level. There are also some solid exit-velocity numbers here for a young prospect; Kyren Paris serves as a decent power comparison.

While I’m still anxious to see how Rodriguez’s chase-happy profile works out over a full season of High-A or Double-A ball, he didn’t put a single foot wrong in Arizona, and it’s hard not to be thrilled with his performance.

Juan Flores - B+

Wherever Juan Flores goes, the tagline “youngest” is typically thrown around. That was no exception here, as the catcher was the youngest player to appear in the AFL.

Flores is a defense-first catcher who has rushed through the Angels’ farm system due to his advanced defensive skills. This aggressive assignment has often left Flores at a level too high for his offensive skills to fully catch up, though he has still flashed offensive potential throughout his time in Low-A and High-A.

The AFL presents a good opportunity to compare Flores to FanGraphs’ 20th-ranked prospect, Alfredo Duno. Duno, who is a few months older, is similar to Flores in many ways but has experienced a less aggressive push through the minor league system.

In 2024, Flores and Duno were essentially the same players offensively in Low-A. However, the Angels promoted Flores to High-A during the 2024 season, where he initially struggled, while Duno remained in Low-A throughout 2025 where he flourished.

Flores eventually figured out High-A pitching and had a second-half OPS of .743, which included a hot August where he posted an OPS of .854 in a pitcher-friendly environment. To me, this exposes a flaw in prospect rankings: Flores had a season that was perhaps more encouraging, yet Duno gets the top-20 prospect label due to the luxury of repeating his Low-A year. This is despite MLB Pipeline and FanGraphs having Flores regarded as the better defensive catcher.

To look at how steep the increase in difficulty is from Low-A to High-A, let's look at some players who recently appeared for both Tri-City and Inland Empire in the same year.

Player	Low-A OPS	High-A OPS
Alberto Rios (2025)	.625	.324
Joe Redfield (2024)	.791	.593
Dario Laverde (2025)	.606	.354
Peter Burns (2024)	.845	.457
Caleb Pendleton (2025)	.691	.574
Adrian Placencia (2024)	.932	.604

On average, these prospects saw a 35% decrease in OPS when moving between Low-A and High-A in the same season. While the math here isn’t perfect, if we apply that same adjustment to Flores’ High-A numbers this season, we can assume Flores could have theoretically posted a Low-A OPS of .960, a number superior to Duno’s.

It sounds extreme, but the transition represents a huge step up in competition, and it’s why we see so many promising prospects struggle to make it out of High-A. The fact that by the end of the year Flores was performing well against High-A pitching, despite his young age, shows that he is well on his way to the majors.

With both players now on a level playing field, and aided by available Statcast data, we can see that Flores recorded better exit velocities and made contact at a significantly higher rate. Alfredo Duno had better walk numbers, but his low-swing profile worked well in the desert environment where most opposing pitchers struggled to find the strike zone. When swinging, Duno managed only a .213 batting average compared to Flores’ average of .273. Duno's OPS was .654 compared to Flores’ .775.

One could still make an argument that Duno is the better prospect, but hopefully this exercise leads to a reevaluation of thoughts on Juan Flores. Flores is one of my favorite prospects in the system, and a player who I would not be shocked to see break out into the top 100.

Najer Victor - C+

Najer Victor was the Angels’ 14th-round selection in 2024. He possesses a great arm that can touch triple digits in relief and had a promising High-A stint where he posted a 2.96 FIP and a 25.6% K-BB%.

Victor’s 9.72 ERA in the AFL is obviously ugly, but there were some things here to get excited about if you look under the hood. He primarily used a four-seamer, cutter, and sinker, all of which looked like they could be MLB-caliber pitches. The four-seamer and sinker sit at 97-98 mph and generated many whiffs. The cutter, at 88.7 mph, induced whiffs at an absurd rate of 72.7%. Overall, he was around the zone a promising amount and was able to get batters to chase at a good rate when he missed the zone.

The issue for Victor was that when he was hit, he was hit hard. This is why his ERA was so poor, despite an elite K-BB% of 28.6%. His FIP was somewhat more forgiving at 4.59, but overall, we’ll have to wait and see if this was bad luck in a small sample size or indicative of a fundamental issue in Victor’s approach.

If this performance proves to be an anomaly, Victor has the arsenal to move quickly through the Angels’ system.

Brandon Dufault - C-

Brandon Dufault was a 16th-round selection of the Angels back in 2021. He is a relief prospect who has bounced around the Angels’ organization but has never managed to consistently stand out.

In Arizona, Dufault posted an Angels-best 6.43 ERA. He was able to generate a lot of soft contact but struggled significantly to find the strike zone, walking 23.4% of batters. He missed the zone often, and his stuff wasn’t tempting enough to entice batters to chase his pitches outside of the zone.

He has some pretty promising spin rates, and his pitches move enough to often induce soft contact. However, given how long he has been in the system, it is questionable how much patience the Angels will have for him to refine his command.

David Mershon - C-

David Mershon was an 18th-round pick in 2024, signed for $405,000. He is a diminutive utility player who will naturally draw comparisons to David Eckstein.

Mershon initially looked like he would be a fast mover through the Angels’ system. He made a promising professional debut in Double-A, stood out in the 2024 AFL, had a good Spring Training, and then started the year in Triple-A. Unfortunately, from that point, Mershon never found an offensive rhythm and finished the year with a .559 OPS.

The AFL this year was a good platform for Mershon to recover, but he produced mixed results over the short season. His slash line does a good job of telling the story of who Mershon is as a player: the .425 OBP demonstrates his patient approach and ability to walk more than he strikes out, but the .295 SLG was indicative of his poor 79.9 mph average exit velocity.

That exit velocity isn’t a death sentence, but he would need to combine it with elite contact skills and plate discipline to have success in the major leagues. At the moment, his contact rates just aren’t good enough, and he’ll need to greatly improve them if he wants to reach the next level.

Fulton Lockhart - C-

Fulton Lockhart was the Angels’ 13th-round selection in 2024. Lockhart projects as a relief prospect who, if he can ever find the zone, has a good arm that will give him a chance to succeed in the major leagues. His arm reached 101.3 mph this year, but the significant downside is that he walked a quarter of all batters faced. The short AFL season was more of the same from Lockhart, as he walked 24.3% of batters en route to a 14.85 ERA.

In the AFL, he primarily used a sinker and curveball. The sinker sat at 97 mph and had an encouraging whiff rate. The curveball looked like it could be a devastating pitch, but it only found the zone 27.3% of the time and wasn’t able to get opposing batters to chase outside the zone.

Lockhart absolutely has the arm strength to remain a relevant name in the Angels’ farm system, but his significant control issues mean that he has a long way to go before he can reach his potential.

Ryan Costieu - D-

Ryan Costieu was a nice under-the-radar prospect heading into 2025. As one of the last surviving names from the Angels’ infamous all-pitchers draft, he had a lot of success in 2024 despite his workload being managed due to various injuries. He still wasn't on most prospect radars, but his 2.84 ERA in High-A stood out in a farm system that was begging for somebody to break out.

Costieu was able to handle a heavier workload this year but struggled, posting a 5.23 ERA across High-A and a handful of appearances in Double-A. The struggles continued for Costieu in the AFL, where he recorded a 6.97 ERA in five appearances. 

His main pitch was his 91.9 mph four-seamer, which only managed a 9.3% whiff rate. The changeup and slider showed some promise but were hit hard when opposing batters made contact. It’s not a profile to get excited by, and it leads one to wonder how much longer he will remain in the Angels’ system.

Benny Thompson - D

Benny Thompson is an under-the-radar reliever who enjoyed a breakout in 2025. Spending the year in Low-A, Thompson increased his fastball velocity from 91.6 mph to 94 mph and lowered his ERA to 1.91 over 61.1 innings. 

He still showed issues with his command, but his 14.7 K/9 indicated that his stuff was dominant at the Low-A level; per Baseball America, the Stuff+ model loved all four of his pitches. Similar to Raudi Rodriguez, Thompson ended his season with the biggest question mark being if he could adjust to higher competition.

Thompson was a late inclusion to the AFL rosters. He showed up with a fastball that was two ticks below his average velocity and recorded an absurd walk rate of 43.8%. He only appeared in five games and finished with a ghastly 13.50 ERA. I’m giving Thompson some benefit of the doubt here, as we saw so little of him, and the little we did see was not at all indicative of the success he had in 2025. Hopefully, he can move past this performance and get ready for a strong 2026.