The Angels’ 2026 season was ugly in the record book and just as messy on the balance sheet.
Los Angeles lost 100 games for the first time in franchise history, finishing with the worst season the club has ever put together. In a strange AL West where no team finished above .500, the Angels still stood out for all the wrong reasons. Only the Colorado Rockies were worse, but the Halos at least had real talent on the roster - names like Mike Trout, Reid Detmers and Zach Neto that Colorado simply doesn’t have.
That’s what makes the season so frustrating. The Angels weren’t empty of talent.
They were thin everywhere around it. The top-end players did enough to keep the roster from collapsing completely, but the depth behind them never came close to holding up.
With new owner Stan Kroenke now in place, the hope is that his money can eventually change that. But the story of the last decade has been familiar: too many expensive misses, not enough support.
Bleacher Report’s value rankings reflected that imbalance. The Angels came in at No. 23 with a net value of $44.1 million, a number that says plenty about how much production they squeezed out of the roster - and how much they wasted on the wrong pieces.
At the top of the list were the players you’d expect. Neto led the way with a $37.5 million value, while Detmers followed at $31 million.
Right-hander Jose Soriano also cracked the top five, even though he was traded at the deadline. Rookie pitcher Walbert Urena and waiver claim Wade Meckler rounded out the group, and both gave the Angels real bang for the buck.
Their small contracts made the numbers look even better, but the production mattered too. Urena posted 3.8 bWAR, and Meckler added 2.4 bWAR, giving the club more than it would have had otherwise.
The bottom of the list tells the other half of the story.
No Angels player was a worse value than Jorge Soler, who was paid $13 million and finished at -0.3 bWAR. Yusei Kikuchi wasn’t far behind in the wrong direction, with the Angels paying more than $21 million for just 0.5 bWAR. Robert Stephenson, Christian Moore and Logan O’Hoppe filled out the rest of the club’s five worst value contracts.
Even with the second-fewest wins in baseball, the Angels didn’t land at the very bottom of the league in these rankings. They actually finished ahead of teams like the Philadelphia Phillies, New York Mets and Toronto Blue Jays, which says something about how much value their better players still provided - and how badly the expensive mistakes dragged them down.
In Other News...
Braves Bring Back A Familiar Front Office Voice For 2027
The Braves are rebuilding some familiar front-office connections for 2027, adding former Astros general manager Dana Brown as a senior advisor to their amateur scouting department while also bringing back Perry Minasian. Minasian, who previously worked alongside Alex Anthopoulos in Atlanta, is returning to the organization after his run as Angels general manager, giving the Braves another experienced voice in the room as they continue shaping their scouting and personnel operation.
For Angels fans, the move is another reminder of how quickly front-office circles can turn over and reconnect. Minasians specific role in Atlanta has not been detailed, but the reunion with Anthopoulos adds intrigue to a Braves setup that already leans heavily on continuity and familiarity. The exact assignment may still be coming into focus, yet the decision itself says plenty about how much Atlanta values people it already knows. [Read more 🡒]
Angels Running Out Of Time To Fix A Critical Front Office Problem
The Angels are staring at a tightening calendar as their ownership transition from Arte Moreno to Stan Kroenke needs to be completed before the MLB lockout begins Dec. 1. Any sale still has to clear approval from at least 23 of the 30 club owners, and the clock matters here because a new ownership group would need time to start shaping the front office and sorting through roster decisions before the sport goes dark.
For now, the process does not appear to have the clean runway the Angels were hoping for. The next real chance for approval comes at the Owners Meetings in New York from Nov. 17-19, which leaves only a short window for the club to finalize a sale and get moving on the executive hires and other business that usually follows a change at the top. [Read more 🡒]
Angels Have A Real Chance To Fix Their Bullpen This Winter
The Angels spent too much of last season looking for reliable outs in the late innings, and the offseason gives them a chance to address that weakness in a more deliberate way. With a projected payroll budget to work with, the front office can shop for relief help instead of hoping internal options suddenly stabilize the back end of the bullpen.
A few names stand out as realistic fits because they bring recent success without pushing the budget into uncomfortable territory. The challenge is not finding one arm, but adding multiple dependable relievers who can shorten games and give the pitching staff some much-needed structure, which is the kind of bullpen upgrade this roster has been missing. [Read more 🡒]