The Angels’ pitching group is heading into another reset, and that’s where the real uncertainty begins.
After the club moved on from manager Kurt Suzuki on Wednesday, the next question is what all this turnover means for the young arms that took noticeable steps forward this season. The staff around them is changing again, and that kind of churn can matter when you’re trying to build something with pitchers who are still learning on the fly.
There were real gains in the second half, especially under interim pitching coach Tim Leveque and interim bullpen coach Michael Wuertz. The young starters made progress, and there’s no denying that. At the same time, it still isn’t clear whether former pitching coach Mike Maddux was pushed out because of a power play by Suzuki or because he wasn’t working with the analytics data that has become standard across the game.
Either way, the bigger issue now is continuity. Walbert Urena and Ryan Johnson will be walking into spring training with their third coaching staff in a year, and that’s a lot of moving parts for developing pitchers to absorb. Urena may be the one least bothered by it after looking like a force of nature once he got his chance, but others have already been uneven enough without having to adjust to another new voice.
Johnson feels like the most obvious case where this could sting. His career has already been a mess from the organizational side, starting with making the team as a reliever in 2025 when he should have still been building in the minors. Last year, he was sent up and down repeatedly early in the season before finally settling in and putting together an excellent second half.
The Angels are also bringing in a new farm director from outside the organization, another change Mozeliak announced early after the deadline cleanout. If there is any stability in that move, it’s the idea that the new group should be aligned from the start, with Stan Kroenke and his business group presumably hiring people who are on the same page.
Even so, that won’t make the transition painless for pitchers such as Tyler Bremner and George Klassen. It may take time for everything to settle once Kroenke’s group takes over, and Bremner in particular presents an interesting case if he keeps overpowering hitters the way he did for most of this past season. He could be ready sometime in 2027.
As for the veteran side of the rotation, those decisions are much easier to sort through. Yusei Kikuchi is making too much money to be much more than an innings eater at the back end, and no one will miss Grayson Rodriguez.
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