Angels Former Hitting Coach Somehow Gets Hired Again

Los Angeles Angels fans have some bad memories from the last couple of seasons, and one of the worst was former hitting coach Johnny Washington, who was reviled by the Halos fan base. The Angels struck out an astounding 1,627 times back in 2025 under Washington's guidance, which was within striking distance of the all-time mark of 1,654 set by the Minnesota Twins back in 2023. 

Washington was just hired by the New York Mets, which has to leave plenty of Halos fans snickering. The Angels were the ultimate version of an all-or-nothing team that year, as they finished fourth in home runs with 226 while finishing with a .226 team average and a .298 OPB. 

That produced a record of 72-90, including a disastrous second half under interim manager Ray Montgomery that featured a record of 36-52. That set the stage for this year’s disaster, which resulted in a 100-loss season after the Angels finally cleaned house at the deadline. 

So how did this happen? Consider it a result of the Washington & Washington approach. The money quote comes from manager Ron Washington, who put his seal of approval on what the Halos were doing by saying this to David Laurila of FanGraphs back in 2025. 

"The industry don't care if you hit a buck-98 if you hit 25 or 30 out,” the manager said. “If I could hit 30 home runs and get paid, and they don't care about average, then I'm going to go for the home run."

Ron Washington was right, even if it was exactly the wrong thing to say and the wrong time to say it. The manager wound up leaving the team due to health issues, and the Angels cratered from there when Montgomery took over. 

Johnny Washington was fired after the season, and now he’s been hired again. The reason for this is his connection with new Mets manager Andy Green, who was also fired in San Diego back in 2019 when Washington was his hitting coach. It will be interesting to see if or how much he changes his approach, and what the results are with Mets team that had a spectacularly bad first half. 

As for the Angels, they still haven’t solved this problem. Brady Anderson was their nominal hitting coach this season, but he had little impact on the overall product as the Angels still struck out a lot and had trouble scoring runs. 

Getting a hitting coach who can change all this will be a priority for Stan Kroenke and his KSE ownership when they hire their baseball team. We’re still not sure exactly when that will happen and who will be taking over, but Kroenke’s reputation for fronting championship teams as Angels fans actually looking forward to the upcoming season for a change.