Angels Have A Leadership Void To Go With Talent Gaps

The Los Angeles Angels have a lot of needs in the talent department, and they’re not going to solve them right away. There are simply too many holes in the lineup and in the bullpen, and barring a series of miraculous personnel moves, some of those holes and gaps are still going to be present. 

But the Angels have another void, and it’s just as important. This is a team that lacks leadership after years of wasting away under owner Arte Moreno, and that leadership void needs to be filled. 

A new GM and manager will obviously help fill it off the field, but what about on the field? The two players who come up in this discussion most frequently are outfielder Mike Trout and shortstop Zach Neto, and neither one is really qualified in that regard. 

Start with Trout. He was a great story this year, and hopefully he’ll be able to play effectively for at least another year. But from a leadership perspective, Trout lives in his own superstar bubble, and he’s a generation removed from the younger talent the Angels will hopefully be bringing in. 

Want examples? Here’s two. When the Angels were facing multiple player moves at the deadline, Trout had them at his personal golf course in New Jersey on a getaway golf outing, and hilarity ensued when the players began getting phone notifications that they were being traded. 

A more ominous version of Trout’s leadership surfaced during the Tyler Skaggs civil suit trial, as the outfielder was called on to testify. He wasn’t totally involved in the worst shenanigans that involved alleged drug use and drugs being supplied by the PR staff, but Trout didn’t do much to stop what was happening, either. H also did some things he said he wasn’t proud of, e.g., admitting that he had imprisoned former communications employee Eric Kay taking fastballs to the knees as a part of a dare. 

Neto doesn’t really qualify, either. He was unfocused in the field as he made a lot of sloppy errors, and interim GM John Mozeliak paid Neto a visit in the clubhouse shortly after he arrived to call out the shortstop for his lack of hustle in failing to run out a ground ball. 

This points to the need for some character guys. The Angels don’t have a lot of those on the roster right now, and it will be just one of  the problems the new ownership group of Stan Kroenke will have to solve going forward.