The Los Angeles Angels were part of the awful American League, and they helped some mediocre teams make the playoffs.
The MLB playoffs are about to start with the Los Angeles Angels WAY on the outside looking in,, and there’s a large disparity between the AL and NL. Multiple teams from the clearly-inferior AL are making the postseason, and Alex Speier of the Boston Globe did a piece related to the Boston Red Sox, who might have been sellers at the deadline if it wasn’t for this disparity.
Several other teams come to mind, most notably the Cleveland Guardians, Chicago White Sox, Houston Astros and Texas Rangers. But it’s impossible not to think of the Angels in the context of all this, as they play their final game of the season with a chance to lose 100 games for the first time in franchise history.
The Angels were cannon fodder for virtually every team they played in the second half of the season, as their Triple-A lineup guaranteed a good chance to hold the Halos to three runs or less.
The quotes Speier came up with from anonymous evaluators included some beauties, so it’s well worth throwing a couple of them out there.
Most were of the polite and diplomatic variety, but the one that summarized the league as “a dumpster fire of teams that all operate and build rosters the same way” was probably the most inflammatory.
It’s impossible to put the Angels in this category, though, because there’s literally no rhyme or reason to their roster construction. They have Mike Trout and Zach Neto offensively and not much else, and aside from building a stable of young arms as the sale of the team goes forward, there’s no clear strategy on the pitching side, either.
We’re all hoping the Kroenke regime will end all this, but that’s still tbd until new owner Stan Kroenke takes reigns early next year. This isn’t a small job, but at least Kroenke has shown a willingness to spend freely with his other sports properties.
But another quote was more telling: “Vastly inferior — 9-10 NL teams would make the playoffs in the AL.” Speier's source is absolutely right about this, and you don’t have to scan the standings and NL rosters for very long to find more teams like the Arizona Diamondbacks and Philadelphia Phillies who would be playoff locks if they shifted over to the AL.
The Angels finished last in the AL West, which is the biggest blight in the MLB landscape in all this. The Astros and Rangers have been conducting a “pennant race” that involves mostly losing, and even the Angels were able to play spoilers every now and then. We all know the format isn’t going to change, but it is worth noting as the postseason starts.
