The Los Angeles Angels have been accused of many forms of baseball malpractice in the last few years, including bad contracts, rushing prospects to the majors, and a cheapskate owner, Arte Moreno, who now refuses to play for good players.
But there is something the Angels do remarkably well, as Sarah Langs of MLB.com pointed out in a piece about each team’s most amazing stat for 2025. Their number one draft picks may not all be successful, but they do get to see the field, sometimes even all at the same time.
That occurred on June 23, according to Langs, when the Angels had eight of their number one draft picks on the field at the same time. The lineup included Zach Neto, Nolan Schanuel, Mike Trout, Taylor Ward, Jo Adell, Christian Moore, Reid Detmers and Sam Bachman all took the field in the same game against the Boston Red Sox in a contest won by the Halos by a 9-5 score.
This doesn’t happen very often—in fact, it hasn’t happened in this century. The last time it occurred was on July 3, 1991, with Paul Molitor, Dan Plesac, Robin Yount, B.J. Surhoff, Dale Sveum, Bill Spiers, Gary Sheffield and Greg Vaughn all took the field for the Milwaukee Brewers, according to Elias Sports Bureau.
We’re not sure what all this means given how bad the Angels were last year, but there’s more weirdness to go with it. According to Langs, the very next day, in his 12th career game, Moore hit a game-tying home run in the eighth inning and then hit a walk-off home run in the 10th. Moore will get an extended look at second, and possibly at third as well, although he may have to compete with new trade acquisition Vaughn Grissom at one or both positions.
He became the second player in MLB history with a multi-homer game including a walk-off home run within his first 12 career games, joining Matt Thaiss on July 28, 2019 -- also for the Angels.
While names like Trout are eminently recognizable and players like Neto and Adell are up and coming stars, Moore is one of the Angels’ more controversial recent top draft picks. He displayed some serious power in his up and down season, but like many other Angels, Moore also struck at an epic rate, something new manager Kurt Suzuki will be looking to change in his rookie season.