Angels target college slugger AJ Garcia at No. 12, hoping his powerful bat finally bolsters their struggling farm system and offensive potential.
The Los Angele Angels have a farm system consistently ranked near the bottom of the league despite a decade of losing seasons. With limited talented players to show for the poor decade in Anaheim, the Angels need to get it right quickly.
The 2026 chance is their next opportunity to do so, where they will be selecting at the No. 12 pick. In Bleacher Report’s latest mock draft before the season gets underway, the Angels were mocked to select outfielder AJ Garcia.
Garcia was one of college’s best players to enter the transfer portal last year, eventually choosing the University of Virginia. His change of scenery comes after two seasons at Duke University, where he hit 29 home runs, drove in 112 runs, and recorded a 1.003 OPS in 120 games. Garcia also walked more than he struck out in his first two collegiate seasons, showing impressive discipline at the plate.
His potential at the plate is what jumps out about Garcia, who stands at six feet three inches and nearly 200 pounds. He’s got the frame of an MLB outfielder and a bat to match it. He’s not as prolific on the field, where he has just a 45-grade arm. Still, he could be a slugging left fielder in the major leagues in just a few seasons.
Garcia is 21 years old, which makes his selection to the Angels more likely. The front office has shown a repeated preference to draft guys closer to being in the MLB than not. Instead of drafting teenagers and developing them in their system for years and allowing them to make significant changes to their game, the Angels want the next best thing now.
Drafting Garcia would allow them to continue that strategy, although it hasn't worked all that much for the Halos besides the case of shortstop Zach Neto. With the current state of the Angels' outfield and the inevitable regression of star Mike Trout, selecting an outfielder with their first selection this year makes sense for the Angels.
Trout and Jo Adell are the only two outfielders on the Halos with any real value, but Trout is heading more towards a full-time role as a designated hitter each passing day. If the Angels were to select Garcia this summer, it wouldn’t be all that surprising to see him debut in the majors in 2027 with their history of rushing prospects into the majors. In this hypothetical, Angels fans would be hoping it leads to a different outcome this time.