The Los Angeles Angels finished with a 63-99 record on the season, relegating them to last place in the American League West and extending their playoff drought to 10 years in a row. Nevertheless, the failures of the 2024 season aren't stopping owner Arte Moreno from publicly setting a high bar for next year: making the postseason.
"That's our goal," Moreno told the Orange County Register. "We're looking at '25-'26, because of the young people coming, but our goal is to be in the playoffs in '25."
By "the young people," we assume Moreno is talking about second baseman and first-round pick Christian Moore; right-hander Caden Dana (who debuted this season); and plausibly outfielder Nelson Rada, a 19-year-old who spent this season in Double-A. It's reasonable to think that adding those players to the ones already on the big-league roster -- shortstop Zach Neto and catcher Logan O'Hoppe among them -- may not be enough to raise the Angels' talent level to contender status. That's why Moreno is hoping to lasso some external help, too.
Moreno claimed he intends to allow the Angels to increase their payroll this winter, albeit not to the levels they established in 2023, back when Shohei Ohtani was still on the roster. His "marching orders" to general manager Perry Minasian, he told the Register, are to "build a team that can compete for a playoff spot."
According to Cot's Contracts, the Angels opened this season with a $169 million payroll, as opposed to the $212 million they spent in 2023. Wherever, exactly, the Angels fall between those marks, they should have the ability to make a couple meaningful additions over the course of the offseason.
Of course, spending money hasn't been the biggest issue for the Angels over the past decade. This season marked the first time since 2003 (Moreno's first year of ownership) that they weren't ranked in the top 10 in Opening Day payroll. The issue, more often, has been which players they've spent their money on.
It's too early to know who Minasian may target this winter. Six of the 11 players the Angels gave at least 200 plate appearances to this season failed to clear the 100 OPS+ mark; meanwhile, six of the Angels' pitchers with at least 40 frames had ERA+ worse than 100. That's a nice way of saying that the Angels could use help on both sides of the ball if they want to try to become next year's version of the Kansas City Royals, who this season became the second MLB team to ever go from a 100-loss year to making the playoffs as part of a 162-game campaign.
