1 critical goal for each member of the Angels' starting rotation in 2025

The Angels have re-made their starting rotation ahead of the 2025 season, and now, with the announcement that Jack Kochanowicz has defeated Reid Detmers in the competition for the fifth starter role, the primary cast of characters tasked with taking the rubber each day has come into focus.

In many ways, this is a completely remade group. Gone are disappointing fixtures like Griffin Canning and Patrick Sandoval, and in are Yusei Kikuchi and Kyle Hendricks. The Angels will need drastic improvement from this unit, which ranked 28th in the majors in ERA with a 4.97 mark in 2024.

The Angels want to be a more competitive ball club this season, and whether or not they achieve that objective hinges greatly on the starting rotation. With that said, each starter has a unique goal he must achieve this year, and if they all do, things could look a whole lot better in Anaheim.

Yusei Kikuchi will need to prove he can be the Angels' ace

The casual baseball fan was certainly surprised when the Angels pounced to lock up Yusei Kikuchi to a three-year $63 million deal early on in free agency. On face value, a $21 million average annual value for a pitcher with a 4.57 career ERA over six seasons seems like a real headscratcher.

However, there's a real chance that Kikuchi is not the mid-4 ERA pitcher he's been most of his career, as a tweak in his pitch utilization with the Astros following a mid-season trade led to him posting a 2.70 ERA down the stretch over 60 innings pitched, looking like a true ace in the process.

Kikuchi isn't done tinkering. The veteran lefty has added an impressive-looking sweeper to his arsenal to go alongside the slider that was unlocked last season. If he can replicate the success he saw with the Astros while continuing to build out his repertoire, he could end up looking like a real value for the Halos.

And therein lies the goal for him in 2025: to harness the impressive stuff and utilize it wisely in order to generate ace-level performance for a team that has been devoid of a true ace for as long as anyone can remember. If he continues down this path, the outlook for the Angels' rotation will be greatly improved in 2025 and beyond.