LA Angels: Five Biggest Storylines to Watch for the 2019 Season

The LA Angels season is just a few days away from its start, and there are plenty of storylines to watch as our Halos attempt to end their five-year postseason drought this season.

While we can’t cover every LA Angels storyline in one article, here I’ll be bringing you the five narratives that will be most interesting to watch, other than the obvious wins and losses.

Brad Ausmus and the New Staff

While coaching an MLB team is obviously more behind the scenes than being an NFL head coach, there are still a lot of changes that happen when a coaching staff is replaced.

So, as long time Halo manager Mike Scioscia called it a career after last season, Brad Ausmus is now the guy in charge. I think it will be very interesting to see the differences in how he runs his ball club compared to an “old school” type such as Scioscia.

While judging his on field decisions (bullpen, platooning, etc) won’t necessarily be fair given the Angels newfound analytical approach to decision-making, there are other ways a manager effects a team.

For example, while it wasn’t Ausmus’ choice alone, the Halos began using Rapsodo technology in Spring Training, which Tyler Skaggs said he has “learned more in the past month than I have in the past four or five years”.

Apart from Ausmus, new pitching coach Doug White will have a huge impact on this club. After years with the Houston Astros, who have had two Cy Young winners in Justin Verlander and Dallas Kuechel and another ace in Gerrit Cole the past two years, White will now have to prove himself in Anaheim.

While Skaggs and Andrew Heaney are solid southpaws, they’ve yet to reach their full potential, something White will hope to change in 2019. He’ll also work closely with the relief pitchers, hoping to turn what many to be an underwhelming bullpen into an elite one in Anaheim.