3 bold Angels' predictions for the 2025 season at the start of spring training

The entire Angels organization is now in Tempe, Arizona ready to kick things into overdrive and get prepped for the coming 2025 season. The Halos are hell-bent on righting the wrongs from 2024's debacle, and while legitimate questions linger, it's hard to dispute that this is a much-improved ball club versus last year's model.

While there are still questions to be answered regarding who exactly will make the opening-day roster, we're going to hit the fast-forward button and make some predictions as to what will happen once the games start counting.

This will be an exercise in optimism, yet the rose-colored glasses are warranted as there is a logical basis for what we project to happen. Of course, many variables will present themselves over the 162-game grind that are impossible to predict, but for now, we'll use the information we have to make our best-educated guesses on what will transpire over the coming months.

1. The Angels will finish the season with a top-15 offense in all of baseball

You heard that right, folks! The Angels, who were dreadful offensively for much of 2024 will have an average or better offensive performance in 2025. Before we get into the nitty-gritty of how we came to that conclusion, we have to define what we mean by top-15 offense.

Rather than considering runs scored, home runs, batting average, or any other limiting stat we're instead going to be talking about this in terms of wRC+ which takes the entirety of offensive contributions into account and scales the result to 100 to determine what is considered "league-average."

For context, the Halos posted a team wRC+ of 90 last season, 10% below league average performance which ranked 25th in the league. The 15th-best team last year was the Athletics who posted a 101 wRC+, one-percent better than league average.

A big reason for the Angels' poor offensive showing last season was due to a lack of power, their .369 team slugging percentage ranked 28th in the league as was dragged down by injuries to key players, Mike Trout being chief among them.

Steamer projections for the Angels roster, paint a rosier picture for 2025, with 10 Halo hitters projected for a 100 wRC+ or better this year. Of course, that number includes Anthony Rendon, which was ridiculously optimistic to begin with and is now incredibly doubtful given the questions as to whether or not he'll even play again.

Speaking of growth, a large contingent of Angels' contributors are young players who are poised to take the next step in their development this season. Whether that's Logan O'Hoppe who hit to the tune of an impressive .800 OPS in the first half of 2024 before running out of gas and posting a .578 mark in the second half, Nolan Schanuel who, after being picked in the first round of the 2023 draft, has already completed his first full big league season while many of his draft classmates are still toiling away in the low minors, or Zach Neto who's impressive strides from 2023 to 2024 put him on a path to superstardom.

Beyond those three, there's Jo Adell who seemed to come on down the stretch after making a critical adjustment, and hotshot prospect Christian Moore who is poised to make his debut at some point this season, possibly as soon as opening day.

As for depth, when O'Hoppe struggled last season the Angels had to turn to Matt Thaiss and his 83 wRC+ to give him a breather. Now, they'll turn to Travis d'Arnaud, owner of a career 101 wRC+ mark. Instead of a parade of DHs who were among the worst in the league, the Angels will turn to Jorge Soler who is a legitimate 30-homer threat.

Lastly, their luck must change. It's insane to think that Mike Trout will play 150 games this season, but it's likely he will play significantly more than his career-low 29 games from last season. Yoán Moncada is in the fold now too, and the former top prospect will definitely show more signs of life than Rendon did at the hot corner last season.

The ingredients are all there for an average or better offense, and with a little luck, it's a good bet that this will be the Halos' most improved unit.