3 players you may have forgotten were on the 2024 Opening Day roster

If the beginning of the Angels' 2025 season is any indication of what's to come, it will certainly resemble the team's brutal 2024. The Angels, who eagerly parted ways with the majority of their 2024 Opening Day roster either during last season or this offseason, have a whole new crew in order to put their woeful season behind them. Their 2025 Opening Day game was not the most ideal result, an 8-1 loss to the lowly White Sox, but at least there's a roster in place that looks much better on paper than last year's squad.

Who were some of the players on the Angels' 2024 Opening Day roster who fans were eager to forget? Let's re-hash some nightmarish memories. Spoiler alert: all 3 are out of the league right now.

Aaron Hicks

In classic Ron Washington fashion, he penciled Aaron Hicks into his 2-hole instead of Mike Trout on Opening Day last season. Washington is so old-school, that he actually prefers his no. 2 hitter to be a guy who grounds out to second a lot rather than be a future first ballot Hall of Famer who has been slotted into the 2nd spot of the batting order for the majority of his career. Hicks did a whole lot of grounding out to second alright!

Hicks only ended up playing 18 games for the Angels despite Wash's vote of confidence on Opening Day. The then 34-year-old finished his season with a slash line of .140/.222/.193/.415. He ended up hitting no. 2 in the lineup in 4 of their first 6 games, then mostly was found hitting 5th or 6th before being moved off the roster.

Miguel Sanó

Sanó started the Angels' 2024 Opening Day game as their designated hitter, and...get this...was pinch hit for during that game. That's right, the designated hitter needed a pinch hitter. Well, was there a right-handed pitcher on the mound and Ron Washington wanted to send out a left-handed hitter? No, Sanó was removed from the game in favor of another right-handed hitter in Jo Adell. You can't make this up.

Sanó had only played with the Minnesota Twins in his career. Barring a miracle, the 2024 Angels will be the last team he plays for, and he actually did not play during the 2023 season. He only was able to play in 28 games last year before the team severed ties with the once-vaunted slugger.

José Cisnero

Cisnero appeared in 14 of the Angels' first 27 games last season, including the first couple of games and 4 of the first 6. After his 14th appearance, he was not seen again until an outing on August 17th in what ended up being his final game as an Angels player.

It's not a bad thing to want to forget the right-handed veteran reliever, as the Angels were 3-12 in games he appeared in. He appeared on Opening Day in a game the Angels lost to the Orioles 11-3, the second game where they lost to the O's 13-4, and several other games where the team was either up or down 10+ runs (it was mostly down 10+).

More LA Angels News from Halo Hangout