3 Angels players who are on thin ice going into the 2025 season

As much as you can point to blossoming young players on the Angels roster who appear on the verge of making the leap toward stardom, there are a number of others who have failed to establish themselves despite multiple opportunities.

2025 will be a year of transition for the Angels as the team looks to leave behind a dreadful 2024 campaign and build towards ending Major League Baseball's longest active playoff drought. Likely 2026 is the year that the Angels hope to truly contend, but in the meantime, the club aspires to be more competitive in 2025.

As a result, four players find themselves firmly in the crosshairs. With patience wearing thin, they will need to prove their worth or risk finding themselves on the outside looking in on the team's future plans.

With the ice getting thin, they may or may not survive the season with a poor performance, but even if they do their position on the roster in 2026 and beyond will very much be in jeopardy. On the other hand, a strong showing may cement their standing for the future.

It's going to be put up or shut up time for Jo Adell with the Angels

Once the no. 3 overall prospect in all of baseball, Jo Adell is now entering his age-26 season and looking for a breakout. Injuries and inconsistencies have limited his playing time, but to date over parts of five big-league seasons, the once promising outfielder owns a .211/.268/.381 line and -1.1 fWAR.

Mired in what has been an extremely underwhelming battle with teammate Mickey Moniak to win the starting center field job, Adell's last chance to establish himself with the Angels may be in 2025.

There have been some brief bright spots like his 2024 performance after ditching his leg kick for a toe tap, and some underlying reasons for optimism. Adell's tools are without question. His bat speed in 2024 was in the 98th percentile, which generated a hard-hit rate of 44.7% (71st percentile) and an impressive barrel rate of 11.7% which ranked in the 79th percentile.

While Adell has shown he can do damage when he makes contact that has happened way too infrequently so far in his career for him to be a positive offensive force. If he doesn't show an increased plate discipline and pitch recognition in 2025 that will continue to be the case.

Defensively, the same story is true. Adell has elite sprint speed (86th percentile) and a better-than-average arm (63rd percentile) but it took a long time for his baseball instincts to catch up to his physical gifts in right field. Now, moving to center, he'll be tasked with adapting to a new defensive challenge all over again.

Adell is making just $2.1 million this season, his first arbitration year, so even with a good 2025 he'll be an affordable option in 2026. That said, it's not the money that will matter in determining his future.

If he fails to establish himself as a positive major-league contributor in 2025 he could see himself non-tendered in the offseason as the Angels will hopefully be in a position to build a contending team in 2026. With only 26 roster spots the team will have to be judicious in how it leverages them and may decide they can no longer afford to carry a player who is mostly potential and little production.

On the flip side, if Adell has a solid 2025 campaign, he can establish himself as a key piece alongside the other members of the Angels' young core as they look to finally graduate from the doldrums of the American League.

Reid Detmers is running out of opportunities to prove himself as an Angels' building block

The expectations for 25-year-old southpaw starter Reid Detmers have been high for a while now. After being selected in the first round, 10th overall, back in 2020, Detmers flew through the minors getting a cup of coffee in 2021.

His performance during that brief stint, a 7.40 ERA in 20.2 innings left a lot to be desired, but still, there were signs of potential. Hope grew in 2022 when he made 25 starts and posted a 3.77 ERA while generating 8.51 K/9 in 129.0 innings.

2023 wasn't quite the breakout that was hoped for, however, Though Detmers ran the strikeouts up to an impressive 10.17 K/9, he gave up a few too many walks, 3.63 BB/9, and homers, 1.15 HR/9, en route to a 4.48 ERA over 28 starts and 148.2 innings pitched.

The promise shown amid some struggles left many hoping that 2024 would be his breakout. Instead, Detmers struggled mightily leading to an early June demotion. His struggles continued in AAA, and when he resurfaced toward the end of the season he had no new answers for his problems and finished the year with a 6.70 ERA in 87.1 innings pitched.

Much like Jo Adell, Detmers has all of the physical tools but has struggled with the execution piece. 2024 showcased how nasty his stuff could be with a career-high 11.23 K/9, but too often his command was out of whack leading to walks and big home runs. The mistakes seemed to compound and his confidence at times seemed shot.

This spring, Detmers has looked sharp with a 2.79 ERA in 19.1 innings. He seemingly has the leg up on teammate Jack Kochanowicz, for the fifth starter role despite the fierce competition. However, entering 2025 he's running out of chances to prove that he has harnessed to mental part of the game to maximize his physical gifts.

A poor showing in 2025 might be a fatal blow to his confidence, dramatically impacting his long-term outlook. As for the Angels, while future rotation spots will be plentiful, so too is the collection of young arms that will be vying for them.

In addition to the aforementioned Kochanowicz, the likes of Samuel Aldegheri, Caden Dana, George Klassen, Chase Silseth, and others will all be jockeying for spots in the rotation in the near future. If Detmers doesn't prove he's on the right path this season, he could quickly become an afterthought amidst the rotation's youth movement.

Lefty Reliever Jose Quijada may not be long for the Angels' roster

The Angels may open the season with as many four instead of five lefty relievers in their bullpen, but the number of southpaws is still unusual and unprecedented. The reason for this is simple -- roster inflexibility.

Of the four lefties, three including Jose Quijada, are out of options meaning they can't be sent down without the fear of losing them for nothing. The fifth, Garrett McDaniels, is a Rule 5 pick who would need to be offered back to his previous team, the Los Angeles Dodgers if demoted to the minor leagues.

The Angels selected McDaniels because of his potential, so while he may have to take some lumps making the jump from the low minors to the bigs in 2025, he looks to be a piece they can build their pen around in the future.

As for the other lefties, they're all getting one last shot once the games start to count before the team makes a true decision. Between these veteran lefties, there are essentially two groups -- those with potential which include Brock Burke and Angel Perdomo -- and those who we likely know who they are which consists of Quijada.

Brock Burke has shown flashes. After a terrible showing in Texas last season he seemed to right the ship with a 3.54 ERA in the second half with the Angels. Moreover, it's his 2022 season in which he pitched 82.1 innings over 52 appearances and posted a 1.97 ERA which gives the Angels hope.

Perdomo has less of a track record. He's only logged 48.2 career innings and is coming off Tommy John surgery. However, he posted a whopping 13.66 K/9 to go along with a 3.72 ERA and 3.01 FIP in 2023 when his 29.0 innings pitched served as his longest big-league exposure.

Quijada on the other hand has both been given multiple opportunities in the past and never shown that kind of upside.

While he posted a 3.26 ERA last year that came in just 19.1 innings and was supported by a 4.30 FIP. That was on the heels of a 6.00 ERA in 2023 that came in just 9.0 innings of work and a 3.98 ERA in 2022 that was spread over 40.2 innings pitched.

Quijada has shown the occasional flash, however, the 29-year-old has one fatal flaw which is a complete and total lack of secondary pitches. Last season he threw his fastball an unimaginable 94% of the the time.

That lack of an arsenal makes Quijada more thrower than pitcher, and his command of the strike zone has also been known to waver. Hitters have an easy time with him as there's no deception, they can simply lay off fastballs out of the zone and sit dead-red waiting to crush the mistakes in the zone, leading to meltdowns and big innings.

A number of young, right-handed arms, are waiting in the wings which not only would provide balance to the pen, but likely improvement as well. If Quijada struggles to open the regular season, look for them to be quickly replaced. At a minimum, the leash will be much shorter for him than the likes of Burke and Perdomo.

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