6 members of the 2002 World Series Angels who have influenced the modern teams

With the World Series here, Angels fans are becoming nostalgic. Shohei Ohtani will be front and center on baseball's biggest stage while Angels fans are licking their wounds. They are rewatching old 2002 clips and reminiscing on the good old days, pretending like they did not lose one of the greatest players ever to their rival team for nothing. The early 2000s Angels, before Arte Moreno bought the team, were fun for the entire league.

Members of that championship team are still living legends. Many of them have their fingerprints on the modern iteration of their former employer's operations, not that really means much. Having said that, they have a winning pedigree and ample baseball wisdom they can impart on the players, coaches, and front office.

Let's take a look on who is staying relevant in the Angels baseball universe.

Troy Percival

Percival never held a position with the Angels, but potentially caused major ripples within the entire Angels organization during the Angels' Instructional League in 2023.

The Angels, like many teams, invite former players to help oversee minor leaguers' development during their postseason work. The Instructional League is a strength and conditioning focused camp, that includes batting practice, bullpens, and games against other teams in Arizona (the Angels' minor league facilities are located in Tempe, AZ). 2024's IL included former Angels legends like Jered Weaver and Ervin Santana working the camp, as well as Manny Ramirez whose son plays in the Angels' system. Vladimir Guerrero Sr., Adam Kennedy, and Albert Pujols have made appearances as well.

Percival's shift with the Angels was by far the most impactful, as he made his voice heard with the Angels' farm directors. Percival is quoted as saying: “I’m not one that’s big on using the iPads. I understand it...I just feel like we need to have coaches with eyes that can see things and put their hands on people and fix them. It’s really difficult to look at an iPad and think that it can make the adjustments that it needs to make.” The Angels, soon after Percival's arrival, fired two of their Minor League pitching coordinators who are analytically inclined. His anti-technology statements reverberated throughout the organization, and they overhauled their pitching coordinators with more old-school staffers like Dom Chiti. Percival said he never called for anybody to get fired.

The Angels are not completely ignorant to modern day technology capturing and data acquisition as their current pitching coach, Barry Enright, is young and seemingly analytically inclined. They are also (finally) installing pitching and hitting labs into their renovated spring training facilities, after several attempts in the past to do so.

Hopefully the Angels can keep up with the rest of the league's run prevention strategies while also adhering to Percival's complaints.