Angels’ leaders aren’t fooling anyone with their spin about their current roster

If we are being honest, this is the time of year when teams and players lie the most. Every single player talks about being in the best shape of their lives, while coaches and executives talk about how every team is going to "surprise people," (whatever that means). The Los Angeles Angels, however, are being particularly brazen in their rosy descriptions of the 2026 roster.

During the first workouts of spring training, both GMPerry Minasian and manager Kurt Suzuki spoke to the media and talked about the team's offseason moves and how they think brighter days are ahead for the Angels.

To be fair, neither man was ever going to walk out there and predict a last-place finish in the division as camp opens. Unfortunately, there is also just no way either one could be honest when gassing up this version of the Angels.

Angels are trying to sell their Island of Misfit Toys roster, and no one is buying it (yet)

Minasian went out of his way to say that the Angels' inaction this offseason was guided. He went on to talk about wanting to commit to was our young players. That's deeply silly. Sure, they have some young players they want to find playing time for, but the Angels are not lacking for roster spots in need of upgrades. Everyone knows that the Angels' clearance aisle shopping is because owner Arte Moreno won't authorize much spending this offseason.

It is incredibly transparent that the Angels are basically trying to pick up other teams' scraps at every available opportunity. Vaughn Grissom, Kirby Yates, Grayson Rodriguez, Alek Manoah, and Jordan Romano, among others, are all those with some degree of name-recognition, but who also haven't seen their best days in quite some time. In many of these cases, they are basically down to their last chance to save their careers.

There's a chance that this works and the front office somehow assembled a workable roster from a bunch of spare parts and Elmer's glue. However, the pitching staff looks incomplete on paper, even if Suzuki thinks otherwise. "There's a lot of great young arms that might not be well-known yet that we feel very excited about," he said. LA did not stop where they did because they were satisfied; they did so because they couldn't do anything else.

This is just going to be the narrative until reality finally arrives. No one should take the results from spring training too seriously, but don't be surprised if the regular season brings a much different tone around this Angels squad.