Angels News: Forgotten '90s All-Star, sturdy MLB veteran join LAA as hitting coaches

The Los Angeles Angels completely cleaned house of their coaching staff from 2024-2025, and are attempting a major turnaround moving forward. On the player-side, they have an incredibly exciting young nucleus of Zach Neto, Grayson Rodriguez, José Soriano, Nolan Schanuel, Jo Adell, Reid Detmers and Logan O'Hoppe. On the veteran side there's Mike Trout, Yusei Kikuchi and Travis d'Arnaud. These players all have serious potential, and hopefully this new coaching staff will get the most out of them.

The Angels hired Kurt Suzuki to a one-year deal with club options, so some figured that building out a cohesive, intelligent and capable coaching staff might be a problem. Only time will tell, but the Angels got to work and hired Mike Maddux, John Gibbons, Andy Schatzley, Keith Johnson, Adam Eaton and Max Stassi. The only department left was on the hitting side, and the team just announced the hirings of two intriguing coaches.

Angels News: Forgotten '90s All-Star, sturdy MLB veteran join LAA as hitting coaches

Per reports, the Angels hired Brady Anderson as hitting coach and John Mabry as assistant hitting coach. Anderson does not have tangible coaching experience at the big league level, but was a three-time All-Star and is enshrined in the Baltimore Orioles Hall of Fame. Anderson was an iconic baseball player in his time, and played from 1988-2002 for the Orioles, Boston Red Sox, and then-Cleveland Indians. His career-year came in 1996 when he slashed .297/.396/.637 and hit 50 home runs, drove in 110 runs and scored 117 runs himself.

Anderson worked under Dan Duquette in Baltimore as special assistant and vice president of baseball operations, but never as a coach in a dugout (a la Ray Montgomery to a certain extent). Anderson is a public figure who is beloved throughout the baseball community (although is often referred to as an under-discussed giant of baseball), and fits the Perry Minasian threshold of having great makeup and will fit into a clubhouse.

Mabry himself played from 1994-2007 for the St. Louis Cardinals, Seattle Mariners, San Diego Padres, then-Florida Marlins, then-Oakland Athletics, Philadelphia Phillies, Chicago Cubs and Colorado Rockies. Mabry has much more experience as a hitting coach, as he served as Mark McGwire's assistant hitting coach in St. Louis back in 2012, became the hitting coach in 2013 and remained in his post until 2018.