Former Angels player piggybacks off Yusei Kikuchi's criticism and lambastes the org

In what is not news, but just a continuation of the reality that Angels fans have to live with, a former Angels player backed Yusei Kikuchi's criticism of the organization. The optics of this offseason has been a disaster for the Angels, let's try and summarize! First and foremost, Shohei Ohtani just played the best game in the history of the sport, won NLCS MVP, is about to win his second consecutive NL MVP and likely his second consecutive World Series.

Then, there's the off-field drama that is the ongoing Tyler Skaggs wrongful death trial that's been hanging over the Angels' head for a few years now. How about the Angels delaying Perry Minasian's end-of-year press conference several days because nobody knew whether or not he'd be fired? After he gave his press conference, people ripped him for a complete lack of accountability. Moreno once had Albert Pujols as his number one choice to be the team's next manager, after the team fired Ron Washington who begged to come back to his post, and now the two sides had a falling out for several reasons that do not make the team look great.

Back to Kikuchi. For those who are unfamiliar, the team's ace claimed that the weight room had no working air conditioning the entire year and that he had to leave his final start of the year early because of subsequent finger cramping. Kikuchi said he asked the team to fix the AC, and it did not get fixed. Now, Kevin Pillar used his platform to take Kikuchi's Angels criticism and dial it up a notch.

Former Angels player piggybacks off Yusei Kikuchi's criticism and lambastes the org

Here's Pillar on "Foul Territory" just ripping Arte Moreno and his organization: "I believe it, I was there...the inner workings of the clubhouse, the weight room, the hot tub always had problems too...Arte definitely needs to spend some money and fix that internal workings of the clubhouse, the weight room, the locker room. I mean, it's a big selling point to get players and the Angels are very, very far behind from a lot of places I've been."

For the record, Pillar has played in the majors for the Toronto Blue Jays, San Francisco Giants, Colorado Rockies, Boston Red Sox, New York Mets, Los Angeles Dodgers, Atlanta Braves, Chicago White Sox, and the Texas Rangers. The most notable team on that list is the White Sox, who Pillar played 17 games for in 2024 before joining the Angels after Mike Trout went down with an injury. For Pillar to say that the Angels are further behind the lowly White Sox in terms of renovations really sticks out.

As is always the case, the Angels have a long, long list of things that need to get done this offseason to modernize the organization and put a better product on the field. They finally cleaned up the spring training facilities this year, but now players, coaches and fans will likely need to keep begging Moreno to fix Angel Stadium before he finally relents.