Fansided

Lessons the Angels can learn from the League Championship Series teams

By Evan Roberts |
Wild Card Series - New York Mets v Milwaukee Brewers - Game 2
Wild Card Series - New York Mets v Milwaukee Brewers - Game 2 / John Fisher/GettyImages
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Sports these days are all about parity. The Angels need to revamp a whole heck of a lot, from their ownership instability, to their farm system, to their facilities. There are layers to their decade-long failure.

The Angels are hopefully taking notes right now. The Guardians, Yankees, Mets, and Dodgers are formidable in 2024 and beyond for a multitude of reasons. For a struggling franchise like the Angels, they need to reexamine everything if they are to contend anytime soon. They obviously need to become more like the teams in the playoffs.

How can the Angels be more like the teams still playing? The following ways would be a great start, great lessons for fans who root for the team and everybody in the Angels franchise to jot down.

New York Mets: a change in ownership can unlock everything for a struggling franchise

The Mets are the Angels' doppelgängers of the National League. The second team in their city. A team with a long, but not incredibly storied history. A highly valued franchise that has spent unwisely for years. A team harmed by off-field calamities.

The Mets were a laughing stock for years, despite incredible potential. The Mets were owned by Sterling Equities, with Fred Wilpon serving as ownership's face of the franchise for 18 years. Outside of a World Series run in 2015, and a heartbreaking NLCS loss in 2006, the Mets just kept falling flat on their faces for years. They were uninspiring and flat as a franchise, laying dormant as a sleeping giant.

Enter Steve Cohen. It's easy to say "just spend without thinking" and expect success. Cohen certainly spends, but he spent wisely while the team was attempting a quick rebuild. He also allied himself with David Stearns, his hand-picked president of baseball operations. In 2023, Cohen spent mightily and fell flat. The Mets spent money on buying high-end prospects in return for Justin Verlander, Max Scherzer, David Robertson, Mark Canha, Eduardo Escobar, Tommy Pham, and Dominic Leone, when most franchises would have tried to save as much money as possible in the same situation.

Jerry Reinsdorf is reportedly open to selling the White Sox, and the franchise will undoubtedly improve if/when he gives up the reins. Sure, there is nowhere to go but up for the White Sox, but their entire franchise will benefit from a stable group of owners who want to invest in winning. Must be nice. Angels fans should see the Mets in the mirror when they envision a world without Arte Moreno.

Cleveland Guardians: infield defense can take you places

Cleveland's pitching, on the whole, was not phenomenal this season. Their fastball velocity as a team was last in the league, and they threw a lot of them. Their value was mid-tier. Outside of Emmanuel Clase, they did not have a ton of high octane arms. How did they sustain? A lot of it had to do with their infield defense.

Infield defense can bolster your pitching staff, and the Angels need that desperately. In terms of defensive fWAR, Cleveland's first basemen ranked 9th. LAA's were 23rd. Cleveland's second basemen ranked first (shoutout Andrés Giménez). LAA's were last. Cleveland's shortstop's ranked 14th. LAA's were 27th. Cleveland's third basemen were 10th. LAA's were 26th. The Ultimate Zone Ratings back all of those numbers up too. Despite Cleveland's average pitching stats, their team ERA ranked 3rd in all of baseball largely due to their infielders getting the job done.

The Angels need to prioritize their infield heading into 2025. Whether it be through free agency or through a trade, they need to be able to help their pitching staff out more if they hope to contend. They need more fundamentally sound, durable, playmaking infielders.

Los Angeles Dodgers: spend money...to round out your roster

Yes, the Dodgers are paying Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, and many more exorbitant amounts of money, and Arte Moreno is not going to spend like that ever again. However, if Moreno stays true to his word and increases spending, they could narrow the gap between the Angels and the team across the Freeway next year.

The Dodgers did not back down from complimenting their superstars, because they know that roster depth is what carries teams in the second half of seasons. They rounded out their team by ponying up the cash to bring in key contributors like Kiké Hernández, Jack Flaherty, Ryan Brasier, Evan Phillips, Tommy Edman, and Michael Kopech.

Yes, a lot of that was made possible by Ohtani's deferred payments. Never mind that, the point still stands. Pay what it takes to acquire high level role players, and they can carry you come September and October.

New York Yankees: your superstar can overcome a career marred by injuries

After the Yankees selected him 32nd overall in the 2013 MLB Draft, Aaron Judge kept getting injured. He injured a muscle in his quadricep during a base running drill, and was held out his entire rookie year. In 2016, he missed time with a knee sprain while with the Yankees' AAA team. For three straight years, from the 2018 to the 2020 season, Aaron Judge missed solid chunks of time with the big league club due to a variety of injuries. He played 112 games in 2018, 102 games in 2019, and 28 of 60 games in 2020. Judge rebounded big time in 2021 and 2022, but could only play 106 games in 2023 after winning his first MVP the year before. Due to his sheer size, nobody believed he (or teammate Giancarlo Stanton) could consistently post over the course of a long MLB season.

Judge is reaching new heights, posting for 158 regular season games in 2024 and every postseason game thus far for his Yankees. You might be reading this and not seeing that strong of a comparison to Mike Trout, as Judge only has 9 professional seasons under his belt and Trout has 14. Well, Trout is only 8 months older than Judge.

Trout is struggling physically, and subsequently mentally, causing many to give up hope that he can show up every day in the lineup moving forward. Keep the faith, Angels fans. A few lost seasons does not necessarily mean you need to give up all hope for your superstar.

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