2 areas where the Angels need to invest this winter

Starting Pitching

The Angels are comprised of a plethora of young arms who are over their skis at the big league level, and must develop further in the Minor Leagues.

Minasian rushes the development of promising pitchers, mostly out of desperation to piece together a functional rotation. Pitchers like Samuel Aldegheri, Jack Kochanowicz, Chase Silseth, Caden Dana, Victor Mederos, and Sam Bachman need to return to the Minor Leagues and find their niche. Minasian and his front office group need to allow these pitchers to prepare this off-season as either a starter or reliever and be deployed as such. Silseth, Mederos, and Bachman, most notably, have been back and forth between the rotation and bullpen. If any of those players are to appear in the Majors next year, it should not be a question whether it will be as a starter or reliever.

Pencil in Tyler Anderson, Patrick Sandoval, José Soriano, Reid Detmers, and Griffin Canning as the starters next year for now. The most logical drop-offs are Tyler Anderson via a trade (like Rengifo, he was another improbable non-trade), and Griffin Canning due to ineffectiveness despite becoming an effective innings-eater.

In the past, Minasian's targeted reliable starters in their 30s on cheap,1-year/expiring contracts as win-now moves to compliment Trout and Ohtani. Players like José Quintana, Alex Cobb, Noah Syndergaard, Michael Lorenzen, and Lucas Giolito.

Due to an absolutely loaded starting pitcher free agent class and a 27th ranked SP fWAR, it would be shocking if Minasian did not sign at least 1 starter. The question is whether Minasian bucks his past trend and attempts to lock up a starter long-term (like he started to do with Anderson).

Max Fried and Walker Buehler will be entering their age-31 seasons next year, but will likely garner 2 of the longer contracts on the market given how old the class is. Buehler could be a fun reclamation project, and he's a fiery competitor who could want to stay in Southern California. The Angels were in on Blake Snell last year, so if the soon to be 32-year-old opts out of his Giants contract, the Angels could be back in on him. Snell is the all-time leader in SO/9, just for the record.

Those 3 are the most realistic for the Angels' rotation re-tooling, given their age, Minasian's willingness to spend extravagantly on stud starting pitchers, and the allure of becoming a bona fide ace immediately. Most importantly, it would allow the priority prospects the chance to take their time before reappearing in the Show.