2 reasons the Angels should have fired Perry Minasian, 2 reasons they were right not to

The Los Angeles Angels are shaking things up after an embarrassing finish to what they had hoped would be a promising year. The Angels attempted to try and win in Shohei Ohtani's final guaranteed season with the team but instead finished with the exact same record they had in the 2022 season.

In response to their failure, the Angels parted ways with Phil Nevin and are searching for a new manager. They also parted with assistant general manager Alex Tamin, Perry Minasian's right-hand man.

Interestingly enough, Arte Moreno made the decision to keep Minasian around ahead of the final year of his deal. There're reasons to believe that was a good idea, but also reasons to wonder why he was allowed to stay when others took the fall.

LA Angels should have fired Perry Minasian because of his inexplicable trade deadline

The Angels had a couple of directions they could've chosen. They could've either traded Shohei Ohtani and received a haul for him in the final year of his deal, or they could've gone all in to try and win with him one more time. To his credit, Minasian did pick a direction. The problem is that the players he acquired were overperforming at the time and crashed back to earth immediately. These players were also on expiring deals.

Minasian traded several of the Angels top prospects from an already weak system in exchange for players on expiring deals. I understand the Angels didn't have the blue chip guys to go out and get a Justin Verlander, but Minasian certainly could've done better than what he did.

Lucas Giolito, Reynaldo Lopez, C.J. Cron, Randal Grichuk, and Dominic Leone. That was the big deadline haul that was supposed to get the Angels over the top. Of that group, the only player that performed in August was Lopez. Randal Grichuk was solid down the stretch, but the Angels were already out of it.

The Angels didn't have the pieces to go and get a Cy Young candidate, but they certainly could've gotten a guy like Jordan Montgomery instead of Lucas Giolito who has been instrumental for Texas on their way to a potential ALCS appearance. They could've gotten a guy like Tommy Pham who just had four hits in a playoff game hitting third for Arizona instead of Grichuk.

Hindsight is 20/20 of course, but the players the Angels got had elevated numbers from playing in Colorado (Cron, Grichuk) or had high FIP's that indicated regression was coming (Giolito). Bottom line, the Angels went 17-38 after the trade deadline. Sure, players have to play better and injuries didn't help, but Minasian absolutely deserves some blame for the catastrophe that occurred.