4 LA Angels players under contract past this season who have no future with the team

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The Los Angeles Angels are finishing out what has wound up being another extremely disappointing season. This Angels team that went all in and was five games above .500 at the trade deadline played a grand total of zero meaningful games and is 69-83 on the year. They've missed the postseason for the ninth straight season and will finish with a losing record for the eighth straight time.

This Angels roster that they have in September is not what they'll have on Opening Day next season. The Halos currently have 15 players on the IL, several of which will figure into their plans for next season.

Having so many players out means others are up who really don't have much of a future with the team. Here are five of them.

1) LA Angels first baseman Jared Walsh has no future with the team

Not too long ago, Jared Walsh looked like he was going to be the first baseman of the future for the Angels. He was an all-star in 2021 after hitting 29 home runs and driving in 98 runs. Things have gone incredibly downhill for the slick fielding Walsh since.

The 30-year-old really struggled last season before his arm injury ended his season early. This season felt like a fresh start for Walsh who had the first base job before landing on the IL heading into this season with migraines and dizziness. When he was finally able to return in late-May he simply didn't look like the same hitter.

Walsh had just eight hits in 67 at-bats in his first stint with the Angels this season, with only one of those eight hits leaving the yard. He was striking out a ton and simply looked overmatched. With that in mind, the Angels opted to DFA him, seeing if any other teams wanted to take on his contract for this season.

Walsh unsurprisingly went unclaimed and spent months in the minors. He was promoted in September in a move that really seemed to be more about spending money than anything, and despite a couple of home runs, has continued to look mostly overmatched. Walsh has three hits in 18 at-bats with ten strikeouts since his return.

The Angels already have their first baseman of the future in Nolan Schanuel. While he's been playing a lot of right field since returning, that's really not Walsh's true position. I'd be shocked if the Angels didn't non-tender him come this offseason.

2) LA Angels infielder David Fletcher has no future with the team

Like Jared Walsh, David Fletcher looked like he was the future for this team in the middle infield. He's an elite defender, particularly at second base, and Perry Minasian giving him the five-year extension showed how much he believed in Fletcher playing a key role for this team for a long time. Unfortunateny, since signing the extension, things have gone in the wrong direction for the 29-year-old.

Fletcher played in all but five games in the 2021 season but saw his OPS fall almost 200 points. Injuries held him back a ton in 2022, but in the 61 games he did play he had a measly .621 OPS. Fletcher made the Opening Day roster this season as a backup infielder, but after starting his season in a 2-for-16 slump, he was outrighted to AAA.

Fletcher has made a couple more appearances with the Angels, being promoted in June for a couple of weeks and getting some playing time in September as well, but outside of his four-hit game in Colorado, he simply hasn't done much of anything offensively.

Overall, he's slashing .230/.266/.344 with two home runs and ten RBI in 61 MLB at-bats. Small-ish sample for sure, but a middle infielder with virtually no power having a .266 OBP makes him unplayable. Fletcher does have the expensive contract that runs through the 2025 season at least, but it's become abundantly clear that the organization doesn't have him in their future plans with them putting him on waivers multiple times.

He's harder to part with than a player like Walsh who the Angels can simply non-tender, but I'd be stunned if he played out the entire 2024 season in the majors and wasn't simply released.

3) LA Angels pitcher Aaron Loup has no future with the team

When the Angels signed Aaron Loup to a two-year deal worth $17 million in the 2021 offseason, they expected to get one of the better left-handed relievers in the game. Loup had just posted a sub-1.00 ERA with the Mets in 2021 and had been a consistently reliable left-hander for many years.

With the Angels, Loup has been anything but reliable. He had an up-and-down year in 2022, and has been just dreadful this past season. Loup has a 6.10 ERA in 55 appearances and 48.2 innings pitched. He's pitched mostly in low-leverage spots this season, and it feels like every time that the Angels are forced to use him in a big spot, he implodes.

Just this past week the Halos had a chance to win a fun game in Tampa Bay in a game which two of their rookies hit home runs, but Loup gave up four runs in the bottom of the eighth and the Angels lost their sixth in a row.

The Angels have the option to bring Loup back for another year for $7.5 million, but it's very clear that won't be happening. He'll be entering his age-36 season and has done absolutely nothing to earn a spot with this team next season.

4) LA Angels pitcher Jose Suarez has no future with the team

I'm not going to shy away from admitting that I believed in Jose Suarez entering this season. I believe his second-half success in 2022, while a lot of it was due to the competition he had faced, was something for him to build from and have a nice year at the back-end of this Angels rotation this season.

Unfortunately, from his first start on, Suarez never looked the part. He made six starts for the Angels this season and had a 9.62 ERA in 24.1 innings pitched. Two of the six starts saw him being booed rather loudly by an impatient Angels fan base against the Athletics and Rangers.

After allowing seven runs while recording just eight outs against the Rangers, Suarez was placed on the IL with a shoulder strain. The Angels said it was nothing to worry about, but the southpaw did not return until September. He's made two appearances out of the bullpen and looked good in one of them.

The Angels have Suarez under team control through the 2026 season which is valuable, especialy considering the fact that he's just 25-years-old and has had some MLB success under his belt, but it just feels like he has no future here. He has no more options left meaning the Angels can't just send him to AAA, and he hasn't done close to enough to have a starting rotation spot earned for the 2024 season.

He has as good of a chance as anyone on this list to make the 2024 Opening Day roster because of the lack of options, but I wouldn't be shocked if the Angels looked to trade him for some low-level prospect.

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