FanGraphs claims that the LA Angels pitching staff isn't nearly as bad as you think

The LA Angels pitching staff has been under much scrutiny all offseason. I myself have been very critical of how the Angels have handled the 'upgrading' of the staff this offseason. Currently, the Halos have a nice one through four of the starting rotation: Shohei Ohtani, Noah Syndergaard, Patrick Sandoval, and Jose Suarez.

After that, however, we're stuck with Michael Lorenzen (5.59 ERA, 86 ERA+ in 2021) and a question mark at our No. 6 spot in the rotation. We don't know who will take that sixth spot. In the bullpen, we have two back-end studs in Raisel Iglesias and Aaron Loup, but don't have impressive depth in the middle reliever and long relief ranks.

According to FanGraphs, however, Angels fans should be focusing more on what the Angels DO have. According to FanGraphs WAR projections, they have the second-best rotation in the division and the best bullpen in the division. (And it's a great division, if you haven't taken notice.)

It would be nice if FanGraphs was right about the LA Angels, but recent history suggests that that's not to be the case.

LA Angels broadcaster Trent Rush was the one that pointed this out. I saw that he later responded to a fan who posted a tweet of Rush's from last year that suggested a similar concept when it came to FanGraphs' projected WAR of Angels' pitchers:

As Rush said, he isn't the one who makes these projections. There's no need for me to shoot the messenger. My reaction to seeing the projections is that they are off-base. The Halos have multiple massive question marks in each of their last two spots of the rotation. In addition, they only made one bullpen upgrade all offseason.

I understand that there's still plenty of offseason left, but it's not a good sign that just one upgrade has been made and they also just lost Steve Cishek who was one of the best bullpen pitchers on the Angels last year. There's still a lot of work to be done, both in the pen and the rotation.