Ranking the American League West's front offices by competence

4) Los Angeles Angels

I like a lot of what Perry Minasian has done. His draft picks have started to show a ton of value. Zach Neto has been a key piece for the Angels, Nolan Schanuel looks like an on-base machine, even Chase Silseth has shown signs that he can be part of the future rotation.

Some of his moves from this past offseason panned out like Matt Moore, Carlos Estevez, Gio Urshela before he got hurt, and the Angels did field their best team in a very long time on paper. Injuries have played a role in the collapse, and that's not on Perry, but the trade deadline has overshadowed the good.

The Lucas Giolito trade was awful. The C.J. Cron and Randal Grichuk trade was also awful. The Angels gave up too much to get Dominic Leone. The players have to play better, but Minasian targeted players that had overperformed their advanced metrics, and it's not incredibly surprising to have seen them struggle.

While Minasian hit on some of his offseason moves, other ones like the Hunter Renfroe trade and the Tyler Anderson signing have aged poorly. The Angels also failed to sign another starter and trusted Jose Suarez whose ERA approached 10.00 before landing on the IL.

Minasian has the misfortune of working under Arte Moreno who expects the team to win in his way. Moreno invests next to nothing in player development, often meddles, and often refuses to go over the luxury tax. Minasian has been given more autonomy than other GM's of the past, and this season failed miserably.

Minasian has had two of the best players in baseball in his control and the team hasn't finished .500 once with him in charge. Of course, Trout and Ohtani haven't played much together, and Anthony Rendon has done nothing, but Minasian doesn't deserve praise for the Angels finishing under .500 every year.

There's a lot of good, and a lot of bad. I'd love to see how he does under a different owner, but that's just a pipe dream at this point.