Ron Washington’s optimism regarding Angels’ future is naive at best

Ron Washington certainly gives reporters and fans a lot of fodder.

In a recent article written by Anthony De Leon of the Los Angeles Times, Washington turned in a bevy of head-scratching quotes. All Angels staffers can do now is make false promises, as they have done year after year after year after year. As the Angels reach a new nadir with no hope on the horizon, Washington is quoted as saying, “Our goal is to make the playoffs. Coming back next year, over the winter, expectations will be risen. And those that can’t meet the expectations will not be around.”

It's hard to pinpoint what exactly Washington meant by this. Is he implying that the Angels front office, lead by Perry Minasian, will go all-in to acquire impact MLB players and compete to win? Is he saying that the goal in 2024 was not to make the playoffs, and expectations will be risen NOW in order to make the playoffs? Then if those win-now moves do not meet on-field expectations they will get axed off the roster?

The problems do not start with Washington, as he clearly is pushing the players he has to hold themselves to a high standard, be professionals, and out-perform the meager expectations beset upon them. When Washington took over the Angels' managerial duties, he knew there was a lack of talent from top to bottom. He said as much, “We forgot to bring real baseball players into the organization. Nothing against those guys here, but they’re not big-league baseball players and they certainly can’t help us win a championship.” That quote should be great for the morale!

Despite the manager's bluntness, everybody knows the pipeline is clogged and Washington needs to work with what he has. The minor leaguers, as fans are seeing, will continue to be promoted to the big leagues and not succeed. Washington is not a miracle worker, and cannot turn the league's worst farm system into the best. So why is he talking about playoffs next year? Clearly the system is broken, and the organization is either unwilling or incapable of bringing in big-league baseball players.

It does not help when your highest paid players cannot stay on the field, or perform well when they are on it. It's not Washington's fault either that his players keep getting injured, but his optimism that the injuries will stop is also negligible. “Look at what we had to go through this last month, up until today, we lost everybody. We’re out there with triple-A players. We are out there with players who don’t have anybody to take over. We got to recognize that, so you don’t get upset or frustrated, and I’m not frustrated.” Washington insulting the replacement players here is ridiculous, he will need to rely on them in the future. The team does not have championship expectations any time soon, despite what Washington says, so to berate the AAA players like this makes 0 sense. It's not rare for AAA players to make an impact at the MLB level. Teams need organizational depth to win, you need to build up the AAA players.

The Angels live in a paradoxical reality with no clear solution. The paradox is simple: the Angels have a minimal amount of talent in the Minor Leagues and therefore cannot make trades for impact MLB players, and they cannot trade away the best of their Minor League talent for impact MLB players because they need to hold onto their minimal amount of MiLB talent. When the Angels trotted out Mike Trout and Shohei Ohtani every day, they pressed hard to fill in the roster around the modern day versions of Mickey Mantle and Babe Ruth. They could not go all-in to win because of their lack of tradable MiLB talent, and could not go all-out to lose and restock their MiLB pipeline due to Trout and Ohtani's presence. Hence the current baseball purgatory.