Shocking statistic suggests that the LA Angels haven't been as bad as fans may think

'The Game Day MLB' Twitter account posted a standings update from what the league has looked like and it's made the rounds on the internet:

Interestingly, this shows that the LA Angels may not be as bad since the start of the last decade as we as fans frequently claim. We have the second-best record in the AL West since then, and the fifth-best record in the American League. Do we focus too much on the negatives when discussing this franchise's fortunes since the start of the last decade?

Well, maybe, but Angels fans do have the right to complain about plenty of what we're seeing. For starters, the team went 77-85 this year. That's unacceptable.

The LA Angels haven't made the postseason since 2014, and haven't had a winning record since 2015.

It goes to show that most of the LA Angels' success that is illustrated by this standings table is from earlier in the decade. And the Halos did have some good times in the early half of the 2010's.

Winning 86 games in 2011 and 89 in 2012, the Halos showed some promise. That being said, they fell off in 2013, taking home just 78 W's. 2014 had to be the year.

And, it really looked it was going to be. Mike Trout introduced himself as the AL MVP, and the team led the Majors with a 98-64 record entering the postseason. That was TEN games over the second-place (in the AL West) A's.

Then, things really fell apart. Despite having home field, we caught the Kansas City Royals at the wrong time. The future winners of the AL pennant swept us three games to none.

They were really catching their stride, taking the San Francisco Giants to seven games and then winning the championship the next year.

Speaking of that next year, the Halos weren't bad in 2015. They were 85-77, but missed the playoffs by one game. It was just one game, so we were bound to be back soon, right?

Wrong. That one game has haunted us for six years now. That's because that was the closest we've been to the playoffs since then.

We missed the postseason in each of the next six years, despite having the best player in baseball. Heck, the best player in baseball got hurt this year, and even though we developed the next best player in baseball who had the greatest season in sports history, we still missed out on October. Despite not being a dominant franchise, and never having one of the highest payrolls in the game, we still feel like we constantly underachieve.

It's that we have the two best players in baseball, in their primes, and we can't get the job done to take us to October. Last year was because of injuries to essentially the whole roster, but that didn't make it feel much better.

Now that the gang will be back together in 2022, they do have a chance. They still need to nail the rest of this offseason, however, to guarantee themselves as contenders.