Hallowed Out: Mike Trout Stands Alone
The Angels haven’t changed. It’s Mike Trout who is worse.
The Angels are bad. It’s the truest thing about them. Their hitting is bad, their pitching is bad, their fielding is bad, and everything else is bad, too. This isn’t breaking news. They’ve finished below .500 each year since 2015, the only team not to make the postseason in that time. But expectations have reached a new low as we enter 2026:
| Year | Playoff Odds | Projected Wins | Projected WAR |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | 5.2% | 72.5 | 27.2 |
| 2025 | 9.5% | 75.1 | 32.1 |
| 2024 | 16.8% | 77.6 | 30.6 |
| 2023 | 48.0% | 83.5 | 37.7 |
| 2022 | 44.7% | 83.3 | 38.2 |
| 2021 | 39.5% | 84.7 | 36.7 |
| 2019 | 19.5% | 82.3 | 36.0 |
| 2018 | 27.1% | 82.5 | 37.7 |
| 2017 | 33.3% | 82.7 | 36.2 |
| 2016 | 26.5% | 80.7 | 32.9 |
I was initially skeptical of these figures, or at least the direction of them. How could the Angels possibly be going backwards? They don’t seem to be rebuilding, and their depth chart looks the same as ever: a few truly good players, a few players who would be good if they were playing a different position (or perhaps in a different organization), a few players who were drafted far too recently, a few aging veterans who were nearly All-Stars at one point, and Trout. Read the rest of this entry »
