73 – 89 August line up prediction:
LF – Paris (Ward is solid, gets traded at deadline)
SS – Neto
RF – Trout – Very good year with lots of trade interest but Arte shuts it down
IB – Noda
C – O’Hoppe
DH – Mocada/TBD (Soler traded for a happy meal after big power and poor peripherals)
3B – Rengifo
CF – Lugo (Spends first three months in Salt Lake in CF and rakes)
2B – Anderson
Pitching is solid until guys get hurt and lack of depth shows.
I am gonna do this differently by focusing on pitchers…. I will share who I think will have good or bad years based upon career averages… significantly below (like .50 pts or more under) for ERA and WHIP is GOOD and above is of course BAD… hovering around .10-.20 either direction is average. Since no solid baseline for Silent C etc will have to leave off of list, but I think Silent C will impress and have an ERA around 3.40 and WHIP around 1.25 …
Kikuchi : 4.52 ERA, 1.32 WHIP 10 W AVERAGE year
Soriano : 3.13 ERA. 1.20 WHIP 13 W GREAT year !!
Anderson : 5.15 ERA,1.38 WHIP 4 W BAD year
Detmers : 4.24 ERA, 1.28 WHIP 8 W GOOD year
Jansen : 4.38 ERA, 1.25 WHIP 10 S, 5 BS BAD year
Joyce : 2.42 ERA, 1.14 WHIP 18 S, 15 H, GREAT year !
89-73
MVP: Neto
Adenhart: Soriano
Playoffs baby!!!!!!!!!
Trout 46 homeruns
Soler. 38 homeruns
Paris .285 25 sb
Neto. 293
Shanuel 25 homeruns
Ward. 23 homeruns
Ohoppe. 278 18 homeruns
Adell. 180. 4 homeruns
Lugo. 275 13 homeruns 15 sb
Regnifo. 311. 43 sb
Starting pitching. 3.45 ERA
Bullpen. 2.80 ERA
Saves. Jansen 17 Joyce 28
You can take that to the bank. Lmao
70-92
I’m with Jessica all the way down the line with her comments. If Trout stays healthy, he will have a great season and both he and Soler will be solid. My hope is that O’Hoppe gives us a full season like the 2/3 he gave us last year. I do believe that, as in the past, failure to play the best players will hurt our record.
Lastly, I hope we nail the draft and successfully make the trades we need to for the future. We need to be shooting for 2027 to be a playoff contender.
Better than last year, but not much. Relief pitching looks good. Actually have some depth positionally, albeit mediocre. Starting pitching will be good some days, get destroyed others, especially against playoff bound teams. Defense will be generally atrocious, with occasional flashes of competence.
65-97
MVP: I’d go with Ward, but not sure he’ll be here at year end. Not sure how Neto will be when he returns, so I’m going with Trout, comeback player of the year!
Adenhart: Soriano
Worst nightmare: we’re close to contention nearing the deadline and are buyers. We need to be sellers! Even if everything goes great and we somehow make the playoffs (you can get great odds on this in Vegas, but I’m certainly not buying), no way do we go far. Realistically we aren’t going to be a great team next year either, so we should be trading for as many young lottery tickets as possible, aiming for playoff supremacy in 2027!
(staff emeritus)
67-95
Team MVP: Jose Soriano
Nick Adenhart Award Winner: Jose Soriano
Who surprises us in a good way? Bullpen generally, including reinforcements from AA.
I suspect there will be 2-3 interesting trades, given the “expired by” label on a number of player contracts, so the “surprises” might come from players currently not on the roster.
This looks like too much fun to pass on.
Team record: 73-89 (+10 gams over LY)
MVP: Ben Joyce
Surprises in a good way: Bullpen
Team has top-5 pen; but can’t hit worth a lick. Ben Joyce is borderline Cy Young candidate. Angels win games by keeping first 5 innings close, then the pen locks down the rest of the game.
Sellers at the deadline
Record: 86-76 – playoff team
MVP: Michael Nelson Trout
Adenhart: Jose Soriano
Surprises in a good way: (1) most of the pitching staff will exceed expectations; (2) Soler/Moncada will deliver with the bat.
Record: 72-90
MVP: Michael Nelson Trout
Adenhart: Silent C
Surprises in a good way: Kyren Paris’s newly reconstructed swing makes his bat too valuable to keep out of the lineup every day. Wash is forced to utilize him as a super-utility guy, despite him being below average at every position he fields.
The defense overall is going to be an adventure. Outside of Neto and Trout, the entire Halos squad ranks in the bottom third of team defense. The poor defense hurts an improved starting rotation—specifically Soriano and Koch—despite their solid seasons.
The starting staff is solid, which, comparatively, makes it feel like we’ve got five aces out there. No one sets the world on fire, but they all put up around a 4ish ERA with low WHIPs. Kochanowicz utilizes a high four-seamer to complement his nasty sinker and ends up being the best of the bunch.
Jo Adell gives us all Brandon Wood PTSD, as we finally come to terms with the fact that he’s never going to be a star. His strikeout rate increases, and his OPS hovers in the high .600s. He’ll hit some monster dongs and tease us with his potential, but ultimately, he’ll be another woulda-coulda-shoulda in Halo lore.
The baseball gods finally give us a little injury luck—no players miss time due to freak, non-contact soft tissue tweaks.
Schanuel gets sent down in July to “work on some things” as his OBP falls below .330 and his hard-hit percentage remains at an unplayable level.
Neto takes another step forward with a 20-20 season, an OPS above .800, and above-average defense at shortstop. He also undeniably becomes the clubhouse leader as Trout enters the “Unc” era of his Angels career.
Detmers thrives in his long relief role. He makes some spot starts due to injuries but really finds his groove as a pro, becoming a consistent 2-3 inning bridge to the high-leverage guys at the back end—ala Scott Shields.
The bullpen ranks in the Top 10 until the trade deadline, when pieces are shipped off to pennant contenders at a steep Perry price.
Moore gets a July call-up and plays… fine. C-Mo takes his lumps and looks overwhelmed for the most part, but he also has us pre-ing our jeans with his ability to slap line-to-line lasers all over the park.
The Halos draft Jace LaViolette with the second overall pick. He gets the proverbial cup of coffee and looks like he’s going to be a problem in 2026.
Overall, I think we’ll be a much more competitive ballclub this year. By season’s end, we won’t sniff .500, but there will be a lot more close games—giving us hope that Arte will loosen the purse strings in 2026 and finally break this god-awful streak of losing seasons.
I’m excited! I look forward to talking sh*t with all of you and getting back to the Big A next week.
-Gerry
Much more bearish predictions this year! We ran out of Hopium????
I think this is the year we hit 100 losses.
DowningDude sez:
62-100
All that being said … go team and stuff! Woo hoo!
hoo boy and oh well!
Team record: 66-96. Better than last year!
Team MVP: Jorge Soler. Why? Because Trout will get hurt.
Team Cy: Kikuchi
Breakout Player: Ryan Johnson…maybe
It has been mentioned that our first month will see us with 9 home games and 20 road games but it’s even worse than that. Our first 18 games include ONLY 3 home games. I expect us to be 6-12 at that point. I know…6-14! But this team doesn’t have the caliber of players we had then.
Our September rotation will include Kikuchi and Detmers, probably Johnson. Everyone else will be hurt. Our lineup will end up looking like it always does, full of holes being filled by our AAA stars.
The highlight of the season will be the draft.
Team record: 75-87. Could be a few games worse if we trade talent early.
Who cares. Trade everything. MOAR KIDZ!
Team MVP: Logan O’Hoppe
Team Cy Youth: Soriano
Break out player: Silent C will pitch close to 200 innings with a WHIP below 1.30.
Did I mention we should trade everyone we can?
If we crack 75 wins playing primarily kids I think we can start making moves to jump the .500 line pretty soon…. then we win 20 World Series in a row.
In short, my (Probably horribly wrong) prediction:
2025 record: 77-85
Angels sing the familiar song of good/strong pitching and anemic offense #90sAngels.
Angels stick around (Real world) WC consideration, but don’t make the PS.
Trout has a slash line of .285/38 HRs/.425 OBP, returns to ASG
Moore is called up midseason to man 3B/Coinciding with Rendone release
Gifo is traded to Phillies or Braves (Who else would it be) by the AS Break/Paris F/T 2B
Neto/Schanuel notably improve on 2024 (Not MVP type seasons)
O’Hoppe produces better at the plate with better load management
D’Arnaud also produces above average B/U catcher numbers.
Ward is traded at the TDL
Tyler Anderson is traded around the AS Break and brings in a surprising prospect
Tim Anderson stays with the team until about mid-season as a decent producing utility guy, until youth movement initiated
Adell-True wildcard IMHO
Phenom Anderson pitcher exceeds expectations and proves to be a sound SP
Silent C & Soriano continue to do well
Hendricks & Kikuchi will be feast or famine
Deitmers will move back into the SR once a SP is traded or flames out
Robert Stephenson pitches well upon return to actually playing baseball
Jose Suarez is picked back up by the Halos upon Braves release
You can, it just doesn’t look right. If he was a player that had a possible return to playing (LOL), then it is usually not done.
If/when Rendone “Starts rehab” he can get to a point that where the Halos will jettison him, they are still on the hook for his injury expense though, and of course the albatross contract.
CtPG Staff 2025 Angels Predictions
All the off season and preseason is behind us and we have nothing but 162 regular season games ahead of us. How will those games unfold? Let’s take a look at how the staff at CtPG sees things unfolding.
Jeff Joiner
Record: 73-89
Team MVP: Zach Neto
Nick Adenhart Award Winner (best pitcher): Jose Soriano
Who surprises us in a good way? Nolan Schanuel takes a solid step forward and slugs over .400
How does the season go? The Angels get off to a rough start but stabilize as Neto returns and bullpen roles become more defined. Kyren Paris replaces Luis Rengifo at the trade deadline but Christian Moore needs more seasoning. We’re still not sold on Jo Adell at the end of the year but don’t have many other options. Mike Trout plays 110 games and him and Soler provide entertainment while the kids develop and the lack of depth again does us in. But we are excited about the draft and trade pickups and can see better days on the horizon.
Charles Sutton
Record: 79-83
Team MVP: Logan O’Hoppe
Nick Adenhart Award Winner: Yusei Kikuchi
Who surprises us in a good way? Tim Anderson doesn’t suck
How does the season go? Somehow the Angels roll into July with a winning record and Perry gets confused and is a buyer instead of a seller at the trade deadline. Thereafter, there is much wailing and lamentation as the pitchers we traded for suck for the rest of the season and end up getting released. Yoan Moncada spends about half of the season on the IL.
Jessica
Record: 70-92
Team MVP: Mike Trout
Nick Adenhart Award Winner: Jose Soriano
Who surprises in a good way? Kyren Paris will have the best season on this team for an under age 25 player.
Get ready to experience a lot of the same from the past 8 years. This team is still not what it needs to be to really complete. Pitching rotation falls apart pretty fast once you get down the list, bullpen will be league average, and offense has some big hols. Oh did I mention shaky defense that will probably land in the bottom half of the league? If Trout doen’t play 135+ games, this team may lost 95+ games again. There isn’t much depth all-around if any injuries happen (and they happen all teams) so that will truly test this team. When will Arte learn he can’t try to compete every year? At least there is some promise in some of the young ones like Paris, Ben Joyce, Logan O’Hoppe, Zach Neto, and Jose Soriano – so we have that to look forward to!
John Henry Weitzel
Record: 69-93
Team MVP: Jo Adell
Nick Adenhart Award Winner: Yusei Kikuchi
Who surprises us in a good way? Jo Adell ends up being a good player and plays the most games on the team.
How does the season go? Mike Trout looks healthy and everyone gets hopeful that he will finally play a full season. Angels go into the trade deadline looking good for once and everyone is very cautiously optimistic as the Angels hold a playoff spot. The Angels buy, but not a rental, someone long term, many call it foolish, others saying you have to go for it. Immediately afterwards Trout get injured in the stupidest way possible, the team spirals, and not only miss the playoffs but lose so badly in August and September that we wonder how we were fooled into thinking this team was decent at all. Mike Trout finishes the year playing 99 games total, and we all wait for Arte Moreno to go away.