LA Angels Monday News Crash: Clase Dismissed

One more bit of Angels ephemera today…

Baseball America conducted their first staff draft for the 2026 Draft this year. (Staff draft is where all the primary writers do round-robin selections based on who they’d select for the team if they were leading the draft room.)

#12 (Angels): Drew Burress, OF, Georgia Tech

Rationale: Burress has a long track record of performance in the ACC, yet questions about how his game will translate with a wood bat as a professional have pushed his stock downward. I believe in Burress’ balance of skills and average or better power. Despite some up-and-down production this spring, Burress finds the barrel as much as any Division I hitter.

This is actually a little familiar, as Burress (like Bremner last year) came into the season as a top five ranked prospect, but some shaky early performance has him falling into the mid-first-round status.

I always like to note this, but BA’s first mock draft of 2025, conducted in mid-March, had the Angels taking Tyler Bremner at #2, which proved quite accurate. Their first staff draft had Bremner going to the Pirates at #6, and their final staff draft, conducted one week before draft day, had Bremner going to the Cardinals at #5. (Staff drafts aren’t predictions – they’re like fantasy drafts by field experts.)

So Bremner was always in the early top 10 mix among talent evaluators, and they were mocking him to orgs with good pitching development depts.

There are several outlets for baseball farm analysis, but I still view Baseball America as the gold standard. They are certainly the most well-resourced and have the largest professional teams covering the US and abroad.

Going into opening day, the Athletic and MLB each released their team rankings today:

The Athletic (“best lineups”): Angels at #29
MLB (“power rankings”): Angels at #27

Athletic:
“The only significant position player offseason pickup was Josh Lowe, who is more of a platoon player against right-handed pitching. One player to watch is Christian Moore, who struggled as a rookie but has the talent and make-up to succeed in the majors.”

MLB:
“an intriguingly eccentric rotation”