Los Angeles Angels: What happens in 2019 will effect the next decade

While it might seem like just another year for the Los Angeles Angels, the 2019 season is the most important season in quite some time for the Halos.

We are going on ten years since the Los Angeles Angels last won a playoff series, let alone a single playoff game. It is also the 10-year mark since the Los Angeles Angels drafted Mike Trout in the first round of the 2009 MLB Draft.

Now, as the calendar prepares to turn to a new decade much like it was 10 years ago, the Los Angeles Angels are entering a season that will shape the entire 2020 decade.

2009 ended up having the same effect on the 2010s. While it stings that the team has not had playoff success in a decade, it led to the ultimate gift in Mike Trout, who is on track to become one of the greatest baseball players of all-time.

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2019 can be impactful for all the wrong reasons. Ten years after drafting arguably the greatest Angel ever (already), the Los Angeles Angels could be losing the best chance they had at another World Series ring.

Losing Mike Trout is not something that Angel fans like to think about. Trout is the franchise guy, he is not a diva and there have been virtually no reports of him wanting to leave the Angels. In fact, every report seems to be in the Angels’ favor.

However, as a pure competitor, it could be hard for Trout to want to commit to being a lifetime Angel with virtually no playoff experience. He is going to get his massive payday no matter what, sorry Bryce Harper and Manny Machado, and can leave and go to a team that is better equipped to contend.

Of course, if the Angels can legitimately show Trout something this season then it drastically increases their chances. It has to be more than a wild-card berth and loss. Just making the playoff narrowly is not enough.

Trout needs to see promising signs for the future.

Trout needs to see if Shohei Ohtani can rebound from Tommy John Surgery and, at the very least, still swing the bat at a capable level. He has to see if this young pitching staff is ready to carry the load. He has to see if the Angels’ one-year gambles are paying off.

Because if the wheels fall off this season and the Angels miss yet another postseason it is hard to look at the team and really see and long-term progress. Ohtani is the only glimmer of hope and even he has huge question marks after being injured in his first season.

The Angels don’t have any great long-term pieces for Trout to look at and be happy about. Andrelton Simmons is a free agent after 2020 like Trout. The young arms are not longed down far after and haven’t even proven to be top of the rotation guys.

Justin Upton is signed through 2022 but he already showed signs of regression last year and his contract gets higher by the year, which would make it much harder to add talents with Trout’s presumably new massive contract. The Angels have to pay Albert Pujols through 2021.

The team has some promising prospects, such as Griffin Canning and Jo Adell but the farm system is not a consistent production machine, like a team like the Dodgers’ has had.

That is why making the playoffs if not enough. Trout needs to see long-term promise and be assured that the moves the front office makes will actually lead to results. Because right now they obviously have not given Trout any promise that they can build a legitimate World Series contender.

Another throwaway season and Trout could come to the Los Angeles Angels and try and help them; “trade me before the last season on my contract starts so you can get something in return.”

The Angels would be foolish to not do that. If the team knows that Trout wants to leave it would be much better to get three-four top-100 prospects for one season of Trout rather than hold on and hope he changes his mind.

And with that, the Angels would turn from a fringe, hopeful, playoff team to a bonafide rebuild.

dark. Next. Angels have the most variance in 2019

But hey, being the fringe playoff team has obviously not led to anything thus far. Perhaps embracing the rebuild to start the new decade is exactly what the team needs to be a World Series contender by the middle to end of the decade.

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