Los Angeles Angels: Offseason mistakes are becoming evident

The Los Angeles Angels made several one-year signings this offseason, which are all starting to prove to be as poor as we should have expected.

It is hard to fault the logic that the Los Angeles Angels had this past offseason. The team has been burned so many time by large contracts, and with Mike Trout‘s long-term status unclear at the time, the front office exclusively stuck to one-year contracts.

That obviously is not the best strategy to take but if done right, you can piece together a nice team with this strategy. The problem with the Los Angeles Angels was not the strategy itself, it was who the team signed as a result.

Now to be fair, the market of guys that would be willing to sign one-year contracts was not very large. However, the Angels followed a pretty recognizable trend that has not been panning out.

Every one-year contract that the Halos signed this winter was with players that have once shown to be very productive but did not show any signs of repeating the act in 2019. Guys past their prime like Matt Harvey and Jonathan Lucroy were too optimistic.

Justin Bour was one a key role player for the Miami Marlins but did not have a great track record heading into 2019. Cody Allen was once was of the most dominant arms out of a bullpen but was poor in the years prior.

The only free agent that actually had a good 2018 was Trevor Cahill. But that was one decent resurgent year surrounded by other mediocre years.

And what do you know, this plan did not work and all of these players are playing towards the more realistic expectations, not the lofty ceiling expectations.

Harvey and Cahill both have ERAs over six and have allowed a combined 59 earned runs on the season. That is more than the entire Tampa Bay Rays’ starting rotation.

Allen also has an ERA over six despite actually having a good start to the year. He lost his job as the outright closer early on, allowing eight earned runs and four home runs while walking 11 in 11 innings of work.

Bour has been poor and is only causing a jam with Albert Pujols and Shohei Ohtani at first base and DH. Bour is hitting .172 with 27 strikeouts this year.

Lucroy has been the best of the signings but even his year is not impressive by any means, it just isn’t awful. Lucroy is hitting .259 on the year with five home runs and 16 RBIs. However, over the last 15 games, Lucroy is hitting just .226.

While this does not mean that these guys will be terrible all year long, you certainly should hold your optimism. The Los Angeles Angels are no strangers of swinging and missing on free agents and these guys will likely be no different.

Heck, just look at how awful Zack Cozart has been with the Angels after putting together a career year in 2017.

We wish we could say this was unexpected but it really wasn’t. The Angels made some mistakes in the office and those mistakes are now rising to the surface.