How Vaughn Grissom Fits into the 2026 Angels
December 18, 2025 - Written by AJ Stone
Wasn’t the biggest Vaughn Grissom fan but wow this picture had so much aura pic.twitter.com/TtFlUSCkcv
— Unbiased Red Sox Fan (@unbiasedsoxfan) December 9, 2025
The Angels have continued their busy yet middling offseason with the recent addition of former Atlanta Braves top prospect Vaughn Grissom. Grissom was acquired on December 9th, 2025, for minor league outfield prospect Isaiah Jackson and the Angels' 2025 eighth-round draft pick. On the surface, this deal looks entirely fair, but we’ll have to see how these players develop in their respective organizations.
Grissom is coming off a 2025 campaign that, frankly, saw him lose a lot of value. His .783 OPS and 13 home runs were nothing to scoff at. Unfortunately, he accounted for these numbers entirely at the AAA level. An interesting anecdote about Grissom is that, as of last year, he would still be below the AAA aging curve by almost two and a half years. This really speaks to how young he is, and with the correct approach and change of scenery, Grissom could unlock his true potential and become the player people always believed he could be.
Grissom is currently projected to compete for a starting job at second base for the Angels in 2026. He has shown flashes of potentially elite tools in the past, which the Halos have an opportunity to tap into. One thing he’s lacked is the arm strength to keep him on the left side of the infield. In 2024, Grissom was in the 17th percentile in arm strength via Baseball Savant. Moving him to a less defensively demanding position like second base will allow him to hone in on his offensive game and become a true run producer for Los Angeles.
Although promising, Grissom is currently an exceedingly underdeveloped player. In an Angels lineup where he’s surrounded by the likes of other young stars such as Zach Neto, Jo Adell, Nolan Schanuel, Logan O’Hoppe, and Christian Moore, Grissom will have more than enough firepower around him to propel him to his all-star potential.
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