What Trend The Angels Are Looking To Break This Year: 2026 Season Outlook
March 28, 2026 - Written by Zac Holladay
Zach Neto with the spin-o-rama 😮💨
— MLB (@MLB) March 28, 2026
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As Opening Day creeps up and players finish up their stay in Arizona for Spring Training, the roster is looking more and more clear as guys are being sent down. So far, the Angels have been very up and down with their performances in Spring Training with no one having a spring that stands out. But, as we know, Spring Training stats don’t matter! This is very good for the team to go into the season with no clear standard and to just go out there and play. This team definitely has the makings of a shock to the league, but a lot has to go right. The usual narrative that is written for this Angels team is that they start off hot in April and May and then fall apart by July. As this is the general trend that the team aims to break in 2026, here are 5 trends that the Angels have struggled with over the past 5 years that they hope to flip this season.
1. Offense With a Knack for Striking Out
Over the past few years, the Angels have been at the top when it comes to striking out. To put it into perspective, 3 out of the last 4 seasons include the Angels in the top 5 in the league in offensive strikeouts. Individually, the Angels had 6 of their starters with 100+ strikeouts in 2025, including 3 with 150+. As the trend for the Angels to score a majority of their runs via the home run, this is the price that the offense pays when your approach is to swing for the fences. Cutting down on the strikeouts in any way would benefit the team in countless ways. For most teams, it is normal to have 1-2 players with a high strikeout rate. But for a majority of the team to have a problem just shows that there needs to be a completely different approach at the plate for the whole offense, which bleeds into the next trend.
2. Lack of Situational Hitting
While every team shows spurts of situational hitting from time to time, it is the trait of a successful team if done in certain moments. The game of baseball is played differently by every team as they all are coached to approach pitchers and hitters in different ways. Over the past 5 years, the Angels haven’t had a consistent offensive approach which has resulted in a massacre of strikeouts game after game. While the Angels don’t have to completely convert to “small ball”, they have to have a line-drive mindset rather than scoring all the runs with one swing. In 2025, the Angels were 4th in the league in home runs, but 29th in hits and 30th in doubles. While this isn’t a problem in itself, it just shows that their desire to get on-base isn’t nearly as strong as almost every other team in the league.
3. Finishing off Batters
For the past few years, the Angels pitching has grown very capable of gaining quick outs, but not being able to hold those runners when the inning gets to two outs, or even two outs with two strikes. While the Angels pitching staff and bullpen has never been strikeout prone and relies on contact outs, that strategy doesn’t always work out as the pressure that comes with ending an inning doesn’t help the pitchers. In back-to-back years, the Halos’ pitching staff has been in the bottom 5 in the league in strikeouts. Even though strikeouts aren’t the complete solution to finishing off batters, they are a new goal to introduce for the Angels pitching and is a different approach to what has been going on in the past.
4. Starting Pitchers Pitching Deep into Games
In 2025, the average innings a starting pitcher would pitch in a game was just over 5 innings. This number is way below average and calls for a major change of trend as the Angels have never been known to have a steady bullpen, at least in a while. This unfortunate trend relates to the previous note as finishing off batters is how you go far into ballgames. Angels pitchers, more than normal, fail to maintain a reasonable pitch count and reach a high count within the middle innings. The Angels pitching has ranked dead last in walks per 9 innings the last two years. Not only limiting the walks, but learning how to manage a pitch count and pitching to the situation is what will make this pitching for the Angels much better.
5. Failure to Show up Defensively
While some players on the team, like Zach Neto and Bryce Teodosio, have strong defensive numbers, the 2025 Angels team was extremely below average in defense compared to the rest of the league. Of the main starting offense for the Angels in 2025 (min. 30 games played in the field), 13 out of 18 of them had 0 or negative defensive runs saved above average. The overall defense has looked sloppy and they don’t seem to value defense as much as their offense. The little things, like picking a throw to first or running the right route on a fly ball, makes all the difference to a team looking to compete.
The change of mindset for this team needs to be completely revamped as the team goes into the new season. Every play and every pitch needs to be played like it is a playoff game. This team has loads of talent and potential and has every right to be successful. But a successful team isn’t just doing a few things well. All cylinders need to be fired throughout the season and there needs to be consistency for every aspect of the game. These trends are just the major tools that need to be improved in order for the team to have a fun and successful season as the Halos are looking to snap a horrid streak of missing the playoffs.
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