We’re almost a third of the way through the 2026 regular season. The Angels have won exactly one-third of their games. Despite their strong start — the Halos were 11-10 after a win on April 17 — they now sit at 17-34. A rising performance from Mike Trout and breaking out from Jose Soriano fueled that early success, but those two alone can’t carry the entire lineup. The Angels have won just six of their last 30 games and one of their last 10.
The result does not come as a huge surprise, although it is still surprising when either team only draws six in 30 games. However, the Angels did not enter this season expected to be competitive. MLBTR readers overwhelmingly voted that their preseason was worthy of a D or F grade. FanGraphs posted what now looks like 72 wins. PECOTA made it 66 wins, which looks like they could finish in the top spot. Colleague Anthony Franco opened his offseason review of the Halos by writing that the Angels are “doing little to improve on a 90-loss record and also enter the season as one of the worst teams in the American League on paper.”
Standard repetition. The Angels will extend their playoff drought to 12 years when the current season ends. They haven’t had a winning record since 2015. Owner Arte Moreno has had seven managers on board since their last winning season. The current captain Kurt Suzuki is in an unprecedented situation: a rookie manager on a one-year deal. There is a chance that 2027 will bring the eighth manager in 12 years.
To hear Suzuki tell it, the Angels are on a mission to turn things around. Sam Blum of The Athletic asked him last week if he thought this was cold or a reflection of where the Angels are as an organization. Suzuki replied: “I really believe that we have hit the best. Even if it is said, there are many games we are in. We are swinging, maybe one field, another one is out.”
Admittedly, Suzuki doesn’t have much to say in that situation. It’s a fair question to ask, but a rookie manager on a one-year contract isn’t going to throw the entire organization under the bus. He probably believes, to some extent, that the players there did not play well, were unlucky and that the record could be better. There may be a truth behind that. The Angels are definitely not a good team, but a team with Trout, Soriano and Zach Neto maybe not indeed bad enough to be a 54-win team (the Angels’ current pace).
That said, the Angels are undeniably a bad team. The organization has been maintaining neutrality for more than a decade. Let’s take a look at the current state of the program, what can be done, and why Halos are endlessly spinning their wheels.
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