The hardest decision to make about this prospect list is not who occupies the top spot but how to alphabetize the team’s name. I’m not sure a dumber thing has ever existed in the world of phraseology than The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. Just. Stop. 

Although, big empathy for playing in a division with the Astros. 

My take coming into this was that the Angels have been on a very strange stretch for a long time. Kind of aimless. I was going to knock the Will Wilson sale. Who drafts a guy 15th just to sell him so you can move a bad contract? It doesn’t get much worse than that, in my opinion, and good on the Giants for raising their hand, taking the dead money and cutting Zack Cozart, who it looks like they might resign. Why do that? He’s a trade-able asset now. Maybe the Angels should’ve done that.

My take right now–after the hellstorm that is our baseball world–is that maybe they’ve finally got a chance. They’ve never had a real chance in that division–at least not for a long time now–because on the one hand you have Billy Beane in the prime of his career, and on the other you have the land of infinite cheating. Texas too has been extremely sharp for periods of the past decade and seems particularly sharp to me right now.

So it’s a tough road whether or not a cyborg squad populates the division. They’ll need to get something out of their pitching development program to have a chance, but the Dylan Bundy gambit could turn out better than the twin cores of Trevor Cahill and Matt Harvey. The Angels are not without interesting pieces in the system, but the vast majority of future impact is on the hitting side.