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In what figures to be the shortest minor league system review of the offseason, today we tackle the Angels system. It’s not so much that the Halos have no prospects as it’s the Angels have bad prospects. It’s almost as if they used every ounce of player development ability to churn out the greatest player of a generation, and then followed it up with nothing. Well maybe nothing is unfair, but it’s been almost half a decade since the likes of Trout, Kole Calhoun, and Garrett Richards broke through to the bigs. The addiction to bad free agent contacts has left a once proud organization decimated. The money spent on Josh Hamilton, CJ Wilson, and Albert Pujols hasn’t paid off the way they expected, and the years of lost draft picks has left the system bare. For the first time in a few years the Angels have a handful of interesting prospects, and the organization seems more focused on player development under former Yankees executive Billy Eppler. There’s only a handful of interesting players to discuss here, and a couple who could develop into impact fantasy bats. It’s the Top Los Angeles Angels Prospects.

Please, blog, may I have some more?

This system is what’s known as a three-bagger. You’ll need one brown paper bag for its head, one brown paper bag for your head, and a third brown paper bag handy in case one of the two paper bags currently in use happens to rip. Sean Newcomb was a lefty arm that would have easily topped this list if he hadn’t been traded to the Braves. Sad trombone. The Angels had a first round pick in 2015 (26th overall) but used it on Taylor Ward, a glove-first catcher with pretty limited fantasy value. All in all, you’re going to have a tough go finding prospects worth your time in shallower formats. Some of the players listed might not even be worth your time in really deep ones. And yet together, hand in hand, we march on…

Please, blog, may I have some more?

This is hard to believe, but players have actually been signed or traded since I started churning out the organizational top tens in early November. It’s like they don’t even care that I have spent countless minutes prepping these reports and now a bunch of players have asterisks next to their names. Black is white, down is up, and Andrew Heaney is an Angel. Some prospects who get signed or moved in trades are impact players that are in fact worth talking about. By the timing of the previews, they may end up in a sort of top ten list “limbo”. Consider these posts a division by division catch-all for such players. It’s also an opportunity to discuss a few of the names that were borderline top ten players but didn’t quite make the cut for their organization’s list. In other words, some of the notable “#11s”. Here are the prospects that fell through the cracks in the AL West…

Please, blog, may I have some more?