Angels News: LA’s Biggest Needs This Offseason According to GM Perry Minasian
The Angels are entering a very important offseason for their franchise. Aside from the fact that owner Arte Moreno is selling the team, two-way superstar and finalist for the AL MVP for a second straight season Shohei Ohtani is entering his final year of team control. The Angels are yet to field a winning roster since he came to LA in 2018, and could be running out of time to convince him to stay.
The ongoing sale of the team could be quite the distraction for GM Perry Minasian, but he knows his job is to focus on the putting a winning product on the field.
At the GM meetings on Monday, Minasian shared what he felt were the team's biggest needs entering this offseason.
"We have a lot of holes to fill," Minasian said. "Raising the floor to a certain extent, and not raising the floor with minor league talent but raising the floor with major league talent is really, really important."
This definitely points to working on the depth of the team, and filling out the roster with talented players across the board that can complement their superstars in Ohtani and Mike Trout.
But, this also alludes to the fact that this team may not be big spenders in free agency, at least in terms of the top guys on the market. However, when asked if the potential sale of the team impacts whether or not Minasian could give out larger contracts with multiple years, he said there would be no issues.
"There's no mandates," Minasian said. “There’s no 1-year, can only do 1-year [deals]."
That's great news for the team, as offering players more years could give the Angels a better chance of signing them at slightly less of a cost. If money seems to be more of an issue — and the Angels enter the offseason with a pretty high payroll already — the extra years on a deal could help them land some of the better free agents on the market.
And all of that is important, because the No. 1 priority for this team is convincing their generational superstar to sign long term.
