Whose Fault Is It? Pinpointing the Blame for the Angels' Last-Place Slide

Any time an organization has success there is plenty of credit to spread around. The same goes for when a team continues to fail. Not

Jul 2, 2019; Arlington, TX, USA; Los Angeles Angels owner Arte Moreno speaks during a press conference about the death of pitcher Tyler Skaggs before the game against the Texas Rangers at Globe Life Park in Arlington. Mandatory Credit: Kevin Jairaj-Imagn Images | Kevin Jairaj-Imagn Images

Any time an organization has success there is plenty of credit to spread around. The same goes for when a team continues to fail. Not are the Angels riding the longest current playoff drought in MLB, their winning percentage of .371 ranks last in the American League and second to last in all of baseball.

With all the ire of die hard fans of a last place team, let's assign blame where it belongs.

Kurt Suzuki deserves a little, but not much, blame.

Suzuki's lineups are less than ideal and when handed a bullpen without good options he throws stats and match ups out the window far too often. Would having a better batter behind Mike Trout help? Yes. Has he pulled a few starting pitchers a little early? Also yes.

Overall, though, Suzuki has been handed a severely flawed team that his simply mismanages. His portion of the blame is small because he simply does not have a great bullpen option nor does he have a great option to protect Mike Trout in the lineup.

Suzuki has proven he is not currently fit to manage a team capable of winning. But not even the love child of Joe Torre and Sparky Anderson could get this team above .500.

Perry Minasian is largely to blame.

Perry Minasian's job is to create a roster capable of winning games. He has yet to do that nor does he show any promise of being able to do so. The bullpen is the team's biggest weakness while being his highest priority.

Not only did Minasian trade one of the few decent bullpen arms in the Angels organization for a failing left fielder, he has yet to draft pitchers capable of manning the bullpen. His all pitcher draft in 2021 netted Sam Bachman and Chase Silseth.

Nobody else in the Angels bullpen was drafted by the organization despite the fact Minasian has drafted about 60 pitchers in the last 5 years. Jose Fermin was signed as an international free agent.

The truly amazing thing about Minasian's failure to develop a bullpen is his habit of drafting college relievers and trying to convert them into starters. Chase Shores, Chris Cortez, Ryan Johnson, and more all fit this mold. None are relievers yet none have developed into starters, either. It is simply failure on both fronts.

Ultimately, the blame is on Arte Moreno.

Perry Minasian is unable to find talent in the draft. After 6 drafts the Angels farm ranking has moved from last place to somewhere around 28th. The farm was rated last because the Angels previous general manager was also bad at identifying talent although Reid Detmers, Jack Kochanowicz, and Jo Adell were all chosen by him. In short, the last GM produced more talent than Minasian and was still horrible at his job.

Each of those GM's was hired by Arte Moreno and his hand picked front office. Hopefully the front office improves under new president Molly Jolly. It will be tough for them to get worse.

Just like Minasian and Billy Eppler were bad at finding baseball talent, Arte Moreno is bad at recognizing front office talent. The first GM he hired was Tony Reagins; an intern who was promoted then arrived to his first Winter Meetings a day late.

The ultimate proof of Arte being bad at identifying talent comes in the form of Jerry Dipoto. He was once in the Angels fold and tried to move the franchise forward. Faced with a brick wall, he resigned and was later hired by the Seattle Mariners. As GM of the Mariners, Dipoto's teams have won more games than the Angels while spending over $100 million less on payroll. Seattle had a top ranked farm system and was on the doorstep of the World Series last year.

Yes, Arte has promoted and hired a string of bad general managers. When a good one fell into his lap he did not listen to him and allowed him to leave. The trajectories of the Angels and Mariners prove how bad of a decision that was.

Arte Moreno claims that fans do not care about winning. That could not be further from the truth. The fact of the matter is until the Angels brass can identify good front office talent and allow that talent leeway to perfrom the Angels will continue to lose. I've said for years the next good Angels team will take place in X + 3 years with X being when Moreno sells.