Top Notes From the Los Angeles Angels ZiPS Projections for 2025

The Los Angeles Angels have been one of baseball’s most active teams this offseason, but it’s difficult to pin down just how much the new faces will move the needle in 2025. Jorge Soler, Yoan Moncada, Travis d’Arnaud, and Kevin Newman highlight the offensive additions; while Yusei Kikuchi, Kyle Hendricks, and Kenley Jansen are the best new arms added to the staff.

After finishing dead last in the American League West in 2024, it’s nice to see the Angels finally making moves in free agency, but will their long list of additions even be enough? Who knows.

What we do know is that most of the other AL West clubs have been aggressive in upgrading their rosters, especially the Rangers and A’s, who both finished right above the Angels in the standings last year. The division is tighter than it’s ever been, but it still feels like the Angels are just barely on the outside looking in.

With a healthy Mike Trout, a surging Zach Neto, and some additional pop in Soler, maybe the Halos are able to piece together a surprising little run in 2025.

As part of a series of posts we’ve done at Just Baseball, we’re going to look at ZiPS projections for the Angels and see what could be in store for them in the coming months.

For those unfamiliar, here’s what ZiPS is all about, as relayed by MLB.com.

ZiPS uses past performance and aging trends to develop a future projection for players. On FanGraphs, the projections are updated daily and predict each player’s numbers over the course of the remainder of the season… Obviously, no one is claiming that every ZiPS prediction will come true, but it is widely regarded as one of the most accurate predictors in the industry.

sZymborski Projection System (ZiPS) via MLB.com

Angels ZiPS: Position Players

• Zach Neto‘s surge continues – Neto burst onto the scene in 2024, joining the 20-30 club while driving in 70 runs, scoring 77 of his own, and posting a 114 wRC+ to go with 3.5 fWAR. ZiPS is buying into his breakout from last season, and is even forecasting some incremental improvements for the shortstop. As of now, he projects to raise his walk rate, strikeout less and up that wRC+ to 118 while posting 3.6 fWAR. The Angels will happily take that production.

• Mike Trout remains made of glass – There’s been no star-caliber player quite as frustrating as Trout over the past few years. The man just cannot stay healthy. Even so, he’s a first-ballot Hall of Famer once hangs it up. The superstar is shifting over to right field in 2025 in an effort to preserve his body, but ZiPS only sees him making it into 76 contests. Don’t worry, though; he still has a 146 wRC+ and puts up 3.0 fWAR before going down with yet another ailment.

• Logan O’Hoppe takes a step forward – O’Hoppe has felt like a prime candidate to turn into one of the AL’s best catchers over the past year or so, but 2025 may be the year he goes the extra mile to cement himself in those conversations. ZiPS sees him hitting more home runs, walking more, striking out less and boosting his wRC+ from 101 in 2024 to 113 in 2025. That may not seem like much, but that’d put his overall offensive production up to 13% better than league-average. That’ll play.

Angels ZiPS: Pitching Staff

Starting Rotation

• ZiPS believes in Yusei Kikuchi‘s 2024 showing – Kikuchi turned in easily the best performance of his big league career last year and ZiPS doesn’t see him slowing down. Sure, he’s not quite reaching the 3.5 fWAR he was at last year (as a matter of fact, he’s down to only 2.2), but the Angels will take the 4.09 ERA and 3.98 FIP ZiPS has him penciled in for as he leads a highly suspect starting rotation.

• Don’t count Reid Detmers out just yet – Throwing a no-hitter in your first full season in the big leagues will make your stock skyrocket, but Detmers hasn’t quite been able to expand on that just yet. He was downright awful in 2024, but ZiPS has him leading the Angels’ pitching staff with 2.5 fWAR in the upcoming campaign. Time is still very much on this young lefty’s side.

• Tyler Anderson still can’t return to his 2022 form – When the Angels first signed Anderson, he was fresh off of easily the best year of his career. Since then, he’s fallen flat on his face and hasn’t showed any of the magic he showed on the Dodgers. ZiPS believes he’s in for yet another “just okay” season in 2025, posting a 4.49 ERA, 4.64 FIP and fWAR of 1.2 across 26 starts. As he enters his walk year, Anderson will have to hop he can outperform the projections.

Bullpen

• Kenley Jansen‘s not enough to save this bullpen – Over the years, Jansen has remained one of baseball’s most durable and consistent closers. Now joining the Angels as their primary ninth-inning option, ZiPS projects a step back in multiple categories for the future Hall of Famer. Jansen currently projects to earn 26 saves across 49 outings, but his K/9 dips under 10.00 for the first time in his career and his ERA is much closer to 4.00 than it’s ever been.

• Ben Joyce finds his strikeout stuff – Known as one of baseball’s most prolific fireballers, Joyce finished his 2024 with a sparkling 2.08 ERA, but he wasn’t striking out batters anywhere near as often as you’d like to see from a pitcher with as much heat as he’s got. ZiPS has his K/9 raising from 8.57 all the way up to 10.42 in 2025. Even if his ERA raises a bit like ZiPS thinks it will, the Angels need Joyce and his triple-digit heat to be punching tickets left and right.

• The Angels need more from their most utilized reliever – ZiPS has Brock Burke as the Angels’ most oft-used weapon in the upcoming season but he’s not in line to do anything special. Burke projects to lead Angels relievers with 63 innings and his 51 appearances are only behind Joyce and his 52. Burke looks decidedly average according to ZiPS, but he deserves props for bringing his BB/9 back down and his ERA down from 5.82 last year to 3.71 in 2025. We’ll see how this plays out, but he’ll need to do more if he truly will be heavily utilized.

Final Thoughts

As we are all well aware of by now, projections are far from guarantees in terms of how a fast-approaching season can shake out. Seeing Trout remains such an elite talent but playing such a small amount of games for the third straight season is heartbreaking, but it’s worth noting that there’s just as great a chance as him taking home his fourth MVP Award than it is for him to barely play for yet another season.

There’s no denying that the Angels have some promising pieces in place, but it’s a matter of getting them to properly gel together and get hot all at the same time. Schanuel, Trout, Neto and O’Hoppe is a core that’s worth leaning on, with Taylor Ward and Luis Rengifo also being far from slouches.

The pitching staff is likely going to be where the Angels fall flat the most, but it’s encouraging to see Kikuchi remains a solid contributor according to ZiPS, and a Detmers bounce-back is going to be crucial if the club hopes to have any sort of success in the coming season.

All that we know right now is that the Angels can’t continue to keep this thing in neutral. Coming off of a 63-win campaign in 2024, that needs to be the lowest low they hit. Their 10-year playoff drought is the longest in baseball, and the fact of the matter is that there’s still a ridiculous amount of competition standing in their way to get over that hump. Time will tell how this thing ends up shaking out.