Fantasy Baseball Year in Review – Los Angeles Angels

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  • By Paul Williamson

    Last Updated on October 22, 2025 8:54 pm by Paul Williamson | Published: October 22, 2025

    The Angels just seem to be one-foot in and one-foot out when it comes to being a buyer or seller. Two straight deadlines they have made modest moves to try and improve their chances to ‘win-now’ but nothing big enough to move the needle for their current prospects.

    You would think, eventually, they would tear it all down and begin a new. Say sorry to Trout and give him the choice to stick around with a massive youth movement and sell their veteran names to replinish a farm system that isn’t horrible but also isn’t really oozing with talent.

    As of now, they’re kind of stuck in no-man’s land. Not good enough to compete and not bad enough to get a top draft pick. And that is no-good, for n.

    Catcher

    Logan O’Hoppe was drafted inside the top-10 of catchers and within the top-150 overall in the preseason coming off a 20-homer campaign in 2024 with the hopes that the young slugger would take a major step forward after entering the bigs as one of the most hyped catcher prospects in the game.

    He began the campaign alright with a 132 wRC+ and .and .281 ISO in March/April before getting a 112 wRC+ with a .224 ISO in May. But having a 36.6% and 33.0% K% in those months were a major red flag as his poor hit-tool really caught up to him as he had a wRC+ of 28, -4 and nine in three of his final four months of the year (a 104 wRC+ in July saw him just obtain a .106 ISO and only one homer).

    Overall, the K% went the wrong direction (29.7% to 30.8%), as did the BB% (6.3% to 5.3%).

    Despite the elite barrel rate (13.3%) and hard-hit rate (46.8%), his sub-70% contact% is just too abysmal as that kind of contact% would require an even better barrel rate and hard-hit rate to play up to fantasy viability in 12-team, one-catcher leagues.

    The silver lining is that O’Hoppe had improved his bat-to-ball skills in the latter part of 2025 with a 72.9% contact rate and 14.5% SwStr% in his final 155 plate appearances leading to a more respectable 26.5% K% and an improved 7.1% BB%. It sure did seem O’Hoppe may have focused so much on his strikeouts that it impacted his quality of contact as that barrel rate dropped to 9.7% and the hard-hit rate was only 35.0%.

    If he can combine the elite barrel rate he has shown for most of his career with those kinds of plate discipline numbers, he will be a 12-team, one-catcher option. But we can’t rely on just 155 plate appearances to say he has solved those problems.

    Headed into 2026, he should get another crack as the Opening Day back stop for the Halos but he should only be seen as a fringe top-15 catcher in 2026, only being drafted as a high-end C2 in 12-team leagues, at best.

    First base

    Nolan Schanuel manned first for the Angels and he was only drafted late in deep-leagues, so expectations for him were low headed in to the campaign.

    Outside of his disastrous August that saw him return a 67 wRC+ and .579 OPS, Schanuel wasn’t horrible this year.

    But his lack of power, so far, will quiet his value for fantasy purposes as he did not have a SLG% over .400 in any month but one (he only had seven games in September so we won’t count that).

    He ended 2025 with 12 homers, 64 runs, 53 RBI and a .264 average with a .327 wOBA and 109 wRC+. He  had modest improvements in his quality of contact but still has a lackluster 4.5% barrel rate and 29.0% hard-hit rate. He did improve his launch angle to a decent 13.2 degrees and the pull rate went up some to 41.5%.

    This is somewhat encouraging for his power potential. He has an elite hit-tool with an 86.0% contact rate , 91.3% in-zone contact rate and 6.2% SwStr%.

    Schanuel is just another bump in launch angle, barrel rate and pull rate to possibly hitting 18-22 homers to go with his good batting average.

    Think Geraldo Perdomo this year. Only a 6% barrel rate but got to 20 homers with a ton of contact overall and he lifted and pulled the ball.

    With all the contact he is making, below average quality of contact can play up, especially with more lift and pull.

    I will need to go through the position when I do my ranks but I can see him being a sleeper pick of mine late in drafts.

    Second base

    Rookie Christian Moore and veteran Luis Rengifo manned second base this year for the Angels.

    Rengifo played more hot corner so he will be discussed there.

    Moore’s intrigue as a prospect came from his 60-grade raw power, per FanGraphs. He hit six homers in 110 plate appearances in his first run of professional ball after being drafted eighth overall in 2024. Combined between the minors and the bigs, he hit 14 homers this year in 484 plate appearances.

    Seven of those homers came in the bigs in 184 plate appearances but the poor hit tool was on full display in the majors with a 33.7% K%, a very poor 65.0% contact% and 16.6% SwStr%.

    The silver lining is he lifted the ball well for a young slugger with a 15.3 degree launch angle but he should be in line for improved marks in barrel rate (6.9% this year) and hard-hit rate (36.3%) as the main thing will be his plate discipline.

    There may be some hype around him if he has a hot spring as that could be enough to push him into the 12-team conversation. As of now, I am not drafting him in 12-team leagues but he has the upside to be a deep league target.

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    October 22, 2025, 8:51 pm