Arte Moreno Excited About Angels' Young Core in 2025 and Beyond

Maren Angus-Coombs | Oct 17, 2024

Kirby Lee-Imagn Images

Los Angeles Angels owner Arte Moreno has a lot to be optimistic about when it comes to the immediate future of his club.

The young core – catcher Logan O'Hoppe, first baseman Nolan Schanuel, and shortstop Zach Neto – have a full season under their belts and will be fresh for the 2025 season.

Moreno expressed his frustration with the team's 99-loss season but pointed to the development of the young core as a positive sign of progress in a phone interview with Rhett Bollinger of MLB.com.

On the call, Moreno said the goal is to compete for the postseason in 2025 with an eye on building a sustainable winner.

“The reality is we need to put a competitive team out there,” said Moreno, who indicated the payroll will go up compared to 2024. “We have some young players and more depth than we’ve had. And we’ll have even more depth in ’26. When you’re looking at ’25, you’re looking at a combination of ’25 and ’26. What we have to do is do things in ’25 to be as competitive as we can, but we also want to do things to enhance ’26 so we’ll be deeper.”

First-year manager Ron Washington, brought in for his reputation as a motivator and teacher, noted that he saw signs of progress despite the team’s disappointing record.

“It didn’t turn out the way we wanted,” Washington said. “You lose 99 games, that’s not fun. But there was a lot of fun. There was a lot of growth that happened. Some people realized they can and some people have realized there’s a ways to go.”

The Angels had a promising middle of their season but the beginning and the end were both ugly. Los Angeles lost 18 of their last 23 games.

“I thought in the middle of the year the kids were showing what they were about, but they ran out of gas,” Washington said. “They ran out of gas.”

Washington was mentally prepared for the growing pains that come with such a young team but he didn't anticipate the injuries. In the end, the hurting Angels were forced to turn to their young core for leadership, only preparing them for a successful future.

“Our young kids grew, but they had no support the rest of the year because the people we expected to lead weren’t here,” Washington said. “We had kids that had to try to be leaders, and in reality, they had no idea what it took to lead.”