If you’re a Seattle Mariners fan watching the rest of the AL West cook up their offseason plans, grab a snack — because the Angels might be giving you the most unintentionally entertaining theater of the winter. Seattle is over here trying to patch the lineup, add depth, and lean into a sustainable model. Meanwhile, the Angels appear to be flipping through a baseball almanac from 2021 like it’s a blueprint for 2026 success.
Let’s start with the headliner: the Taylor Ward–for–Grayson Rodriguez swap. Yes, a veteran fresh off a 36-homer season and looking like the one stable offensive piece in Anaheim not named Mike Trout… for Grayson Rodriguez — once an elite pitching prospect, now a walking “What if?” who has logged more MRI tubes than mound appearances the last two years.
And the Angels didn’t even require a medical test before finalizing it. Sure. Why not. Who needs that information when you have “upside”?
Mariners fans watching Angels’ offseason circus can’t believe what they’re seeing
But wait, if the offseason theme is “Bring me the broken ones,” then Perry Minasian is hanging a banner. Because next came Alek Manoah. Mariners fans remember 2022 Manoah: fiery, dominant, borderline unhittable. That guy hasn’t been seen since everyone was hoarding sourdough starters and baking through a crisis. Last year in the minors, he was throwing a 91 mph fastball and battling injuries every other month. The Angels are banking on a bounce-back so big it would need FAA clearance.
As it stands, projection systems have the Angels with the fourth-lowest team WAR in MLB going into the 2026 season. And the vibe says the computers are maybe being kind.
There’s also the dugout. After passing on Albert Pujols — whether because of money, ego, or simply the baseball gods begging them not to — they hired Kurt Suzuki to manage. Great baseball guy. Great clubhouse presence. Zero managing experience. And yet, here he is, taking over a franchise that somehow had Mike Trout and Shohei Ohtani at the same time and never sniffed meaningful October baseball.
Ron Washington’s run came and went, derailed by unfortunate health issues. Hope for stability has once again turned into “Let’s see what happens.”
And honestly? What’s left to say? Mariners fans know dysfunction when they see it (we lived through enough front-office experiments), but this is something else.
All that’s left now is the yearly plea: Someone please save Mike Trout.
Talk some sense into him. Into the front office. Into the baseball universe. Get him onto a ship that hasn’t already taken on water, sunk, been raised again, and sunk once more.
Until then? Mariners fans can sit back, sip their coffee, and watch an AL West rival try to catch up by sprinting backwards.