ANAHEIM — The Angels provided baseball draft followers with the ultimate irony this week.
An organization that is routinely roasted for its failures in scouting and player development achieved a feat so rare that none of the players involved were even born the last time it happened.
On Monday night, the Angels used eight players who they drafted in the first round in a 9-5 victory over the Boston Red Sox. The 1991 Milwaukee Brewers were the last team to have that confluence of homegrown first-rounders in the same game.
Baseball America editor-in-chief J.J. Cooper, whose publication annually rates the Angels’ farm system as one of the worst in the sport, had to take a step back to applaud the moment.
“It’s hard to be critical of a team having eight first-rounders on their roster at the same time, because that is a truly unusual and I would say pretty special achievement,” Cooper said.
The eight players are the products of four general managers and four scouting directors. It starts with 2009 first-rounder Mike Trout, who was selected under GM Tony Reagins and scouting director Eddie Bane.
Outfielder Taylor Ward was the Angels’ first-round pick in 2015, under the direction of GM Jerry Dipoto and scouting director Ric Wilson.
Outfielder Jo Adell (2017) and left-hander Reid Detmers (2020) were picked when Billy Eppler was the GM and Matt Swanson was the scouting director.
In 2021, Swanson remained in charge of the draft for the first year under GM Perry Minasian. The Angels took right-hander Sam Bachman with the first pick in their memorable all-pitcher draft.
Current scouting director Tim McIlvaine took over the following year, and over the past three years he selected shortstop Zach Neto (2022), first baseman Nolan Schanuel (2023) and second baseman Christian Moore (2024).
All eight players found themselves on the active roster after Bachman and Moore were promoted on June 13, and 10 days later they all appeared in the same box score.
“There’s so much that happens,” McIlvaine said. “For everything to kind of click and you get the guy that you really thought they were going to be, or hope they would be, it’s a pretty big accomplishment. To have eight of them in the same game is crazy.”
From 2011-20 – a span far enough back that everyone from those drafts has had a reasonable time to make it – 77% of all first-round picks reached the majors. That includes players who played a handful of games and then disappeared.
As of Wednesday, 23% of all players on active MLB rosters were former first-round picks. But just under half of those players were with the teams that originally drafted them.
The average team had 2.9 active players who were homegrown first-rounders.
Having eight is a testament to the accuracy of the Angels’ scouting.
“If you go back and you look at the lists of the first-rounders, there’s a lot of names on there that, unless you’re in the industry doing it, you probably haven’t heard of,” McIlvaine said. “It’s no sure thing that the guy you take is going to be the franchise changer for you.”
The Angels’ achievement is not entirely positive, though.
Six of their active first-rounders were taken within the first 13 picks, including the last five years in a row.
The Angels “earned” those high draft picks with a decade of failure at the major league level. The Angels haven’t had a winning season since 2015, and they haven’t made the playoffs since 2014.
The Pittsburgh Pirates, who are mired in a similar drought, have six of their first-round picks on the current roster. The Texas Rangers, who have seven of their first-rounders on the roster, had a losing record in seven of the previous eight years. The notable exception was 2023, when they won the World Series.
Teams like the Angels, Pirates and Rangers are typically picking early in the first round, which gives them a better chance at selecting a player they will get to the big leagues.
The Angels’ best chance at a franchise-altering player will come on July 13, when they have the No. 2 pick in this year’s draft.
By contrast, the teams that are often winning, like the Dodgers, Atlanta Braves and Houston Astros, are usually picking at the end of the first round. Those players are less likely to make the big leagues. They’re also players who are often used in trades to get immediate major league help.
The Dodgers currently have only two of their of own first-rounders in the majors (left-hander Clayton Kershaw and catcher Will Smith). The Braves have one. The Astros have none.
The Angels are usually sellers, so they can essentially hoard their first-round picks. (The Angels also haven’t had good enough major leaguers to trade in order to acquire other teams’ first-rounders. They had their chance in 2022 and 2023, but they held on to Shohei Ohtani.)
Making smart first-round picks and holding on to them is the Angels’ current hope toward building a young core good enough to end their playoff drought.
The Astros used their first-round picks on outfielder George Springer, shortstop Carlos Correa, third baseman Alex Bregman and outfielder Kyle Tucker over a five-year span. Just before the San Francisco Giants won three World Series titles in five years, they hit on right-hander Tim Lincecum, left-hander Madison Bumgarner and catcher Buster Posey with three consecutive first-round picks.
The Angels are hoping to follow that blueprint with the current crop.
“The draft and scouting in general, providing the organization with talent is paramount to me,” said Angels acting manager Ray Montgomery, who spent 10 previous years in his career running the drafts of the Arizona Diamondbacks and Milwaukee Brewers. “It’s job No. 1 in terms of sustaining an organization. So when you not only take them, develop them, and get them here and then they’re productive, it sets you up for long-term success. Our team’s talked about that a lot. I truly believe that that’s the model.”
Obviously, the Angels aren’t there yet. Their record with picks beyond the first round is still not good, which perhaps speaks to issues with development more than scouting. The volume of quality prospects still leaves their system as one of the worst in baseball.
“There’s not a lot of depth of prospects,” Cooper said. “But at the same time, I do want to give the Angels credit for this. Depth is less important than producing big-league regulars. And on a given night, the Angels can have six first-round regulars in their lineup. … It’s an accomplishment.”
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Nationals (RHP Jake Irvin, 6-3, 4.18 ERA) at Angels (RHP José Soriano, 5-5, 3.39 ERA), Friday, 6:38 p.m., FDSN West, 830 AM
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